Dear Mothers,,well i finally got my Black Bean Soup made yesterday..Oh wow it was good,,i had only had the black beans in with other beans in my soup …But i wanted to see how it wud be with mostly black beans ..To my surprise these beans are sorta sweet..i cooked them with green peppers and chopped tomatoes,And i had a pkg of onion soup so i put that in,,And at the end i added a can of plain corn..Oh i almost forgot..i had fried up a bit of bacon in my soup pan first,,i use an old cast iron soup pot with a bale handle,,with the cast iron you can do anything with this,,i guess they call this pan a dutch oven,,Anyway i put this soup in the oven at about 300 degrees to cook for about 3 hrs,,put in salt and pepper,,But anyway do you like black beans Cindy or anyone? i thot they were sweet they tasted almost like a berry to me,,Is that how they are sposed to taste?..These black beans i wud think wud be good in a Pasta Salad..But in useing the b. beans you wud want to make sure you had alot of color around them,,i soaked mine first as the beans make everything else black if you dont,But the dried beans store well..And they are cheap and taste good,,i just bot a big sack of red beans too lately ..And i have other beans too ,,i just think its a good time to stock up on dried things like rice etc,,You cud store all of these things in jars,,i wud suggest that maybe you cud store your sacks of beans and rice in the freezer for a while incase there is any bugs in the sacks,,i know it sounds gross,,!!!!But i have read to freeze flour too for a few weeks..At our Dollar Stores they have about every kind of dried beans you cud want,,JOhns wife Christina will sit down and eat a can of red beans right out of the can,,she loves them,,Anyway i just think its good to stock up on all the differet kinds of beans and lentils and dried split peas and chick peas ,,Are the chick peas the little yellow peas? Gabonzo beans wud be good to have on hand too..My Mom used to make 3 bean salad,,She used green beans and yellow and red beans..She put in onions and peppers too and made a dressing with vinegar and sugar salt and pepper,,Jim loved my moms 3 bean salad,,But i think there is alot you can do with beans,,and serve them hot or cold..i wont plant green beans this yr i will just use the dried beans,,i love planting tomatoes and peppers of all kinds,,i want to plant alot of basil this year too..And hopefully many different kinds of lettuce,,includeing mustard greens,,Onions and potatoes are cheap so i wont bother with them,,Carrots are cheap to buy too,,But nothing beats a backyard Iowa tomatoe and i want to can some this year,,Last yr i froze mine..Peppers freeze well too,,i just wash them and slice them up and put them in a bag,,A few yrs ago my brother Scott had millions of hot peppers from his garden,,And he took a needle and thread and sewed them together,,and hung them in his kitchen to dry,,He wound them around so they hang all together not on a line,,And the the bunch of peppers is about a yard wide and 5 ft long,,its a work of art,,And Scott uses the hot peppers when he makes chilli each week..He LOVES chilli..like no one i have ever heard of,,He has eaten it every week for about 30 yrs,,He also makes burritos with it ,,Then he makes stew each week ,,and he adds lentils and other beans,,He eats alot of beans and he is healthy as a horse,So you girls sit up to the table and eat your beans and i mean it,,love mother