Dry Beans: We win! (a little)

So, here are the results of our August 8th drying beans experiment:

We have some dry beans.  Admittedly, we probably only got 1/2-2/3 of what we dried, the rest was weird.  But here they are.  Now we just need to see how they taste in the winter.

Dry beans!

(or at least we hope they will be).

Today, I brought home from the farm a nice big bag of beans.  They were pretty nasty looking and I’ve spared you all a picture of them. Instead, a few brief and descriptive words: shriveled, brown, pink, and white, molded, slightly damp, and crusty.  But, inside these weird looking semi-dry bean pods were these lovely lovely beans.  When you leave shell beans on the bush too long they mature and dry right there on the plant.  Then you just pop the beans out of the shells and let them finish drying.  When they are fully dry, they’re just like other dry beans.  So, we sat down and shelled the whole bag and laid them out in this basket to dry.  The hope is this: if they get enough even and free air circulation and dry well, we’ll have at jar or two or our very own home-dried beans.

They should last well for the winter and won’t take up freezer space.  Of course, the downside is that we will need to get better about actually using the dry beans, but at least we’ll have them.  And it’s worth having some variety for the winter.