Week 4 - Lima Beans Part II

As I mentioned in the original post about the Week 4 challenge, I am no fan of lima beans. To challenge myself to like this "ingredient I hated as a kid," I found two potential lima bean recipes. Since the first didn't succeed, I was hoping the second - for easy lima beans - would make me like lima beans. The reviews for the recipe were mostly favorable - comments like "I am converted to a lima bean lover" and "very tasty" and "outstanding" from non-lima bean people convinced me that this would be the one to get me to like lima beans. Would it work?

Ingredients:

- 1 bag of frozen lima beans ($2.69)

- 1 onion ($0.50)

- chicken broth ($0.10)

- cooking spray for sauteing onions ($0.05)

- salt and pepper for seasoning ($0.05)

Fairly inexpensive, about $3.40. But there aren't many ingredients involved.

Process:

1. Spray saucepan with cooking spray. Saute onions until translucent.

2. Pour in chicken broth and bring to boil.

3. Once boiling, add lima beans.

4. Stir together lima beans and onions.

5. Add enough water to cover the lima beans and onions. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to low. Cook for about 30 minutes until the beans are tender.

6. Since not all of the liquid in the pot evaporated, I let it simmer longer without the cover on. It didn't really reduce that much though.

Review:

The lima beans this time were less chalky, probably because they were simmering in chicken broth for so long, but they were still dry and bland. After cooking in the broth, the onions were flavorless, the beans were flavorless, and the salt and pepper I added seemed to do absolutely nothing. It wasn't just me. A agreed with me that this recipe was really bland and flavorless. The other lima bean recipe was clearly better, in our opinion. I had to eat the rest of this for lunch as leftovers, and the only way to make it palatable was to use the rest of the broth as "soup" and dump in lots of red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, cumin, parsley and garlic powder. It's like the flavorless black bean soup all over again.

I do know one thing for sure - this dish did not make me like lima beans. It did not convert me to a lima bean lover. If anything, this week's experiment has convinced me that nothing will make me like lima beans. At least I can say that I gave it my best shot.