Greens and Beans

They might not be pretty but these beans have sole.

This is my go-to for when there are random greens wilting in the crisper and random beans threatening to turn evil because I made too many for another recipe earlier in the week.  I can't believe it's taken me this along to post about this considering I eat some variation of it once a week at least.  But here it finally is ready for you to bask in the awesomeness that is it's ease of preparation and it's ability to use up those pesky left over ingredients in a tasty way.

The great part of this recipe is you can change it up with whatever combo of greens and beans you have on hand.  White beans are best: garbanzo, fava, navy, cannellini, or giant white lima beans are all beans I've used with success.  Then mix and match your beans with spinach, kale, rainbow chard, beet greens, or pretty much any other dark leafy green you happen to have around.  Lima beans with beet greens and a drizzle of lemon juice or garbanzos with kale and some fresh rosemary are my favorite combination but feel free to mix and match and let me know what you come up with.

Greens and Beans

1/2 pound of dried beans (or about 2 cups left over, cooked beans)

3 tablespoons oil

2 cloves garlic, diced

rosemary, lemon juice, or other seasoning (optional)

salt and pepper, to taste

handful of greens

If you're starting out with dried beans prepare them according to package directions.  Once you have your beans prepped, in a large (preferably non stick) pan, heat the oil over medium high heat.  When the oil is hot, toss in the beans and cook them, agitating them every so often so that they don't burn, for about 15 minutes or until they are browned on all sides.  If your beans are sticking to the pan or drying out too quickly, pour in a little more oil to moisten things up. 

Once the beans are toasted, lower the heat a bit and add the garlic, any other seasoning you would like and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Cook for another couple minutes or until garlic is to your preferred level of doneness.  Now add some greens and allow the warm beans to wilt down the greens.  Once your greens are wilted you're ready to eat.

Homemade Rice Milk

Now that I figured out how to make it myself I can't believe I've spent so much money on buying not so tasty rice milk in the store all these years.  To get an aseptic container of gluten free sugar free rice milk I was paying $2 or more a week.  Which isn't too bad considering how much a similar sized bit of organic hormone free dairy milk would be.  But I have left over rice at home all of the time and I'm obsessed with making everything myself so I figured there had to be a more cost effective way to enjoy rice milk.  Turns out there is and  it couldn't be easier.

Surprise surprise all rice milk is made of is rice and water and a bit of vanilla makes things more palatable.  So why continue spending money on non-dairy milk products in the store that will lead to you throwing away extra cardboard containers in the land fill when you can do it yourself?   If you have five minutes and a blender you have no excuse to not do it.  It's ridiculously easy.

Homemade Rice Milk

1 cup warm brown rice
4 cups warm water
1 teaspoon vanilla

In order to get milk and not rice sludge it is important that the water and rice are warm, not boiling but heated through.  Place all the ingredients in the blender.  Just in case the water is too warm, place the lid of the blender on an angle so air can escape when you start the blender, then cover the top of the blender with a towel in case anything splatters. 

Start the blender on a medium speed and allow it to whir for 5 minutes.  You may have to run your blender for a minute at a time, agitating the mixture periodically.  When you have a uniform constancy in the blender pour the mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a storage container (I keep mine in left over yogurt containers.)  There will be pulp from the brown rice in the sieve, try to force as much liquid out of it as possible.

T

This is what you want the pulp of your rice milk mixture to look like coming out of the blender after the liquid has all been forced out.  If it's any courser than this put it back in the blender for another minute or so.

Allow mixture to cool then store it in a well sealed container in the fridge for up to a week.  Make sure to shake the milk before each use as the contents settle.

The Best Ever Beet Salad

One of the hazards of living under the same roof with me is you never know just what you're going to come home to. 

There is a good chance of coming home to me napping on the dog and just as fair a chance I will come running at the fella to insist he taste whatever thing it is that I'm cooking.  But every once in a while just to remind him that he lives with a crazy person he will come home to me doing something absolutely nutty with food. 

On this particular evening he came home to me yelling from the kitchen “Hey honey come in here and take a picture of this, it's awesome.”  He knows enough to enter rooms with a certain amount of trepidation when I'm talking to the food so who knows what he thought he was getting into.  It's been a while since I shaved celery so he probably thought he was safe.

“Doesn't this look like a bowl of guts?  And it's purple!”  I said with glee in my voice while thrusting at him  this giant bowl of shredded beets that did indeed look rather grotesque and bloody.  The fella took some pictures while keeping a safe distance from my mess, all the while giving me the face reserved for moments when you wonder what you've gotten yourself into and how soon you get get out of them.

