Yesterday, in an attempt to continue my Freezer Clean Out Challenge, I decided that I wanted to make something with black beans and bacon. I searched my entire pantry for some dried black beans and couldn’t find a single one! I was very disappointed that I didn’t have any but while I was searching, I found a bag of dried baby lima beans or as some call them, butter beans. I am not sure how old these beans are, but I know that I have had them for some time now.
You may be wondering how something so disliked as lima beans could end up in my pantry? Well, my husband has been know to buy out canned and dried food at estate sales since you can usually get it so inexpensively. Our last purchase like that was two summers ago and we got several large boxes of food for all of $10 or so. Yes, there were a few items that I couldn’t imagine myself using but it also gave me a good opportunity to try something new. Maybe that is where these beans came from.
My history with limas
When I hear the word “lima bean”, the first thought that comes to my mind is those horribly dry, tasteless beans that you used to find inside the bags of frozen mixed vegetables. My parents taught me that we were to eat things that we didn’t like. So when ever my mom served mixed vegetables with lima beans in them, I was not a very happy person. I learned to eat them and swallow them down quickly with the other vegetables. But I couldn’t have been happier when most mixed vegetable companies decided to do away with lima beans!!!
Fast forward to 1999!
When my husband and I were corresponding, one of the subjects that came up was lima beans. No, my husband loving lima beans was NOT a deal breaker to getting married however I really had no intention of serving them at my dinner table. I mean, how could any reasonable person really LOVE lima beans?!?!
A few years after we were married, some one gave us a small can of lima beans. I told my mom and she said that my great aunt had a recipe for creamed lima beans that I could make for my husband. That didn’t sound good to me, so the can of lima beans just lamented on the shelf in my cupboard for quite some time. Finally, my husband decided he was just going to open the can up and eat them with his dinner one night. Fine by me! I was happy to be gone with the can and didn’t want to seem them again.
Present day
When I found that dried bag of baby lima beans in my pantry, I knew that it was time to bite the bullet and just cook them. I have found that I like most every other kind of dried bean and I didn’t know why a lima bean would be so different. I turned to my network of fans on Facebook and asked for advice and recipes. I received a handful of suggestions and recipes and I also did some looking up of recipes on Pinterest. I finally found a recipe that sounded right up my alley, Crockpot Lima Beans. They were easy to cook and prepare and they looked tasty. I finally felt excited about cooking these dreaded beans.
I decided that since the beans weren’t finished with their initial cooking in the crock pot, I was going to take a quick nap while I waited. Well, needless to say, my “quick” nap turned into a hour and half! Oops! When I woke up, I ran to my beans and found them somewhat over cooked. This wasn’t a good start to making beans. Since the recipe for Crockpot Lima Beans required 4-5 hours of cooking time and it was already 3:30pm and I wanted to make these for dinner, I ended up scrapping that plan. Time for plan “B”.
I tasted the lima beans and they tasted pretty much like any other cooked, unflavored bean. They were tasteless leaving my imagination to create a bean dish for dinner. I took several recipes that I had read and decided to create my own dish of lima beans. I was hoping to make something with lots and lots of flavor.
I started with some butter and a chopped onion. I started to saute the onion and then thought that maybe adding some chopped jalapeno pepper and green pepper would taste good. Right now, I’m on a huge kick of cooking food with jalapeno peppers so this was no surprise to my husband that I decided to cook with these. When the onions and peppers were somewhat translucent but not brown, I added about a cup and a half of the cooked lima beans, salt and pepper and maybe 3 tablespoons of leftover cooked, ground hot sausage. I mixed everything together and tasted the beans. They still had very little flavor and it wasn’t what I was looking for. Racking my brain for something to make the flavor “pop”, I decided to add approximately 3/4 teaspoon of ground cumin. My husband and I love Mexican flavored foods and with a jalapeno peppers, it seemed that cumin may be just the right spice to add. I also added maybe 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the cooked bean liquid. Mixed it all together and took another taste of it and *BAM*, the flavor was exactly what I was looking for. It had the spicy kick of the jalapeno and the full bodied flavor from the cumin.
After years and years of despising the little lima bean, I am pleased to say that I can now affectionately say with my husband that I like lima beans (at least the ones NOT found in the frozen vegetable bags!). I would have taken a picture of them but they disappeared way to quickly. Maybe I will have to make another batch of them with the rest of the cooked lima beans.
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 1-2 Jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
- 1 green pepper
- 1½-2 cups cooked baby lima beans or butter beans
- ¼-1/2 cup reserved cooked bean liquid
- Salt and Pepper, to taste
- Cooked hot ground sausage or bacon crumbled
- ¾ tsp ground cumin
- Sour cream as a garnish, optional.
- Melt butter in skillet.
- Add onion and peppers. Cook until onion is translucent but not brown.
- Add beans, bean liquid, salt and pepper, sausage or bacon and ground cumin.
- Gently mix everything together and heat through. Serve hot with a dollop of sour cream on top
I love lima beans. When I was a kid, I picked out the frozen lima beans and ate them first, I loved them so much! I’m glad you’ve finally seen the light.
And this: “my husband decided he was just going to open the can up and eat them with his dinner one night” made me laugh aloud.