Instant Bean or Cooking with Crazy Charley IV

Instant Bean

Author: Martin Ston

For years we've known how good beans are, but who had time for all that soaking, waiting, and cooking for hours? Now The Instant Bean lets us have our beans - and our busy lives, too. From filling and flavorful soups that are ready in less than thirty minutes but taste as if they've been simmering all day, to easy one-dish meals that are elegant enough for company and satisfying enough to feed a hungry family, this essential cookbook gives you more than 150 new and delightful ways to put beans on your table - fast! Whether it's fragrant Chickpea and Coriander Pesto spread on toasted pita bread, delicate Cannellini Beans with Lemon and Basil, or mouthwatering Black Bean Chocolate Mousse Pie, you'll find fabulous, inventive recipes for pita pizzas, no-cooking icebox soups, wrapped salads, and skillet dinners. These spirited dishes are filled with exotic flavors from Italy and India to the Far East. Noted cookbook authors Sally and Martin Stone also show you how a simple bean spread can add zip to baked potatoes, make a zesty filling for an omelet, or become a no-cook pasta sauce. They give you the lowdown on a variety of legumes, from limas to split peas. For instance, did you know that lentils are the fastest-cooking dried bean? Or that if you saute canned black beans to make them slightly crispy they make the perfect foil for tiny pasta? Plus they offer tips on choosing and preparing the perfect accompaniments for your bean dishes.

Publishers Weekly

No strangers to the nutritional versatility of beans, the Stones (The Brilliant Bean) are equally familiar with the common complaint that beans require too much preparation time to be a practical staple in today's kitchen. Their response is this collection of 150-plus innovative and appealing recipes that generally require no more than 30 minutes' prep time. Speed-it-up tricks include using canned beans when appropriate and, for dried beans, quick-soaking methods, using a pressure cooker and freezing recipe-sized portions of cooked beans. They describe characteristics of nearly 50 varieties of beans (including the not-so-common lablab, adzuki, molasses eyes and rattlesnake) and offer a chart of soaking and cooking times for dried beans. Recipes aim to please jaded palates: e.g., Black Bean Chocolate Mousse Pie; Garlicky Lentil Salad with Browned Sausage; Crisped Black Beans with Orzo and Toasted Walnuts; and Cannellini, Calamari and Spinach Stew. Home cooks will relish the range and ingenuity as well as the ease of preparation of these recipes, although the Stones' reliance on Maggi seasoning in so many dishes seems oddly limiting. (May)

Library Journal

The Stones are the authors of The Brilliant Bean (LJ 3/15/88) and Desserts with a Difference (LJ 4/15/93), recipes for sweets made with root vegetables and beans. Although their newest bean recipes aren't exactly "instant," they use canned, frozen, or fresh beans, not dried, so that they can be made in 30 minutes or fewer. Although quick, these dishes are not necessarily uncomplicated, and some combinations work better than others. Brooke Dojny's Full of Beans (LJ 3/15/96) offers a nice sampling of simple recipes for legumes; larger collections could add this title as well.

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Cooking with Crazy Charley IV: Cajun and Creole Cuisine

Author: Charley Addison

Cajun and Creole recipes from Crazy Charley Addison.