Paella & lima beans?

I love to make paella and I always put lots of veggies in my paella.  About two years ago, I bought the sweet husband a paella cookbook & that Christmas I made a 3 paella feast, one for the vegetarians, one for the friend allergic to seafood and one for everyone else.  Then I experimented with paellas trying Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa quick paella with kielbasa.  I feel like I have a winning paella recipe down.  My friend Alison had paella in the south of France and told her group that she has a friend in Cleveland who makes a better paella! My 15 year old has proclaimed my paella her favorite meal.  So, what's a girl to do with a winning paella record?  Add lima beans?!?   So, tonight, it occurred to me that a pan of paella would provide dinner, an afterschool snack for the teenager & lunch for me for the week.  I also could use up some carrots, onions, shallots, garlic, peppers, yellow squash and even some of those lima beans! 

In the spring we went camping with a Puerto Rican friend who made an amazing paella over the fire.  He bought all sorts of unusual Spanish ingredients including a special kind of bean that is used for paella in Spain.  I have no idea what it was, but I realized that the lima beans from my bag would have the same effect.   

My only experience with lima beans were the mealy frozen ones I remember from my childhood.  Yuck!  But there they were in the bag, as the kale was 2 years ago.  I threw three handfuls of those lima beans into my prized paella.  I make the paella by sauteing vegetables: onions, garlic, shallots, carrots, celery and often zucchini, squash or even eggplant in olive oil, adding cumin, thyme, salt and homemade chicken stock.  Then I add the rice.  For the sausage, it sounds crazy but I prefer Barefoot Contessa's suggestion of kielbasa, but chorizo is also wonderful.  I also add roasted chicken and shrimp.  Near the end I add the saffron, mussels & peas.  But tonight, we didn't have peas, and in with the vegetables I put lima beans!   

Those beans were quite good.  They were not mealy, and neither the teenager nor the 2 year even mentioned that they were there.   They had a good flavor & we may even be bold enough to try the rest of them on their own. . .