My friend and co-author, reelcooings, invited me over to his house. After he advised me he was going to be making tacos, he immediately asked what I was bringing. The only thing I could think of was pinto beans and I had a bag of dried ones in the cupboard.
Luckily, I had more than 24 hours notice. So into a bowl of water went 8oz of dried pinto beans.
As I understand it, the enzymes, impurities and scum in the soaking water is what causes gas, aka farts. The next day I drained them, rinsed them with clean water before putting them into the Ninja Foodie XL. Also, in the Ninja was waiting hot fresh water and a small tub of left over stock & fat from my bone-in pork rib roast.
3 L of water or just about 13 cups, plus roughly 3/4 cup of fat and 3/4 cup of stock.
I decided these beans would be adventurous. And like so many things I create I went to check my stores. Buried in the back of the freezer I found a 16 oz bag of diced onions and toss them in too.
The aroma was amazing but it didn't have that meaty quality. I didn't want to put in bacon, lunch meat or hot dogs which I had on hand. I also didn't want to run to the store. So again back into the deep recesses of my freezer, I found a brick of frozen little smokies and into the pot they went.
If you don't count the time the beans were soaking I would say the total prep time was less than 5 minutes. I put the pressure cooker lid on the Ninja and set it for 1 hour. it looked and smelled amazing throughout the entire cooking process and when I opened the lid it looked even better. However, other than the seasonings carried from the leftovers, frozen little smokies and frozen diced onions it needed something a bit more. A small 6 oz can of tomato sauce gave it a nice bright color and brought with it some of that tomato acidity to cut through all the fat.
It then started to look a little bit more like pork and beans.
After removing the lid from the pressure cooker, earlier, I left it on its warm setting. I didn't shut it off entirely. It was definitely warm but not simmering. after another flavor check I decided it needed a little bit of paprika and black pepper. I walked away to let the tomato bake off and the seasonings married for about 20 minutes with the pot just sitting there on warm. At this point, I was about an hour away from my expected arrival had my buddies house. I gave it another taste and it was awesome, but I simply couldn't help myself and decided to slice up a yellow and red pepper that were about to go if I didn't use them in the next couple of days. The yellow and red pepper add a more citrusy flavor and really jazzed up the beans. I had thoroughly cleaned them and decided not to cook them just to let them sit there in the pot on warm until it was time to go. They definitely loosened up a little bit but still had texture that the beans and sausage lacked. Adding sliced peppers to a hot pot of beans was actually one of the stars of this particular side dish.
It was time to go and I threw the entire pot into something more travel ready.
I'm a big fan of beans with little smokies now! But, I will also never make beans again without red and yellow bell peppers!
As for the degassing of beans it's really hard to say. I did not have any gastrointestinal issues or farts *shrug* so, does rinsing beans prevent gas and farts? Sure? Maybe? *Shrug* I will tell you this, I would not want to stick that scummy water from the first picture into my mouth and therefore it did not end up in my ninja foodie XL either.
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