Beans

After four hours of shelling beans yesterday, I looked to Google to figure out what to do with them. At some point (several months ago) I thought I had read that once the beans are shelled, lay them on a cookie sheet and allow them to dry. I have no idea where I got that because that is not how you dry beans. I was to leave the beans on the plant and let them dry naturally- many of which did, but they were all mixed in with beans that hadn't been dry and I wasn't about to pick through them. Another option would have been to string a thread through the pods and hang them and allow them to dry that way. Another viable option, but as I had already shelled the pods it was too little, too late. My final option seemed a complicated process of steaming the beans, then placing them in a 150 degree oven, slowly decreasing the temperature over a course of many hours. Well, my oven doesn't go that low so that wasn't going to work. After a little more research I found that I could blanch the beans and then freeze them. My freezers are full to the brim since we just bought a half of a side of beef, but I didn't have any other choice. Art asked why we can't just eat them and I told him he was welcome to do that so long as he didn't plan on sleeping in the same room with me.

Just FYI- a cloth grocery bag full of bean pods equals approximately six cups of beans. It hardly seem worth all the work, but at least I can say I tried it!