I can't cook beans for beans.

Try this: fry up a cup of chopped garlic and six tablespoons of cumin in a half-cup of olive oil. Spoon that into your cooked pound of black beans until they have enough flavor. Add salt and sherry vinegar to taste. If you can add the whole seasoning mix and the beans are still bland, the problem lies elsewhere.

A half-drop of liquid smoke might give them a little kick too.

I think this sentence gave me some sort of taste-bud hard-on.

Then I stumbled upon a thread on one of the Egullet cooking forums, that stated the best way to cook dried beans to perfection, was to put them into a heavy pot, UNSOAKED, with lots of SALT ADDED, and cook them for a couple hours in a 250F degree oven.

I was wary about trying this out, as it contradicted the received wisdom to never salt beans until they are basically done cooking, or else their skins will harden and extend the cooking time. But I tried it anyway, and they actually came out great, much to my surprise.

If anyone is interested, here's the recipe:

BASIC OVEN-BAKED BEANS

Ingredients:

1 lb. unsoaked dried beans
6 to 8 cups water
2 teaspoons or more salt
seasonings, if any

Method:

Heat oven to 250 F. Place beans, water, salt, and any seasonings* into a heavy pot and bring to a simmer on stovetop. Cover pot, put in oven, and cook until done, usually a little over two hours.

* they say not to add anything acidic (vinegar, hot sauce containing vinegar, tomatoes, etc) to the beans while they are cooking, as it will harden them.

I make black beans for burritos using this method almost every week; I like to add a tablespoon or more of liquid smoke to the cooking liquid to give them additional flavor.

I also prepare dried split peas, like chana dal or black-eyed peas using the oven-method - they take about 45 minutes to an hour, and need a little less water.

Recently, I cooked some dried chickpeas that had been in a jar on the shelf for over a year. I thought I would need to increase the cooking time substantially, but it turned out they only took about two and half hours to cook.

also, they need to be dried at the right time when they're fresh. i'm guesing that better-quality dried beans are easier to deal with.

my soaking and cooking is not working out quite right : /

what's the matter? I used to be a little impatient when I first cooked beans. it's important to let them go for a little longer when you think they are just done. and salt should never be added when soaking for some reason. those are two things that first come to mind that can go awry.....oh, and don't boil the hell out of 'em, just gently boil a wee bit above a simmer for best results, imo

I have had luck with the pressure cooker and slow cooker methods! Slow cooker is particularly easy and effective.

i dunno, they got to the point of being edible (and not like in a barely tolerable way) but never truly softened, and i surely let them go longer than long.

i've tried twice now, once with a hot-soften before cooking, and once with a cold overnight soak. similar results each time.

but in both cases i was cooking with other things, and after a certain point i just figured, i couldn't let it cook forever if i wanted to keep any of the other ingredients tasting vaguely like themselves.

still no luck with kidneys rather than black, either i'm cooking them too hot or the additional ingredients i'm cooking them with are too salty too soon.

wish i could see what you're doing j. as i have no idea where the problem lies.
cooked a buncha red beans yesterday - soaked 4 hours, drained, rinsed, boiled ~ 75 minutes. done. then added some salt.
so red beans and rice, y'all. never made it before but have eaten a version or two. gonna add some vegetarian sausage to the mix; and cayenne, oregano and smoked paprika are the only other ings aside from the obvious

"salt should never be added when soaking" said me ten years ago and i was WRONGO!

Not sure where i read this recently but brining for a day in some salt and baking soda is a bean cooking game-changer. I haven't done this scientifically with a control group or whatever but the jumbo white beans i just cooked in less than a hour took closer to 2 the time before (same batch of Rancho Gordos). Same with black beans last week. Cooked in ~ half the time as the previous time (again, the same batch from RG). Apparently the soda halps break down pectin. Not sure what the salt theory is.

Probably mentioned this elsewhere but Kenji's garbanzo cooking hack gets those done in ~20 minutes! Honest and true

beans are inexpensive too

yeah, but depending on source you're risking beans that are olde and never properly finish cooking ime. i don't mind paying $7 for a pound of RG or other nice beans. ends up being like a buck/ cooked cup or something which is really nothing for something that can be star of a dish

Olde Tyme Beanes