Despite, the rather poor quality Iphone pictures, are these not the coolest looking bean pods?! I happened to go to the farmer's market yesterday as I was in the area for work. My boy loves to go there so we stopped in. I was just commenting to a friend that I have never seen fresh beans in our local grocery stores other than green beans. I saw these beauties out of the corner of my eye and had to buy some.
These beans are cranberry beans. I have seen dried cranberry beans at a fruit market downtown, but have never tried them. I have never shelled beans before, but these were much easier to open than I had expected.
Each pod had between 4-6 beautiful speckled beans in them.
I shelled all of the beans, added them to a small pot and covered with water. I added a bit of olive oil, chopped garlic and about 2 ounces of chopped bacon. I brought it to a boil and then simmered for about 30 minutes. The beans lost quite a bit of their beautiful color. I am wondering if I let them boil too long. That's not really the reason I don't have a picture of the finished product. It may also be that I ate most of the beans myself ;) They were absolutely delicious. I would even venture to say the tastiest beans I have ever had. I saved about 9 of the shelled beans to see if they will grow in the garden. I sure hope so since I am wishing I had picked up more than the 3/4 of a pound that I purchased!
