Bean Cuisine

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen. Today's show is all about beans, beans, beans. You know, beans are

tasty and a healthy food that's often overlooked, but not today. And did you know that you can grow

your very own beans right in your garden? Today I'm going to show you how. So first up is my

apple baked bean casserole that's just fabulous as a side dish or even as the entree. And then

I'm gonna be making us a black bean salsa dip. It's just perfect

And then next up is a buttery and delicious green bean casserole

And then finally for dessert, I'm baking peanut butter cake. Bet you didn't know that peanuts are beans too, did you

So, stick around and enjoy this wonderful cuisine of beans. I can see my grandmother now out in her garden

She always made sure that she didn't plant her beans when the soil was below 60 degrees

And if you want a fall garden, she always planted a fall garden too. You plant those 10 to 12 weeks before the first frost is expected

As I'm standing here looking, I see some bell peppers that need picking

I've got two nice bell peppers and I've got some red leaf lettuce

I just adore red leaf lettuce. It's such a tender lettuce. I love my garden

This red leaf lettuce is just beautiful. But we've had some rain, and dirt has splattered up on it

so I'm going to have to make sure I wash it real good. But I'm just going to sit it over there in the sink

and give it a little squirt of water right now to keep it going

because today is bean day. In fact, I heard somebody a while ago kidding around

They were saying Paula Deen the Bean Queen. And I'm gonna start with an old traditional dish

baked beans. So we're gonna start with two cans of Boston baked beans

They're called Boston baked beans because the recipe came out of Boston

All right, we've got our beans in here. Now we're going to add some diced onion

some brown sugar, some mustard. Now the surprise ingredient in this recipe

is a Granny Smith apple. And the reason I'm using a Granny Smith

is they'll hold their shape. It has a wonderful texture to it

Now here on this next step, you can add bacon fat or you can just put your bacon on top of your beans

And I think that's what I'm going to do because I love bacon

All right. I've got my casserole dish here and now I just want to spray our pan

Okay. So all we're going to do is dump our beans into our casserole dish

and we're going to top it with our bacon. Just like this

Doesn't that look delicious? Now, if you wanted to, you could take the scissors

and snip your bacon into bite-sized pieces so that everybody would get their own little piece of bacon

But I want to show you another way that I like to bake these

And I've got a little individual bean pot. So I think I'm gonna just take some of these out

and fill this up. And I think I'm gonna just steal a little piece of bacon

because I want to show you how these come out in the little bean pot

That's 350 for about 40, 45 minutes. Okay, in the oven

And I just love baked beans. Baked beans just go with so many things

Well, let's move down here to another one of my favorite foods, salsa

I'm gonna start with an avocado and I just going to run my knife around and give it a twist and go in and just loosen that avocado from the skin

I adore avocados. And I'm just going to dice him up just like this

Okay, pop that seed out of there. It does look like a big bean, doesn't it

You know, I always said that I didn't like avocados. And then I found out that they were fattening

and I said, well, I know if it's fattening, I should like it. So I went back and I gave it another try

and sure enough, I loved them. But they say they have the good kind of fat in them

not bad fat. All right. Now I'm gonna pour in two tablespoons of lime juice

And I'm gonna add my black beans and I've got two cans of black beans

a little red wine vinegar, two tomatoes that I've diced up, diced onion

and this is just a frozen shoe peg corn. Okay, all this needs now is a little cilantro

Some people don't like cilantro. It was another thing that had to grow on me

I really like it now. Not a whole lot of it, though

Because to me, a little of this goes a long way. And now it's ready just that quickly

This is going to do nicely. I think I am going to add a little salt

and a little pepper, just right. Let's see

I think I'm just gonna do it like this. That'll make me a nice little scooper

So we got two quick and easy dishes. And I have found that when young people come to my house

they'll scoff this up in a minute because they feel like they're eating kinda healthy

But look how pretty and quick that was for us to put together

And you're gonna love, with your different colored chips and all the different flavors we've got going on

in there. All right, I want to check on these beans and see how they're doing. Oh, they smell

so good. Look at that little individual serving there. Isn't that cute? When we come back

I'm going to dig into that because it's way too hot. But right now, I'm going to dig into this

cool sauce. And when we come back, it's going to be Paula Deen, the queen of beans, cooking up a

green bean casserole. So I'll see y'all in a minute. Mmm. All right, we're back

And I hope y'all are hungry because it's time to taste this bean and apple casserole

This is just different twist for baked beans. Mmm. That is so good

The next thing I'm gonna be making is a green bean casserole

Everybody loves them. You go to a covered dish supper, you're gonna find the green bean casserole

I use those beautiful, fresh green beans out of the garden and I have cooked them in a little chicken stock

until they're tender, and these are ready, so I'm gonna back up over here, and I'm gonna drain them

Give them a good shake. And in this pot, I'm gonna put, oh gosh

probably a third of a stick of butter, and let that melt

I can't tell you how much better that casserole is if you will saute your onions first

It makes all the difference in the world. So we're gonna saute these in that third of a stick of butter

until they're kind of just translucent. We just wanna pull the flavor out of that onion

All right, we're gonna saute those onions and the mushrooms just for a few minutes

They don't need to be mushy. And I'm gonna give our beans a stir

and just make sure that they're draining. All right, that looks good

And I just gonna pour that liquid out of there and pour these green beans back into the pot When a green bean is ripe it just does not get any better

