We've stepped into the second half of the year already, which in gardening terms means the middle of the gardening season. In other worlds, harvesting has started and it is ongoing. Last time in my gardening report I've shown you how things stand in the garden. Today I'm back to show you what we do with the beans.
For those of you who don't know me, the garden serves for providing us fresh fruits and veggies, but we also can them for winter as winter here is long and cold. With the inflation we're having these days, there's no reason to waste any food (never has been actually).
Canned Beans
This is the time for beans and unfortunately this year, due to the heat, we're not going to have many. We are still lucky as we have a watering system that saves us from a lot of trouble, but unfortunately it's not enough. Due to the heat and strong sun rays, the flowers are dry, burnt, which results in getting no beans.
What you see in the filter is a good crop, that grew before the heat. We have the habit of canning all we get during the season as you never know what's going to happen next year. Life teaches you, you just have to follow.
These are the ingredients and the process is very simple.
Ingredients:
- beans (washed and cut into small pieces),
- onions,
- garlic,
- parsley,
- salt.
Place the beans with the chopped parsley and onions layered into the pot add salt, water to cover and cook till it's tender. Add tomato sauce or fresh tomato if you have. We don't have fresh tomato yet, that's why we're using tomato juice from last year.
Cook for another 10 minutes, then it's ready to be canned.
And voilà! The soup is ready. The beauty of it is that when you want a soup, you open the can, place the content in the pot, heat it and you have your soup ready. This takes 5 minutes or so.
Bean Soup
If we had these beans, I thought why not make a bean soup as it's the healthiest and lightest dish to have during the heat.
The soup is very similar to the canned version, it's just that it is without parsley leaves as I had none at home.
Clean, wash and break the beans into small pieces, put it in the pot, add the onion and garlic.
Add water to cover, ass the flavored salt, red paprika powder, a little bit of black pepper. Cover with a lid and cook till it's tender.
Then add the tomato juice, cook for 10 minutes and the soup is ready. Season with whatever you like, if you need to and you can also add sour cream if you like.
