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Pressure Cooker “Baked” Beans

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My mom has a great baked bean recipe for the crock pot. It takes anywhere from 3- 6 hours to cook in the crock pot and uses canned beans. I have tried and tried to convert her recipe to use soaked, dried beans in the crock pot, but I’ve finally decided I don’t have the patience for them to cook that long. Plus the sauce never got thick enough with the soaked beans. Enter the pressure cooker. After trying several different baked bean recipes for the pressure cooker, I finally found one that came close to what I wanted. A little tweaking and used the seasoning in my mom’s recipe, and I think we have a winner!

Pressure Cooker “Baked” Beans
Author: Andrea
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This is an update of my moms crock baked beans. Plan ahead and soak your beans the night before. Soak extra and freeze them and save time the next time you make this recipe.
Ingredients
  • 2 cups of dried beans – navy is traditional, but I use a combination of pinto, black, butter and kidney.
  • 6-8 thick cut slices of bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
  • 1 small onion, roughly chopped
  • 2 1/2 cup of water
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 T molasses
  • 1/4 c catsup
  • 1 t mustard
  • 1/4 t salt
Instructions
  1. The night before or morning of, rinse and soak beans in clean water. Cover by at least three inches of water. After 8-12 hours, drain. You should have about 4 cups of soaked beans, or about 2 pounds.
  2. Heat pressure cooker to sauté and brown bacon. When bacon is almost done, add onion and sauté another 3 or 4 minutes until onion is translucent.
  3. Add drained beans, 2 1/2 cup of water, brown sugar, molasses, catsup, mustard and salt. Stir.
  4. Lock lid on pressure cooker and cook at high pressure for 35 minutes. When timer beeps, turn pressure cooker off and wait 10 minutes. After 10 minutes use a quick pressure release to release any remaining pressure. Discard any beans that are floating. Check several beans to see if they’re tender. If not, pressure cook 5 minutes longer and check again.
  5. Leave lid off. Turn pressure cooker to simmer and simmer beans uncovered, stirring occasionally so the bottom doesn’t burn, until the sauce is the desired consistency.
  6. * If you don’t have time for an overnight soak, use the browning setting to bring 6 cups of water to a boil. Boil beans for two minutes. Turn pressure cooker off and let beans soak one hour. Proceed with the recipe as directed.

 

Pressure Cooked Beans

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Beans are a great thing to do in the pressure cooker. Sure, sure, it’s easy to just buy a can of beans at the store. But really, there is no comparison between canned beans and home cooked beans. Just give it a try. And… if you have been cooking beans, but you haven’t been using a pressure cooker, then you will love the time savings.

This is a super simple recipe and it’s mainly written for the purpose of making beans. The rest of the salad is just to fancy up the beans. You can use this approach for any bean. Smaller beans like black beans cook about 3-4 minutes and larger beans go up to 9-12 minutes. Hip Pressure Cooking cook book has a good table of bean cooking times, or you  can just google the type of bean you have and figure out times from there. If you only do a few types of beans, just do the internet search and put the times on a sticky note and stick into one of your cabinets or cookbooks for future reference.

A couple notes on the dried beans themselves.