And one day maybe we'll cook up some canned green beans, but today I've got the pleasure of cooking fresh

All right, now we're gonna throw these over in here, turn off our ice, and we're gonna stir in

a cream of mushroom soup. Now, most people will top their green bean casseroles with either a buttered cracker

bread crumbs, or onion rings. Now these little onion rings, today we're gonna fold them in

Doesn't that look yummy? All right, now I'm gonna taste this and then see how it is

It's the best bean I've ever eaten. Now here, I'm gonna put these on my greased casserole dish

As I told you before, I love cooking individual servings, especially if you're just having two to four people

Doesn't that look delicious? All right, so we're gonna put this in a preheated 350-degree oven, and then we're

gonna pop it with cheese. And when we come back, I'm gonna make a peanut butter cake

Now what does peanut butter cake have to do with beans, you ask

You come back, and I'll clue you in. All right

Our casseroles look wonderful. Now I'm just going to top these with a little cheese

And we'll give that a couple of minutes to melt. Because this cake I'm fixing to show you, it's so easy to make

and we'll have it in the oven in no time flat. This recipe comes from my Aunt Trina

and we're gonna start by sifting our flour and our sugar. All right, we've got our sugar in there

we've got our all-purpose flour, we're gonna put baking powder in it

and a teaspoon of salt. And we're just gonna sift this into our mixing bowl

by using a spatula, and that takes care of that. We're gonna add two cups of graham cracker crumbs

and some peanut butter because we're making a peanut butter cake. A little vegetable shortening

And our liquid for our cake is milk. And we're gonna add about a teaspoon of vanilla

Now, all we're gonna do is move this to our mixer, turn it on and let it go

And then we're gonna add three eggs, one egg at a time

So you can see how simple this is to have a homemade cake from scratch

I miss my Aunt Trina so badly. We were like sisters growing up because she was just three years older than me

But when I eat this cake, yes, I definitely think of my Aunt Trina

So just a couple more quick turns and we've got it. Now I'm going to very slowly lift my beaters so it'll sling all of our batter off

All right, so this is ready to be put into our pan

All right, now we're going to spray our pan. All right, just going to pour our batter in there

You see it's a real thick, rich batter. Did you know that peanuts are really

a bean that grows underground? And if you have to dig peanuts, that's quite a job

It's, nowadays they have modern equipment that come in and just dig them up out of the earth

and it shakes all the dirt off of them. All right, now we're gonna put this in the oven

we're gonna bake it at 375 degrees for about, about 40 minutes

All right. So in the oven, it goes. Rennie smells cake. We're gonna take our casserole out

because our cheese is melted. All right, so here goes our cake

I want to slip a little bite out of these green beans and taste them if they not too hot

It's hot, but it's worth every burn. It's delicious. All right. While our cake is baking

I'm going to make our icing because we want to top our cake while it's warm and while the icing

is warm. And this is my just favorite icing in the whole entire world when it comes to chocolate

and I'm going to start with a stick of butter. I'm going to add probably two tablespoons of cocoa

Not a whole bunch. And I'm going to put a third of a cup of heavy cream

All right, and you can see that's boiling nicely. Okay, so I'm going to take that off my heat

and I'm going to add my powdered sugar in. And if you want to make sure this doesn't lump on you

you can always sift your powdered sugar, but I'm going to stick this back on the eye

until that sugar is dissolved. And then I will make my call

as to whether I want to add more cream because this icing, once it sits, will get harder

Now I'm gonna take this off the heat, and you can see the consistency

All right, now I'm gonna stir in about a half a cup of salted peanuts

All right, all I need to do now is add the vanilla to it

and you don't wanna add vanilla to it while it's boiling, because you don't want your flavor to evaporate

So now that we've moved it off the heat, it's safe. All right, let's see if our cake is ready

Smells ready. Now, I'm gonna take a spoon and I'm gonna poke holes in it

So I'm gonna take that and I'm just gonna go around my cake because I want that icing to run all down in there

All right. So I'm going to pour this warm icing on this warm cake

Look at that. I'm just going to spread it all in there

But like I said, this will harden up. So why don't we have a piece now

So that'll work perfect. I love it. I love it. I love it with whipping cream

And I love it with nuts. Oh, my goodness. It's the best bean I've ever eaten

When we come back, I'm gonna match the perfect bean for the perfect meal

Okay, I want to share with y'all some bean tips. They are a wonderful way to get fiber and protein

They have absolutely zero fat. Right here I have a dried garbanzo bean or a chickpea

and then I have them in the canned version, and these are wonderful to top off a salad with

And the great northern white bean are so good. Everybody's familiar with black beans

and they're really a great product out of the can because it does take a good while to cook a black bean

and both these beans are great in soups. And these are pinto beans

The pinto beans are great for chili. Now, there's a couple of different ways

if you're cooking dried beans, that you can prepare them. You can do an overnight soak

You can do a quick method, which is bringing them to a boil, cutting the aisle, letting them sit for an hour

I hope these tips help you enjoy your beans because they're so good for you

Right back to where we started, I've got my green bean casserole, my apple baked bean casserole, a wonderful salsa, and right here, a fabulous peanut butter cake

So until next time, America, I want to send you love and best dishes from my garden to yours

Thank you