Chef AJ's Yummy Sauce

I finally made Chef AJ's yummy sauce today and I concur, it is yummy!   You can find the recipe and video here.   I used a half-pound of dried white beans (soaked and cooked), which is more than 1 can, so I increased the other ingredients:  2 lemons, extra garlic, 3 Tbsp of mustard,  2 medjool dates.  For garlic I used green garlic--that's early garlic, it's like chives.  I blended the white parts, then added the greens at the end for a quick chop instead of blend.  Since 1/2 lb of beans usually lasts me 3 days, I added enough water to fill 3 16-oz jars:

That will nicely cover 2 salads a day.   I wonder what else I should put it on.

Easy and good baked veggies

This makes 1-2 meals.  Put 1/4 cup lentils in the bottom of a baking dish.  Cut up whatever veggies you have that seem like they would be good. Today I used onion, beet, and kohlrabi.  Tomorrow I'll do those plus eggplant.   Add 1 cup water.  

Top with foil.  Bake at 375 for 1 hour 15 minutes (including oven heating up).   Let cool.  stir, serve or save for tomorrow.  

If you have beans already cooked, you can forget the lentils and add the beans afterwards.  I also cook up greens and onions, and have those on the side.

Lunch

I've absolutely been adoring my lunches lately.   I repeat it every day because it's so enjoyable and filling and it's a great inoculation against being jealous of other people's food.   It's also really easy with just a little preparation:   Always have some cooked beans in the fridge, and bake a potato ahead of time.   Also cook up a bunch of vegetables every 2-3 days and store them in single serving (2 cup) containers.  I like to combine lots of veggies like onion, kale or cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, frozen okra (hard to get fresh where I live), maybe some tomato, zucchini, asparagus, whatever looks good in the produce aisle (don't buy it if it looks lame!).    So here's what I do for one of my favorite meals.   Take the potato, cut it into large bite-size pieces, add seasoning if you want, and broil it in the oven for 7-10 minutes to toast it.   Heat up 1/2-1 cup beans in them microwave.    Put the beans in your bowl, with liquid, add the crispy potatoes, enjoy.  You won't believe how good it is until you try it.   The potatoes eventually soak up the bean juice but don't get soggy.   If you take this into work for lunch, it still works without toasting the potatoes--just don't combine them with the beans until you are ready to eat them.  Or if I think I'll be out for lunch but home for dinner, I might switch my lunch and dinner meals.   The potatoes and beans, along with your pre-cooked veggies make a very delicious meal.  I eat this with my friends and I can't imagine wanting to eat their food.   Here's an example with some big black beans and tandoori seasoning on the potatoes:

Here was yesterday's lunch.  My "salad" was just a bunch of romaine pieces.  I was lazy.  Plus the romaine was unusually sweet and fresh so it was quite good.   My potatoes were seasoned with Penzy's Mural of Flavors, and the white beans asked to be served with tomatoes so I added some tomatoes from a can (from our garden last summer).  The veggies also asked for some tomatoes

Today I finished off that can of tomatoes on the beans, and drank the juice from the can (just a few oz). I had some blackberries too.  My salad was more proper, all cut up with some flax meal and high-quality balsamic vinegar added (diluted with water), but truthfully I think yesterday's salad was better.  Sometimes simple is better especially when the ingredients are fresh and high quality.

chili beans

These are good in tacos, or just about anything.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb dry beans, soaked overnight

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 T chili powder

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp oregano

If you want, you can dry-fry the onions first.  then add the beans and everything else, cover with water, and start cooking.  Or if you don't want to dry-fry the onions, just combine everything and start cooking.   cook for 3 hours.  Add water as necessary but not too much (to keep the flavors more concentrated).   If you like a sweet flavor, you can add a little sweetener of your choice (e.g., maple syrup, brown sugar).  I've also seen mustard included in some recipes.  

Curry GOMB soup

Following on my GOMB soup theme (Greens, Onions, Mushrooms, and Beans), this week I made a curry version.  Last week I made a "spaghetti" version and the week before chili.  It's pretty much the same core ingredients, with different spices.

