bean soup

[JP]

I have been trying to come up with a way to make bean soup from dryed beans you would buy in any store. I've tried grinding them in a coffee grinder and soaking for 24 hrs then adding boiling water and letting it steep. Soo far all I've got is bad raw bean soup and bad gas.

So now i'm going to try refried bean mix and see what happens. But I think the only way to get good soup is to make it and dehydrate it yourself.

Any suggestions?

[Footslogger]

So now i'm going to try refried bean mix and see what happens. .

Any suggestions?

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Man ...you think you got bad gas before ????

[The Solemates]

From my past experience, there is pretty much no way I could figure out how to cook raw beans without using an entire canister of liquid fuel. Even soaking them all day while hiking did very little. Therefore, I never take beans.

[Alligator]

I've made a dehydrated minestrone soup to take on the trail, but the beans were whole to start with. Roughly, I cooked the beans (red kidneys) in a pressure cooker. Whenever I plan to dehydrate beans, I overcook them in the pressure cooker, up to the level where they look like they will burst. I then dehydrated the beans. I also dehydrated some veggies: carrots, celery, green beans, and zucchini. Some veggies work better if you cook before dehydrating, like green beans for instance. I also cooked and dehydrated some pasta and made some tomato leather. These ingredients were all mixed together, a boullion cube was added, and then portioned. In camp, rehydrate with extra water to make soup.

The cooked then dehydrated beans could potentially be run through a food processor to make a powder. I have yet to try it. Overcooking the beans helps because if they are not done, when rehydrating, they tend to still be crunchy. Another trick is to mash the beans just a little before dehydrating. I do this for chick peas as they tend to rehydrate crunchy.

Potential problem. You should not add salt nor I believe acids like tomato sauce before the beans are done when cooking from raw beans. The beans will not cook.

2nd recipe-Cook and dehydrate great northern beans and small diced potatoes. Mix in equal parts. Portion and add boullion cubes and some red pepper flakes. At home, I eat this with brocolli rabe cooked in. On the trail, I eat this on the first day and either: asparagus, mustard greens, brocolli, or collard greens. If the weather is cool-cold, most of these will last a day or two.

[Mother Nature]

I had very good success with a brand of dried beans flakes called Fantastic. They are usually found in the organic or health food section of most popular grocery stores. There's a refried bean and a dried black bean variety. Do a site search for "instant black beans" to see what the box looks like...
http://www.fantasticfoods.com/

I also very successfully dehydrated pinto beans (and canned bean) in my oven. To dry in your oven, set the temp as low as possible, line a cookie sheet with heavy duty aluminum foil, lightly spray with cooking spray, dump can of beans on pan juice and all. Spread out the beans until everything is one bean deep. Crack the oven door for ventilation and turn the beans every 30 minutes until they are dried to a crunchy texture but not quite dried bullets.. They rehydrate fast in hot water.

The bean flakes can be made into bean soup with just water. I add a handful of my dehyrated beans and cheddar cheese for a great trail soup.

Less water in the bean flakes makes a nice bean dip with crackers.

Mother Nature

[Fiddleback]

I make up a bean-based soup about every three months. A big batch is made and portions frozen for future use. I hold back some and dehydrate it on a cookie sheet in an (convection) oven. It's very easy and the soup reconstitutes well. Same as above for my Lady's chile.

ingredients: 15-bean soup mix (bag of dried beans), corn, carrots, jalepenos, onion, potato, rice, bits of ham and/or ham hocks and seasoning

Boil the beans (w/the hocks) for a couple hours after soaking overnight, add potatos and carrots for another hour, then corn, onions and jalepenos (and ham pieces if used). Add the (instant) rice and turn off the heat. When cool enough, remove and flense the hocks

To dehydrate, spread as thin as you can on a cookie sheet and put it in a low heat oven. When it looks nasty and dry and crumbly store it in a baggie and drop it in the freezer.
FB

[sarbar]

There are a number of companies that make soup mixes that are bean or lentil based..and you can find them in most natural foods sections. Mostly though, making your own is so easy, and drying is a snap.
I do this with 15 bean soups, and lentils often Tastes even better served over rice on the trail. Yum! (And cheap!) Any recipe you like at home works well on the trail.

