Mary McDougall's Bean Stew

In Mary McDougall's video entitled "Planning Meals", she talks about all the super simple meals she makes for herself and Dr. McDougall. Throughout this past winter, I took her advice and made many of these really simple meals. Two or 3 days a week I make potatoes and vegetables, either with the Fat Free Golden Gravy, some leftover chili, or one of the Dr. McDougall Right Foods cups or boxes of soup or chili on top. Two days a week I make rice with veggies, and one day we use the Engine 2 Sweet Fire Dressing and the other our respective favorite sauces (the kid and I like teriyaki, hubby uses the Esselstyn 3-2-1 dressing). One day I make pasta (Jeff's Basic Marinara Sauce or Mary's Puttanesca Sauce are our favorites, although sometimes I switch it up and make mac and cheese using Mary's Oaty Mac and Cheese sauce). The other days I either make a Jeff Novick SNAP recipe, a Chef AJ chili, or one of Mary's many soup recipes (Festive Dal, Mexi, Black Bean, Your Kids Will Love This are our usual choices). Once in a while I would try something from an Engine 2 cookbook, or one of the older McDougall recipes from their books or newsletters, but not that often.

One thing I hadn't tried until now is Mary's Bean Stew recipe that she did in that video.



I have so many bags of beans on my pantry shelf, some leftover from when I belonged to the Rancho Gordo Bean Club, others I just picked up along the way for a recipe and never used. I figured before they get too old, let me try this. Here's what I copied down as the video ran:

Bean Stew

Cook a bag or 2 of unsoaked beans in a slow cooker
2 (or 3) x as much water as beans  (See my note way down below)
Turn power on High and cook 4-5 hours
Add 1 tablespoon or more of no-salt seasoning (Kirkland)
Toss in a handful of dried tomatoes
Re-cover and let cook a few more hours
Add at least 2 cups baby spinach, kale, chard or other greens
Serve over potatoes, rice, or other starch. 

Mary said she uses her older simple Crockpot and never used the slow cooker feature on her Instant Pot. Well, I did use my IPot. More on that later.

In the video, Mary said she usually uses 2 pounds of beans, and the night before used cannelini beans. I used a one pound bag of Good Mother Stallard from Rancho Gordo because that's what I have the most of at the moment. That and the water went into the I-pot, I put my largest Revereware skillet lid over the top, turned it to High slow cook, and walked away. About an hour and a half later I was walking through the kitchen talking to my son and noticed that for the first time ever, the little water catcher on the back of the Instant Pot had something in it besides crumbs of food. My son looked even closer and said not only is there water in it, it's over flowing and leaving puddles on the counter and it's flowing towards the floor! ACK! 

Now came a mad dash to staunch the flow, clean up the water that was already there, find my tried and true 40 year old brown round Crockpot. Well, it wasn't where I last saw it, and between mopping up water and going through storage spaces in this cramped apartment, my son found it buried behind the bread machine that hasn't been used in about 5 years. I take the lid off of it and YUCK! There was something growing in it. Apparently it either wasn't washed all that well or still damp when it was put away that last time and there was mold in the bottom of the crock. OK, keep calm - I still had a larger oval Crockpot that was purchased about 10 years ago for only $10 on sale at Target when they first opened the next city over. It was unused because I never needed the volume, then I bought the Instant Pots. Luckily I knew exactly where that was and it was easily dug out, crock part washed out, and the  search for a space in the kitchen - ANYWHERE in this apartment - big enough to fit it began. Eventually we were able to set up a tv tray in the hallway and find a heavy-duty extension cord (the cord on the new Crockpot is only about 15 inches long) and got it set up. I poured the beans and water from the Instant Pot into the Crockpot, turned it to High, added a bit more water to make up for what leaked all over, popped the lid on, and gave a sigh of relief. My son helped me put all the stuff that was pulled out of the cabinets during the searches back, poured soap and hot water in the old crock and left it to soak in the sink, found a new home for the newer Crockpot so I can easily get to it in the future, and tried to find a new home for the old Crockpot after I get it scrubbed out again.

