beans
There are small moments of the day that are quiet. In that stillness, you can choose to let your mind run at top speed. Or, you can choose to relax and breathe into the space. Notice it. Take it in. Be present. Let it expand until it fills the room, fills your heart.
It’s how I bend time.
Kooky, huh? But it works. My days are “full” of lovely moments: nursing my sleepy son, sitting with my eyes shut and sun shining on my face, sipping hot tea, listening to the birds outside.
In reality, it probably adds up to all of 10 minutes, tops. But nevermind. They are exquisite. The rest of the day, I let all the annoying, stressful nonsense fly by.
Yes, I’m learning to appreciate the simple things.
Like a simple dish of beans, cabbage and potatoes.
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January 8th, 2012 | beans, happiness, recipe, self care, stress relief, vegetarian | 6 Comments »
I’ve been reminding and reminding my clients to take time for themselves over the holidays. To not overdo it. To step away from work. To keep it simple.
There’s a saying, “We teach what we need to learn.” It’s so unbelievably true.
In honor of my own restful holidays, this post has been magically pre-programmed to shoot out to the Universe while I am hopefully relaxing with my family and eating something nourishing and simple, like this:
Sweet Potato, Beans & Apples
2 cups uncooked mung beans or lentils
2-3 sweet potatoes, washed and diced (skin left on)
2 peeled and diced carrots
1 onion
1 cup vegetable broth, divided into 2 half cups
2 apples, washed and sliced (skin left on)
1 tsp. dried thyme
approx. 1/2 tsp. salt & 1/4 tsp. pepper
Cook mung beans or lentils by bringing them to a boil with 4 cups of water. Reduce heat and simmer until tender.
Meanwhile, sauté in a pan drizzled with a couple tablespoons of oil over med-high heat: the chopped onion, diced sweet potatoes & diced carrots with salt, pepper & thyme. Cook about 8 minutes. Add 1/2 cup vegetable broth, cover. Reduce to medium heat and cover. Cook about 5 minutes or until carrots and sweet potatoes are tender.
Add mung beans or lentils to sweet potato mixture with the remaining 1/2 cup broth and cover. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes.
Spoon into center of a plate and place fresh cut apple slices around edge of plate.
This dish is high in protein from the beans or lentils – there is no need to add meat. You can add a green salad as a side and this is a complete, satisfying meal. This makes at least 4 generous servings.
Thank you to Joni at Healthybodypeacefulsoul.com for the recipe.
December 27th, 2011 | beans, happiness, recipe, vegan, vegetarian, winter | 2 Comments »
This past weekend we ate out a lot. There’s a feeling of victory if we successfully get to a restaurant – almost as if doing so automatically equals fun and relaxation. It says, “We might be new parents but, see, we still live in the real world!”
Funny thing is we probably eat out more now than we ever did, pre-baby. Friday was sushi for lunch and happy hour chicken fingers. Saturday was over-the-counter empanadas for lunch and full on Mexican dinner. Sunday was crepes for brunch. Oy.
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August 23rd, 2011 | beans, happiness, quick and easy, recipe, vegan, vegetarian | 4 Comments »
Welcome to 21 Days of Detoxing! Whether you are one of our amazingly motivated participants or just interested in eating clean, whole, real food – boy do I have some recipes for you! From now ’til May 21st I’ll be featuring a delicious detox-friendly recipe each day. (And if you want to get in on the detox magic I have a Do It Yourself version available – right here.)
Sometimes people miss having a hunka hunka burnin’ meat on their plate. Vegetarian entrees tend to be more free-form, less structured items. But here’s a solution to try: Chickpea Patties. (Although if you’re like me you’ll just make ‘em Sloppy Joe style…) I’d try these with a smear of tahini on top, or any salad dressing of choice, over brown rice or salad greens. Or maybe between two slices of millet bread, if you want to go the sandwich route.
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May 12th, 2011 | 21 Days of Detox Recipes, beans, detoxify, recipe, spring, vegan, vegetarian | 2 Comments »
Welcome to 21 Days of Detoxing! Whether you are one of our amazingly motivated participants or just interested in eating clean, whole, real food – boy do I have some recipes for you! From now ’til May 21st I’ll be featuring a delicious detox-friendly recipe each day. (And if you want to get in on the detox magic I have a Do It Yourself version available – right here.)
