Beans and Chili!!!

Saturday night, I "dreamed" about making beans while I put the babies to bed. So, once they were finally asleep, I got out the beans and started them soaking:

2 cups garbanzos
1 cup small kidneys (or small chili beans)
1 cup pintos

Sunday morning, I cooked up the garbanzos and kidneys. 2 cups dried garbanzos are supposed to need 8 cups of water (plus one strip kombu) to cook. My pot only held the soaked beans and four cups of water, so I had to keep adding water as they cooked. 2-3 hours for garbanzos, so they were the first beans to start. (Lots of foam to scoop off!) Then, I started the kidneys. 1 cup dried kidneys to 3 cups water and one strip kombu. The soaking took away a lot of their bright red color, and the cooking some more. The kidneys were done in a little less than an hour and a half, before we left for the day to see a kung fu competition in Queens. The garbanzos got put on hold while we were out, and the pintos soaked some more.

When we got home around 6 Sunday evening, I finished up the garbanzos (another 20-30 minutes) and started the pintos. 1 cup dry pintos to 3 cups water and one strip kombu. They made the water really dirty looking...but seemed to cook just fine.

Why was I making beans? Well, two reasons. One: CHILI!!! Two: I don't have any canned beans any more, just dried beans, so I needed to make some and freeze them so I can actually cook during the week! :) I made the chili up this morning for D (and maybe J if it's not too spicy) for lunch. And lunch for me tomorrow!

Total yield from my four cups of dried beans:
5 1/2 cups cooked garbanzos (3 1/2 to the freezer)
2 1/2 cups cooked kidneys (1 1/2 to the freezer)
2 1/2 cups cooked pintos (1 1/2 to the freezer)

Slow Cooker Chili
2 cups cooked garbanzos
1 cup each cooked kidneys and pintos
1 small yellow onion, chopped
olive oil
1 large (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes
1 large (28 oz) can fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp Mexican chili powder
1/2 tsp + more ground cumin
some shakes paprika
2 small bay leaves

What to do
Turn the slow cooker on and add the olive oil. Add the onion once it's a little warm; add the spices. Stir together and let the onion and spices heat up for a few minutes if you can. Add the beans and tomatoes. Stir well to combine everything. Put the cover on and leave the slow cooker on high. Head off to work. Hope D remembers to turn it to warm at lunchtime! (He did!)

Thoughts
The Mexican chili powder, that I bought (at KeyFood) when my last chili powder ran out, is super spicy. And I mean SUPER. This chili, like my last, ended up too hot and spicy for J. I made it extra tomatoey (note the two LARGE cans of tomatoes) just for D, who loves beans and tomatoes. I had two small bowls (one is in the photo) of this for dinner, along with a bowl of the coconut squash casserole. Very satisfying dinner, and plenty of leftovers for lunch and dinner later this week.