Ingredients:
1 lb dried beans or 2 cans
2 onions, chopped
1/2-1 lb mushrooms, chopped
3 large cloves garlic, chopped
1 red bell pepper (optional), chopped
few large stalks celery (optional), chopped
1-2 bunches collards or kale, chopped
1 can tomatoes
1 Tbsp curry
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp cinnamon
1-2 Tbsp date syrup

Note that the ingredient amounts are not important--you could halve or double each one and it will still taste good, if you like this sort of thing, that is.  Next time, I might double the spices.

Even though the picture is kind of dark, I like how colorful the soup is.  Here's what I did:  Soaked the dried beans over night, then cooked them up for 3 hours.  Add the can of tomatoes to the soup.   Heat a big fry pan up to hot, then throw on the onions which sizzle and brown.   They release enough liquid to keep from burning.  Add the celery, garlic, and spices, cook some more.  Add the red bell pepper, and mushrooms, cook until soft.  The mushrooms release lots of water which self-cleans the pan.  Add this to the beans.  Pressure cook or steam the greens and add them.  Add the date syrup.  

mmm, Chili!

I was just planning to make my usual weekly pot o' beans, and it turned into a great pot of chili.   I always start with Dr. Fuhrman's recommended GOMB ingredients (Greens, onions/garlic, mushrooms, beans).  The beans I need for protein, calories and lots of other great reasons; the others are great for fighting cancer, plus they add flavor and texture.  Then I thought, huh, I could just add some chili powder, tomatoes, corn, and make some chili!   I looked up some recipes and saw cumin and oregano listed, so I added some of that too (the second time I didn't and I preferred it without).

Ingredients
1 lb dried beans, or 2-3 cans   (pinto, kidney, a dark bean, or just about anything---I used a mixture from rancho gordo)
2 16-oz cans tomatoes, or 1 28-oz can
1-2 onions
2-4 cloves garlic
1 lb mushrooms, any type
1 bunch greens, e.g., kale, collards, mustard, etc.
2 cups sweet corn (1 bag frozen) (optional)
1-2 Tbsp chili powder, to taste
1 tsp oregano and cumin (optional, I prefer without)

Toppings (optional)
chopped cilantro, chives, ramps, scallions, anything like that
home-made soy yogurt

Soak the beans overnight, or do a quick soak (bring to boil, then let sit for an hour).   Cook the beans for about 3 hours.  After 1 hour you can add the onions, garlic and seasoning.  Depending on how well-cooked you want the greens, you can add them to the chili at your preferred time or cook them separately.  I prefer them pretty tender and well-cooked, so I cooked them in the pressure cooker, then added them to the chili and let them simmer there for another hour (admittedly I was motivated by a sore tooth, but I ended up really liking the tenderness of them cooked this way).  I added the mushrooms in the last hour.  I added the tomatoes and corn towards the end.  The tomatoes can interfere with the cooking of the beans and they are cooked already anyway.  The corn hardly needs any cooking, especially if you like it a little crunchy.  If you like it tender, add it earlier.

Here's 10 servings ready for the freezer.

Bucket o' veggies

Sorry the picture is out of focus.  I made a bunch of cooked veggies for the week.  I filled two large pressure cookers full of veggies.  They cooked down, but this is a large bowl too.  These veggies fit into 6 2-cup containers and went into the freezer.  They taste quite good.  Here's what I put into pot #1:  eggplant, broccoli, cauliflower, yellow zucchini, green zucchini, red bell pepper.  In pot #2 went an onion, a bunch of collard greens, and mushrooms, topped with some dried herbs du province and fines herbs.  After they cooked up, I added 2 16-oz cans of tomatoes.  The tomatoes came from the garden and that contributed a lot to the delicious taste.  The collards were just a bit bitter so I added some lemon juice.  I was surprised how good the final result tastes.  I guessed well what veggies and herbs to use.  The only problem is I tend to overcook veggies in the pressure cooker.  Well, the greens pot was just right.  Next time I will use a lower setting for the veggies pot.   I drank the broth leftover from the tomato jars and steaming to reclaim the vitamins lost in the water.   It was good.  I look at it like drinking a rich cup of tea.

