Crockpot Cooking: Organic Beans and Rice

Crockpot Cooking: Organic Beans and Rice will provide some quick and easy cooking techniques for organic beans and rice. I’d like to consider myself a “modern cook” in that meals must be healthy, economical, and ideally prep time should not be more than 20 minutes.

I’ve never been one that liked cooking over a hot stove and/or running to check the food every few minutes to ensure that it does not burn. With that said you can see why using the crock pot is an important cooking technique within my household.

Note: Organic foods are grown without herbicides, pesticides, or synthetic fertilizers. Organic foods are not genetically modified and are grown in soil that is nurtured, not treated...

Organic beans can be purchased fresh, dried, or canned. Personally, I prefer the organic dry beans because of the ease in preparation plus I can control the cooking time of the beans; whereas, if you purchase the canned organic beans they have been pre-cooked and tend to cook to a softer texture.

Beans are an excellent source of vegetarian protein and most beans are full of fiber, phytochemicals, folate, potassium, protein, magnesium, vitamin B-6, zinc, copper, and iron. And to those that are thinking of the ole rhyme “Beans, beans, good for the heart. Beans, beans will make you f*rt.” Well doctors are now saying that a healthy person have “gas” at least 14 times a day. O.k. moving along, as one can see there are many health benefits such as lowering blood cholesterol, cancer fighting, assisting in maintaining one’s weight, and high in antioxidants.

Beans and rice are an inexpensive meal that is nourishing and offers a variety of tastes for a minimum cost. Now that most are feeling the pinch of our strained economy beans and rice meals can offer a great savings to an individual’s household budget.   You can easily feed a family of 4 a meal consisting of beans and rice with a healthy green salad or an inexpensive cut of meat for around $4 to $6 US dollars.

Adzuki beans

Anasazi beans

Baby Lima beans

Black-eyed peas

Black Turtle beans

Chick Peas

Flageolet beans

Garbanzo beans

Giant White beans

Great Northern beans

Red Kidney beans

Pinto beans

Soy beans

And a variety of others

The level of difficulty for cooking beans and rice is easy. The only drawback is that they can take a long time to cook, however most of the time is spent soaking or cooking on their own in the pressure cooker or crock pot. The actual “hands on” time required is only about 10 to 15 minutes.

How to Wash Organic Dry Beans and Rice

Beans - Before using beans or legumes they should be rinsed thoroughly in a bowl or colander under running cool water in order to sort out any unwanted foreign objects like stones, half beans or other debris. After the washing then it is time for the soaking step.

Rice – Rice should be washed in a large bowl filled with cold water. Swirl the rice around with your hand until the water becomes cloudy with starch. Pour water off and repeat this process three or four times until the water is reasonably clear. Now you are ready for the soaking step.

How to Soak Organic Dry Beans and Rice

Rice - Most organic rice requires a soaking time of 15 to 30 minutes prior to cooking so that the rice can relax and be easier to digest.  If you like you can soak the rice in the morning while you are getting out the crock pot and rinsing off the beans.  Or one can skip the washing of the rice and soaking and purchase a box of organic rice like Uncle Ben's or any organic rice that is a ready to cook form.

Beans -  I prefer what is called a “normal” soak method of soaking because once you’ve washed the beans you simply place then in a container and cover them with four times their volume in water and let them soak at least 8 hours or overnight.  There is a “quick” soak method that entails bring the beans to a boil for a minute, covering, and letting them sit for an hour.

Now that you’ve properly washed and soaked your organic beans and rice you can simply follow the steps provided in the video or you can use one of your own favorite recipes. Place ingredients in your crockpot set the appropriate temperate and off you go to work, run errands, or other tasks that one has to do prior to dinner. There nothing greater to me than to walk into one’s home and smell dinner already prepared.

Note: Beryl Stokes in the video is related to fellow hubber Mike Stokes be sure to check out his hub Cajun Red Beans and Rice.

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