A Hill of Beans

I’m so very excited! After months and months of procrastinating, I have ordered some Rancho Gordo heirloom beans. I wanted to experiment on some plain old beans first. This was likely a dumb choice; plain old beans are often extra-old (no extra charge!) and I’m betting that they don’t taste as good. Eating old, strange-flavored beans doesn’t seem like a smart way to get myself on the bean wagon, but that’s me – always thinking.
I was not able to foil myself so easily, though. I am so excited by the amount of food in beans that I am undeterred – I believe that Rancho Gordo will be the end all, be all of beans, quality and flavor-wise. According to the day dream I had while eating leftovers earlier, they will require little but some good olive oil and garlic, some lemon zest and chopped parsley.
I’m planning to try this recipe for Brazilian Black Bean Stew from Simply Recipes, this recipe from Heidi Swanson, which led to my first bean purchase, and this recipe, which was posted on Orangette before it made it to Bon Appetit. And of course, I'm looking forward to trying this with my new beans!
I ordered a lot of beans – making up for lost time, I suppose!
In non-bean related news, my mustard went awry. It was god-awful. I may have left it too long. I’m going to take another whack at it, though. In semi-bean-related news, we thawed some chili from this recipe last night and it’s confirmed: that was damn good chili.
Happy Leap Day!