I also prepped beans which I'll cook tomorrow.  I juiced a 5 lb bag of carrots (about 36 oz) and am soaking a lb of beans overnight in this juice (in the refrigerator).  Tomorrow I'll make a pot of collards, onions and mushrooms, and add those to the beans after the beans cook.  I'll divide into bowls to freeze for next week.  Then I just need to make a salad every day.

This is pretty much my standard meal plan.  I'm following an easy guideline, Dr. Fuhrman's GOMBBS acronym:  Greens, Onions, Mushrooms, Beans, and Seeds/nuts (in the salad).   The extra B is for berries which I eat a few times a week.  I add other fruit to my salads this time of year:  apple, orange, pomegranate seeds.  It's the same as the post I wrote here, without the asian pear.  I might have a small bowl of frozen cherries and mangos for dessert when I get home from work.

Princeton Immersion, Thanksgiving, soup, and stuff

I went to Dr. Fuhrman's Princeton Immersion last weekend.  It was a wonderful trip for many reasons!  It was a great road trip with my friend Suz.  We stopped in Pittsburg to see my best pal Gail, sadly, only for a few hours.  I worked with a student for a day at Princeton which was very productive.  We visited with Suz's parents in Philidelphia.  And the immersion was fantastic.  It was jam-packed with lectures. Dr. Fuhrman is so energetic and interesting, you really can listen to him for hours.  Even better was the food.  This is the main reason I go, though I did learn a lot from the lectures.  I thought I knew it all by now, but one thing I get out of the in-person lectures is what Dr. Fuhrman is passionate about, and what is less certain scientifically.  It helps reinforce what the most important things are to keep in mind.  But the food!  It was the best I've ever had at one of these events.  I think that was in large part due to Chef Martin Oswald's contributions.  He owns a nutritarian restaurant in Aspen, Colorado!  (called the Pyramid Bistro).  He gave a talk on the last day and I have been having fun putting his tips into practice!  We got the recipes from the immersion and slides from his talk.  They are worth a lot!

So today I'm back from the holidays and putting some of my new knowledge into action.  My soup today has Indian spices and I cooked up the onion as Chef Martin described:  first you heat up a stainless steel pot until hot, then put the onions and garlic in.  They sizzle up, slightly brown, and then release their juices.  You don't need oil, and they still gain a nice flavor.  Fun, it worked!  I did that with the leeks, celery, collards and kale too.  Then the pot was looking pretty burned and I thought, this will take forever to clean up.  But then I did the mushrooms the same way.  Well, they release so much liquid that it just ended up cleaning up the pot.  When they were done, the pot was clean.  ha!   a nice accidental discovery.  My soup was just my usual pile of things that I found in the co-op or my freezer.  I soaked beans, red himalayan rice, lentils, and purple barley overnight, and started cooking them in the morning.  Then cooked up the onions, garlic, celery, leeks, mushrooms, even the collards and kale, like Chef Martin described.  Added them to the pot one by one.  Oh I cooked up a festival squash in the oven, then added it to the soup after it cooled.  Oh yeah, and while cooking up the onion and other veggies, I added some graram masala and curry powder as they cooked.  Add the end I added some currants and fresh ground ginger.  It made for a nice hearty soup.  I froze most of it in single-serving containers.  yum.  I think I'll have it for breakfast every day.   I'll be doing my food prep at night this week.

