Not such a ‘Beautiful Disaster’

In an effort to maximize the opportunities to use my food storage, I decided to embark on an experiment using the dried beans we have on hand. We have a LOT of them (a year’s worth for three adults), and rather than just eat a bazillion soups involving this musical legume, I thought I would do as was suggested by my favorite food storage website – foodstoragemadeeasy.net – and make flour out of some of the beans.

To their credit, they have never suggested doing anything with the bean flour except using it as a thickener in place of flour in various SAVORY dishes. However, being the enthusiast I am, and looking for a delicious substitute that will take it a little easier on my blood sugar and small intestine issues, I thought to try it as a 100% substitute in chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. After all, with the oats and chocolate to distract from any potential flavor given off by the beans, it would be the “safest” dessert experiment, right?

WRONG! What a disgusting outcome. Even as I type this, I have yet to get the aftertaste to leave my mouth. Please – whatever you do, do NOT use bean flour as a way to make a more nutritious/gluten free dessert! Even my tummy is not so sure what kind of prank I was trying to pull by ingesting that. And, what is worse, I tried a first cookie, and, discovering that the taste was not really to my liking, thought it might be because the cookie was not fully cooked, so grabbed one that was a little toastier. It was worse.

The flavor of the cookie is indescribable, but the aftertaste is sort of that of rotting peas. And, yes, I do know the flavor of rotting peas. It’s the flavor of the peas I tested in the garden before deciding whether to harvest or plow under (yes, they were plowed under). Ugh!

So – be forewarned – the use of bean flour may be okay in savory dishes where a small amount is called for in thickening, or even when combined with other flours, but steer clear of large amounts of bean flour used as 100% wheat flour substitute – particularly in sweet dishes. BLECH!