Saturday March 8
The snow began to fall yesterday, amid cries of "Blizzard Alert! Sixteen inches! Your family in danger!" from TV weathercasters hoping to induce ratings-boosting panic. By morning there was calm weather and about six inches on the ground, but we were not about to drive/slide down to Findlay Market anyway. Problem was, we had asked our friends Burcu and Murat, and their little girl Yaz, to dinner that night. What to do?
There are always plenty of dried beans in the house, so the seasonally appropriate answer (which we did last year in the same situation) was a big batch of chili. We started by soaking a pound of kidney beans (bagged, from Kroger - take note of that) in our pressure-cooker pot for an hour or so, and then set them on a very low simmer, with open top, at midday. By three or four PM (after Burcu had called to cancel - there was no way they'd be able to get their van out on the road), some beans were tender, but many were still crunchy, and some were losing their skins. We added three cans of diced tomatoes, and continued to simmer (yes, both us and the beans). By six PM, when they were little better, Holt gave up and clamped the top on the pressure-cooker. Within minutes we could smell the beans burning, and we opened it up to find the whole thing ruined.
Holt doesn't give up easily, though. He dumped the mess down the garbage disposal, cleaned everything up, and put a batch of pinto beans - unbagged, probably from Bigg's - into the pressure-cooker with fresh water. Then he pressure-cooked the bejesus out of them for thirty minutes. And behold! They were tender. He proceeded with our standard recipe. And by 8:30, hot chili was in the bowls.
So beware of Kroger's beans - they've probably been sitting in that bag for decades. And no matter how long a lead time you have, pressure-cook the damn beans from the git-go, and save yourself from Kitchen Disaster.
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Barbara/Holt -- once you add the tomatoes, (or anything acidic or salty) the beans won't soften much more. You can boil them for three days and they'll still be as crunchy as they were when you made the addition. Never salt or add an acid ingredient until the beans are tender.
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