A week of beans

It’s been a week of beans chez Onepot.  So, if you don’t care for beans and/or feel compelled to go straight to the comments section to explain how they give you gas, you should probably just switch to some babies-and-cookies blog now and come back tomorrow.

Still here?  Onto beans, then.  A $3.71 bag of dry black beans, acquired on Sunday when Mr. Onepot apparently found a deal he could not turn down, has been transformed into three dinners and four lunches for the two of us.

First there was this:

• 1 giant, slightly intimidating heap of dry black beaks
• enough water to cover the heap in the pressure cooker
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 carrot, shredded
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 (slightly less than full; I was hungry) jar Trader Joe’s habanero+lime salsa
• 2 jalapeno peppers + 1 banana pepper, cut into ringlets of fire
• cilantro and scallions (you know, for prettiness)

Then I…

1. Cooked the beans in the pressure cooker for approximately 30 minutes post-whistle.  (Of course, this would work in a regular pot as well, but the cooking time will be different.)
2. Drained the beans.  While they were relaxing in the colander I…
3. Sauted the onion, garlic, carrot, and peppers in the same pot for 3-5 minutes.  And finally, I…
4. Added the beans and salsa; stirred; let it all simmer for another minute or so.

Night 1: the beans went into a tortilla with some hot sauce and queso fresco:

Night 2: the beans cuddled with some saffron couscous and rapini stir-fried with garlic and lemon:

Night 3: here they finally are, just gently revived with a can of chopped tomatoes, in a rice + beans interpretation: