Lima Beans

Butter Bean Stew
(Lima Bean Stew)

2 cups dried lima/butter beans (you can use tinned but they don't taste the
same)
1 large red onion
2 cloves garlic
bunch celery with as many leaves on as possible
2 carrots diced small (optional)
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1 tbs tomato paste/puree
olive oil for frying

Put the dried beans in a pot and pour in water until it is over the beans by at
least an inch.
Soak overnight - approximately 8 hours.
Next day pour off the water that the beans have soaked in - they will look
horrible, don't panic. Pour on fresh water to cover and then bring to the boil.
DO NOT ADD SALT! The beans will never soften if you do this.
Boil the beans rapidly for 10 minutes then discard the water. Add more water
and bring back to a simmer. Simmer for roughly 40 minutes. Some brands of beans
may take longer but don't worry. They can stand it. When they are more or less
soft drain and set aside.

Chop the onion and the celery into fairly large pieces. Chop up some of the
celery leaves and save the rest for later. At this stage you only need about 2
tsp. Crush the 2 cloves garlic. Heat about 4 tbs olive oil in a large pan and
fry off the onion, celery, leaves and carrot if using it. Then add the garlic.
Fry them until translucent but not too soft.

Add in the tinned tomatoes and the tomato puree.

Stir and then add the beans in. Mix well and then cover and simmer for about
an hour. This will allow the beans to absorb all the flavour of the tomatoes.
Stir occasionally to make sure it's not sticking. You can add in some par-
boiled potatoes about now if you wish - that will definitely make it a very
filling dish.

Add in the rest of the celery leaves, finely chopped. Stir well. Check the
potatoes and carrots are cooked and then serve with lots of bread to mop up the
juices.

If the stew looks too runny there are two options.

1 call it a soup
2 mix up some cornflour and add that in.

This keeps in the fridge for a couple of days and actually tastes even better
reheated the day after.

If you reduce the amount of liquid in this it makes a really nice substantial
side dish. It gets served all over Greece under the name of Gigantes Plaki.
Giant Beans!! Hope this helps Pat!