Bean soup is a staple in our home. It’s one meal everyone in our family likes and looks forward to eating every time I make it. 16 bean soup also lends itself well to food storage. So I thought I would try cooking it in the HERC XXL tealight oven.
The only caution is that bean soup generally has large beans (lima beans and kidney beans) that need to be boiled because of a toxin called phytohaemagglutinin (kidney bean lectin). I talk more about it here. You need to make sure that your beans are boiled for 10 minutes. The beans will boil in the HERC oven; it does get that hot. However, it’s not simple to make sure. If you continue to open and close the lid you let a lot of heat out. So a couple of things you can do are boil the beans on a stove for 10 minutes and then let them finish cooking in the HERC oven, or use a glass pot and keep an eye on the pot through the window, or just skip the large beans and go with the smaller beans for your soup.
I opted to boil my beans for 10 minutes on a stove top, then place them in the HERC oven to finish cooking.
I preheated the HERC oven. Here are my beans after boiling 10 minutes. This cast iron pot helped keep in the heat from boiling so everything was warm when I began cooking in the oven.
This was my view from the window. Yeah, I’m a messy cook, but the food is usually good.
To make the cornbread place a cookie sheet on top of my cast iron pot.
Then place the cornbread on top of the cookie sheet.
The beans and cornbread can finish at the same time if you time them correctly. I had to stop and grind some flour and cornmeal so it took me a while to get the cornbread in the oven. My beans finished first so I took the beans out and let the cornbread finish. The beans took about 2 hours to cook fully. The cornbread would take about 35 minutes if it were placed in the oven alone. However, since it was on top of the beans for a bit and then alone in the oven for a bit it took about 50 minutes to cook.
16 Bean Soup
1 pgk Bean Soup Mix (Discard Flavor Packet)
1 can Diced Tomatoes
1/4 c Dried Peppers (Anaheim)
2 T Dried Onion
1 T Celery Powder
1 T Garlic Powder
1 t Salt
1 t Oregano
1 T Basil
1 t Thyme
1 t Rosemary
2 Bay Leaves
Soak beans overnight or at least for 4 hours. Discard water and rinse beans. Mix all ingredients together and cook until beans are soft. (about 2 hours)
Corn Bread
2 c Cornmeal
2 c Soft White Wheat (or flour of choice)
2 T Baking Powder
1 t Salt
2 c Milk
1/2 c Apple or Pear Sauce
1/2 c Maple Syrup
2 T Sugar (for sweeter bread)
Mix all ingredients together. Bake until golden brown or until bread passes the toothpick test. (about 35 minutes)
