Sprouting beans

What kinds of store-bought beans can I sprout?

Pete Triandos
Santa Clarita, California

You can sprout nearly every variety of dry bean. You’ll have to try and experiment and see which ones you like best. I do lentils, navies, kidneys, adzuki, and black beans. — Jackie

Salty peach cobbler

I had a friend try the peach cobbler recipe from your cookbook. She substituted butter for the shortening and it came out really salty. I told her that if she substituted butter to cut out the salt since shortening is not salted. Sound right?

Kathy Vilseck
Coldwater, Mississippi

That may have been what happened or she may have just mis-measured the salt. Or if she is using less salt in her diet, she may be sensitive to salt and need to cut the amount used in a recipe even more than directed. — Jackie

3 COMMENTS

  1. I’ll hop on to agree with ss – I recently bought a batch of salted butter from a big-box store and it was the saltiest I’d ever tasted, by quite a margin. Some brands simply differ in how much salt they use.

    That said, this has my mouth watering – a(n intentionally) salted peach cobbler or pie sounds delectable, sort-of like a salted carmel dessert. Yum!

  2. Did her friend use salted or unsalted butter? I notice a stronger salted taste in my cookies when I use salted sweet cream butter. Just a thought.

  3. I use unsalted butter and no salt. Tastes great like that. The butter has a more distinct flavor than shortening which might be what she is thinking of as being too salty. I only buy unsalted butter and that way I can use no salt or 1/2 the salt called for in the recipe. We aren’t on salt-free diets, but we think most things have too much salt. That masks the good taste of the foods.

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