My newest kitchen toys and my absolute favorite! I got them at a store that was having a 70% sale! The immersion blender came with a food processor bowl (chopper bowl with normal blades), a pitcher with a nonslip base that can dual as a lid, a mashing leg with 3 texture settings, and a whisk leg.
The first night in my new pot I made dried beans successfully! I have done the soak/stovetop method before and the soak/crockpot method of cooking dried beans before and the texture was never quite right and sometimes downright bad! However, This time was a major success! I soaked them for 6-7 hours. Usually you do it overnight, but I just did it the morning I decided to go back to the home-wares store and buy my treasures.
Before cooking the beans (1 1/2 cups dried black beans, soaked for a minimum of 6 hours in at least 6 cups of water) rinse and cover with fresh water. Bring them to a boil and make a stock. I added big chunks of two carrots, 2-3 stalks of celery including some of the leaves until wilty and removed them, bay leaves. do not add anything acidic or the skins will stay tough! lots of oil to keep from getting all foamy and boiling over while cooking, salt, and I added my vegan vegetable broth powder. Immediately after boiling bring down
to a simmer and I cooked with lid on for about 1.5-2 hours.That night I scooped some beans out of the pot and made pan-fried tofu and black bean burritos with homemade tortillas (which only takes like 20mins) with spinach, soy sour cream, corn, avocados all from the Fremantle market. Where I can get a weeks worth of vegetables (zucchini, red and white cabbage, 20 tomatoes, 10 giant carrots, bell peppers, potatoes, mushrooms, apples [favorite being Pink Lady], mandarin oranges... and lots more) all for $30-$50 MAX especially if you go on sundays with the best deals!
The next morning I drained and separated the beans from their cooking liquid which I reserved. I then put garlic, onions, herbs, new cubes of carrots and celery with a tiny bit of oil to the bottom of the pot and put he cover on to cause the ingredients to sweat. Set Aside in a new bowl when done. Then I returned the MOST of the beans and all of the carrots and celery to the pot, removed the bay leaves. I used a little of the stock water as I used my new immersion blender to make bean soup and added stock until desired consistency. Then while reheating I added the rest of the beans and and then onion and garlic veggie mix and BOOM soups done! With the rest of the stock liquid I put into ice cube trays and frozen. Once frozen, I put the ice cubes into a container and now whenever I need veggie broth, I have got tons ready to go! :)
My other treasures from the freo market include:
AN OWL WALLET!!
It holds my phone, keys, change, cards, and you can see our WONDERFUL bananas! from the market as well
Next treasure is:
SO MUCH CILANTRO (AKA: Coriander apparently)! All this cilantro for only $1.40! CILANTRO IS THE BEST THING EVER!!! This takes burritos to a whole new level! :)
It looks a LOT closer in real life than in the photos! Its AMAZING!!
Keep tuned for Kitchen Kraziness part 2! :)