[Rendezvous01]

To help with the gas problem, add epazote (a dried herb) to your soup. Doesn't always cure the 'problem' for me, just makes it less. Every little bit helps, according to my wife!

JP--were you trying to make a good Michigan navy bean soup? (My mother grew up on M-59 in Hartland, just east of you. I sure miss her ham 'n' bean soup out here in NY.) In addition to the bacon bits (in lieu of the ham), add some dried onion and a little bit of black pepper. Not quite as good, with the refrieds, as the home cooked real thing but for the Trail it'll do.

[JP]

Rendezvous01... Thats right. My mother used to soak the beans overnight then simmer all day with a hambone. Ive done it with a dutch oven,but nothing backpackable.

[april2006]

Beano is good for gas as well. You can get it in tablets or drops. Just take it right before you eat and it pretty much eliminates the problem - at least for me.

[budman5]

Mary Janes Farm has some really tasty bean flakes. They make good soup or with less water and rice a good meal.

[sarbar]

Fantastic brand makes excellent black and brown bean flakes...both which make great soups.

[bobgessner57]

pre cook black eyed peas til well done,season to taste, dry in dehydrator, use as is to make a bowl of peas, soup, or mix with rice and dried onions, red pepper, other spices, maybe some foil packed ham or summer sausage to make a hoppin john type dish.

We always have good luck cooking beans, peas, lentils, etc that have been precooked and redried by bringing to a boil and cooking until the alcohol in my pepsi stove runs out, then sit in a cozy for 10 to 20 minutes.

A mix of red or black beans and corn also makes a good soup. Beans, corn and picante sauce dried together make a good salsa, have eaten it runny like a soup or make it thicker to spread on tortillas. The corn and beans seem to rehydrate at about the same speed.

[Skyline]

I cheat. But the end-product doesn't suffer.

Canned beans, or preferably frozen, dehydrate well without all the hassle of the long-cooking dry beans.

If frozen, you'll want to zap them in the microwave to just barely thaw them before spreading on dehydrator sheets.

Unfortunately, I've never been able to find anything as diverse as the "15 beans" in canned or frozen form, so I mix and match to come up with a variety of different beans.

Seasoning the beans right before dehydrating makes the end-product better, as does including additional seasoning in the ziploc containing the beans.

In the woods, I like to cook up a little pasta The new Barilla multi-grain pasta is GREAT btw--check it out at http://www.barillaus.com/PLUS_information.aspx. Add the beans about halfway thru the pasta cooking to rehydrate and heat up.

Not sure if this "cheating" affects nutrition, but I've done it the long, slow way and done it this way and the taste and texture is about equal.

[Skyline]

pre cook black eyed peas til well done,season to taste, dry in dehydrator, use as is to make a bowl of peas, soup, or mix with rice and dried onions, red pepper, other spices, maybe some foil packed ham or summer sausage to make a hoppin john type dish.

We always have good luck cooking beans, peas, lentils, etc that have been precooked and redried by bringing to a boil and cooking until the alcohol in my pepsi stove runs out, then sit in a cozy for 10 to 20 minutes.

A mix of red or black beans and corn also makes a good soup. Beans, corn and picante sauce dried together make a good salsa, have eaten it runny like a soup or make it thicker to spread on tortillas. The corn and beans seem to rehydrate at about the same speed.

LOVE black-eyed peas on the Trail! My last section in Maine I carried extra, and shared with yankees who never had it before. Mixed response, but those who liked it REALLY liked it.

I dehydrate frozen black-eyed peas, seasoning with lots of minced garlic, and a little red pepper flakes. In the woods, I boil water, make ramen noodles (the spicy beef flavor is especially good for this), and add the dehydrated black-eyed peas about a minute after the ramen starts cooking. If I have any sausage, a little of that goes in as well but this isn't absolutely necessary. It all mixes together in a kind of casserole-like consistency--add a slight amount of olive oil right before serving.