Kitchen

[Mmsfoxxie]

Happy New Year, everyone!

Yesterday I decided to cook some dried lima beans with smoked turkey in my crockpot.  Those beans NEVER got completely done! I cooked them for ten hours!  Low heat then high and back to low, trying to see what worked.

I only soaked the beans for about 2 hours....without preboiling which was probably an error.

To start, to the crockpot I added smoked turkey legs/thighs, bay leaves, large onion, about 6 garlic cloves and the dried lima beans.  When the turkey was almost done, I took it out of the pot and shredded it and got rid of the skin and bones.  I cooked and cooked it til the turkey was very tender.  Then I kept cooking it because the beans were 'scrunchy' for lack of a better word.

To add insult to injury, the end product lacked taste!  All through the cooking, the house smelled delicious!

I don't know how long that bag of beans were around the house but I know it was years.  Could they have been too old?  Or was my process incorrect.  Normally, I soak my beans overnight but not always.

[jackthebear]

yes I think they can

[Tigriss]

I think it was not soaking them fully for long enough. I've done them in a crock pot before, and it they never got done! I pressure cooked them then on. They are so much more flavorful when the pressure forces the flavors to intense level. Try a pressure cooker, preferably an instant pot.

[IamMrsG]

@Mmsfoxxie   The shelf life of dried beans, stored away from light and in food grade bags, is one year.  Neither soaking nor extended cooking time will reconstitute old beans.

[Mmsfoxxie]

Well, I sure do believe you @IamMrsG.  If it's not done in ten hours, it never will be.  I'm going to go back to my frozen ones.  I can't even remember buying that bag of beans.  If my husband bought them, that means they're over over ten years old, before we were married.  I say that because he hasn't done any real grocery shopping since other than to pick up something I needed at the last minute.  Lesson learned.  Thanks everyone.

[lolakimono]

I would take it as a message not to eat lima beans, but that's just me. 

[Mmsfoxxie]

lol, @lolakimono.  I love lima beans.  But I won't do dried ones again.  I'm trying to figure out what to do to salvage this dish......add some more garlic and onion?  Bouillon cubes?

[Zhills]

If your 'juice' taste good use it to cook the new beans!

[Mmsfoxxie]

@Zhills, other than the slight taste of the smoked turkey I taste nothing.  I do have a cold, though, so I asked my husband, without commenting on what I thought, what he thought of the dish.  He said there was no taste.  So strange.  I'm guessing the the lima bean taste was gone due to age.

[Zhills]

I have read that old beans do that.  The older they are, the longer they need to soak and the longer they need to cook.  They can last, and are edible for years, just have to account for the age.  Sorry they didn't turn out.  I love limas!