The fun of making this meal however doesn't end there, the best thing about these shredded beets is they were about to get even more interesting.  Did you know that when you add tahini, yogurt and lemon juice to beets not only do you get an amazing salad but the beets turn the most unbelievable shade of magenta?  And there are few things I love more than eating purple things so you can only imagine how many times I've submitting the men in my life to this beet creation since I discovered it.  I mean what is not to love?  It is easy, very tasty and almost painfully good for you.  Thank you once Mark Bittman, master of the exciting salad!

If you don't enjoy being purple as much as I do borrow a child or a food processor attachment that will do the dirty work of beet shredding for you.  But believe me when I say this salad is worth the mess.  And it goes particularly well with some chicken thighs or bone in chicken pieces dredged in zatar seasoning and put in the oven until cooked through.  A dash of salt and pepper on the chicken and you have a richly flavored bit of chicken that took no effort.  This is my new favorite meal, I never imagined falling in love with beets like this.

What kind of wine possibly pairs with this crazy meal?  Um, who cares I was in the mood for Torrontes the Norto being a delicious but subtle tangy tropical fruit bomb with just enough bit to make it interesting but such well balanced fruit its a little to easy to drink.  And at about $10 it is a great value.  I'll save the pricey but amazing Michel Torino's Don David also known as the best Torrontes for a special occasion and gladly stick to the Norto for a weekday dinner.

These three things came together better than I could have hoped and made for a small Middle Eastern tinged food vacation.  Just what I could use in the middle of a winter that seems like it will never end. 

So don't give up on beets until you give a try to this salad or Lindsay's orzo dish up over on Forkful of News.  They are both so tasty you will forget you are eating vegetables.  And while you're over there check out my article about Argan oil, a crazy little known oil that just might change the way you cook.  It's worth clicking on especially if you're having a bad day, if only to look at the pictures of tree climbing goats.

Best Ever Beet Salad

3 large beets, peeled

1/2 cup yogurt

1/2 cup tahini

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon zatar seasoning

Grate the beets by hand or with a food processor and then place in a large mixing bowl.

Whisk together the yogurt and tahini in a separate small bowl.  When well combined add lemon juice and zatar seasoning and stir well.  Toss the yogurt mixture into the grated beets.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper is desired.

From Mark Bittman's 101 Salads article in the New York Times.

Quinoa Salad with Pomegranate

Apparently the winter has finally gotten to me and I'm starting to snap.  In the midst of my Monday cooking frenzy I realized everything on my recipe list this week leaned toward Mediterranean foods.  Not that there is anything at all wrong with that.  It was just an odd moment to realize I had totally subconsciously arranged for myself to eat delicious slightly summery light foods.  You know you need a vacation when your taste buds create one for you.

The big hit of the slew of things I made today was this salad.  I've made it before but this time I played with the dressing and changed up the proportions to fit what I was in the mood for to make the salad just that much better.

I've already raved about quinoa but I'll do so again for a couple seconds in case there is still anyone that hasn't tried it.  Quinoa is similar in texture to couscous and is prepared in much the same way but is a grain from a grassy South American plant rather than processed wheat.  It has an interesting slightly bitter taste that makes it a great contrast to a bright citrusy salad like this one.  And it's perfect for the Montignac Method because at 35 it has the lowest GI of any of the grains I've looked into.

I buy mine in the bulk bins at Whole Foods where it's about $3 a pound which is a pretty great deal considering my mother said a couple ounces of it is around $5 at her local grocery store.  It's just nice to have around for quick salads, a rice substitute or as an oatmeal type breakfast with a much better texture.

Unfortunately not everything I made today came out as well as this salad.  Next time I will share with the world how I failed at my fourth soufflé in a row.  It wasn't meant to be I guess and I now know not to try again.   I'll stick to less high maintenance food thank you very much.

 

Quinoa Salad with Pomegranate

1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups water

1 cup pomegranate seeds
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 lemon, zested
1 teaspoon agave nectar
1 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup pinenuts, toasted
1/ 4 scant cup cilantro leaves, chopped

salt and pepper, to taste

Bring quinoa and water to boil in medium pot.  After allowing to cook on a rolling boil for a couple minutes, reduce heat to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes or until quinoa is al dente.  Set aside off heat to allow quinoa to cool.

Add the pomegranate seeds to the cooled quinoa in a large bowl. In a small bowl whisk the olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, agave nectar, and mustard until blended. Drizzle over quinoa mixture. Add the remaining ingredients and toss. Season with salt & pepper to taste. 

Modified from Enlightened Cooking blog. 