Next time I just might make my beans in the Instant Pot under pressure, and for the next steps just put it on keep warm in the I-Pot. Unless these come out fantastic, that is. This kind of bean tastes pretty great made in the I-Pot, and since a lot of people say their beans taste better when slow cooked, if these taste any better than they already do you can be sure this will be added to our weekly menu.

The first 5 hours have now passed. The house smells fantastic. Some people can't stand the smell of beans cooking but my husband and I both love it, especially when the beans are from Rancho Gordo. 

Now it's time for the flavoring. Mary sings the praises of the Kirkland Signature Organic No-Salt Seasoning, a Costco product she now purchases through Amazon. I've tried a number of no-salt seasoning mixes over the decades, and I think I'm the only person alive who hates Benson's Table Tasty and Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute blends. I don't taste the other spices, only the citrus. It's just overwhelming. Instead, when a recipe calls for a no-salt seasoning, I go with Mrs. Dash's Table Blend. It, too, has orange peel and the other citrus flavorings that the other 2 have, but the taste is so muted I don't even notice them. So into the pot goes a tablespoon of it.

As for the tomatoes, Mary uses dried dehydrated tomatoes made from tomatoes picked from their own garden. I use this bag of smoked sun-dried tomatoes.

Stir everything up, make sure there's still enough water in there (or so I thought), lid goes back on. Now to wait until about a half hour before dinner so I can drop a ton of the baby kale/baby spinach greens mix into the pot. While that wilts up I'll make the same baby multi-color potatoes that Mary made. I usually microwave my tiny taters but to keep true to Mary's vision I'll cut and boil them for the 15 minutes she suggests.

Here it is in the Crockpot just after I added the greens. It was in a dark hallway and the only light came from a flashlight.

And here's the potatoes in the pot getting ready to boil:

Sorry for the lousy photo

Voila! He's the bean stew that Mary envisioned as a super simple meal, but in reality gave me a bit of grief, all served up in a bowl.

Notice it's very dry and not at all like stew as it is in Mary's photo. I can think of 2 reasons for this: 1) I lost more water than I thought when it dripped everywhere when in the Instant Pot, and 2) Mary used an older Crockpot whose temperatures were way lower than more recent Crockpots. I know my 40 year old pot has temps much lower than pots made even 25 years ago, about the time when they raised them because of botulism and other food borne bacteria scares. When that happened, so many writers of older recipes posted that the timing on all their recipes will now be off and if adjustments aren't made, food will burn. Well, this proves it. Even though I kept adding water, these beans still came out fairly dry. Mary said to use twice as much water when cooking the beans, I'll either use three times the amount (I adjusted the recipe to reflect this), or just make the beans in the older Crockpot or, if done in the Instant Pot, then continue cooking them on the Keep Warm setting for the rest of the cooking time.

Now for the taste test. Did the beans really taste better 1) slow cooked instead of pressure cooked, and 2) made without all the other flavorings I usually add to beans when I cook them, like onions, garlic, and Liquid Smoke? Aside from the dryness I already addressed, the beans tasted - - just okay. The addition of sun-dried tomatoes did add a different flavor than the usual onions and garlic that I usually add to my pots of beans. Not better or worse, just different. I do believe this dish would have been better served over rice instead of potatoes. I had mine as-is, but my husband doused his in sriracha sauce and was very happy with them.

I will make these again, probably as soon as next week, but will use a white bean, like cannelini, next time. And now that the older pot is scrubbed out and sparkling clean again, I may be using that one instead of this newer, hotter pot. I expect it to come out a little different once it has the right amount of water in it.

Thanks again, Mary McDougall, for another simple and tasty recipe. Well, it will be simple for me, eventually! LOL