My food plans for the week are soup for breakfast, and salad and roasted veggies for lunch and dinner.  The salads will be micro-salads made from lettuce, cabbage, maybe some broccoli and cauliflower, all cut up finely in the food processor; and topped with pomegranate seeds, grapefruit or orange, seed mixture, and flavored vinegar.  I love these.  The name should be changed from micro-salad to high-powered salad because it is so nutrient rich.  Tonight I'll experiment with roasted veggies.  I hope I can get this right.  I'm going to follow Chef Martin's advice to cover with foil at first so they essentially steam cook (before burning on the outside), then take of the foil to roast at the end.  I'll top with fresh herbs.  The veggies available now (that I like) are broccoli, brussels sprouts, carrots, onions, leeks, and sweet potato.  I'll do a little of each.  I am just learning to do this.  It would be nice to do a big batch and eat them for several days but I'm not sure how well they will keep.  I think I'll start off by just trying to do one day at a time and hope it isn't too time consuming.  I will add some flavored vinegar and mustard as marinate.  I got some fresh sage and rosemary at the co-op and have some basil from the garden in my freezer.  I hope this works!

Well, this post is long enough so I won't go into Thanksgiving much except to say I made apple sauce for my "brother-in law."  He had two 18 lb bags of apples!  holy cow, we had all the burners going:

It was fun though.  I nibbled a lot on the apples.  In fact, it was so much fun, we decided to make some for ourselves when we got home.  My batch has no sugar in it.  I'm not sure what I will use it in as I am not a great dessert maker or baker, the usual use of apple sauce.  But, heck, it probably could go in soup.

Here's tonight's quick salad I threw together, which is yummy, as salads always are:

That's got lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, blueberries, banana, small orange, seed mixture, and d'angou pear vinegar.

whew.  time to go fold laundry, then start tomorrow's food prep.  whew!  

Greens and Beans soup

I often make beans and greens soup but today I made greens and beans soup.  I want to not do any cooking during the work-week so all I have to do is prepare a salad every morning to split between lunch and dinner.  Then food prep takes only an hour and I'll have all my meals for the day.  It's repetitive but it doesn't bother me.  So I went to the garden and harvested a ton of greens: greens from the broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, collards and kale plants.  whew.  and some herbs.  and an eggplant.  and I combined those with all the veggies in the fridge that I normally cook, more eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms and onions.  and combined those with the beans and grains I was cooking.  Here's how I did it.

Last night I juiced 5 lbs of carrots and a bunch of celery added them to a pound of beans, 1/4 cup of purple barley, 1/4 cup of wild rice, and 1/4 cup of kamut (wheatberries), and soaked them overnight.  Here's the beans and grains before adding the juice (kind of pretty):

Cooked them up this morning for 3 hours.  Here they are cooked.  This was yummy.  I had to exercise discipline to not eat more than 2 bites of this:

I picked two lbs of greens from the garden, two lbs!

How am I going to cook up all these vegetables?  Use the food processor!   That shrinks them down.

Add some herbs from the garden:  basil, parsley, thyme, rosemary (chopped in the food processor)

Added 1 lb of eggplant, mushrooms, 1 green zucchini, 3 medium onions (like I said, whatever was in the fridge that could be cooked).

I cooked these up in two pressure cookers.  Two!   This was my crazy soup.

I dished them out into 20 1-cup servings.  20!   I ate two today, housemate ate one.  I figure I'll eat two a day, one for lunch and one for dinner.

I saved two for tomorrow, and froze the rest.  This will last me until I go on my vacation.  This is loaded, I mean loaded with greens.  And the odd thing is, it tastes quite good.  Even housemate liked it.  I was pleasantly surprised.

Here's the nutritional information for 2 servings:  327 calories, 17 g protein (17%), 2 g fat (4%), 65 g carbs (78%), 16 g fiber.

food lately

I've had lots of visitors lately and was busy at work so didn't have much time to post about food.  One of my visitors liked my food and asked me to post the recipes.  I didn't use any recipes,  or write down what I did, but I did snap a few photos.  So hopefully I can re-create them from the photos.  It was more of a method than a recipe which I can describe here.

The meals lately usually consist of beans, greens, salads, and corn on the cob, pretty much all locally grown.  and fruit for dessert (not so much local).    The beans are prepared on the weekend and frozen into daily containers.  Right now I have two batches in the freezer.  One is made with "runner cannellini" beans from rancho gordo.  This is what they looked like after soaking--gigantic!

