Dish 2: Beans and Greens and Variations

There's an Adam Savage quote I love (paraphrasing here): the only difference between science and just screwing around is writing stuff down. It's an idea I want to embody here. Cooking is science. To move forward I need to document, reflect, make changes and then document what's different.

I don't need to get everything right right now. I want to experiment so I can be more confident in my decisions later. The trick is to not worry about not knowing or looking foolish, to look at it as a learning opportunity instead. I still have trouble with this.

But on to cooking! It's a two-fer.

The idea for this was a recipe from the NY Times: beans and beet greens. I had pink beans and so just ran with the concept.

I soaked a bag (1 lb) of pink beans overnight, then reserving two cups I put them in a pot with enough water to generously cover. Why did I hold some beans back? I had the idea to throw a sprig of oregano in the big pot, but wasn't sure of the result. To create a point of comparison, those reserved 2 cups went into another pot with just water.

They both simmered away until the beans were soft- the large pot got a second spring of oregano mid-way through. Towards the end of cooking I added some salt and pepper to both to taste. The result? I really liked the oregano beans. No oregano weren't bad, just meh. I'll freeze them and add them to something else later on.

The next day I split up my big batch of oregano beans. I'd been debating all day whether to use kale or bok choy- I decided on another trial following the spirit of the original recipe. 

Each pot got:

1 med onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 cups oreganoed pink beans

1 cup water

1 sprig oregano

In addition I prepped 4 leaves of bok choy and 8 of the kale (an equivalent volume of veg). 

I cooked the onion and garlic in a little olive oil with the diced stems of the veg of choice. Once they all softened I added the water and beans and turned up the heat a bit. Did the wait for the boil then turn down to a simmer thing (is there a term for this? There really should be). Then in went the leaves, roughly chopped, and I stirred til they wilted.

At the very very end I added the leaves from another sprig of oregano.

The result? Kale won. It added more flavor overall. The bok choy was fine but bland. I even took a cue from the recipe and added a little grated parmesan- helped a lot but still didn't match the kale (which did not need the garnish). 

Of course now I'm wondering if kale is inherently more awesome, or just worked better with this flavor profile. More tests for another day.