I had bought several cans of black soybeans when they were on sale. However, because they are a little hard out of the can, I did not care for the texture in dishes such as refried beans. The only recipe that I found that they worked well in was my Devil's Food cake. However, I decided to try making some baked beans last night. In order to soften the beans, I first cooked them in a pressure cooker. They came out nice and soft, like the beans in cans of pork & beans. Here is what I did. However, since the beans are nicely cooked before adding the sauce, you don't have to worry about the sugars in the tomato hardening the protein in the beans so you can use your own favorite low carb baked bean sauce recipe. Here is what I did:

I took 4 strips of bacon and cut them into 1/2" pieces and lightly cooked them in an open pressure cooker, just to get a little bacon grease started. I then added 1 medium onion, diced, 2 cans of drained and rinsed black soybeans, and 2 cups of water. I put the lid on and cooked the beans under pressure for 10 minutes. I then drained the beans and prepared my sauce. In a small mixing bowl, I put 1/2 cup low carb ketchup, 1/4 cup cider vinegar, 1/2 cup low carb maple flavored syrup, 2 Tbls brown sugar flavored Splenda syrup, 1 Tbls dried mustard, and 1 tsp xanthan gum and blended the ingredients with a stick blender. I then diced 1 small onion and mixed the beans, onion, and sauce together and put into a Pam sprayed baking dish and baked uncovered at 375 for 1 hour. The sauce was very thick so if you prefer a more runny sauce, I would leave out the xanthan gum.

I served the baked beans with grilled pork and fauxtato salad and it was just like an old-fashioned bbq dinner I used to fix.

Henry, that sounds wonderful! I have missed baked beans.... in fact, made the "real" ones for the kiddos last night as I made pork chops on the grill for them. Where do you find the black soy beans here in KC?

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Rhonda, Wild Oats carries them.

Henry

Thanks Henry! Bought the cranberries Saturday and had them with flax cereal this morning..... To die for! Thanks for all your help

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Mmmm, sounds so good! I've been buying and using the small red beans - they aren't AS low carb as the black beans but I like them better. They're about 7 carbs for half a cup cooked, if memory serves - and they cook up nice and soft and almost "creamy" - I do them in the pressure cooker most of the time too.

Beans are so good and I'm glad to be back to the point where I can add them into my menu again, at least the lowest-carb, lowest GI ones!

Char

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Veni, vidi, velcro. I came, I saw, I stuck around.

Save the Earth - it's the only planet with CHOCOLATE!

*** sigh ***

Ok. My mom used to have a pressure cooker. It weighed about a hundred pounds ( ... give or take - I was little) and she gave me so many cautions about its use that I never tried to use it.

Are there small ones? Are they hard to use? Are they scary? Do I have room for ANOTHER appliance? (I'll take care of the last question. )

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Maggie, I have been using a small one for over 30 years. I would guess it is about a 3-4 quart size, not one of those big ones like my mother used. They are easy to use and they even come with a recipe book with instructions. I prefer cooking fresh veggies in them rather than a microwave.

Henry

You gotta have one of these puppies. I was scared to death of them until I got a digital electric one! Now I just, to quote from another appliance, "set it and forget it!"

The one I have is 8 quart but you can get a 4 qt or a 6 qt electric digital programmable too. I think I got it on eBay but it's been several years so I'm really not sure about that either! LOL! If you do an eBay search for "electric pressure cooker" or "digital pressure cooker" you'll turn up some nice ones.

All I know is that it is the BEST thing for cooking beans or whole grains like oat groats, wheat berries etc. and it makes short work of homemade stocks, stews, pulled pork....so many good things have come out of mine!

Mine is a brand called "Cook's Essentials" and is identical to the Revereware brand in the 8 quart - it's oval. You can take the inner liner out to wash which is very nice. I'm no longer afeered of it! LOL!

Char

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Veni, vidi, velcro. I came, I saw, I stuck around.

Save the Earth - it's the only planet with CHOCOLATE!

Cook's Essentials ... I think that's a QVC name. I have some of their cookware that I've been very happy with. I'll have to look into it a bit when I have a minute. I like the idea of a liner.

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YES that IS where I bought it, thanks for jogging my tired old memory banks!

I love their stuff too. It's all made by reputable companies like Revere anyway, I'm sure.

I've actually had 3 of these now--the first one was Farberware, which looked just like the one I have, and honestly I don't remember what happened to it? I THINK it was a 4 or 6 quart one and I just decided I wanted a bigger one.

Then I bought another electric model but NOT digital, don't recall the brand, but it looked like a stainless pot you might put on the stove but was powered like an electric skillet. It worked fine, but you had to mess with it more because it didn't have the digital programmable "run this long and then turn off" stuff, which I find I really prefer.

So now I have this nice big programmable puppy and I'm a happy little camper!

Char

__________________
Veni, vidi, velcro. I came, I saw, I stuck around.

Save the Earth - it's the only planet with CHOCOLATE!

wonder if you could simply open the can of black beans, put them in a pot, maybe add a little dab of water to them if they needed liquid, and boil them on the stove.. like you do dried beans, until they were soft, then continue from there with the above recipe??? I think I will try that, then continue with the recipe above by putting it all in the oven.

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In the cookies of life, we are the chocolate chips.

Lou, it will take more than a little dab of water. I tried that method once for another dish I was making. I drained and rinsed the beans and then added some water back and cooked the beans on high until the water was almost gone, about 20 minutes. The beans were softer but still had a slight hardness. I made a note to myself that if I were to do it again, I would have to add a lot more water and cook them a lot longer.
That is when I started thinking about whether or not a pressure cooker would work better.
Henry

Henry is right, it takes a long time to get those things tender. I have some dried black soybeans - I soak them overnight and THEN pressure cook them and it STILL takes a while to get them softened up! Which is part of the reason I switched to the small red beans. I just like them better. However they ARE higher in carb (about 8 per half cup as opposed to the 1 that the black soybeans state) so you have to be able to deal with that part. Since I'm in maintenance it works fine for me.

Char

__________________
Veni, vidi, velcro. I came, I saw, I stuck around.

Save the Earth - it's the only planet with CHOCOLATE!

ok, thanks...so, I'd have to treat them like those old fashioned pinto beans I used to fix. I started them early in the morning, and cooked them almost all day long. I never soaked them overnite cause I didn't know I wanted them til the day I was gona cook them...lol.

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In the cookies of life, we are the chocolate chips.