The other day I received the following comment regarding the post Old Beans from 1970 Made Soft and Edible.  “Am I correct that the old beans would grind well into bean flour, and would probably make better than OK frijoles refritos? I see another recipe test opportunity and cannot wait for the results! I’m getting hungry…”.
So I went and talked to my wife who is good at making frijoles and said what about it. Her first comment was that bean flour was only good for baking bread and similar things and for a thickener in various dishes. Now my wife is a good cook and normally likes to experiment, so I pestered her and she said ok I will see what I can do.
Navy Bean Flour Experiment #2
Ok this experiment I was thinking my husband is nuts. But my apologies to my husband. Ok the navy bean article he wrote Old Beans from 1970 Made Soft and Edible was the first experiment, now here is what we tried with the flour. I took straight Navy beans from the can, I sorted out the beans, did not rinse and put them through my Wonder Mill Grinder on the coarse setting. The navy bean flour came out looking like a fine powder instead of coarse looking. So then I just stared at it and complained that what am I going to do with this. Looked up some stuff on the internet, without much help and decide to complain some more to my husband.
He then suggested I add water to the flour make a paste and see what it looked like. Ok, I did it tasted terrible, so I thought hum lets add more water like we are cooking cream of wheat. I added water to the paste and then brought it to a boil to see if it thickened since you can use for a thickener in stews and soups, gravy and such things. Now it’s boiling and still watery, so added more flour and got it a little thicker. Added some spices and herbs, cooled it and put it in a blender with green onions and bell pepper. I used my small chopper so I should of blended the onions and peppers first since I had the bowl to full to really cream it long. Any ways what i got was a good tasting navy bean soup. With a little more attention to spices and herbs it would make a great bean dip. In an emergency you can add what you have and make it useful to use.
The following is what I did and I am going to experiment some more and see what else I can make.
Navy Bean Flour Soup
- 1-1 1/4 cup boiling water
- 1/3 cup navy bean flour
- bring to a boil until it’s starting to thicken (add more flour if needed)
- cook until its not watery and add
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- Cayenne Pepper to taste
- 1 ounce of cheddar cheese
- mix until cheese melts
- cool
In blender put
- 1/4 cup bell pepper
- 1/4 cup green onion
- blend to a paste if desired or leave chunky
- add cooled bean mixture and blend until mixed
If you want to make a dip you have to thicken the mixture more while cooking it, before adding to blender.
The taste was actually pretty good and in case of emergency it will probably taste very good. Try it and send us your comments.
Preparedness Mom
This gets printed out and laminated to go in with the food storage!
My old dry beans aren’t quite dried to buckshot yet, but will try some.
Gracias!
I encourage you to stick with this. Beans seem to be an under utilized resource. Probably because we already have so many other things that can be used in these ways. But beans are easy to grow and very prolific and would be one of the easiest protein and calorie sources for a backyard farmer. This would seem to be an under explored area of gastronomy.
On my blog I have a black bean brownie recipe which I made. It was great. I then learned Great Northern beans could be used for blond brownies and other cookies not meant to be chocolate. The black beans were chunky in the black bean brownies.
Soak them then pressure cook or can them. Better yet, can them before they get so hard. Ready to eat and can still be used in soup, chili, made into refried beans or brownies when mashed.
Soak, rinse, grind and make into falafel. Garbonzo, and Fava beans are traditionally used, but any bean can be used. Bean flour can be used to make pakoras. Recipes online.
I agree with Lifgrenj on cooking them in a pressure cooker. I have many beans from getting prepared for Y2K. I had a hard time cooking them and getting them soft, until I read about the pressure cooker. Now, anytime I cook beans, I use the pressure cooker. New, old, or in between, they all get cooked in the pressure cooker for 40 minutes.