  • It’s best if you can find fresh beans. I noticed that not every grocery store even carries dried beans. I find the best ones at our local ethnic grocery store – they have a high turn over of beans, so its pretty easy to get fresh ones. Also, most are sold in clear bags. Spend a quick second and look in the bag – maybe the brand that is a little cheaper also has beans that look a little wrinkled or funny? then just spend the extra 20 cents and get the bag that looks better. We also have a farmer at the local farmers market that sells dried beans. His beans are super expensive – but I know from experience the time and energy that he has put into those beans, so that price is covering his costs (hopefully) – his beans will also be like no other bean out there. I know, I sound a little bean crazy.
  • The beans need to be washed and soaked when you get them. Even the fancy beans from the local farmer need to be washed. Look through them and make sure you remove any little stones or any beans that look wrinkled or broken – you won’t get them all, but just do your best. Then rinse off the beans, drain, rinse again, and drain. Now put the beans into a large bowl and cover with at least two inches of water.
  • In an ideal world, the beans should soak 8-12 hours on the counter. If you don’t have enough planning for this method, you can also do a quick soak method on them. Here’s a quick soak method – place washed beans in your pressure cooker and cover with 2 inches of water. Follow pressure cooker instructions and bring to high pressure for 1 minute followed by a natural pressure release. Then follow your cooking instructions for soaked beans.
  • Here is what I do when I’m making beans – I soak a bunch of beans for 8-12 hours. I use the ones I need in my recipe and then freeze the rest of them (drained) in 2 cup portions for future use. I mark them as soaked so I know they are ready to go in future recipes. This is a great way to have beans on hand for any recipes that you may not have planned out 24 hours ahead of time!
Beans in the Pressure Cooker
Author: Andrea
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This is a general recipe for making beans in your pressure cooker.
Ingredients
  • 1 bag of dried cannelini or other white beans, pre-soaked or quick soaked
  • 1 small onion (optional)
  • 1 garlic clove (optional)
  • 1 small peeled carrot (optional)
  • 1/2 green pepper (optional)
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 T apple cider vinegar
  • 1 t olive oil
Instructions
  1. Place all ingredients in your pressure cooker.
  2. Cover with about 2 inches of water – do not fill pressure cooker higher than 1/2 full.
  3. Following instructions on your pressure cooker, bring to high pressure. Cook at high pressure for 6 minutes in a stovetop pressure cooker or 7-8 minutes in an electric pressure cooker. If you are using other type of beans, follow recommended pressure cooking times for the size and type of bean.
  4. Allow pressure to release following natural release methods. Make sure to release using natural release methods and beans tend to foam and can cause small particles to block the release valve – this is especially likely if you do a quick pressure release.
  5. Drain the beans. You can save the liquid to use in soups. Discard the vegetables if you used them.
  6. Salt the beans while still warm.

 

Ham Bone and Bean Soup

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If you were to ask me, I would tell you that the best part about a ham is the bone. Our local meat market stopped carrying bone-in hams a couple of years ago, so I was forced to find a new meat market. I can’t even comprehend how they “make” hams without the bones. Seems a little funny to me.

But anyway, that ham bone is great because it make an awesome soup. I sometimes think of it as free food – take something that you might have thrown away, add a couple cheap veggies, and you end up with a  very healthy and easy soup.

To make traditional ham bone soup, you simmer it the ham bone in a pot of water all day long and eventually you end up with a great stock for a bean soup. The little bits of meat loosen up while it’s simmering and it makes the perfect soup for a cold winter day.

This year, I decided there was no need to simmer all day long. Save energy, save time, all that good stuff. So, I modified my ham bone and bean soup recipe for the pressure cooker. Perfect!

The only trick to this recipe is a little thinking ahead on the beans. The night (or morning) before you make the soup, take a couple cups of beans and cover them with 2-3 inches of cold water in a big pot. 8-12 hours later, drain the beans and you are ready for the soup. I usually soak extra beans, drain them and freeze them in two cup portions – ready to go in a recipe that calls for soaked beans and no planning required. If you are in a time crunch, you can also do a quick soak of your beans.

You can make this recipe with any bean you like. I love it with cannellini, but a bag of mixed beans (sometimes called a 15-bean soup mix) is great also. Have fun with it!

Here’s the recipe. Hope you enjoy.

