Tag: canned beans

Cooking with Bulgur Wheat

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn grains1 Comment

A chewy, nutty form of wheat, bulgur cooks relatively quickly and contains loads of nutrients and fiber. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
Although I use many grains when cooking at home, I tend to overlook bulgur. When it sits at the front of my shelves, I reach for it as a base under everything from shrimp to shish kebabs, but I forget about it as soon as the jar gets shoved to the back. So I was excited to dig out my jar and create a primer about cooking with bulgur in my latest piece for Taste of Home.

This chewy, nutty form of wheat cooks relatively quickly and contains loads of nutrients and fiber. It comes in grinds ranging from fine to extra coarse—info that isn’t always listed on bulk bins or packaging. In the Taste of Home article, I explain how to identify the size, and thus the cooking time, as well as offering tips on preparing and using it.
Learn about cooking with bulgur wheat

Filling Salads

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Topic, Using3 Comments

Salads are so versatile: chop up some ingredients, toss them with dressing, and your fresh, one-dish meal is ready to eat. Get salad recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
Salads dominate my harvest menu. They’re so versatile: chop up some ingredients, toss them with a bit of dressing, and your fresh, one-dish meal is ready to eat. I start making homegrown salads as soon as spring greens show true leaves and don’t stop until the ground freezes.

Most salads fit the “no recipe required” category. Once you find your preferred ratios, even the dressing can be made on the spot with whatever’s at hand. If you follow @twiceastastyblog on Instagram you’ll find plenty of my daily salads. But I still get enough requests for ingredients and proportions that you’ll find a couple dozen salad and dressing recipes on the blog and can even gather your friends for a workshop. Some of these recipes are traditional, like panzanella, sunomono, and the two American classics in this week’s post. But as you’ll learn, all of these salads can be adapted based on what’s in season and what you have on hand.
Learn to make Three-Bean Salad and Taco Salad

Chive Blossoms

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Ingredient, Refrigerating, Using1 Comment

Chive Blossom Vinegar taught me to love infusions beautifully dress salads. Get vinegar and salad recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
We recently had a friend over for dinner and somehow ended up talking about vinegar. Well, not just talking—I was soon pulling an array of vinegars from a shelf in my tiny kitchen and explaining why I have so many, how this is just the daily stash, where I store gallon jugs for pickling and canning, and how we had unexpectedly found a mother in one jug that I was using to start my own vinegar. I may have been a little excited.

You could say that the tang of vinegar is my jam. My pantry collection typically numbers 7 bottles, which I put into everything from drinks to mac and cheese to pie crust. But because I like to mix and match flavors and keep many herbs and spices on hand, I only saw the point of infusing vinegars after I discovered a chive blossom infusion in Harry Rosenblum’s Vinegar Revival. It’s so easy to make that my recipe varies little from his instructions, but my first attempt, and probably favorite flavor, used garlic chives. The resulting flavored vinegar beautifully dresses a salad featuring fresh spring herbs.
Learn to make Chive Blossom Vinegar and Herbed Bean Salad with Fresh Mozzarella

Digging into Dried Beans

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Dry storage, Topic, Using2 Comments

People seem to have a love it or leave it relationship with beans. If you love them, you’ve probably had them cooked right. Read more about cooking beans.People seem to have a love it or leave it relationship with beans. If you love them, you likely have an underlying reason: they’re cheap yet filling, you’ve cut other proteins from your diet, or you grew up in a household, community, or culture that saw beans as a staple. Madhur Jaffrey starts her 750-page World Vegetarian cookbook with a section on dried beans. Louis Armstrong loved his beans so much he closed letters with “Red Beans & Ricely Yours.”

But the primary reason people love beans is that they’ve had them cooked right. Well-cooked legumes don’t just pack a nutritional punch; they have delicious flavors and textures and can be adapted to any meal, from breakfast to dessert. Unfortunately, people who rarely eat beans often only do so by cracking open a can and being immediately disappointed by the texture and taste—and the aftereffects. “The more legumes you eat the more you can eat them,” Jaffrey writes in her chapter on dried beans. And the more you know about how to cook beans, the more likely you are to eat them.
Read more about cooking beans