Riesenbohnen rule!

As I've mentioned previously, I love beans. Once I had an appointment with a nutritionist who wanted to know what foods I crave. You know, she was looking for "chocolate cake" or something to determine how horribly I had been eating, and I guess I really threw her a curve ball when I said, "BEANS!" This started when I was a kid when I realized my favorite thing at Taco Bell was 'Pintos & Cheese'. Maybe I just chronically need more folic acid than the norm. Or maybe beans are just really freakin' delicious.

Anyway, this being Germany and all, our neighborhood grocery store apparently ran out of kidney beans and forgot to reorder them for, oh, a week or two. (Or some freak near us is hogging them all.) Bean selection in typcial small German stores is weak and lame. You generally have some generic "white beans" (cannellini?), kidney beans and maybe garbanzo beans (Kichererbsen). Some stores may carry dried 'Wachtelbohnen', which are usually cranberry beans (which may be pinto beans if you're lucky). If you want anything cool, like black beans, azuki beans, red beans, brown beans, pink beans, on and on... you're usually SOL.

So anyway, I was making chili and needed kidney beans, but all Bunny could find to bring home were cans of 'weisse Riesenbohnen'. Well, I have to say, THESE ROCK. Yum! Have had to get these again! We got the ones in cans by Deluna's brand Campofino ('Bianchi di Spagna / Weisse Riesenbohnen'). These are Italian BUTTER BEANS, in English. They're strangely great in chili and, well, everything else. So, if you're a bean freak like me, check them out. Great for vegetarian dishes of all kinds.

(Btw, if you eat beans on a regular basis, you don't get all farty. If you stop eating them for a while and then come back to them, though, whooey. So best bet is just to include a few on salads and other foods and you'll be getting all that nutrition without much side effect. They're very, very good for you, you know. Too bad so many carbs, though. Being a diabetic beanaholic isn't easy!)