Ham Bone & Bean Soup
Recipe Type: Soup
Author: Andrea
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Serves: 8-10
Don’t throw away that ham bone! Here’s my favorite recipe for a leftover ham bone. Remember to pre-soak your beans. This is made in a pressure cooker, but could be easily modified for stovetop. Also, there should be no need to add salt to this recipe because of the ham bone.
Ingredients
  • 1 cooked ham bone, with meat left on
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 1 T olive oil
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 16 ounces of beans, soaked – any kind will do, but cannellini or mixed soup beans are a good start
  • 2 cups of chopped carrots
  • 2 cups of chopped celery
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Instructions
  1. Heat the olive oil in a 6 quart or larger pressure cooker, sauté the onion until translucent – not brown. Add the ham bone, bay leaf and 8 cups of water. Lock lid and bring cooker to high pressure for 25 minutes.
  2. Quick release pressure and add remaining ingredients. This is a big soup – do not fill cooker past the 2/3 line. Lock lid and return cooker to high pressure for 6-12 minutes, depending on your bean. Smaller beans like black beans will be 6 minutes, larger beans like cannellini will be 10-12 minutes.
  3. Release pressure naturally and remove lid.
  4. Remove ham bone. While ham bone is cooling, keep soup at a simmer. If you like a creamier soup, you can use a spoon to mush some of the beans up in it.
  5. When the bone is cool enough to handle, tear off the bits of ham still attached and return the ham to the soup.
  6. Serve with a crusty bread and enjoy!

 

 

Pumpkin Chili

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Sugar Pumpkin

I originally found this recipe for pumpkin chili when I was looking for recipes to share for a pumpkin class. The original recipe came from Thug Kitchen and was pretty fabulous. I’ve upped the tomatoes and vegetables and adjusted it a little to make it my own, which is what you should do with any good chili recipe.

To make your own pumpkin puree, find yourself a sugar pumpkin. Don’t use a regular carving pumpkin – they won’t taste as sweet and you’ll be wasting your time. Wash the pumpkin, cut it in half, and remove the seeds and strings. To cook the pumpkin, you can either roast the halves, cut side down, in a roasting pan with a cup of water. It’ll take about 30-40 minutes at 400 degrees. Alternatively, you can pressure cook the halves for about 6 minutes on high pressure – remember to 1/2 a cup of water or your cooker’s minimum liquid amount. The pumpkin is done with you can easily stick a fork in through the skin. Once the pumpkin is cooked, let it cool, scrape out the flesh and puree it in your blender or food processor until smooth.

These dried beans were harvested from our garden

These dried beans were harvested from our garden

You can use any type of beans in this recipe. The recipe is written for using canned beans or soaked dried beans. If you use dried beans, you have the option for cooking them before adding them to the soup or pressure cooking them as part of the soup. Cooking them before adding, let’s you mix and match your beans in the soup. Save the cooking liquid for the beans and use it in the soup instead of broth or water. I’ve used combinations of black, cannellini, and kidney beans.

If you choose to pressure cook the beans with the soup, either use one type of bean, or pick beans that are about the same size so they cook the at the same rate. Black beans can cook as quickly as 3 minutes under pressure, but cannellini or kidney can take 6 minutes. Adjust the pressure cooking time to the beans that you are using.

Pumpkin Chili
Author: Andrea
Prep time:
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Serves: 8
This is a great fall recipe. It uses pureed pumpkin, tomatoes, beans, and comes together quickly.
Ingredients
  • 2 T olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, chopped finely – about a cup
  • 1 cup of chopped carrots, about 2-3 carrots
  • 1 cup of chopped sweet pepper
  • 1 1/2 T chili powder
  • 1 t ground cumin
  • 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 1 jalapeno, chopped
  • 2 T Braggs Amino Acids or soy sauce
  • 1, 28 oz jars of crushed tomatoes
  • 2 cups of pumpkin puree
  • 4 cups (or 2, 15 ounce cans of beans) – black, cannellini, or whatever you like (if you are dried beans, instead of canned), see special note in instructions for pressure cooked method
  • 4 cups of bean broth, vegetable stock or water
Instructions
  1. Heat the olive oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Sauté the onion, carrots, and peppers until soft – it’s okay if they brown a little – about 5 minutes.
  2. Add chili powder, cumin, garlic, jalapeno, and amino acids. Sauté for 30 seconds.
  3. Add tomatoes, pumpkin, broth and beans and bring to a simmer. Allow to simmer on the stove for about 30 minutes before serving.
  4. * pressure cooker method – use soaked, dried beans. In step three, add remaining ingredients and pressure cook on high for 6 minutes for a medium size bean (see above notes for more info on cooking times). Done.