I bought dried cranberry beans from a local farmers market along with some fresh summer squash here in the Hudson Valley New York. I wanted to try something new while supporting the local farmers. I looked around through all my cookbooks and found an interesting recipe “Tangy Limas with Squash and Tomatoes” in Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home (p.176). It wasn’t the same kind of beans so I needed to adapt some items.
The recipe called for frozen lima beans. Which means I had to look up the conversions to figure out how much cranberry beans would yield the same as 10 oz of frozen lima beans. Isn’t it great we have the internet these days and don’t have to rely on your grandma being home to ask for the conversions? I joke, but seriously who keeps these yields and conversion in their head all the time? I guess maybe a trained chef who works with beans a lot. Well, I am not one of them.
I found 10 oz frozen lima beans = 1 3/4 cups cooked. Now how much dry cranberry beans will yield 1 3/4 cups cooked? I found the generic 1 cup dry beans (most kinds) = 3 cups cooked beans. Which means for you math geeks I wanted x number of dry = 1.75 of cooked; or read 1.75/3. Which is 0.58 of a cup; or more than 1/2 cup but not as much as 2/3 cup. So, I just used a heaping 1/2 cup of dry of the cranberry beans. (My computer/math/physics geeky-ness is most definitely getting some flex here)
I soaked the beans overnight. I drained and rinsed the beans before cooking. I cooked the beans on the stovetop following the basic cover the beans with an additional 2 inches of water, bring to a boil, covered the pot and lowered heat to a simmer. Then allowed to cook for an hour.
As I cooked the beans in the morning, I cleaned and sliced the squash, chopped the onions, and juiced the lemon.
I am a slow chopper so by the time I chopped and sliced everything, the meal cooked up in less than 20 minutes.
Here is the recipe:
1 3/4 cup cooked cranberry beans; drained
2 onions chopped (about 2 cups)
2 teaspoon olive oil
4 small yellow summer squash, thinly sliced into half circles
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 teaspoons chopped fresh dill
1 can of diced tomatoes
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
Ground black pepper to taste
Sauté the onions in a large skillet with the oil until translucent. Add the squash, thyme, and dill and continue to sauté for 2-3 minutes. Add the tomatoes with the juice from the can. When the beans are tender, drain them and stir into the cooking vegetables along with the lemon juice and the feta cheese. Add plenty of Black pepper. Cook until the feta begins to soften. Server immediately. Makes 4 servings.
This was amazing! The spices and lemon make this dish Greek to me. I love it and will be making this often. To make things a bit faster when you are short on time, you can use frozen or canned beans. If using frozen, cook according to package directions before adding. If using canned, rinse and drain before adding to cooking veggies.
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