Black Bean Soup

 INGREDIENTS: 

• 1 cup black beans, sorted and washed and soaked overnight.
• A handful of vegetables such as carrots and or celery, chopped 
• Water for cooking the beans
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon molasses
• 1/4 teaspoon oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon basil
• 2-3 tablespoons ghee
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 t coriander powder 
• 1/4 teaspoon asafetida
• 1/4 t ground black pepper 
• Slices of lemon 

PREPARATION:

1. Bring the beans to a boil in about 6 cups of water. Cover and lower heat to a simmer and cook. To shorten cooking time, start the beans early in the morning with salt, a few hours before it's time to cook the meal. Bring to a boil, cover and let them sit until ready to prepare the meal. Then cook about 1 1/2-2 hours (unless you have a pressure cooker) until the beans are very soft.
2. When the beans are nice and soft, add the molasses and the oregano and basil.
3. Next, in a small saucepan, heat the ghee until nice and hot and add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds. When the mustard stops popping add asafetida and black pepper  and coriander powder and pour into the soup.
4. Offer to Krishna with rice and a slice of lemon to squeeze into the soup.

VARIATION:

Leave out the vegetables. Add a little more beans and cook until thick with less water. They should be cooked 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours until very soft.

Butter Making Tip

 

How to get homemade butter onto the butter dish without getting your hands messy? (We're talking about butter made from fresh cow's milk rather than the store bought kind that contains thickeners.) After separating in a strainer the butter from the buttermilk, flip the butter onto a metal pan. Tilt the pan and with a flat ended, wooden spatula, squeeze out the remaining buttermilk. In this way, the butter will not get stuck to the wooden spoon nor onto the metal pan, making a mess. Instead, it will consolidate into a nice lump of butter.

Pressing the butter up against the edges of the pan, allows buttermilk to flow away from the butter and collect at the bottom. Carefully pour that off and transfer the butter for storage or other purposes.

Now you have nice butter for Krishna's offerings! 

Diy paper towels

I learned this from a friend many years ago: If you want to avoid plumbing problems, as far as possible, it's important to prevent grease from getting into the kitchen drain. 

In that case, paper towels work great when dealing with greasy pots and pans that are ready for washing. But you won't have to buy any towels if next time a package arrives in the mail and the contents are wrapped with brown paper. You can save and use that paper!

I used to stash the brown wrapping paper as is, somewhere in our storage room, but quickly learned to roll it up into tidy little packets so it wouldn't take up much space or look messy. And then they could be stored more conveniently in a kitchen cabinet rather than me walking to the storage room and dealing with an unruly pile of paper, as before.

So when I finish frying something or there is a greasy pot that needs cleaning, I can unwrap and tear off a piece as needed to do the job. 

If doing this with a pan made of cast iron, I also like to spread a little of the grease collected on the paper, onto the back of the pan to prevent rust.

And when finished wiping off any excess, the pieces of greasy paper can be saved for fire starters if you have a fireplace or fire pit!