I'm in the Bean Club!

Hey there! Sorry for the, uh, two-month-plus absence! Since I don't have time to blog daily anymore, I'm just planning to update this blog when I can. Sometimes, that might be weekly. But more likely, it'll be more sporadic. Between work and a pretty active social life, I don't have a lot of spare time at home. And when I do, I'd rather be eating or cooking or watching TV than sitting at a computer. I sit at a computer all day for work, too. 

Anyway, one of the things I do love doing in my spare time is cooking healthy meals from scratch. And lucky me, after about eight months on a waiting list, I finally got into the exclusive Rancho Gordo Bean Club! I got my first shipment a few weeks ago. Each quarterly shipment costs about $50, and you get six bags of heirloom beans and one "extra." This month, that "extra" was Stardust, a chili-lime dipping spice for fruit that tastes like Tajin but without all the chemicals.

As for the beans, the shipment also comes with a newsletter filled with recipes for each. Because this shipment arrived in August, those recipes were mostly bean salads. So, I dug right in and tried a couple. First, I made the Buckeye Beans, which were a bit like pintos with a firmer texture. I enjoyed them as soup beans with onion and chow chow first.

And then I tried them in this Hippie California Salad, which had a butter lettuce, buckeye beans, tangerines, sprouts, cucumber, avocado, and butter lettuce with a tahini dressing. Loved this! It's funny how much better a carefully crafted salad tastes than my usual throw-everything-in salads.

Next, I made the Flageolet Beans, which had the taste of limas with the texture and shape of lady peas. Very delicate but firm. These were great eaten cold with a lemony-olive oil dressing, a recommendation I found on the Rancho Gordo website.

But they were most excellent in this Raw Zucchini Salad, which had a base of thinly sliced zucchini tossed in lemon and garlic. That was topped with flageolet beans, cherry tomatoes and basil from my garden, vegan feta, and olive oil. The recipe called for parm, but all of the stores in Midtown were out of vegan parm. (Trust me; I went to three stores!). 

More bean experiments will coming soon, and I do intend to blog about them. See ya then! Or maybe before! If you're still reading, thanks for sticking around! You can always follow me on IG for more frequent food content (and real talk, a lot of hashing photos!)