Speckled Butterbeans

This past week, I shopped at the "Produce barn" in Gastonia, NC.  It's a small business that is full of herb plants, goat soap and you guessed it, produce!  Along side of the vegetables, they  have bins of beans.  Who doesn't like the feel of sticking your hands in a bin and just letting the beans run through your fingers (Shh, don't tell my kids I do that!).  This week I purchased the beans you see in the first picture.  They are called Speckled Butter Beans and are a southern food similar to Lima Beans.  I've never eaten either so I thought for $0.99/lb I'll try it!

I wasn't sure how long the beans would take so I decided to start my bean experiment at 4pm.  I sliced onions, diced garlic and washed the beans!  They are just beautiful beans, aren't they?

My dinner idea was to cook them in the marinara sauce that my husband bought as serve a vegan meat sauce using beans as the protein. We are certainly not vegans because I lack the discipline to succeed in that lifestyle choice but I do want to eat meat-free a few times per week.  The beans cooked for about 2 hours on the stove-top and smelled fantastic surrounded in the sauce.  I tasted them and still good.  I decided to puree most of the mixture so it was nice and smooth but loaded with nutrients. Things are going downhill now.  As I plated up dinner, as my daughter went to wash her hands, she asked me to give her 2 meatballs?!  Well, she was going to certainly wonder where her meatballs went as this is what she saw on her plate:

I sat quietly eating thinking how happy I was that my serving was small. It wasn't bad if you like a refried bean taste but even still, I added salt and looked around as everyone else began eating. Inwardly I wanted to scream...don't eat!  Stop...it's not what you think it is but I wasn't sure that laughing aloud wouldn't have been a better option etiher.  The crowd's response was going to be the indicator of success and here it comes.  One of my children didn't have any sauce so he was fine.  Another child didn't seem to mind the sauce meanwhile across the table, my husband was blatantly not happy with the taste of this bean sauce! Eventually, he ate his plate and then asked me not to cook it again.  He thought pasta deserved more.

Oh well; the sunshine of my day was that I had dehydrated 3 large tomatoes.  What we ended up with were these deliciously sweet treats that are a great snack for adults who like sweet and tart in the same chew.  So, above all else, my day was still victorious and I am thankful for optimism.  And the savior-a dehydrated tomato.