Dried beans and winter food

One of the great pleasures of winter is beany, soupy, stewy things. They are the kind of food, like good porridge and risotto, that warm you from the inside out.

It was a cold for Sydney (max 14c) and drizzly wet day yesterday (and is again today) and so I decided to make a beany thing. It all started by me remembering that, way back in the cupboard, was a stash of home grown dried beans.

I have two jars of a former season's dried beans. I didn't dry any of last summer's beans, I guess I didn't need to considering I had two jars! I tend to dry my beans when I have been away on holidays from the garden when the beans are in full flush and come home to beans too fat and bulging to be nice to eat green. I don't let them go to waste though and pick them off  just before they are fully dry and do the last bit of drying on the back verandah and then jar them up.

The two jars are of two different beans. One is a  lovely brown skinned bean. It was a green bean, but do you think I can remember which?  I am serially bad at noting varieties, its something I need to change.

The other jar is the dried bean of a climbing borlotti. It dries a two-toned brown rather than lovely red and cream pods they come from. The original seeds came over the fence from the Italian-origin neighbours. The pods were red and cream -  just like normal dwarf borlotti beans.

I made a beany, soupy thing out of the brown beans.

Lamb shank and bean thick soup
(* from the garden)

2 lamb shanks
1 cup dried brown beans*
1 onion chopped fine
2 carrots chopped fine
2 sticks celery chopped fine
4 cloves garlic chopped fine
1 can tinned toms
stock (I had home made chicken stock in the freezer)
risoni
bay leaves*
rosemary*
thyme*

Soak beans overnight. Drain and put on to boil  until cooked a long way thru they don't have to be totally cooked cause you will cook them in with the rest of the ingredients. Brown the lamb shanks and discard any excess unwanted fat. Sweat onion, garlic carrot and celery in the same pan that you browned the shanks in. Add all ingredients into a large saucepan and cook on a low heat. Eventually the meat falls off the bone, remove the bone and any of the bits that you don't like.When the beans are cooked thru serve with toast.

I am contributing this recipe to Greenish Thumb's Garden to Table Challenge.

But what's your favourite beany thing to eat during winter? Are you a chilli con carne fan like myself?
Which beans to you grow to dry?