It all started at For Good Measure, my local bulk store and a great place. I bought two cups of dried fava bean, because of a sudden craving for bean salad. I was very careful with the fava beans  as they should look their best for a salad, but things went terribly wrong as I cooked them. Maybe because of the altitude (I was up island at Mt Washington) the beans turned almost immediately mushy when I started cooking them. Small disaster as we had lots of other items on the menu that night. I was left with about two cups of fava puree, not such a bad thing it turned out.

Puree two cups of cooked fava beans with 3 tbsps Balsamic, 2 tbsps olive oil, 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, 1/4 tsp seasoning salt, the juice of half a lemon,  3 crushed cloves of garlic, salt and pepper. Cut the top of the peppers, remove the seed and any white parts.  It would be best to pick  round-shape peppers as my long and narrow ones had a tendency to topple over that I could not control. Fill the peppers with the spread, cover with the tops and roast at 325/350  for 30 minutes. Although very nourishing, the fava bean is a very fluffy and light stuffing.

If you are using canned beans, make sure to rinse them thoroughly. I was using dried beans. First, they have to be rinsed well and  soaked overnight in lots of water. Then, they need to be peeled and rinsed again. The beans that float should be thrown out. The beans are boiled gently in water for about 30 minutes and drained and rinsed again.

Dried fava beans peeled after soaking

” Soaking dried beans activates the beans to begin the germination process. Once wet, the beans release enzymes that begin to break down their complex sugars into more simple ones. It is the bean’s complex sugars that give you gas and indigestion after eating beans that haven’t been pre-soaked. The overnight soak method reduces 60% of the complex sugars in most beans.”

“NO SALT When Cooking Dried Beans:
Add NO salt until the beans are tender and cooked completely. Adding salt will prevent the beans from absorbing water. This is because a bean has an opening that is large enough for water molecules to enter it, but salt molecules are larger and will plug the bean opening, preventing the water to enter… thus you have HARD beans that never seem to cook right. Some say the bean is TOUGH, but the scientific reality is that the bean only got to absorb the water you soaked it in and not the water you cooked it in.”

Above comments from : http://www.chezbettay.com/pages/basics1/basics_beans1.html