Part 8 (2/2)

For brown varieties Cooking time: 45 to 50 minutes To serve 4: 2 cups water, 1 cup rice, teaspoon salt Cook: Place all the ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Once the mixture is boiling, turn down the heat to very low and simmer for 40 to 45 minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve.

For white varieties To serve 4: 1 cups water, 1 cup rice, teaspoon salt Cook: Place all the ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Once the mixture is boiling, turn down the heat to very low and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve.

Brown Rice, Short-Grained

The healthy stuff. Nutty and slightly sweet, short-grained brown rice is a nutritious staple and will make you feel like you're eating macrobiotic even if you've never touched a piece of seaweed in your whole life. It also makes nice brown-rice sus.h.i.+.

Cooking time: 45 to 50 minutes To serve 4: 2 cups water, 1 cup rice, teaspoon salt Cook: Place all the ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Once the mixture is boiling, turn down the heat to very low and simmer for 40 to 45 minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve.

Wild Rice

All-American and not really a rice, wild rice is actually a delicious grain from a marsh gra.s.s. The rice is long and a sleek black color and the textured is deliciously chewy. Its earthy flavor and pairs wonderfully with mushrooms and autumnal dishes.

Cooking time: 55 to 60 minutes To serve 4: 2 cups water, 1 cup rice, teaspoon salt Cook: Place all the ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Once the mixture is boiling, turn down the heat to very low and simmer for 55 to 60 minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve.

White Rice, Plain Old

Because sometimes you just want plain old white rice. These directions are of the everyday long-grained kind.

Cooking time: 15 to 20 minutes To serve 4: 1 cup water, 1 cup rice, teaspoon salt Cook: Place all the ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Once the mixture is boiling, turn down the heat to very low and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve.

HOW TO COOK A BEAN.

You can't beat canned beans when it comes to convenience, especially when you have tiny kitchens like we do. But dried beans are way, way cheaper, and there's a certain amount of satisfaction that comes from doing it the old-fas.h.i.+oned way. Some say the flavor of homemade beans is far more delicate and always lower in sodium (or sodium free) than the canned stuff is. Dried beans can be subst.i.tuted for canned in any of our recipes, but be ye warned: preparation is everything! Dried beans (except for lentils and split peas) need to be soaked overnight before cooking! Sure, you could boil then simmer then rest then boil again the day of, but your beans won't taste as good and overnight soaking helps dissolve the starches that are the primary source of beans' musical properties. So soak 'em! Put your dried beans in a pot with plenty of water (the water should come up two or three inches above the beans), cover, and stash in the fridge until tomorrow. Or, if you're set on cooking beans that night, why not set them to soak that morning, before you run out the door to catch the train to work?

After the beans have soaked, drain the water, then replace with fresh, cold water (roughly three cups of water to every cup of soaked beans, better too much than too little) and bring to a boil in a pot with a lid. Once the beans are boiling, reduce to a simmer-if you leave them at a boil, they will turn to mush-and cook with the pot's lid slightly ajar so that steam can escape. How long will depend on the bean; see our guidelines but note that different factors, such as how old the bean is and how dry it is, will affect cooking times. Add a teaspoon of salt to the pot about 20 minutes before the beans are done (don't do this earlier or they'll toughen up). Once the beans are nice and tender, drain and use as called for in the recipe. One cup of dried beans will give you roughly three cups cooked (results may vary).

As a resource to you, dear reader, we've compiled this mini encyclopedia of beans and their common uses. We recommend cooking a pound of beans at a time, storing in the fridge, and using that week. To help you out, we list a few recipes where the given bean is called for. Bean on!

Adzuki

Sometimes called aduki, sometimes called azuki, besides being incredibly fun to say, these little, deep red beans are fast cooking, low in fat, and nutritious. A popular bean in j.a.pan and China, they have a delicate flavor that's both sweet and nutty. They're used in both savory dishes and sweet desserts (even ice cream). They also come in black, for your inner goth.

Cooking time: 1 hour Recipes: b.u.t.ternut Adzuki Coconut-Crusted Croquettes; Acorn Squash, Pear, and Adzuki Soup with Sauteed s.h.i.+takes

Black Beans

Billions of burritos can't be wrong. Black beans may very well be the most popular bean in vegetarian cooking. Very popular in many Latin American and Caribbean countries, but a true workhorse of a bean, good in just about everything from breakfast to dinner. These dense and meaty beans are also known as turtle beans, don't ask us why.

Cooking time: 1 hours Recipes: Black Bean Vegetable Soup, Acorn Squash and Black Bean Empanadas, Black Bean Burgers, Quinoa Salad with Mango and Black Beans, Grilled Yucca Tortillas (Black Bean variation)

Black-Eyed Peas

These beans got soul. Tasty and cute, they're cream-colored beans with their namesake black spot that watches your every move. We like them worked into barbecue-themed foods and anything particularly saucy and/or spicy in American Southern, Caribbean, and African cuisines.

Cooking time: 1 hour Recipes: Black-Eyed Pea-Collard Rolls

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