beans
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 »
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 »
Before I forget, this recipe involves a fair amount of chopping and I’ve been despising my kitchen knives as of late. In the coming weeks I’ll be reviewing some new Victorinox knives from CSN stores – they’re a big consortium of shopping sites selling kitchen stuff, dining room sets, baby cribs, you name it.
Anyway, you know all those things you’ve been putting off until fall? For me it’s been painting the spare room, starting some new projects for my business and signing up for a plethora of birthing, diapering and breast feeding classes.
Ah, yes. It will all happen in September. A mere 2 weeks until total productivity. (We’ll see…)
Until then, I know my cooking motivation is still on summer break. Is yours? Because I have 2 black bananas in the fridge just wishing to be made into banana bread so if you’d like to come on by and grab ‘em they’re all yours!
However I was knocked out with inspiration when I saw a recipe online for panzanella. This is a perfect way to use up CSA veggies and not turn on the oven. Panzanella is an Italian bread salad – but don’t let the word “bread” scare you because it’s definitely not the main player in this dish.
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August 16th, 2010 | beans, recipe, vegan, vegetarian | 13 Comments »
The best thing ever: I have a beach near my house! Seriously! It’s a small sandy area next to a lake and it’s only 3 minutes from my house. How did I never know this before?
Well, you know where I’ll be all summer.
It’s not the kind of beach that has a boardwalk or anything – not even a food truck or a fast food joint across the street. Which means that I’ll be bringing food with me, like I did today. And honestly, like I do most days regardless of where I’m headed! Since shifting my diet away from processed, refined food I’ve really had brown bag it more often than not.
But I don’t mind at all. It’s cheaper, it’s more earth friendly, and it means my belly is always happy. The one obstacle? Not having any way to heat up my food! When brown bagging across town and hanging out at local beaches it’s best to prepare food that tastes great at room temperature because, hey, that’s how it’s going down.
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May 20th, 2010 | beans, quick and easy, recipe, vegan, vegetarian | 11 Comments »
Wow! Today has been months in the making, but sure enough the first official day of my 21 Day Detox has arrived. Yesterday I kicked off the program with over 35 participants from the Boston area and around the world. Is the internet cool or what?
So whether you are walking around Boston or Toronto or Ireland, you may just pass someone on the street who has dedicated the next 21 days (wait, we’re down to 20!) to eating really clean and learning some valuable information about their body. Doesn’t that just make you want to high-five humanity?
People really are willing to put their money (and their healthy lunch) where their mouth is! It’s not just watching Jamie Oliver running around on national TV talking about school lunches, and it’s not just a bunch of us complaining about obesity and disease – here are people willing to get serious and DO something in their own lives.
It’s so, so super cool.
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April 26th, 2010 | beans, detoxify, quick and easy, recipe, vegan, vegetarian | 10 Comments »
My first waitressing job was at Friendly’s Restaurant when I was 16 years old. For those of you who don’t have Friendly’s in your area, it’s the kind of chain restaurant that serves Super Sizzlin’ Breakfasts, SuperMelt Sandwiches and Fribble Shakes (along with a host of other cutesy, trademarked menu items).
Actually, my first run-in with kale was at Friendly’s. On each Big Beef Burger Platter there was a big piece of kale garnish, which I never considered much. Until one day a customer flagged me over to his table to direct my attention to the thing (caterpillar?) cocooned in his piece of kale.
Auuuughhhhhhh.
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April 23rd, 2010 | beans, detoxify, raw foods, recipe, vegan, vegetarian | 12 Comments »
Every tree down our street is in full bloom, making me feel like I’m in a movie. I know it’s just nature’s way but I think it is so darn cool how they all know how to bloom at the exact same time. No meetings, no email, no Skype-ing. The trees just do what they do, every year.
I guess in our own human ways we also come alive each spring too. Like, WOOHOOOO IT’S NICE OUT! In my yoga classes I’m teaching a lot of heart-opening postures because it feels good to backbend and feel wide open in the sunny weather. To bloom!
The net result? I’m inspired me to relax and enjoy life a bit more. It’s been a really busy winter – a really busy year. My one year anniversary of Find Your Balance has come and gone and I barely had time to acknowledge it. Since starting this business I’ve done a million things I’ve never done before – one after another after another. Whew!
So when it came to planning food for the week I was like…huh…dinners…hmmm….i dunno…
I went to Whole Foods and stared into my cart until something came together. Seriously, I added and took away bunches of carrots, peppers, beans and greens until my brain finally formulated a vague plan. (I do not recommend this technique unless you have an extra hour to spend at the store. I must have looked like a crazy lady putting the same head of celery in my cart 3 times and taking it out again.)
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April 15th, 2010 | beans, detoxify, groceries, happiness, recipe, spring, vegan, vegetarian | 11 Comments »
It amazes me that I went through high school and college, was deemed an adult, and walked into the world without a clue how to perform certain basic life functions.
It’s unlikely, but if anyone ever asks me what questions should be on the SATs, I know my answer! Every graduating high school senior should know how to cook a pot of brown rice and dried beans. It could be a short essay.
Beans are ignored far too often. (Except for chickpeas – the darling of hummus!) For such low-cost, high-nutrient dense foods, you would think they’d be a staple in more homes. We complain about the economy, fear for our 401Ks, but do we buy some basic dried beans and feed ourselves well for pennies a day? Do we skip the irradiated, antibiotic-filled supermarket meat and make an affordable, organic choice instead?
I challenge you to do just that! And while you’re at it, teach a high school kid how to do the same. (Expect resistance now, gratitude later.)
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March 9th, 2010 | beans, frugal living, recipe, sea vegetables | 13 Comments »
