---

I used the last of the little white skinned potatoes and put them with green beans & some seasoning meat. They turned out pretty well.

I started a pre-soak on some lima beans, putting in both salt and baking soda, and heating the water. Pulled it off the heat and let it sit for several hours.

I knew I wanted to make some more Cranberry beans & chard, so I thought… could I use the water in which I soaked the lima beans to soak the Borlotti beans. I did a google search and the questions & answers weren’t quite on target for the answer for which I was looking. The online answers address if you wanted to use the soaking water to cook the beans in. *I knew you wouldn’t want to do that because the soaking water was probably too salty, and whatever things had leached out of the beans, due to soaking, was what you were wanting to get rid of. And without looking, aren’t those the things that cause flatulence. But, I saw no reason not to try re-using the soaking water, saving it from the limas and putting the Bortolli beans it it to soak. I guess the worst that could happen would be that the baking soda would have been used up.

The butter beans turned out really well. Seasoning meat, some margarine and at the end, adding 5 biscuits as “pastry”. Placed the dough on top and then spooned some of the beans and seasoning meat on top of the pastry. Left it to cook for a while. Came back and the dough had cooked and the pastry had puffed up a little. The beans and pastry turned out to be delicious.

Hours later I drained the Cranberry beans and started to cook them, with some onion and seasoning. The beans seemed to have soaked well, and it took about an hour and a half to finish cooking them. I prepared the chard, onion & garlic for cooking, and cooking these down then adding the Borlotti beans and some chicken stock. It looks good. The taste was subtle, but still savory – “earthy flavored”.

Forgot that I also took a can of beets and “suped” them up by adding some balsamic & red wine vinegar and some sweetener. Drain off the liquid in the can prior to adding the vinegar. Put this in the refrigerator to chill.

So, lunch was limas & pastry, beets, and green beans & potatoes. All good, but my favorites, in order, the limas, the beets and then the green beans & potatoes.