I love legumes and we use a lot of canned cannellini, kidney and garbanzo beans in soups and spreads. I decided to take my daughter Beth's advice and pressure can our own beans. The beauty of this approach is that we know that our own jars are not lined with BPA, a chemical that can leach out into the food. My pressure canner was unearthed a few years ago after being in storage for eleven years in its original box. I'd last used it around 23 years ago. To be honest, pressure cooking makes me a bit nervous but I'm feeling adventurous and I have the time, so here's to new renewed adventures.
I decided to can four types of beans but gave up on one of them when I realized what work went into peeling softened fava beans. I'll buy those canned, thank you, when I use them. So cannellini beans, kidney beans, and northern beans were on the agenda. I soaked them all in large bowls overnight and ended up with a hill of them.
I found my instruction manual that came with the canner in with all my appliance manuals that I take care to keep current when one appliance gets tossed and another takes its place. At the same time, I also found an updated manual on the Presto.com site that included instructions for canning beans because my manual had no mention of canning dried beans. I guess it wasn't au courant in the 80s as a DIY project. Go figure. Anyway, I inspected all the parts of the canner and it was in excellent condition - what a surprise! Even the seals on the vent and the rim were in great shape. (Hardware stores keep all these things in stock - surprising, too, that the parts are standard. I found this out because I had to make a trip to the hardware store - I needed a new canning funnel and jar lifter, having no idea where they are at the moment. I found my water bath canner, too, but it was empty of most of my equipment.)
I found two boxes of quart jars in the basement in mason jar boxes that had followed me from Lunenburg, MA to Fairview, TX and back to MA and NH and then MA again! They were a bit filthy having been used years ago and stored when empty. I found I had boxes of new lids and used, clean jar bands - we were in business!
Now, I won't say the first batch was easy. I was nervous about the steps. I have canned hundreds of jars of tomatoes and marinara sauce - but never legumes. However, getting the canner up to pressure on an electric stove and keeping it at 11 pounds constant pressure was an eyes-on-the-job for 90 minutes. I cooked the beans for 1/2 hour on the range top before hand (as the recipe recommended) and didn't add salt but will add seasoning when I use them. Keeping the Electrolux burner at 11 pounds of pressure meant varying from 1.8 to 2.2 on my controls. The second batch was much easier because I knew what I was doing. (I will admit I called to Gerry to help me lift the canner several times - it was quite heavy. In addition, I asked him to open it when it released all its pressure.)
I ended up with 14 quarts of BPA-less beans - 5 northern, 3 kidney, 5 cannellini and a few mixed jars. There's so much satisfaction hearing that healthy pop that proves that your jars are vacuum sealed. I think the next time I do this, I'll order some heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo after I get their recipe book:
Heirloom Beans.
