The "Chips and Salsa" Lady Says I'll Love Them...

I tried to grown green beans in the garden again this summer.  I had visions of dilly beans dancing in my head.  But, all three or four attempts at growing them from seed failed me.  So, mostly, in an effort to keep a pretty and tall wrought iron lattice I got on super sale from a closing Smith and Hawken store from "disappearing" from my garden one night, I planted seedlings from the garden center.  They were labeled your run of the mill "Blue Lake" beans, but I found that unless you picked them less than 3 inches long, they were all seed, all the time.  While they grew lushly, they "weren't no eatin' beans".  I let them go to seed and thought nothing more of them.

But, yesterday, as I was chopping the bean stalks down to green manure, a pod opened up and I found some creamy, smooth, white beans in my hand.  I thought maybe it was worth exploring these seeds after all.  I gathered what was easy to harvest and headed home after three long, hard hours in the garden turning over soil and green manuring the last of the summer crops.

Since I was well past when I should have been eating for my adrenals, I stopped at a little local Mexican joint called "Chips and Salsa" for some quick nourishment.  They know me and my eating habits pretty well there, which meant as soon as they saw me walk in, they started some shrimp tacos without even asking.  While I waited, the owner and I started talking a bit.  She speaks little English.  I speak no Spanish.   But, we didn't need words to see that with bean leaves still stuck to my shirt, dirt on my knees, and hay stuck to my skin, I'd just come from the garden.  She gestured to my garden bag and I pulled out the beans.  She immediately smiled.  I asked her if she knew what they were.  She said a "Mexican bean.  Very yummy.  You will like".   I tried to ask if I need to soak them overnight and I'm not sure she understood, but she said to cook "like a white bean, pinto bean".  And again reiterated I would like them.  I said, garlic? Olive oil?  And she said, "yes, yes, very good!".

This concept of dried beans excites me, now.  It brings out the Laura Ingalls in me.  Putting away beans for soups or smashes for the winter is a whole new adventure.  As much as I loved the fresh fava beans last spring, I think I will double my crop and let half dry out.  I would love to make some genuine fuul next year.  And maybe I'll peruse the catalogs for some black bean seeds.  It would be nice to make my black bean quesadilla with feta next winter from dried beans I've grown myself.  

But, for the moment, maybe today I'll roast a chicken, do a quick soak of the beans and make myself some white bean/garlic/rosemary mash with my mystery beans.  And hope they are as my 'Chips and Salsa' friend said: