OLE!

Tomorrow being Cinco de Mayo, I thought I'd post these recipes for beans and rice that we've really been enjoying lately. Easy. Delicious. Great food storage recipe too. I got and modified these from allrecipes.com.

This makes a lot of beans, and I love having the leftovers. I like the beans unmashed as well. Great for use in huevos rancheros, tacos, or even just beans and rice plain. So yummy.

Refried Beans Without the Refry

Original Recipe Yield 15 servings

Ingredients

• 1 onion, peeled and halved
• 3 cups dry pinto beans, rinsed
• 1/2 fresh jalapeno pepper, seeded (if desired) and chopped
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 5 teaspoons salt
• 1 3/4 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cumin, optional
• 9 cups water/ chicken stock

Directions

1. Place the onion, rinsed beans, jalapeno, garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin into a slow cooker. Pour in the water and stir to combine. Cook on High for 8 hours, adding more water as needed. Note: if more than 1 cup of water has evaporated during cooking, then the temperature is too high.
2. Once the beans have cooked, strain them, and reserve the liquid. Mash the beans with a potato masher, adding the reserved water as needed to attain desired consistency.
3. Or leave whole and eat with Mexican rice as a meal. Works in huevos rancheros, anything really.
4. Optionally also, mash and refry with cheese, etc.

Mexican Rice

I have started doubling this recipe to have enough leftover to use with all the beans. This has lots of flavor.

Original Recipe Yield 8 servings

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2/3 cup diced onion
• 1 1/2 cups uncooked white rice
• 1 cup chopped green bell pepper (or a mixture of colored peppers)
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 1/2 (8 ounce) cans tomato sauce
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/8 teaspoon powdered saffron (optional)
• 3 cups water

Directions

1. In a large saucepan, heat vegetable oil over a medium-low heat. Place the onions in the pan, and saute until golden.
2. Add rice to pan, and stir to coat grains with oil. Mix in green bell pepper, cumin, chili powder, tomato sauce, salt, garlic, saffron, and water. Cover, bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to simmer. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes, or until rice is tender. Stir occasionally.
3. OR, cook and combine ingredients and cook in pressure cooker with suggested amount of water for the cooker.

Oops.

Way back when I posted the pictures and recipes for granola bars from the Healthy Snacks eBook by Katie from Kitchen Stewardship, I didn't realize that I posted the wrong recipe--or at least not the one I made. My brother went to make them the other day and they were totally different!

Here's the soaked version that I make and love. You don't have to soak and dry the oats, you can just use regular rolled (old fashioned, not quick, if you please) oats, and if your walnuts are soaked like mine, that's great! I do the unbaked ending, and we LOVE these.

½ or ¾ c.butter

2/3 or 1 c. honey

2 tsp. vanilla

4 ½ c. soaked and dried oats

½ c. whole wheat flour

1 c.walnuts

1 cup add-ins: mini chocolate chips, dried fruit, sunflower seeds, coconut, etc

In a small saucepan, melt butter, honey and vanilla over medium low heat. Once butter is melted and bubbly, cook and stir for 5 minutes. In a separate bowl, stir together the dry ingredients. Mix the liquid with the oats. Incorporate add-ins at this point (mini-chocolate chips melt, so you may want to cool first).

Choose Your Own Ending

Unbaked (Use the 2/3 cup honey and ¾ cup butter) Line a container of any kind with waxed paper (I’ve used glass dishes and plastic storage containers.) Press into a pan with waxed paper. Allow to harden up (the refrigerator ensures this) and then cut into bars.

Baked (Use 1 cup honey and ½ c. butter, or use less honey but have more crumbly results. Add 1 tsp. baking soda and mix in thoroughly.) Press mixture hard into a greased pan; use wax paper on your fingers to apply pressure. Bake at 325 degrees F for 10 minutes. Allow to sit in pan until completely cool and then cut into bars.

Taste difference? Believe it or not, 10 minutes in the oven does something considerable. The baked bars have a mouthfeel related to a cookie (but not quite) and are less sweet. Unbaked bars are more like a sticky Quaker chewy granola bar, but with the 1 cup honey are much too sweet (and more expensive anyway). You could try half and half in 8x8” pans to see which you prefer!

Makes at least 20 bars, equivalent to about 3 boxes processed bars

Cost: $3.00, varies widely based on honey and butter prices

HOW TO: soak and dehydrate oats! (adapted from Katie at Kitchen Stewardship)

Start by soaking the oats overnight in water at the ratio of 3 cups oats to 1 cup water with one tbsp whey in the cup. Add 1/3 cup whole wheat flour (or spelt or buckwheat flour) in order to have some phytase available to break down the phytic acid. Without it, this process is worthless.

Drain any excess liquid off (if there is any, the oats aren't that moist).

Spread as thinly as possible on cookie sheets or a silicone baking mat.

Toast in a 250 degree oven for as long as it takes for them to completely dry out, usually about 2-4 hours. You want the oats to be very crunchy. You can accomplish this in a dehydrator at any temperature as well. Use parchment paper or teflon sheets to keep the oats from falling through the racks.

Allow to cool slightly, then break apart and whiz briefly in a food processor until the oats are in little chunks.

Store in a tightly closed container at room temperature, or if you have access to freezer space, cold storage isn't a bad idea.

Added bonus: If you want soaked oatmeal for the morning, you can cook these up as hot cereal just as if they were "quick oats!"

Coconut Banana Pancakes

I posted on my family blog about some pancakes we had for breakfast the other day (which we eat pretty regularly, actually), and I had such a good response and requests for recipes, I thought I'd oblige here.

The pancakes are pretty much the recipe from my Vitamix cookbook for buttermilk pancakes, but I change the grains up regularly. I have used oat, barley, kamut, spelt, hard red wheat, hard white wheat flours, and others I'm sure. In the picture above I used a mixture of kamut and spelt, just what I had on hand already ground. The actual recipe just calls for whole wheat flour.


Here's the recipe for the pancakes:

Place in blender:

1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 egg
2 Tbsp. light olive oil (I've used several kinds, all with success)
1/2 tsp (sea) salt
a little squirt of agave or other natural sweetener, if desired. (about a tsp.)

Blend well.

Then add:

1 1/4 cups whole-grain flour or mixture of flours of choice
1 tsp. baking soda

Blend, pulsing to combine. If it doesn't all combine, give it a stir or two with a spoon.

Cook on griddle.

I usually at least double this to have a few pancakes left for the next day.

Now, for the syrup! Oh yes. Delicioso.

The original recipe comes from Kara, and you can find it here.

I have modified it to suit my taste and needs. The original was just too thin for me.

Place in saucepan over medium heat:
1/2 cup sucanat
1/2 cup honey
1/4 tsp (sea) salt

Melt those all together. Once the sucanat is all dissolved, add in:

1 can of coconut milk
(Kara's cans are bigger than mine, I guess. I just use my 13.66 oz can, and it works great. A little more or less won't hurt.)

Mix in well. Then, I add in:

about a tablespoon of corn starch and a smidgen of water to mix it beforehand, add the mixture into your syrup and bring to a boil to thicken.

Once the desired thickness is achieved, remove from heat. Add in:

a tsp of vanilla.

Place on pancakes and inhale. So good.

For a special treat, and as pictured above, layer on some banana slices and come unsweetened coconut. Wow. What a breakfast. No white flour or sugar. No HFCS. Just goodness. And man, it's SO GOOD.

Green Day

How about, instead of food coloring to make foods green for today, you just eat some real green foods? Salads are great, fruits and veggies are great. Green smoothies are great.
Try mashing some spinach into your mashed potatoes, or make twice-baked green potatoes, like these from GreenSmoothieGirl.

Twice-Baked Green Potatoes

My sister-in-law Kelli makes this recipe, and even her vegetable-hating 3-year-old will eat it, even though she won’t eat broccoli. Of course, I’ve added even more greens.

8 large potatoes
1 large head broccoli
4 C spinach
8 green onions, diced (including the long green part)
¼ C grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1½ tsp. sea salt
freshly ground pepper to taste

Bake foil-wrapped potatoes at 350° for one hour, then let cool enough to handle the potatoes. Chop the broccoli into small pieces and steam for 15 minutes, adding the spinach for the last 5 minutes of steaming. Cut each potato in half and scoop out the potato “guts,” being careful to leave the skin intact with about ¼” of potato all the way around, to keep it firm to use later. Set the skins aside.

Use a hand mixer to blend until smooth the potato “guts,” steamed broccoli, onions, spinach, Parmesan, olive oil, and salt and pepper. Add a bit of water if the mixture is too thick to blend.

Scoop the mixture back into the potato skins. Optionally sprinkle with additional Parmesan, then bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes. Serve immediately.

As for salads, try mixing it up from your usual if you are feeling salad burnout. Add some fruit, seeds, artichoke hearts, sprouts, different colors of peppers...make it beautiful and interesting! And to top it off (literally. ha.), make your own salad dressing. Ranch is a favorite, but if you want something else, try this:

Maple Syrup Dressing

¾ C extra virgin olive oil
¾ C red wine vinegar
6 Tbsp. maple syrup
½ tsp. sea salt
¼ C brown mustard
¼ yellow or white onion
½ tsp. garlic powder
Blend in a high-power blender until smooth.

(Feel free to cut the amounts in half. This makes quite a bit.)

Here's one more GSG recipe. A fun party salad that would really enliven your usual dinner salad and it's green, of course.

Spinach-Orzo Ensalata

This is my duplication of my favorite salad at Macaroni Grill, but nutritious and vegetarian—and I think it even tastes better. It’s a hit everywhere I take it.

1 C uncooked whole-wheat orzo pasta (boil it approx. 6-7 minutes and rinse well to keep grains
separate, then cool)
10+ C spinach (about 2 10-oz. bags), chopped
1 pkg. fresh basil, cut into ribbons
2 tomatoes, diced small
1 can black olives, sliced
2 oz. capers (half a 4-oz. jar), drained
½ C raw pine nuts
optional: shaved Parmesan to taste
Toss all ingredients except optional Parmesan. Add dressing to taste (the Tangy Dill Dressing on page 63 is perfect) and toss. Top each plate with shaved Parmesan if desired.

And here's the dressing for this one:

Tangy Dill Dressing

¼ C fresh lemon juice
¼ C fresh orange juice
½ C extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp. Bragg Liquid Aminos (page 238)
¼ C apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. honey
2 garlic cloves
1 Tbsp. dried (or ¼ C fresh) dill weed

Blend all ingredients in a high-power blender.

Green not only has a lot of fabulous nutrition, it's essential for true health and cleansing our bodies of toxins. Eat up!

Asparagus

When foods are in season they are at their peak of nutrition and are less expensive, to name only two bonuses. Here's one that you can enjoy right now:



Asparagus is at its peak from February through June. Eat it up!

Coco-Nutties

I know I use this word a lot, but these are YUM. They are a great treat with no cooking time--quick and easy to make, whole food ingredients, and you can freeze them for those sweet tooth moments, or serve them for everyone to gobble up right away.

My little boy calls them "nuddies." I found the recipe on a blog a while ago and printed it off to try sometime. I'm so glad I got around to it.

Coco-Nutties

2 C. pecans
(I didn't have a full 2 c.of pecans so I added in brazil nuts that I had on hand to fill the gap and they worked great.)
1/4 C. coconut oil
(It helps if this is in liquid form beforehand)
3 Tb. agave
3 Tb honey
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 C unsweetened shredded coconut
1 C chopped chocolate
(I just used some good chocolate chips and processed them up a bit in my food processor)

Pulse nuts in blender.
Take out and add everything to a bowl.
Make into balls and chill or freeze until ready to serve.

Makes about 30 golf-sized balls



I cooled some of them in the fridge to eat for a treat that night and froze thr rest, first seperately on a cookie sheet, and then condensed them into a Ziplock bag for longer-term storage.



I'm not kidding. They are so good. And easy.

Thai Food, Anyone?

I have really grown a taste for Thai and Indian cuisine. This is another Green Smoothie Girl recipe from her 12 Steps to Whole Foods book. It is not just a recipe book, but it contains a lot of recipes to help you implement the things she teaches. Some of the recipes are winners, others not so much. This was a winner--not just a "we could eat it again."

Be warned that it has a kick (one my two year old could handle though. Take care if your kids are wary of spicy foods). It must be the red curry paste. But you can do yellow or green curry paste as well. To find good deals on curry paste and other Asian products go to your local Asian market. The prices are WAY better there and the stuff is probably more authentic. Gluten intolerance? Asian markets have lots of rice and yam noodles for cheap. Really, give them a try. It's one of my new favorite places to shop. :)

I made this with brown basmati rice and would highly recommend the same for you, unless you are really wanting it with noodles.

Whole-Grain Pasta with Thai Coconut Sauce

My teenaged son calls this dish “Asia Meets Europe.” You can serve it with 4 C of cooked brown rice instead of pasta, if you prefer to keep it truly Asian.

16 oz. whole-wheat or spelt pasta, cooked according to package directions
3 Tbsp. coconut oil
1 can coconut milk
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
2 onions, chopped
1 head cauliflower, chopped
2 red bell peppers, sliced
3 carrots, chopped
2 Tbsp. fish sauce
2 Tbsp. red curry paste (or green or yellow, if you prefer)
1 can lychee fruit, drained (pronounced “LEE-chee”) --I left this out--
1 can baby corn, drained
¼ tsp. sea salt

Heat the coconut oil in a wok or skillet and sauté vegetables until tender-crisp. Blend the coconut milk,cornstarch, fish sauce, curry paste, and salt in a blender. Add to the vegetables, along with the lycees and baby corn. Heat and stir until sauce thickens. Toss vegetables/sauce with pasta and serve.

Of course, I always recommend serving dinner with a big green salad.