Beans are so beautiful, you may want to just look at them in a glass vase or jar!

http://images.search.yahoo.com...

These are native American beans. And there are many many more kinds than you are likely to find in your local store. A great subject for the slow cooker!

That is truly beautiful, Gloria. Thank you so much. When I was cooking for my family, I kept a very large canister full of mixed dried beans just like in the picture, but those were the days when I cooked every day. Those days are long gone.

I STILL DO IT. not every day, but at least once a week I cook up a pot of soup featuring beans. Recently I discovered cannalini beans (white kidney beans). Very filling and a good source of protein for a vegetarian like myself.

Cannonelli beans, some kind of broth, chopped onions, peppers, celery, tons of herbs and spices and whole mushrooms!! Saute' all the latter in olive oil then add to the beans and broth and simmer for awhile. Then sprinkle with parmesan. Yummmmmmy! One of my forever favorites.

That sounds really good Sharon.

That's about what I do. I add hot peppers and collard greens in addition to what you list.

Sometimes I add kale if I have it and @wcgypsy gave us a recipe that is almost the same on one of my Cubits. She added mild Italian sausage as well and called it something else. She is the one who mentioned the cannonelli beans because I had been making it using whatever beans I had. It works well with black beans too and I always have black beans. So the recipe is sort of a variation of Gypsy's. Maybe she'll come over and share hers since I tagged her name. She also mentioned the parmesan, I hadn't thought of it but it is great topping the soup.

Soups are my winter staples and seems like I can't have soup without beans.

Rita, I know how you love your veggies and so do I, but I hardly ever eat meat and I know hazelnut eats none, so most of our recipes will always be meatless. Another example is -- instead of hamburgers, I make bean burgers. Just as good and really require no bread/bun.

One of my favorites. I always have the makin's on hand.

Tuscan Bean Soup....(super quick and easy)

1/4 C olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, peeled, diced
2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 tomato, chopped
2 T parsley
1/2-1 t sage
2 T tomato paste
2 cans chicken broth
1 link Italian sausage, mild or hot, removed from casing, crumbled and sauteed

Saute carrot and onion in olive oil, 5-6 minutes
Add remaining ingredients and simmer 30 minutes to 1 hour...I do 30 minutes
Serve in bowls with lots of fresh parmesan....

Thanks so much, Gypsy!
I love this soup.

Well, I kinda do also....I eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner...lol..

I eat vegetarian meals and in the summer when I have lots of stuff growing in the garden I eat a lot of vegetarian. But I still eat meat, just that I don't eat anywhere as much of it as I used to do before my switching to eating healthy and exercise. I would say my main protein source is chicken, I eat a lot of chicken, then fish or seafood (love those) and then red meat last. I do eat a lot of beans and just love the flavor of black beans.

I would say as a vegetarian beans are one of my main protein sources. For the sausage -- I sometimes use a handful of tvp, with lots of spices though. Sage onion and oregano are basics, so I think those are the main flavorings in the sausage anyway.

Do you have a handy recipe for the bean burgers, Sharon?

Beans do make a great protein source and are a nice inexpensive food item. Plus they taste so good.

I had bean flavor Morningside Burgers with canned baked beans for lunch today. Yumm. So a completely vegetarian meal. But then I plan to have more baked beans with some fried up kielbasi for dinner. So you see I am not vegetarian at all, just part of the time!

I think the main way vegetarians err is to eat too much sugar & starch and not enough basic protein and fat. Beans + seeds fill the need. Beans taste like starch, but they are intact unlike flours and grains that are milled. They seem to work fine in a diabetic diet also.

I like the Morningstar Farms burgers also, but Im looking for scratch recipe that would taste at least as good as they do.

I watched a TV show the other day were a personal trainer comes and helps you loose weight. Besides the exercise they go thru your cubbards and throw out all the bad unhealthy stuff. The woman on this segment was a vegetarian. The trainer said that if she had not told him so he would have never guessed. Her eating habits were horrid. Starch and sugar galore with very little protein. Processed foods. No fruits and veggies. So really I guess the moral of the story is that a person needs to use common sense.

Sharon told me that you can grind up your own summer veggies and just fry up your own veggie burgers in the style of the Morningstar ones. I never did get to grinding up my veggies in the summer but I just ate lots of veggies prepared lots of ways. No Morningstar Burgers in the summer for me. I eat them during the fall and winter when I don't have my own home grown veggies to pick and eat.

Whew! I had a marathon of errands this afternoon and it's 25 degrees, too cold for errands!
Gloria, here's a good bean burger recipe that I love, it makes 4 good sized burgers:

1 can black beans rinsed and drained
1 small onion, I like Vidalia, but it doesn't matter
1/2 of a bell pepper
2 or 3 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup of bread crumbs, sometimes I use Stovetop stuffing mix and the seasoning is a good blend for the burgers
1 egg
a pinch of chili powder
and if you like them spicy then add a couple drops of hot sauce

Rinse and drain the beans, then mash them like potatoes
Chop up the pepper, onion and garlic really fine
Add the pepper, onion, garlic mix to the mashed beans

In a small bowl mix the egg, chili powder and the hot sauce together

Now stir the egg mix into the beans

Add the bread crumbs and mix until it holds together well, then divide into 4 patties.

Form the patties as you would any burger, then bake them at about 375 for maybe 10 minutes on one side then 10 on the other.
You can also fry them in olive oil if you prefer.

They freeze well too.

You can add other things to this, it's the eggs and bread crumbs that hold it together, but I always use beans as the base.

Let me know how you like it!

Ill have to make some substitutions, but it looks great to try. I think Ill try to sub tvp for the bread crumbs. As for sticking it together, Im not sure what. Thanks, Sharon.

A cooked potato and/or a cooked carrot could replace the bread crumbs but you still need an egg, I think.

I don't know of any vegetarian eggs. I guess there are vegetarian chickens, but not vegetarian eggs (!)

Vegetarian Chickens!

I thought vegetarians eat eggs while it is vegan that is not allowed eggs.