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My OH and I love soybeans, chickpeas and other beans and pulses. Pulses cook quickly and use little energy, but I am a bit freaked out by the amount of cooking time that chickpeas require! I love the cost saving of buying the dried chickpeas, (and they turn out better than what I can buy here canned) but the amount of energy for stated cooking time is formidible. Has anyone perfected a way to cook beans (chickpeas in particular) in a fashion that is significantly energy saving? PS. I just got a second-hand pressure cooker from my mother-in-law but haven't ventured to use it yet Help!
My little brothers are a tough bunch, eh? You could get 'em nice and riled up, them stuff them in a soup thermos for a few hours, or use a crock pot, or build a stand for a small pot above a candle or paraffin lamp, or make a solar box cooker, or use the pressure cooker, or any of a number of other ideas. If you consider long cooking times, 99% of the energy waste is because of lack of insulation. It used to be common for some of these foods to be brought to a boil in a cast iron pot, and then stuff the pot and food into a box filled with straw.
A pressure cooker really cuts the time down, but be very careful with beans or any lentils. Read the directions for your cooker, all lentis have the habit of producing foam, if the foam plugs up the vent, your cooker become a bomb. Usually when it explodes it's the top that hits your ceiling (along with the beans), but it could injure or burn you if you're close by. This happening makes a huge mess in your kitchen.
My OH and I love soybeans, chickpeas and other beans and pulses. Pulses cook quickly and use little energy, but I am a bit freaked out by the amount of cooking time that chickpeas require! I love the cost saving of buying the dried chickpeas, (and they turn out better than what I can buy here canned) but the amount of energy for stated cooking time is formidible. Has anyone perfected a way to cook beans (chickpeas in particular) in a fashion that is significantly energy saving? PS. I just got a second-hand pressure cooker from my mother-in-law but haven't ventured to use it yet Help!
The Pressure Cooker is the key to much good food cooked very quickly using very little energy. Beans and other legumes are a #1 food to cook in a pressure cooker.
A pressure cooker really cuts the time down, but be very careful with beans or any lentils. Read the directions for your cooker, all lentis have the habit of producing foam, if the foam plugs up the vent, your cooker become a bomb. Usually when it explodes it's the top that hits your ceiling (along with the beans), but it could injure or burn you if you're close by. This happening makes a huge mess in your kitchen.
This "foam" problem can be handled quite well by washing your beans in clear cold water before you do anything else with them.
But yes there are some things to know before you use a pressure cooker but not to worry they are all simple and easy to learn. Just don't let all this new learning scare you off since a pressure cooker is a wonderful kitchen cooking tool.
Soak the dry beans/chickpeas in water for 8 to 10 hrs and then pressures cook them. If in a hurry soak time can be reduced by soaking them in hot water in an insulated(thermos type) dish for an hr or so.
Make sure you have enough water in the cooker or the beans will get burned. I use 1:4 ratio to make dhal - an indian version of lentils soup (1 part lentils and 4 parts water).
FWIW you can slow-cook on the top of your woodstove, if you use one. You can wrap potatoes, sweet potatos, etc. in foil and throw them into a low fire as well.
If you heat with and cook with the same energy source, the heat loss from your stove to the room is a "wash" with electric (unless you have a heat pump) or gas (the stove is a bit more efficient as it's unvented).
If optimizing your energy use for cooking is your biggest opportunity to economize, you are the King of Frugality...
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