Fakey Rice Using Shirataki

There are very few times on this diet where I've actually felt deprived of anything.  Admittedly there was a huge learning curve when the fella and I first started and we spent a lot of time mourning the lost of things we could no longer eat.  After a year of eating this way however we've figured out substitutes for most of the things we could possibly want.  Almond flour has been a blessing, allowing us to make decent faux versions of things like naan and pizza crust that we would otherwise have gone crazy without. 

The one problem almond flour couldn't solve however was the rice issue.  Brown rice is fine on low fat/high carb days.  But what is a girl to do when she has just made a spectacular rich spicy curry with delicious cubes of perfectly marinated meat and veggies floating in it?  To eat it alone like a odd creamy soup seems like a waste of the subtleties of flavor I just spent an hour creating.  Or it might need some sort of carbohydrate to even out the spice level.  And a splendid stir fry is just dull without something hearty to fill out the meal and absorb the sweet but sour sauce dripping off the veggies.

This problem has stymied me until just recently.  I had  been keeping my stir fries and curries on the low fat end of the scale so I could have them with rice but that's no solution for an enterprising foodie like myself.  Enter Shirataki noodles!

A fellow food geek told me about these at a party I was at recently. She said they were her favorite no carb no fat noodle for her gluten free cooking clients. Surely I thought she was exaggerating, not thinking it possible that a food so perfect for the Montignac diet could actually exist. The fella and I went in search of them the next day and found them for around $1 for an 8 ounce bag of them in the refrigerated section of the local Asian grocery stores near the tofu. We leapt for joy, came home and ate them with a stir fry. It was amazing and everything I had been missing about not having rice on fat/no carb days.

Now that I know about Shirataki I've been seeing them everywhere.  The traditional genuinely carb free noodles from Japan I've only found in Asian markets.  They are almost completely flavorless and contain only water and water soluble dietary fiber as they are made from the konjac plant and then suspended in lime resulting in no carbs whatsoever.  (One of my science inclined friends can feel free to chime in to explain how this works, I'm talking about you Stephanie.)  They have a better consistency and hold up to being heated better than the other easier to find variety. 

The other variety, the one I stopped long enough to take a picture of for you is in the tofu section of places like Whole Foods or even in the organic health food section of the produce in chain grocery stores.  These are tofu based and so aren't totally carb free.  They also have a slightly off putting Jello like consistency and are more expensive.

It all depends on what you can find but, both versions are nice options for times when you'd like to be eating rice but they take a little getting used to.  The noodles come floating in a fishy smelling liquid to preserve them which was enough to totally turn off the fella who is no  lover of raw fish or “salted trout flakes” as he so lovingly refers to nori.  They just need some rinsing under cool water to rid them of the fishy smell.  Next I would suggest boiling them for literally one minute, just long enough to heat them through and cook off any remaining fish smell.  Drain them again and toss them with a little toasted sesame oil or hoisin sauce and you're ready to go.  You can even use kitchen scissors to cut the noodles into smaller pieces so  they are more rice like.

Shirtaki has now become my new favorite low carb obsession.  Look at it steamy and coating hoisin sauce though and can you blame me?  No carbs no guilt and tasty.  What's not to love?

Broccoli and Roasted Red Pepper Pasta

Finding high protein meals for this diet has been simple. Those meals allow fat and any fruits and vegetables with a GI of 35 or lower. The only big restriction is keeping the meal carb and root vegetable free. We have fun cooking these nights and they usually allow us to dabble in the Indian food and spice we miss so much.

The high fiber/low fat meal however have started to get tedious. These meals are heavily restrictive as to what is allowed and have to be eaten for dinner 3 to 4 times a week. They require a whole wheat pasta, brown rice or low GI bean as a base and are complimented with low GI veggies and can only have enough fat added as is required for cooking. It's getting old finding new and interesting things. We can only have lentil stew, stir fry or pasta with tomato paste and grilled vegetables so many times before going nutty.

Thankfully the fella stumbled on a new source of low fat whole food cooking. Meals Matter is like the healthy cooking version of Epicurious from what I can tell in that it has user submitted recipes that are reviewed and easily searchable. It has nutritional information for the recipes too so that helped us make up a more exciting menu this week full of high fiber food without repeating our three go to dishes once again.

This combo of crispy broccoli and tangy roasted red pepper was delicious. I am confused about the amount of pasta the original recipe calls for however as the sauce was just barely enough to make two servings and now we have a ton of extra pasta awaiting usage in the fridge. So if you're a sauce whore like I am you might want to double the delicious pureed red pepper sauce. Next time I would also up the spices especially the red pepper flakes to give it more of a kick. Even on the bland side I loved it. Not to mention it practically cooks itself.

Broccoli and Roasted Red Pepper Pasta

2 roasted red peppers (you can make them yourself, I use canned)
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

2 cups broccoli florets
8 oz whole wheat penne (original recipe called for 16 oz but there isn't enough sauce to cover all that pasta)
1 tablespoon oil
1 clove garlic, finely diced
2 tomatoes, seeded and diced
2 teaspoon dried basil
4 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

Slice open peppers and wash out seeds. Place the peppers in a food processor with balsamic vinegar, crushed red pepper flakes, salt and pepper to taste. Puree until smooth.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add broccoli florets and cook for 1 minute. Scoop out the broccoli with a slotted spoon and set aside. Bring the water back to a boil.

Cook pasta until al dente, about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile place a large skillet over medium-low heat and add the oil. Cook garlic, stirring, for 30 seconds. Stir in tomatoes and increase the heat to medium. When the tomatoes begin to simmer, stir in pepper puree and broccoli; cook for 2 minutes. Stir in basil and remove from the heat.

Drain the pasta and add to the skillet, stirring to coat. Spoon into shallow bowls and garnish each with grated Parmesan.

Original recipe from Meals Matter site.

Light Weight

I'm kind of oblivious when it comes to my body. Up until recently that was a bit of a good thing because it meant I didn't obsess about my weight or even know what bra size I wear. This helps me be comfortable in my skin but it probably was less than healthy as I never knew how much I weighed unless I found myself on the horrifying scale in the doctor's office.

This obliviousness however is not the sanest thing in the world when one is dieting and blogging about it for the world to see. After 20 something years of not weighing myself I haven't been able to convince myself to start doing it regularly now. So it took until the other day for me to notice the pants I bought a month ago were falling off me, my shirts were baggy, and regular wine shop customers kept going on about how thin I looked. Clueless me still thought I had only lost about 12 pounds. I stepped on the scale and almost fell off it when I discovered I've now lost exactly 20 pounds. No wonder none of my clothes fit. Finally all the deprivation almost seems worth it.

I really didn't expect the results to be so obvious and so fast. Now I'm down a pants size and oh so glad I've kept my wardrobe from when I was lighter so I have something to wear. Can't figure out whether I'm thrilled or freaked out that I've lost weight so quickly.

Mostly I'm thrilled because those 20 pounds are the evil nasty ones that I've gained since going on thyroid medications that have caused havoc on my metabolism. The doctor warned me about weight gain but I wasn't prepared for gaining that much while eating less and exercising more so until the fella and I decided on this diet I had given up on ever being thin again. It should be interesting to see how difficult it is to get rid of the weight I've been hanging on to a little longer.

The Montignac Method: Grocery Shopping Made Nearly Impossible

You know what has sugar in it? Everything. And I'm barely exaggerating.

Chicken stock, sugar. Gourmet high cocoa content chocolate bars, sugar. Hot sauce, sugar. Rice noodles, sugar. Sausages, sugar. Soy milk, sugar.

I knew this was going to hard but I wasn't expecting this level of frustration before the project had officially begun. The fella and I spent seeming eternities in each aisle trying to find things that were free of sugar and all other sweeteners. Seems we are going to have to start making even more things from scratch than we already had been.

Adding to the frustration were the odd ingredients neither of us had ever used before and were having a hard time locating but were major flavors in the recipes we had found to cook this week. Celery root and endive weren't exactly sitting out in the open waiting to be snatched up. It was an adventure.

We've also stopped eating meat and dairy products with hormones and preservatives added to them which means a huge added cost and a trip to Whole Foods in addition to the regular locally owned warehouse grocery store. The dairy and meat alone cost almost as much as a full produce heavy grocery run. As the fella said as we looked at each other exhausted from nearly two hours of dread inducing shopping, “This is not going to be a cheap diet.” I had to keep reminding myself that keeping him alive for a long long time was worth all this cost and effort. Diabetes is a serious issue and taking care of it isn't going to be easy.

The finally eating restriction in the endless puzzle called “can I eat this?” was the fact I stopped eating any and all preservatives over a year ago in an effort to improve what seemed to be a food allergy. Eating whole unprocessed foods made me feel a thousand times better so I'm sticking to that. However it did add a final layer of impossibility to selecting food. If it was sugar free it seemed to have a lurking sulfate or nitrate and many of the preservative free foods we had come to know as safe over the last year had sugar hiding in them.

My mood was improved upon coming home and pulling it all on the counter; fruit, vegetables, and the free range meat. It was a beautiful site. I'm excited about cooking new foods with ingredients I've never tasted before, from a cuisine I know so little about. It feels good to be proactive with our health instead of waiting for it to become a problem. And in a time when so many others are struggling to pay the rent I felt very fortunate to have the means to buy such luxurious food and someone so special to me to go on this journey with.