Year of the Bean

One of my favorite food innovations over the last couple years has been the GrowNYC Grains stand at a range of New York City Greenmarkets. While fruits, veggies, meat, cheese, and even cider and other local booze have become commonplace and widespread at farmer’s markets in recent decades, with enough production for some farms to support multiple stands at multiple markets every week, grains and beans have mostly been set aside as commodities and not viewed as part of local foodsheds.

So the GrowNYC Grains program is sort of a market-within-a-market – run by the parent organization and moving from market to market every week (once a month at my local, and every week at the Union Square mothership – that sells flour, whole grains, beans, dried corn, and related products from a range of different producers. Definitely if you’re in NYC check it out! Schedule is here.

This week it’s small red beans from Wild Hive Farm – very nice looking dark red beans that I haven’t used before.

Ingredients

• 250g Wild Hive Farm Small Red Beans, soaked
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3 small hot peppers, minced
• one onion, chopped small
• one leek, white and light-green parts chopped small
• 1 tsp. oregano
• 1/2 tsp. chili powder
• bay leaf
• olive oil
• salt

Procedure

1. Cover beans with soaking water and additional to 2″ and add bay leaf; raise to boil and boil for 10 minutes, then lower to simmer until beans are softened; add salt and set aside
2. In a heavy-bottomed pan or Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium
3. Add garlic and hot peppers and cook for a minute, until fragrant
4. Add onion and leek, and some salt and cracked black pepper, and cook several minutes, until starting to soften; then add oregano and chili powder and stir to combine
5. Add beans and their liquid, and a bit more liquid if needed, and stir to combine
6. Raise to a low simmer and cook for 20-30 minutes, until all are well-combined
7. Enjoy with rice!