The Extraordinary Black Beans/Sorte bønner/黑豆[hēi dòu]

Some books say 6 months, some say 10 months, but I prefer to serve it from 7 months, because the window of introducing new food is a short one, and I would like to do it before J gets choosy about his food.

The darker the bean, the more nutritious it is. This makes black beans the most nutritious among beans.

Directions:
1. Soak 1 cup of black beans with water and a few drops of lemon or lime for 8 – 12 hours or overnight. Then drain and discard water.

2. Wash and chop leek into pieces (optional, make this dish more tasty)

3. Boil the black beans in a pot with 2 inches of water over the beans for 45 minutes to an hour until tender (watch out that the water doesn’t dry up, if so, add more water)

4. Add leek and boil for 2 minutes (optional)

5. Dish out the cooked beans from the water (tip: you can use the water for soup)

6. Add 5 teaspoons of formula milk powder and 5 teaspoons of vegetable oil

7. Puree with blender

Storage:
1. Cool down, pour into ice cube tray and freeze.

2. Once frozen, knock the cubes out and store them in freezer bags (makes 2-3 ice cube trays, can store up to 8 weeks)

Nutritional Value:
Black beans are an excellent source of iron and manganese. Black beans are an excellent source of cholesterol-lowering fiber and high quality protein. Black beans are high in dietary fiber, folate, molybdenum, tryptophan, vitamin B1 (thiamin), complex carbohydrates, magnesium and phosphorus.

Black beans have also recently been reported to be an extremely good source of nutritional antioxidants. Gram for gram, black beans are found to have the most antioxidant activity in the bean family.

Black beans help protect against cancer, lower heart attack risk and are good for diabetic as it give you energy to burn while stabilizing blood sugar. When combined with a whole grain such as whole wheat pasta or brown rice, provide protein comparable to that of meat or dairy foods without the high calories or saturated fat found in these foods.

IMPORTANT Notes:
It is very important to boil the beans for at least 45 mins, as lectins is broken down in the cooking process. Otherwise, lectins may interfere with the absorption of the good proteins.

References:
http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=2

http://www.americanbean.com/HealthNutrition/Home.htm