 I cooked them up with mushrooms and onions.  They are creamy and yummy.   The other batch of beans I made with yellow-eyed beans (I don't see them listed right now on the rancho gordo site), and carrot juice, onions, mushrooms, and a little unhulled barley and black rice--really good!  I describe how to cook this up here.

That's the beans.  Then for the most of the veggies, I've been using kale, collards and herbs from the garden (basil, rosemary, chives, dill, cilantro--no rhyme or reason to this besides it grows well), and local produce from the co-op or garden which lately has been summer squash and zucchini and eggplant.  If I use the white beans, I add tomatoes from the garden.  I cook up the veggies in the pressure cooker while the corn on the cob is prepped and boiled.    After the veggies are done, add the beans and 1-2 Tbsp of seed mixture.

Here are some beans & greens:

Here's another batch served up with our usual corn on the cob and sliced tomatoes:

Salads consist of lettuce, maybe some cabbage because the local cabbage is real sweet right now, fresh garden tomatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, summer squash, bell pepper, occasionally broccoli from the garden, maybe peas or edamame, and dressing made from a little fresh squeezed orange juice (optional), vinegar (d'angou pear, riesling raisin or a good balsamic) and seed mixture.  Here's today's salad (with cabbage and spinach, forgot to buy lettuce):

We often add some Penzey's no-salt seasonings to the veggies, salads, corn and tomatoes.   Our favorite is mural of flavors, but we also have been trying out sunny paris.

Sometimes instead of greens and beans, we'll have fresh green beans from the garden and salad and corn.  I'll combine the green beans with potatoes and herbs for housemate and guests.

Here's something I made up one night when I was concerned that my guest might be tired of greens and beans.  This was a vegetable curry:

I didn't have much in the fridge so the vegetables were summer squash and cabbage, onion, mushroom and frozen peas.  It looks like there's a potato in there too.  I don't usually make potatoes for myself but I probably thought the guest would like it.   Eggplant would have been good too.  Now I know from experience that curry without salt and sugar tastes bitter and bland.  Since I don't use salt, I needed a sweetener.  I had banana and frozen mangos which I thawed.  I cooked up the squash, cabbage, onion, mushroom, and potato in the pressure cooker with about, 1 tsp of curry powder and 1/2 tsp of garam masala.   Then added the peas to cook in the hot veggies as they cooled.  I blended up the water that the veggies cooked in with 1/2 banana and some seed mixture (1-2 Tbsp).   Then pulsed it with about 1/2 cup mango.  Added that back to the veggies.   As usual, we had this with corn on the cob.  This recipe was a big hit, which is funny because I just made it up spur of the moment.

I think that describes everything except my latest yummy breakfast which I'll describe in my next post.  I also like to eat raw veggies:  carrots, kohlrabi, and sugar snap peas.  Today I added some lime and cilantro but I don't think it's worth the bother. They are great all by themselves.

For fruit, I usually buy what's in season and on special (discounted that is).  Lately it's been delicious organic cherries, both from Washington state and our own Door County.  Blueberries have been on special too.  And grapes occasionally.  Earlier we had a fabulous strawberry and raspberry season.  They are both still good, just no longer on special.    Local watermelons and muskmelons are in season now.  Fresh figs are available (from California).    We are getting peaches from Door County which are wonderful.  I'm sure I'm missing something. There's so much to choose from right now.  It's a great time of year.  I think the cherries are my favorite though---they are really good right now.

