I'm afraid I've always tended to treat all beans as interchangeable (likewise all varieties of pasta) even though Rose Elliot does specify individual kinds of bean for different recipes! But it's easier to soak and cook an entire packet of one kind of bean and then use them in portions from the freezer as required rather than having lots of different kinds open simultaneously. And the vast majority of bean recipes do seem to require the beans to be pre-cooked before you start...
I also have Full of Beans by Peta Lyn Farwagi, which has the advantage that unlike most 'how do I use my dried vegetables?' books, it is not vegetarian. Likewise the Sunset Ideas for Cooking Vegetables, which gives ideas for serving vegetables as accompaniments (and what different vegetables go well with what other dishes), as opposed to assuming that you're a vegetarian striving to make your given vegetable into the main dish of the meal. Their prescription for 'butter-steaming' various items (add 2-3 tablespoons of water for every tablespoon of butter as required, cut vegetables small, and simmer with the lid on the saucepan until water has almost evaporated and contents are cooked) has become my default method of cooking courgettes, cabbage, broad beans, celery etc. as a side vegetable, since it's quicker and much more fool-proof than boiling in enough water to cover, as well as producing a lovely buttery sauce :-)
The main trouble with that book is that I picked it up from a second-hand box (as normal), and it's American; not only are all the quantities in cups where applicable, but you have to be able to translate the names in the index (e.g. marrows are 'summer squash'), and some of the vegetables listed aren't even available on this side of the ocean: chayote, nappa or jicama, for example. Its main advantage is that it's organised by vegetable -- with an inevitable degree of duplication where different vegetables are prepared in the same way or in similar dishes -- such that you can say 'I need to use up these leeks' and look up the leek section to find out all the different things you can do with them.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2019-09-24 09:35 pm (UTC)I also have Full of Beans by Peta Lyn Farwagi, which has the advantage that unlike most 'how do I use my dried vegetables?' books, it is not vegetarian. Likewise the Sunset Ideas for Cooking Vegetables, which gives ideas for serving vegetables as accompaniments (and what different vegetables go well with what other dishes), as opposed to assuming that you're a vegetarian striving to make your given vegetable into the main dish of the meal. Their prescription for 'butter-steaming' various items (add 2-3 tablespoons of water for every tablespoon of butter as required, cut vegetables small, and simmer with the lid on the saucepan until water has almost evaporated and contents are cooked) has become my default method of cooking courgettes, cabbage, broad beans, celery etc. as a side vegetable, since it's quicker and much more fool-proof than boiling in enough water to cover, as well as producing a lovely buttery sauce :-)
The main trouble with that book is that I picked it up from a second-hand box (as normal), and it's American; not only are all the quantities in cups where applicable, but you have to be able to translate the names in the index (e.g. marrows are 'summer squash'), and some of the vegetables listed aren't even available on this side of the ocean: chayote, nappa or jicama, for example. Its main advantage is that it's organised by vegetable -- with an inevitable degree of duplication where different vegetables are prepared in the same way or in similar dishes -- such that you can say 'I need to use up these leeks' and look up the leek section to find out all the different things you can do with them.