Two Announcements

And seasonal bean love

First up, homeroom announcements!

Cooking Class Alert

Later this month, I’m co-teaching a Plant Based Lunch and Learn event with my friend and fellow chef, Andrea Corbi Fein. 

We’re going to talk about our journeys using food as medicine, teach you how to make a couple of things, answer questions, and share a delicious plant-based lunch. 

It will be a small event with just 12 people so if you’re interested get a ticket today. My newsletter subscribers are getting early access with this first announcement. Get all the info and your ticket here.

New Work in the World

There’s a major new vegan cookbook I want you to know about because I worked on it! Joe Yonan’s new instant classic Mastering the Art of Plant Based Cooking is out now and it’s filled to the brim with terrific recipes by Joe, me, and many other amazing recipe creators. 

If you get a copy, make my recipe for stuffed shells—an ideal cozy fall casserole if you ask me—and let me know what you think.

I know I will be exploring and learning from this book for years to come and I think you will too!

It’s Bean Time

Over the weekend, I went to a party for friends celebrating some pretty major milestones—a 50th birthday and 25th wedding anniversary. 

This couple loves food and cooking. They know their way around the kitchen and the best ingredients.

Even though I thought they might already have these things, I selected another Joe Yonan cookbook (Cool Beans) and a six-pack of heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo. 

To my surprise and delight, they had not cooked with Rancho Gordo beans before! I knew I picked a good gift because these beans are really different than most dried beans and all canned beans.

The moral of the story is don’t assume other people have already discovered the things you love—share them.

This time of year, I love to cook a pound of beans on Sunday. 

I have cooked a lot of beans in “the Rancho Gordo manner” and I’ve pressure cooked a lot of beans, but my favorite way to cook these special beans is in the slow cooker. 

Here’s how I do it: 

I pick over a pound of beans, looking for little rocks and debris, and then I put them in my slow cooker. I cover them with water by at least 2 inches. I add half a yellow onion (skin on), two bay leaves, and a generous glug of olive oil. 

I set the slow cooker to high for one hour. After an hour, I turn it to low.

When a delicious cooked bean aroma winds its way around the house and into my nose, I stir the beans and add 1 tablespoon salt. 

Then I let them cook until they’re done. This takes varying amounts of time depending on the bean. It can honestly range from three hours to 10 hours. It’s low stress because it’s pretty hard to overcook beans this way.

If you want it to be faster, you can soak the beans the night before but it will never be fast. Dried beans are pretty much slow food. 

When the beans tastes tender and delicious, I remove the slow cooker lid and let the beans cook an hour more to concentrate the bean broth which is truly a delicious and marvelous thing. 

Bone broth has nothing on bean broth. 

Then I either make something with them to eat during the week or I pack them up in two-cup containers to freeze them. 

This weekend I made a dreamy greens-and-beans situation inspired by this video from Carla Lali Music. 

Do you cook with Rancho Gordo beans? What’s your favorite way to make them?