Channa Saag (sort of), and some blathering

This is an example of how using a recipe as a guide, but not following it exactly, makes life much easier.  And this turned out great.  I decided I eat so much raw food during the week, I want to start cooking more on the weekends.  But it's summer so I only want quick and easy things.  I gotta get outside and play!   If you a member of Dr. Fuhrman's website, you get a weekly recipe (or you can see them all at the recipe center).  So I went through a bunch of those emails and picked out about 15 recipes that looked good and easy for this time of year.  This morning I went grocery shopping and bought the kale, collards and spinach because they are local (around here, local tastes way better!).  I also made my weekly pot of beans--didn't even bother to add anything to them because I figure I can flavor them as I go.  So I did my usual thing of picking 2 packages of beans (1 lb each) from my rancho gordo stock--I usually go for a big one and a small one of different colors, or else just pick random.  Today's was a big white bean and a little orange one.  I soaked them last night, and cooked them up this morning--can't get any easier than that.  By the way, that cooked up into about 9 1.5 cup servings that I put in tupperware bowls and froze for the week.

Okay, so time to pick a recipe.  How about Channa Saag (Spicy Chickpeas with Spinach).  Now all the substitutions start because no way am I going to work hard at this, it's just lunch!  And since I made so many substitutions I can call it a new recipe and post it.

Ingredients for a 1 large serving or 2 small:
1/2 medium onion
1 garlic clove
1-2 medium tomatoes or 1/2 can
1 green chili or other pepper (I didn't use any, don't like them anymore)
1/2 tsp garam masala (the recipe called for tamarind powder but my co-op doesn't have it, and I didn't want to buy a big jar of concentrated tamarind for one lunch recipe, so I used garam masala and boy was that good!)
1/2-1 tsp curry
---(the recipe called for coriander powder which I don't really like so I didn't include it)
8 oz of spinach (wo that's a lot!  amazing how it cooks down though).
1.5 cups beans (recipe calls for chickpeas, who cares what kind of beans you use!)
cayenne pepper if you want (not me!)
herbs from the garden (not in the recipe, optional):  I threw in a lot of cilantro and chives, and a little dill and rosemary (because they were there).

Water saute the onion and garlic until tender.  Add the spices and herbs and peppers, cook for a few minutes.  Add the spinach, cook until it wilts, a few minutes.  Add in the beans, cook until heated.   Serve.

It was a great meal after a hard mountain bike ride.  Really yummy!

This week's beans!

This week's beans are so good! Wow, they taste like baked beans only without the added fat, salt, and sugar. I basically followed this recipe. I used rancho gordo cargamanto cranberry bean. They are kind of big and creamy, yet don't fall apart. But any dried bean would do. I chopped the onion and mushrooms in the food processor, out of laziness. This changes the texture compared to chopping with a knife. Either way is good. The mushrooms give the dish a kind of meaty texture. I dished it out into 10 bowls to freeze and take into work. Yum!

For fun I calculated the nutritional info per serving: calories, 234; protein 12 g (20%); carbs 45 g (77%), fat less than 1 gm.

Bean veggie soup

This is just beans, lots of veggies that Dr. Fuhrman always recommends, some grains, and carrot juice. Tastes real good.

Ingredients:

1 lb beans

juice of 5 lbs carrots (or 1 quart store-bought)

1/4 cup hulled barley

1/4 cup brown rice

1/4 cup wild rice

1-2 onions

1 lb mushrooms

4 cloves garlic

1 stalk broccoli

1/3 cauliflower

1 zucchini

1 bunch kale

I soaked the beans overnight in the carrot juice in a big stock pot. If you prefer, you can soak them in water overnight, then rinse in the morning, then add the carrot juice. Start cooking the beans in carrot juice while chopping all the veggies. I used a food processor to chop them. Put them in a big bowl and stir them up. Once the beans have cooked for an hour or so, you can add the veggies and grains. Cook for another hour or two until the beans are tender.

Wow, I forgot to add spices and it still tasted great. You could add some oregano or thyme, heck I don't know, maybe some of those spice mixes like Fines Herbes, Herbes de Provence, Bouquet Garni.

This made a lot of soup. We ate lots (too much), then I dished them into 1-cup bowls to freeze and eat whenever I want. Here they are in the freezer. Oops I should clean out the freezer. I had a spill in there a while back. It's mainly hemp seeds but it's messy...

