NATIONAL LIMA BEAN RESPECT DAY
National Lima Bean Respect Day on April 20th gives the humble lima bean its due. When cooked, fresh lima beans have a creamy texture. However, dried lima beans once cooked serve up a bad reputation due to their graininess. There are ways to achieve smooth, buttery lima beans using dried beans.
First, it’s important to sort the beans and discard any wrinkled or cracked beans. Place the beans in a large bowl and cover them with three times as much water as you have beans. If any beans float to the top, immediately discard those, too. Soak the remaining beans overnight.
If you would like to read the rest, go here.
I think I’ll pass. Never had a lima bean I liked. Don’t think I’ll try another one as they are just too dry.
Hey, wait a minute. Smothered in real butter. I could do that!
BTW, anyone have good recepies using the oft misunderstood lima bean?
h/t ex-vegetarian
I buy frozen.
You can boil them in chicken or vegetable stock, throw some salt and lemon on them.
Or hide them in my salad. lol!
I don’t mind Lima beans at all.
But split peas, and the soup they came in with, can just plain go to hell. lol
I have absolutely no use for either lima beans or chickpeas(garbanzos)- all the texture of Gulf sand with an amazingly similar flavor.
Black, red, & pintos are all one really needs.
I like navy beans, but it takes like, 4 days to cook them. Ain’t nobody got time fo dat.
I have a GREAT recipe for Lima beans.
Slow boil them for two days. Remove from heat and cool for 2 hours. Using a wooden spoon gently scrape them into the garbage.
Done.
MJA, I always start beans, whatever they be, with a salt, pepper & garlic soak, overnight or longer depending on the beans.
It’s amazing how much water they soak up, and it keeps them from drying out in the pot.
We like to cook leftover ham & with beans in the crockpot, bag & freeze and they last a long time.
https://youtu.be/FXHkFZ-nG4Y
I think that some time back in about 1985 or 86 I had some lima beans that didn’t make me gag.
That said, I’ve been told I’ve eaten lima beans without knowing it and declared them good. I didn’t know it because they were drenched in either hollandaise or aioli, and the dish included bacon. So there’s that.
No! Not even with butter and salt…
BUT that was when I was growing up, so maybe my mommy did not cook them correctly!? :>O
Like anything other food, just about, limas have there own specific methodology of being cooked, turns out.
And the same goes for brussel sprouts TOO! Too mushy, okra the same, etc…
You have to use Camellia Large Lima beans, slow cook in chicken stock with onions & a ham bone w/ meat & a bay leaf.Dont salt till almost ready. Cooking dried beans with salt makes them tuff & grainy. But Monday is for red beans and rice & they are almost done.
Notice. My recipe didn’t waste perfectly good salt, butter, pork. None of that.
LOVE ‘EM!
Butter beans are a staple in our household. Margaret Holmes seasoned (under $2 a can) are excellent with ring sausage. My own concoction: 2 cans B.B. to 1 can of split pea soup, simmered with sausage or the meat of your choice. My daughters are picky and they’ll eat the whole pot before I get sat down. Great in cold weather.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf2_kBjHlKo
There is nothing like a canteen cup full of cold mashed potatoes and those muther phukers … just sayin’
What’s wrong with you IOTWers???? I love baby lima beans with butter and pepper. Also large lima (butter) beans with pork ribs and sauerkraut. I know you’re all sushi eaters, right?
I still liked them Cooked with ham
With Buttered bread, and a strawberry Nesbitt’s
PHenry and I use the same recipe. LOL
I grew them one hot summer years ago. Some were the size of 50¢ pieces. Best I ever tasted. They’re completely different fresh picked as opposed to dried. Gourmet. (Most people have never eaten fresh and don’t know this.)
But I don’t eat lentils or legumes any more. 🙁
Now wait a minute. Fresh grown butter beans are completely different. Fresh butter beans and fresh corn smothered in real butter simmered together? Delicious!!!
Nope, not now, not ever, called them slima beans when I was a kid. But green peas are worse, I hate green peas.
@ JDHasty: I always thought there was one big problem with that scene. There shouldda been a giant fire ball…
My Dad used to wait until they were large, yellow and tough before picking them in the garden. Then my Mom would boil them and force all of us to eat them. The only wasy I could that torture was smother them in ketchup.
Nobody likes succotash?
Thufferin thuccotash! It’s a waste of good corn mixed in with the slima beans. And besides just calling it succotash makes it gross sounding. I’d rather eat lime Jello with shredded carrots in it which my aunt would make a lot, no thanks.
I’ve had lightly pan cooked, soft lima bean-sweet potato-goat cheese-and garlic salad that was on the plus side of okay.
I haven’t made a habit of it yet. I still have a freezer full of Horseshoe Bat and Pangolin to finish.
geoff the aardvark, now THAT is gross. Vomit gross. I’ve done it after eating it. Okay, the lime Jello had carrots AND cottage cheese in it! (Why, God, do some women think it’s yummy?)
@ Grool
You are right! Butter beans with cornbread are awesome. My mom cooked them with a ham hock. Green lima beans are straight from Satan’s kitchen. They suck!
