What I do is, about once a week I spend about 4 hours making a huge dish that lasts me all week. I have a big pot. I don't know how many gallons it is. Probably 10. Takes up an entire shelf in the fridge. I spend the afternoon dicing vegetables and watching the kid. Onions, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, celery, fresh garlic and sometimes other vegetables. Shitake mushrooms if I have them soaked overnight. I zest and squeeze citrus into the pot along with the veggies. The pot is about 1/3 full of veggies. I cook the veggies on a low heat in a shallow pool of water until they're transluscent, stirring as I go. Then I add about 4 or 5 different types of beans, usually canned because I'm lazy, but sometimes rinsed. Black beans, red beans, pinto beans, cannelini beans. Then I turn the heat up on high for the last 10 minutes and keep stirring, adding spices, usually garlic powder, onion powder, sazon, pepper, adobo, cumin. Then I add herbs right at the end. Usually a whole bag of fresh chopped cilantro. If I have any leftover beans that wouldn't fit in the pot, I blend them into a hummus to dip tortilla chips in, or put on top of a salad. Throughout the week, when I want to eat the beans, I'll cook either some rice or pasta to put them on. But sometimes I'll just have the bean soup by itself microwaved with a little nutritional yeast or hot sauce something.

[–] Black_Mald_Futures@hexbear.net 7 points 1 year ago

I cook the veggies on a low heat in a shallow pool of water until they're transluscent

Bwaaa by cooking them in water you're restricting the cooking temperature to 212F which is going to prevent significant maillard reaction/browning from occurring, and you're robbing yourself of savory flavor

at the very least fry the onions in oil, then the garlic for like a minute, before adding the water

P.s. if you dice an onion and toss it in oil and put it in the oven for like 2 hours at 225F you get caramelized onion (i mean check on it and stir every 30 minutes idk how your oven be)

[–] piccolo@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

I highly recommend getting an instant pot or sth and cooking dry beans - it'll pay for itself pretty quickly plus there are lots of really good recipes with it, esp Indian food. You can probably find one on Craigslist/marketplace for like $30-40 esp if you're patient

[–] piccolo@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I assume you mean rinsed canned (or otherwise cooked) beans?

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Right - I forget some people aren't lazy and actually soak dried beans

[–] piccolo@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

Highly recommend an instant pot - you don't even need to soak beans and it's really not much effort! Mine paid for itself very quickly, bought it on craigslist for $40. Dried beans are much cheaper and easier to store than canned