Mexican hummus

I wanted some hummus but didn't have any of the usual ingredients except sesame seeds but I wasn't in the mood for those either, so I came up with this. I call it Mexican hummus because of the southwest flavors (cilantro, lime, cumin). It is very creamy and yummy. Note that my ingredients are just what I had on hand--you can do the same. The basic idea is to use a bean of some kind, spice--usually cumin (but in searching for the cumin I saw pumpkin pie spice and did wonder what that would be like), some kind of nuts or seeds, and citrus or vinegar flavoring.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb beans, (I chose "Eye of the Goat" heirloom beans because they were in the cupboard, and they looked like they would be creamy)

4 cloves garlic, or to taste

1-2 oz walnuts and pignolias

juice of 1 lime and 1/2 small orange (I didn't have lemon)

some cilantro

1 tsp cumin

Soak the beans overnight, and cook for about 3 hours. Here are the beans I used:

I roasted my garlic so it wouldn't have as strong a bite.

I put it in this little 1/3 cup measuring cup with some bean juice (dark from the beans, not roasting), and put it in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes.

Next, blend up the nuts, garlic, juice, cumin, and some bean liquid (1/2 cup?) and just some of the beans. First I want to get the nuts nice and pulverized. Then add the rest of the beans and as much bean liquid as you want for your desired consistency. Then add the cilantro and pulse. Then you can top with paprika. Here it is with an orange bell pepper slice dipped and ready for eating.

Easy Pot o' beans

This is tasty and simple.

Ingredients:

1 lb dry beans.

1 onion, chopped

1/2-1 lb mushrooms, chopped, any kind
1-5 cloves garlic (to taste), minced (optional)
herbs, dried or fresh (optional), e.g., thyme, basil, cilantro

Soak the beans overnight. Replace water and cook for about 1.5 hours. Add the onions, garlic and mushrooms, cook for another 1.5 hours. Cooking time depends on the size and freshness of the beans, usually ranges from 2-4 hours. Today I used rancho gordo "good mother stallard beans" and portabella mushrooms. This makes for tasty beans. You can add seasonings and greens and veggies and turn it into a soup. Or add these to your various dishes throughout the week.

If you are in a hurry, you can cook the beans in about 10 minutes in a pressure cooker (see your PC instructions). In this case, I'd add the onions, garlic and mushrooms at the beginning.  I freeze the beans into daily servings to eat during the week.

greens & mushrooms in creamy sauce

This feels like decadent comfort food and yet it's super healthy! I didn't measure so I'll try to estimate reasonable amounts. I'll update as I experiment more.

Ingredients:

a bunch of kale or collard greens or other greens

1/2 head of cauliflower (can substitute 2 stalks broccoli or mix), cut into big pieces

1 leek, cut in big pieces

1/2 lb mushrooms, chopped

1/2-1 onion, chopped

1 Tbsp vegizest (optional)

1 Tbsp d'angou pear vinegar or lemon juice (don't yet know which is better)

2 Tbsp seed mixture or any nut or seeds

4 dried apricots or prunes (mango?) or 1/2 cup pomegranate juice added during blending

optional: 1-2 cups beans

In one pot, steam the cauliflower, dried fruit, and leeks until tender. In another pot, steam the greens, mushrooms, and onions until desired tenderness. Blend the cauliflower, leeks, dried fruit, vegizest, vinegar, seed mixture and water from steaming in the blender. Combine this sauce with the greens, onion, and mushrooms (and beans if using) in a large serving bowl. yum!

winter bean & veggie soup

I decided to add more veggies to my beans so it's a real soup instead of just beans. You can add whatever veggies you want in whatever amounts. I chose collard greens because they are in my freezer, brussels sprouts because housemate loves them and we still get them locally, mushrooms and leeks because they are good cancer fighters, and zucchini to help make it a nice thick stew. Last week I used butternut squash but that in combination with the beans produced too much gas. :)

Ingredients:

