My folks got me a pressure cooker for my birthday this year:

Pressure Cooker, biiiiaaaatch!

This is awesome, because we've been rockin' dried bulk beans. Which in turn means we're:

  • not using new containers
  • saving money
  • cutting down on transport costs
  • more nearly ready for the Zombie Apocalypse

After 1.5 weeks (so I'm an official master now), I've gathered that it's totally unnecessary to presoak the beans, which for me was probably the major barrier to using dried beans. How am I supposed to know a day in advance what I'm going to want to cook? I've also gathered that 1 cup of dried beans becomes 2 - 3 cups of cooked beans. The longer the cooking time, the more the beans expand, i.e. the greater the yield. 1 - 1.5 cups of beans works pretty well with 7 cups of water (you use a little more water when you don't presoak).

Here are a few guesses at cooking times (I'll poke back in periodically with updates):

  • Chick peas: 25 minutes
  • Black-eyed peas: 10 -15 minutes (I tried 25, and they were pretty mushy)

This li'l guy worked great for VeganDad's Chickpea Cakes, Jumpin John, and Hummus.