Red Noodle Beans and An Idea that Failed

 

Last year my dad grew these beautiful Chinese red noodle beans (Baker Creek Seeds).  They were really beautiful to look at, and when cooked from fresh they were quite good – definitely good enough to grow again.  The down side was that they did not can or freeze well.  Perhaps we didn’t know the right trick, but they became very soft and mushy when we tried to process them for longer term storage.  Of course, canning beans required pressure cooking, which was more than these could stand up to.  The take away for us was that they are good for producing a large amount of summer food, but not so great for long term storage.

The flowers on them were pretty and looked like a typical bean blossom, only these grew on vines so they were more reminiscent of sweet peas.

I had cooked them before, I think, and knew that the gorgeous red would fade some when they were cooked, but one day I got the idea that since they were “noodle beans”, maybe I should just cook them whole like noodles.  Bad idea.  This is what they looked like on the plate:

Yeah.  Any gardener will know what those look like – earth worms.  Yuck!  :-)

Another reminder that presentation IS an important part of good food. :-)