1 lb beans (today's were Christmas lima)

juice from 5 lbs carrots, or about 1 qt

several cups water

collard greens, about 1 lb

2 large leeks

1 lb mushrooms (today's were a mixture of crimini, oyster and shiitake)

1 zucchini

brussel sprouts, about 1 lb (housemate really loves them)

I juiced the carrots last night and soaked the beans in the carrot juice overnight, with a few cups water. This morning I added more water and cooked the beans, while I was away for a few hours (housemate monitored water levels). Then when I returned I ran the rest through the food processor and added it in, along with more water. The leeks, zucchini, even the mushrooms, pretty much dissolve in stew after being chopped so fine and that thickens it up nicely. It tastes like a rich hearty winter soup.

If you don't want to bother with the carrot juice, just use water, then add some spices. Maybe some thyme and oregano--other suggestions?

this week's beans

This week I went back to my old easy way of preparing beans.

Ingredients:

2 lbs beans (from my Rancho Gordo selections)

juice from 7 lbs carrots (about 45 oz) (5 lbs is fine, I just had extra)

1 lb mushrooms (oyster, crimini, shitake)

1 lb leeks or onions

1 sweet potato

1 lb collards or kale (optional).

chop the mushrooms and onions and sweet potato in a food processor (or with a knife). Combine everything in a large stock pot. Soak overnight in fridge. Cook the next day for about 4 hours. Add some chopped greens to the pot if you'd like, at the beginning or within an hour of finishing cooking.

Update on the beans after cooking: the mushrooms definitely add a meaty flavor, which is actually a nice touch in winter--feels more hearty. It's good as is, or with some frozen sweet corn added to it (then warmed of course!), or combined with steamed veggies.

nachos

This was our football-watching lunch. I should have taken a picture, sorry...

Ingredients:

about 6 sprouted corn tortillas

1 can (15 oz, no salt) pinto beans

1 can (16 oz, no salt) tomatoes

1 avocado

1 clove garlic

1 tsp cumin

few Tbsp chopped onion or scallion

1-2 Tbsp chopped parsley or cilantro

1 tsp lemon juice

1 oz chopped walnuts and/or pignolias (mediterranean pine nuts)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Drain the tomatoes (save the liquid for soup if you want). Drain the water from the can of beans, then blend the beans, garlic and lemon juice in a blender or food processor. Add the onion and parsley/cilantro and pulse until chopped. Pour into a bowl and stir in the tomatoes. Chop the avocado, and stir into the dip.

Cut the corn tortillas into bite-size pieces. Place on a metal tray. Heat in the oven for about 5 minutes. Then remove and spoon the dip on top of the tortillas. Top with the chopped nuts (my version of cheese). Heat in the oven for another 5 minutes. Then eat!

Three-bean chili

This is an easy recipe. I made it for a potluck. Since I don't add salt, I added things to make it taste sweet. I think regular people would like this (hence, a good potluck dish). I put the amounts as ranges because it depends on what you have an hand and what you like more--it's hard to ruin it with too much or too little of something.

Ingredients:

1-2 onions

1-4 garlic cloves (to taste)

1-2 large sweet potatoes

2-3 large carrots

2 16-oz cans of tomatoes

3 cans of beans, different kinds: I used black soy, red kidney, and chick peas. pinto would be good too, and black beans too.

1-2 red or green bell peppers (optional; I didn't have any today).

2-3 Tbsp chili powder

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp oregano

1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon or cinnamon stick

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

2 cups frozen sweet corn

1-2 Tbsp date syrup (optional)

Run the carrots, and onions through a food processor. The resulting texture after cooking is a bit similar to the ground meat in chili. Add the spices (except cinnamon), and some water and start cooking the carrots and onions. Run the sweet potatoes, peppers, and garlic through the food processor too (or chop with a knife if you prefer). Add the tomatoes, veggies, and water to the pan and cook for about 20 minutes. Add the beans, cook some more. Add the cinnamon stick for about 5 minutes (then remove), or add the ground cinnamon. Add the corn and date syrup in the last 5-10 minutes. Total cooking time is about an hour.