Puree of Lima Beans
1 pound of lima beans
2 cups of white sauce
1 cup of milk
Soak the lima beans for 12 hours in te cold water- the best soak them for a night. Wash the beans carefully before soaking them. Cover one pound of lima beans entirely with plenty of boiling water- ratio of beaens to water is standarnd and is 1:3. Boil the beans for two hours seeing that your kettle is covered closely and watch for the foam. By the time of cooking the beans will be loosening their skins or blanched as cooks call it. The picky eaters love while resting to slip of the beans their skin of off . Our grandmothers used to say that the skins of lima beans carry the great amount of indigestible material. Our generations considered this nonsense and never bothered to peel the skin of the boiled beans off. When you peel the skin of the lima beans, the beans are then returned to the fire in the boiling water, where they will cook to the condition of a paste in almost no time twenty minutes at least- the longer, the better. At this point you add your white sauce or milk into this paste- you get a nice soup, and the cooling beans turn into the nice paste. To this smooth paste add two cups of the white sauce.