Bean Fields of Caifornia

Last week I met a new farmer just outside of the delta who is interested in growing for Rancho Gordo.

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It’s kind of funny because at my trial gardens in Napa, I have lovely rows of beans and redwoods and some flowers but the reality of commercial bean growing is so much different. You need acreage and machines and it’s not all that glamorous, by most standards, yet I get so excited about the possibility of another acre in California going to beans.

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This particular farm is in just outside of Walnut Grove and is certified organic. For you localvores, it’s about 60 miles from Napa and 75 miles to San Francisco. In addition to one of the cranberry beans, this farm will grow organic, non-GMO starch corn for pozole/posole, hominy and nixtamalized masa for tortillas and tamales.

Scrambled Eggs with Scarlet Runners and Chile Sauce

On the weekend I made a big batch of chile sauce with Anchos and New Mexican chiles. I’ve been adding spoonfuls of the sauce to almost everything and I’m surprised I haven’t done it before.

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In a frying pan, I scrambled the eggs and in a saucepan,  I reheated a spoonful of leftover Scarlet Runner beans and a spoonful of the chile sauce. Once the eggs were barely set, I gently folded them all together. This put me in a good mood for hours.

Beans from Cholula

I mentioned earlier that my friends Connie and Sharon brought back some taupe ayocotes (runner beans) from their last trip to Mexico. They came to me in a box and unfortunately the bags separating the beans broke and let’s just say a good long time has been spent sorting through the mess!

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The beans came mostly from a market in Cholula. If you want to help identify any of them, be my guest. Otherwise, just enjoy how pretty they are.

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Ayacote Beans from Cholula

Two of my favorite friends, Sharon Peters and Connie Green, were traveling through Mexico and were kind enough to keep their eyes peeled for interesting beans for the Rancho Gordo trial gardens.

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One of the prettiest is this taupe colored runner bean (ayacote in Mexico) that is quite big. They found it in a market in Cholula.

As usual, I took one cup of the beans, soaked them and then cooked them with onion and garlic that had been sauteed in olive oil. Even soaked, they took a long time to cook but they were pretty nice. A distinct potato texture and thick skin.

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Ayacotes are often served with chile sauce so after they were cooked and salted, I added a sauce I’d made earlier from ancho and New Mexican red chiles.

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I think they’re good but perhaps not so distinct that we’d grow them out. I have a dozen other runner beans to test.

Another Variation on Chile Relleno

After falling in love again with Christmas Limas, I was determined to do something more with them.

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I boiled a plain old russet potato and then mashed it with some Christmas limas until it was like mashed potatoes. This alone was nice and if you had lots of parsley, you could even serve it as a side dish. I used this as the bottom layer. I took some poached turkey breast and tossed it with some Rio Fuego sauce and then added this to the charred, skinned poblano chile. I topped it with Manchego cheese and heated it in the oven until the cheese melted. I then made a little bra out of some corn husks to hold it all together. It was a winner!

Preparing Cactus: From Nopal to Nopalitos

Are your cactus ready to harvest? Mine are and since I’ve had a few requests for instructions on getting them ready to eat. I’d thought I’d do a little photo essay.
When the cactus is a paddle, the Mexicans call it a nopal, or nopales for plural. Once it’s cleaned and trimmed, the pieces are called nopalitos.

First, grab a dish towel and hold one end of the paddle as you make a nice clean slice at the base:

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Carefully wrap the dishtowel around the thick base of the paddle, but first notice how butch my hands look in this photo:

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Slowly cut along the outside of the paddle. There are too many spines to bother with so just cut around the paddle:

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Slowly go from base to top and remove the spines. You’ll be surprised how easily they come off but you won’t get them all. No worries. Also a common question is how to skin the paddle, but you don’t. In fact, do your best to just get the spines and as little of the paddle as possible:

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Now carefully go in all directions and get every last spine until there are none left:

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If you’re grilling your paddle, make cuts as shown so the paddle will cook evenly:

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If you’re boiling your cactus, cut it up into little squares. I’d prefer it of you take a little more care than I have in this photo:

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Rinse well and let drain:

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It’s that easy. If you’re boiling, I have a post here.
Enjoy your nopales, but remember, like love, they can hurt!

Blue Speckled Teparies

[This was on of my first posts when I started blogging but I think it’s been buried and forgotten. As things develop in the fields, I think it would good to look back at this crop. – Steve]

These
beans were incredibly fast growing. They first sprouted up after 5
days! The flowers arrived at about 5 weeks and they were small lilac
blossoms. The seem to blossom once, make a pod and then the plant
starts to fail. I’ve read severely cutting the water produces even more
blossoms. I’ll experiment next year.

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Special watering techniques perfected by Nico.

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The first blossoms.

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The first beans!

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The plants to start to fail and it’s near time to harvest.

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Nico helps harvest the bean pods.

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Dried pods.

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The beautiful Blue Speckled Tepary  bean.  Phaseolus acutifolius
is native to the American Southwest and northern Mexico. There are
still wild forms growing but the plant was domesticated over 5,000
years ago by various Indian tribes. Since they are an excellent source
of protein and fiber, and are drought tolerant, they should be
respected as an important crop. Here in California, we’ve been growing
them commercially for almost a century.

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Cactus Invasion

As usual, I’m late. The place looks like a mess.

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That little machine there is a brush mower and I finally started, getting ready to plant the bean trials. But as I was mowing today, I found lots of outcast cactus paddles. Earlier in the Spring, I was trimming a cactus and just threw the paddles across the field behind my house.

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The great thing is these paddles have decided to make themselves at home.

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My finger is pointing to a single root. I assume I broke it when I lifted the paddle to see what was underneath. The nice thing is, you can lay the paddles down or plant them vertically and they still want to grow.

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I just love examples of nature taking care of business if we just keep out of her way.

Sangrita

Drinking well can be such a bother. I like a strong drink now and again but I also like to linger over a drink and not get too drunk.  On my last trip to Mexico I discovered how great a shot and a sangrita can be. The shot is invariably tequila and the sangrita is a chaser that can be a spicy tomato mixture or a sweet and spicy citrus drink. There seems to be as many versions as there are bars. I liked almost all of them except for the commercial version which was cloying in its sweetness.

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I’ve never made it, and obviously that’s the next step. If you have a recipe I should try, please pass it on and I’ll do the same.

Back From Mexico

I’ve just come back from a really fine trip to Jalisco and Michoacan in Mexico. The real surprise was the city of Morelia. I had much the same reaction as I did when I first saw Venice: How come no one told me about this? I had no idea it was so wonderful. I love cafe life and Morelia’s is world class. It was like being in Europe only the food is spicy!

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I went hoping to find bean pots (ollas) to import but I didn’t have so much luck with this quest. I did find this nice small pot that will be good for half pounds of beans. It’s a fairly common shape but it is somewhat thick on the bottom and the handles were larger than normal. (Can you see me trying to justify my manic bean pot collecting?)

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I also came back with some new beans, of course, and I’ll be featuring them here over time. These beautiful beans caught my eye in the market in Patzcuaro, the charming town in the state of Michoacan. I asked the vendor what they were. "Frijoles", he replied. "I know frijoles (beans) but what type?" He looked at me as if I were nuts and said, "Frijol".  I compared them to a sample I got about two years ago and I believe the bean is called Patzcuarenses and it’s truly a local bean. I love the yellow and pink colors. Hopefully they’ll taste as good as they look.