"canned beans" news and stories

Monday may still be red beans and rice day in New Orleans, but an increasing number of home cooks are now making the traditional dish with canned beans.

"At my house, it's real convenient for us to open a can," says Luis Ramos, plant manager for Blue Runner, the legendary Gonzales, La., company that's been canning Creole cream-style beans since 1950. "We even do Minute Rice now."

But the sudden shift to precooked beans doesn't just reflect busier schedules in south Louisiana. Blue Runner's sales have increased 10 to 15 percent a year since 2005 – the same year Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast.

"During Katrina, because you didn't have electricity, a lot of people started realizing canned goods are good," Ramos explains.

We are having something of an unprecedented heat wave here on the East Coast (and it's not even officially summer). Yesterday it was 96 degrees and they are predicting that it will top out right around 100 degrees today (and with the humidity, that means it feels more like 105). I have a brisket in defrosting in my fridge, but the last thing I want to do is turn my oven on long enough to get it cooked (it will just have to wait until Wednesday, when the heat breaks).

On nights like this, I turn to cool summer greens from the fridge and cans from my pantry. I always keep black beans, pickled beets, garbanzo beans, artichoke hearts and tuna in olive oil in the kitchen cabinet, so that I can augment veggies with much-needed (at least for me) protein. I create a table top salad bar with the beans, tuna, diced tomato, sliced cucumber, grated cheese, carrot rounds and anything else I can find and go to town. If you need a carb with your meal, add some crackers or bread from a local bakery.

That's my basic meal for those nights when I can't bear to heat up my apartment. How do the rest of you beat the heat in the kitchen*?

*I know that those of you out on the West Coast are freezing and still wearing your winter coats. What are you eating these days?