Convenient dry beans

[Grainlady]

Love this thread and all of the ideas.

I've never canned anything. What advice does anyone have for beginners - please?

Get a copy (recent addition - old copies may not contain new changes in home canning) of The Ball Blue Book of Preserving. You can probably find a copy at your local library. Be sure to read it before doing any home canning. Improperly canned foods can be DEADLY!!! You can also find excellent information and SAFE - TESTED - recipes at The National Center for Home Food Preservation web site:

http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publication...ions_usda.html

If you have a glass-top electric range, it's advised NOT to use them for canning because the high heat needed for canning can cause the pots to fuse to the surface.

I teach home canning classes, so as a certified teacher, I think it's best to take a class from a qualified individual. Because we now have more bacteria to contend with, and more powerful bacteria than even 20-years ago, canning isn't anything to take lightly. Old recipes and old methods are potentially dangerous. Too many mistakes during canning can result in a potentially deadly product. AND, unless you already have the equipment and jars, and access to inexpensive fresh produce for canning, you probably won't save any money home canning. Canning, as a method of food preservation, is quickly becoming one of the most expensive as energy cost rise.

Using beans as an example. I can "cook" soaked beans in a Thermos in boiling hot water in a few hours. So all the energy that was used was what it took to heat the water for the Thermos in my electric kettle. When you home can beans, you will have to figure how much energy was used to process them - cooked them for 30-minutes before you hot-packed them - then 1-hour and 15-minutes for pints, and 1-hour 30-minutes for quarts. There's little doubt it costs much more to can beans than to use the Thermos method.

[foxxyroxie]

I love the smell of beans cooking in the crockpot and I can control the salt content in them too (I don't add any salt till they're cooked because I read somewhere that it makes the beans tough or the beans will take longer to cook ??). I have successfully frozen beans too, although they normally don't make it that far since we are great bean eaters.

The only beans I haven't tried to make my own is garbanzo beans or chili beans... don't know why... more than likely lack of initiative probably... but considering the price $$ for both of them, that may soon become an option.

I also love to cook lentils and rice... a good meatless alternative to beans or beans and rice.

[mauimagic]

Ceashels - mahalo for the information -all of which makes sense - I shall be just as happy freezing the beans.