Vegan Drunken Beans

When Bryanna released her April-May-June 2006 newsletter, I was intriqued by one entrée she presented: Drunken Beans. I pictured drunk little pinto beans are rolling over and swaying right to left. I was chuckling by myself reading the recipe which, indeed, contains beer, and therefore; it is called drunken beans. I might have a strange imagination but the vision of drunken beans reminds me of Mexican Jumping Beans. In fact, I googled them and ended up reading the article in the Internet about these jumping beans. It is so interesting that the jumping beans are not really beans and they really don’t jump but just roll around. What really makes them roll? It is not beer, for sure, but a larva of a small grey moth that has a peculiar habit to throw itself from one wall to the other. If you want to get acquainted with this peculiar moth, you can read the article and amuse yourself.

How easy it is to get off the subject of cooking beans to a larva of a moth in a seed capsule! Going back on track, this drunken bean dish is really really delicious! I think it is the best Mexican bean dish I ever made. I served the yummy beans with molé ‘chicken’ and Mexican rice. Both recipes can be found in Bryanna’s new newsletter, too. I added a garnish of grilled flour tortilla and avocado slices.

I changed the drunken beans recipe slightly by adding epazoté as suggested by Dori from the Bakehouse. Epazoté is a Mexican herb known to ward off the side effect of eating beans. For those who eat beans, you know what I am talking about! I really know what this gourmetsleuth.com article is talking about. DH and I are blaming each other all the time and we used to blame our dog (that poor creature that it is now in a doggy heaven). I didn’t notice the pungent and ‘gasoline/kerosene’ smell like this article mentioned about epazoté. This article says that it is referred to as an ‘acquired taste’ like cilantro. But we both like cilantro and we are used to authentic Mexican dishes living in California for years. In fact, I thought this bean dish tastes so authentic like the beans in Mexican restaurants. I will definitely be making this dish again and again.

Bryanna’s method of cooking was slow cooking with a crock pot or slow cooker. I chose to use my pressure cooker for 16 minutes and finished it up by simmering the beans until it became a chili-like texture for less than an hour. It really doesn’t matter, I think. Just a matter of making the beans to drink the beer fast or slow, but beans are beans!