I am salivating just thinking about these beans. Earlier in the week we cooked some garbanzo beans and made salads with them several nights in a row. Well, DH was inspired, plus there were no more cooked beans, so he started soaking pinto beans this morning. I had pulled out the pressure cooker earlier in the week for the garbanzo beans, so I figured I would cook the pintos up tonight. DH threw in some bacon, we cut an onion into eighths, and added some cumin and a little olive oil, OMG!
DH remarked he had never successfully cooked beans before, well, the pressure cooker does the trick. We each had a small serving, essentially our dessert, a little freshly ground sea salt and pepper, and some bean juice, voila! So very simple, but the flavor, amazing!
They’re better done in a pressure cooker? I never soak the beans before I cook them, I think they taste better if I don’t. I start them in cold water, bring to simmer, add some cold water, repeat 2 or 3 times and then finish cooking them on low heat.
Those sound marvelous. I’ll have to give your recipe a go, Claire!
GG, I do my beans the same way as you. I’m a HUGE wuss when it comes to pressure cookers. Not much scares me more than spiders except using a pressure cooker. 
My roommate in college had one and it went KABOOM in our apartment while she was cooking. I’ll wait a few hours cooking by stove, or use a crock-pot, thankyouverymuch. 
Years ago I had a pressure cooker that would fry chicken under pressure. That was good chicken. It would do a pot roast in about 20 minutes and it came out so good. It had a bar across the top that would keep it from hitting the ceiling if it were to try to explode but there was also a back up pressure relief system in it. I wish I still had it. I think my ex sent it to the dump.
Charlotte, 
your sig line.
i just bring them to a boil, boil about an hour, then simmer the rest the day- onions, garlic and a little tobasco…and cornbread of course!
yep, i am leary of pressure cookers too
Beans, beans, the magical fruit
The more you eat the more you ----
Well, you know how that jingle goes.
My husband tells me that soaking the beans quiets that music down.
I had another pressure cooker in my younger days, no idea where it ended up. It had the little pressure thingamajig on top, don’t know if they still make them like that.
I’ve never had one explode on me, I use a dollop of vegetable oil when cooking beans because the hole that the steam escapes from can clog easily. Probably would explode if the hole was clogged. My mother used a pressure cooker when I was young without any issues so they never really scared me, but I’ve seen pictures of what an explosion looks like :shock:
Re: sig line, Gracias, GG. I think the only thing crazier than trying to knit while drinking is tinking while drinking. Yes, I have been that crazy, though not recently.:shock:
I’m sure there are other very good reasons your ex is an ex, but sending a favored piece of cookware to the dump would burn me up enough to contribute to the split up.:!!!:
Claire, Husband thanks you for inspiring me! White beans (great northerns) slow cooked with ham hocks, onion, garlic, celery and cayenne.YUM!!! :yay:
I’m bypassing the highly flavorful but artery clogging soul food method of thickening with lard by using the ham hocks, wee bit of fat from them plus a bit of gelatin action from the bones of the hocks is the next best thing. 
What time’s dinner and please email me directions to your house. :roflhard: Oh, does that sound good! Did you ever watch Hee Haw? Makes me think of, Hey, Grampa, what’s for supper?
Hey, we’re all crashing your house for dinner :roflhard: Seriously, yum 
And I’ll bring the beverages - I purchased a watermelon yesterday, juiced it this afternoon, knowing that DH would make us fresh watermelon juice mojitos :clink: It is officially the cocktail hour 
Wow, those sound delicious! 
I’ll have to tell my brother about your watermelon mojitos. He’s lost in mojito-land, never to be recovered. They’re his new favorite drink!
@Charlotte, here’s the recipe for each mojito:
Ingredients:
1½ tablespoons sugar
½ lime, cut into quarters
8 mint leaves
1½ shots rum
2 shots watermelon juice
Club soda or sparkling water
5 ice cubes
Mint for garnish
Tools:
Muddler and stirrer, 20 ounce glass
Muddle sugar and lime until sugar is dissolved. Add mint leaves and muddle briefly. Add rum and watermelon juice. Stir. Add 4 ice cubes, stir and add club soda to within 1 inch of top of glass. Add last ice cube and garnish with mint. :clink: relax and enjoy.
Claire,
Thanks so much for the recipe! I truly appreciate your aiding and abetting my contributing to the delinquency of my brother!:roflhard: He needs it!
Wow, I came here for pinto beans and ended up with a mojita! :happydance:
We cook all our beans in the pressure cooker, takes a little bit of practice to get them perfect but we’ve made a laminated chart of the bean and pea varieties and their cooking times, so we just pull that out for reference. We have a lot of chillies, soups and stews during the colder weather so we’ve always got some cooked beans on hand, not so much in the summer, but a bean salad is always nice. We were away this past weekend and one of our friends made a mango, black bean and cucumber salad that was absolutely to die for, I had him email me the recipe for that one.
The black bean salad sounds delicious! :drool: Could you post the recipe? I 
the idea of having a laminated sheet with bean cooking times.
Bean salad is how all of this got started! We stayed with a friend in Santa Fe and she prepared garbanzo bean salad for us, it was delicious! DH has told me for years now that he does not like garbanzo beans, he enjoyed the salad our friend make and didn’t seem to have any issues with my preparing garbanzo bean salad when we got back home. And then I found this article:
As long as I vary the beans, the salads are a good way to incorporate different fresh fruits and vegetables. I fresh and tasty food.
Black Bean,Mango and Cucumber Salad
1 15 oz. can of black beans (drain and rinse)
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. water
1 mango-peel and dice
1 cucumber-seeded and diced
1 jalapeno pepper-seeded and diced
2 tbs. chopped cilantro
½ lime juice
Salt/ground black pepper to taste
Heat the black beans, cumin and water in microwave on high 1 min. Mix the mango, cucumber, jalapeno pepper, cilantro, lime juice, salt and pepper in bowl then stir in the black beans.
TYSM Brenda for sharing your recipe with us 
I am looking forward to using this recipe, perhaps this weekend It’s time for a special meal and including this salad would be an excellent start
woohoo! stealing this recipe too! That just sounds incredibly yummy!
I think I have to make split pea soup today. It’s a split pea soup kind of day and my GS loves the stuff, he’ll be over after school. See what ya’ll are responsible for? I didn’t think about it till this thread popped up again. Thanks!