Homemade is always best, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some fabulous packaged foods to help you out in the kitchen! I use Better Than Bouillon if I need a quick broth, for instance. And in this recipe, a pre-made curry paste makes life way easier. Just be sure to carefully read labels to avoid hidden sugars and weird chemical ingredients.
Our detox group is almost done with Week 1…give ‘em a round of applause!
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May 6th, 2011 | 21 Days of Detox Recipes, beans, quick and easy, recipe, vegan, vegetarian | 6 Comments »
Dude, I don’t know how you people make veggie burgers or patties or whatever. I just can’t do it. I hate it! And I give up. Ha! I don’t have the patience to smush together my carefully processed beans and veggies into patties and pray pray pray as I carefully place them in the pan…and they almost stay together…and then I go to flip ‘em and everything falls apart into crumbles. I’m over it.
No more, my friends. No more.
Now I bet some of you are masters at this task. Maybe you have Christ-like patience. Maybe you have non-stick pans. Whatever the case, bless your patty-making heart.
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April 27th, 2011 | beans, quick and easy, vegan, vegetarian | 3 Comments »
Nighttimes are a bit of a race lately. My husband gets home, we try to eat dinner and catch up, spend some quality time with Danny in between feedings and put him to bed all in like…90 minutes.
The best solution so far is for me to cook during the day and put the finishing touch on at 6pm. But time dinner that precisely? Who do I look like, June Cleaver?
Well, there’s only one hope and it’s my slow cooker. I gotta learn how to use this thing for more than just making stock. Thing is, I don’t like most slow cooker recipes I’ve seen and I don’t really know how to convert a regular recipe into a slow cooked recipe.
What do they say about the mother of invention?
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April 24th, 2011 | beans, groceries, recipe | 6 Comments »
Fealthy? Baby talk nonsense is working it’s way into my blog post titles, I see. You’ll have to excuse me.
Anyway, let’s talk about food you can make in 5 minutes with one hand. Because you’re holding a baby in the other hand, say for instance. Or a cell phone or something. Or a remote – and by the way I’m jealous if you’ve hand time to watch TV lately! Or sleep.
Let’s also talk about how not wasting food is the #1 way to save money in your food budget.
My mom made a turkey breast while she was visiting us. But you can pretend this story is about chicken if you like that better.
With little left to carve, I picked the remaining meat away – fingers actually are the best tools for this job. I got about 1.5 cups of meat that would have been thrown away. Score!! (Now I have the bones, which went in the freezer for when I get around to making stock. That’ll be another day.)
Turkey scraps are a good start to turkey salad. Just add mayo, no? You could.
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March 11th, 2011 | beans, frugal living, quick and easy, recipe | 5 Comments »
New and exciting around here includes: Ikea baby curtains and a fresh batch of Laborade prepped for the big day. We also recently got our co-sleeper set up, which I happily found on CSNstores.com and had delivered. (Have you shopped there? From baby stuff to Delsey luggage, they have pretty much everything.) But the coolest and newest thing to happen around here is that I baked bread with beans! Yah!
No, not bread and some beans on the side. Bread WITH beans. In it.
I guess I was inspired by trying to eat more protein, period. Growing a baby requires mad amounts of protein. But I wanted bread. Augh. What to do, what to do?
It got me wondering, could I cram some protein into bread the way I cram protein into cookies?
Sure can.
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February 3rd, 2011 | baking, beans, frugal living, recipe, whole grains | 17 Comments »
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You’re trying to be healthy. Maybe you’re trying to lose weight. What if I offered you something fried for dinner? What if I offered you something refried?
Aughh! Fried food? No way! “Give me some steamed mixed vegetables,” you’d cry.
And then you’d eat those steamed vegetables and hate every bite because of course you don’t want to put any butter on them and anyway they’re totally mushy. Now you’re depressed and craving some chocolate.
So what if I told you that frying food wasn’t really such a bad thing? That it’s been done for centuries before heart disease was an issue?
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September 21st, 2010 | beans, fat, recipe, vegan, vegetarian | 13 Comments »