Pinto, Navy and Northern White beans are my favorites. Lima beans are ok, but not preferred. I can tolerant Black beans on occasion.
I can get three in each nostril,one in my left ear but they fall out of my right ear…wonder whats going on outside.
I like green lima beans. I find the dried limas repulsive. I usually buy Green Giant frozen green limas in butter sauce.
Eugenia, really fresh fish isn’t even in the same category as those bush-grown monstrosities!
As a kid lima beans were my favorite. You just reminded me that I should start buying them and relive my childhood.
Polish grandmother made them like this-Saute in butter until soft, add fresh dill to your liking. When I say butter, I mean probably two sticks worth. Lots of butter. Salt and pepper at the end. And add more butter once you plate it. They’re good.
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“If any beans float to the top, immediately discard those”
In 2010. I did not immediately discard those floaters.
The World has never been the same.
Sorry, that was me.
I guess I’m the only one who cooks beans with salt pork. That gives it flavor and meat to go with it. Favorite seasonings into the pot (no salt needed, thanks to salt pork) good cornbread on the side and you are good to go. All washed down with iced tea, of course.
As kids we loved the lima beans because they had more mass than other beans. When you’re hungry you realize mass is more important than taste. Same principle applies to oatmeal.
My Irish mother boiled the hell out of them, yeah, there was some butter involved . But never enough butta for those dreaded Sunday after noon lima beans.
The pot roast and bisquick dumplings were amazing though.
I like Lima beans BUT Ghost doesn’t so I never buy them. Haven’t had them in years and I never see them on a menu or at a buffet! So I guess after reading all the post about how they really aren’t a crowd pleaser, I now know why.
Lima bean day= Hitlers birthday.
nough said.
@mja – I meant to add, since you mentioned frozen? ALL of the vegetables I grew up on, WERE frozen, spinach being my favorite, butter and salt of course.
To this day that is how I dig it with a nice lamb chop and mint jelly.
@Mary Hatch – okay, okay so I’ll give it a try, IF we try some of the above great suggestions!
Great post C!
I hate lima beans just like I hate liberals
I hate okra just like I hate liberals
I hate garbanzo beans like I hate liberals
Any other questions???
“you’re all sushi eaters, right?”
Not even with a gun to my head.
I love love love Lima Beans. Picked ’em as a kid. Eugenia nailed it; Margaret Holmes canned is the essiest. Great flavour too.
But Lima Bean dishes from dried works too.
Great food requires good patience.
Of course I respect Lima Beans. Especially in the morning.
Big fan here- pass ’em over.
Don’t eat them uncooked, tho.
This is about _raw_ limas:
“…In order for lima beans to poison you, they must be chewed. Chewing brings linamarin and the enzymes that react with it together. Both compounds are present in the cells of lima beans, but they reside in different areas. Once they are brought together, a reaction ensues and hydrogen cyanide is produced. Because cyanide isn’t produced until after the plant is consumed, the symptoms of cyanide poisoning can take a little while to occur – often several hours.
… guess I should reiterate at this point that most cultivated lima beans contain low (read “safe”) levels of cyanogenic glucosides and, particularly when cooked, are perfectly safe to eat.”
https://awkwardbotany.com/2016/01/20/poisonous-plants-lima-beans/
Like them or not, I’ll respect them. And they were cultivated in the Andes 4000 years ago.
Hominy sucks, too!
Meh. Don’t buy ’em but don’t refuse to eat ’em.
But, has anyone heard of marrowfat peas? Same sort of texture and color, large round peas. Popular in England and Ireland, generally fixed as ‘mushy peas’ with a hint of mint. Lima beans with style. We grew them fresh last year and they were even better than the canned version we find in the import aisle.
Today is also National Pineapple Upside Down Cake Day, which I will be celebrating instead!
In a pot place on pound bag frozen lima beans and cover with water. Add three to four bay leaves and bring to boil. Simmer for over an hour. In hot frying pan add 2 tablespoons oil, one chopped medium onion, two chopped celery stalks and one chopped red pepper. Saute until onions just start to carmelize. Add two sliced andouie sausages, couple shakes of smoked paprika, half teaspoon of thyme and several twists of black pepper and use 1/2+ teaspoon of your favorite cajun seasoning. Once lima beans are soft, poor into frying pan and mix with vegetables and sausage. Cover and let simmer another 15 minutes to let flavors combine (may need to add some more water). Finish with a splach of tabasco or vinegar. Adjust cajun seasoning if required.
Y’all are weird. I like them fine, but when I cook a pot of beans, it’s usually the pinto variety. We had every kind of bean imaginable on the table when I was growing up.
beans, beans, good for the heart
the more you eat ’em,
the more you…
Some funny stuff, here!
I’m not a “picky” eater – Lima beans, Baked beans, Great Northern beans, Kidney beans, Boston beans, String beans, Pinto beans, Black beans, Re-fried beans, Rice and beans, Ham and beans, Chili and beans, Black-eyed peas, green peas – hell, all that shit – long as it got some pig fat, salt, and pepper in it.
izlamo delenda est …