Easy no-bake "Baked beans"

This is one of those accidental inventions. I was saving time by preparing my beans the night before and then cooking the next morning. And when they were done, they looked and tasted like baked beans! with no added sugar!

Ingredients:

Juice from 5 lbs of carrots

1-3 cups water

1 lb (16 oz, 453 g) white or yellow beans

1 medium onion

2 parsnips (optional)

The night before: Rinse the beans. Juice the carrots and add to the beans. Add water to cover with an inch or two on top. Chop the onion and add. Peel and chop the parsnips and add. Let them soak overnight in the fridge. Next morning: put on the stove and cook for 2-4 hours, to desired tenderness. You'll probably need to add 1-2 cups water. The carrot juice makes them look orange, just like baked beans:

The carrot juice and parsnips make them nice and sweet. Yum! The parsnips even look kinda like those blobs of bacon you get in the canned beans, but they don't taste like it! (which for me is a good thing).

Note: you can make this with any other kind of beans and just call the result "sweet beans" or something. I think I'll be making this a lot.

spring food

The produce at the co-op has changed with the spring season and it is wonderful. The fresh strawberries from California have been cheap and delicious. They really taste better this time of year. This is one fruit you should buy organic (see this post from diseaseproof.com). I've been buying these as often as I can get to the store, because the season (when it's really good) is temporary. I've been eating them with blackberries which have also been good.

I've also been enjoying sugar snap peas, and local spinach and lettuce greens and arugula. We had local asparugus but that is gone again. But the California asparagus is good right now. Sadly, the local carrots disappeared from the store a few days ago. We get them about 9 months of the year, so that's good. I bought some California carrots and they tasted like chlorine even though they are organic. Yuck. So I think I'm done with eating raw carrots for a while. Maybe I'll juice them and add them to beans. We've also had morel mushrooms for a couple of weeks. Those were great! I'm still trying to adjust my tastes to like shitake mushrooms because Dr. Fuhrman says they are way more nutritious than the white button, cremini and portabella. So I welcomed the morel mushrooms. I just got some fresh California zucchini today--I'll see how that tastes this week. The bok choy, kale, and collard greens are usually wilted by the time we get them here in Wisconsin. But today's baby bok choy looked good so I bought several. I can't wait to get kale and collards from our garden, or locally--those are much better. It's fun watching the California, Florida, and local produce start to come in with the spring/summer season. You can tell when it's fresh and abundant because they are cheaper and often on special. I used to think that meant there was something wrong with them, but I had it all wrong--that's when they are best.

This week's updates

I'm not spending as much time in the kitchen as I have a new obsession: road and mountain biking. This week, some days were mostly raw, with micro-salad for brekky and lunch, and cabbage salad for lunch and dinner, along with fruit and seeds in various forms (frozen, or fresh strawberries) for extra treats. Other days I had micro-salad for breakfast and lunch, and cooked veggies for lunch and dinner.

There were several good posts on Dr. Fuhrman's Disease proof blog the last few weeks. For example, a quick overview of what foods to eat (health-promoting) and what to avoid (disease-promoting); junk food desensitizes the brain; refined carbs increase heart disease risk; and several good posts by Emily Boller with success strategies and interviews. Also, there's a great radio interview with Dr. Fuhrman here.

cooked veggies

I don't use recipes much, so this is just an example of what I made today from food in my fridge.

Ingredients:

1/2 medium eggplant, peeled and chopped

1 small (or bigger) onion, chopped

1 16-oz can tomatoes

4-8 oz shitake mushrooms

1 bunch kale, chopped

brussels sprouts, 12 oz in this case

1 parsnip, peeled and chopped

1 Tbsp sunflower seeds + 1 Tbsp sesame seeds, ground

1/4 cup raisins (I'm guessing--I added an unripe white peach instead and didn't like it, so next time I will try raisins or an apple)

1 cup beans

1/2 tsp each of some spices--I tried cumin, garam masala, and curry (felt like an Indian flavor)

fresh herbs if you have them--right now, it's cilantro, chives, and dill

1 Tbsp flavored vinegar (e.g., spicy pecan, or pomegranate balsamic)

Combine everything in the pressure cooker except the raisins, beans, ground seeds, and tomatoes. Cook for 2 minutes at high pressure, let set for a few minutes before letting out pressure (cooks them longer). Then add the raisins, beans, and tomatoes--also helps cool it down. It's pretty good. I'm not sure what spices work best, was just experimenting.

Breakfast micro-salad

Here's a salad I made several times this week. It was so filling I often spread it out to lunch even though it has under 500 calories.

Maybe it doesn't look the greatest but it takes a longer time to eat if you don't chop it down with the food processor. I like it both ways.

Ingredients:

Lettuce and/or spinach, 5-10 oz

cauliflower and/or broccoli (optional), 0.5-1.5 lbs

Fresh herbs if you want (e.g., chives, dill, cilantro), optional, I just do this when I have some in the garden

lime juice, from one lime

fresh berries if in season, otherwise frozen (16 oz)--This time of year it's fresh strawberries and blackberries, very yummy. But I don't shop every day so other days it's frozen cherries and blueberries or banana, etc.

1 orange, peeled

1/2 cup edamame (optional)

1 Tbsp seeds (e.g., sunflower, chia, flax, hemp) (optional)

I chop everything except the seeds, edamame and lime in the food processor. I grind the seeds in the coffee grinder, juice the lime, and add them. You can chop the edamame in the food processor too.

ice cream????

Sometimes I like my "ice cream" chunky. Here's some frozen mango, banana, and cherries topped with 1 Tbsp sunflower seeds. It was yummy. Frozen fruit tastes great. And without blending them, you get to taste the flavors separately.

healthy black bean salad

Despite all the healthy stuff in here, my guests enjoyed it too. I brought this to a potluck tonight.

Ingredients:

1 lb dried black beans (I was out, so used Rancho Gordo vaquero beans--they are black and white), or 2 cans

1 bunch kale, frozen

juice of 1 lime

flavored vinegar (optional)

1 stalk broccoli

1-2 cups cauliflower

1 red bell pepper

fruit--10 oz frozen or fresh mango, or apple, orange, pear in any combination, maybe 12-16 oz total

some cilantro and/or chives

10 oz bag of frozen corn

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Cook the beans if dried (soak overnight first, cook for a few hours), drain. Add the corn which will thaw the corn and cool the beans. Remove the kale from the freezer and crinkle right away with your hands (shatters into small pieces so save chopping time!). Add the lime juice and some vinegar to the kale. Chop the rest of the ingredients in a food processor, combine everything in a big bowl. Serve and enjoy!

I forgot to take a picture of the final product but here's the beans and the corn before draining:

and here's the veggies after chopping in the microprocessor:

Then they were all combined. It was good and filling!