Cooking with beans
By mom4life | Category: Healthy Living, Recipes & Kitchen Tips, The Journey of Motherhood | Posted Thursday, February 2, 2012
Beans, beans the musical fruit, the more . . .
Let’s talk about beans today!
One year ago I shared that my goal for 2011 was to add more whole grains, nuts and grains into our diet. I took the plunge by purchasing 5 large 25 pound bags of dried beans (kidney, pinto, Northern, black and garbanzo) from Azure Standard. Prices range depending on the variety but average just slightly over $1 a pound. For most beans: 1 pound dried beans = 2 cups dried = 4 – 5 cups cooked beans (source). I split each bag with a friend allowing both of us to enjoy the savings of buying in bulk without having to store a ton of beans. I found room in a guest bedroom closet for the bags and simply stocked and labeled Mason jars in my pantry for each type of bean.
I am super pleased to say that I am getting ready to place a restocking order through Azure for more beans. Although I don’t feel that our bean consumption last year was where I want it to be, I feel it was a good start that I can build on this year.
Cooking with beans.
When it comes right down to it, the main two things that have kept me from cooking more often with beans is simply a lack of advanced planning and a lack of bean recipes. Cooking with dried beans is not hard (in fact it is quite easy) but it does require planning ahead. I simply can’t cook with dried beans unless I am meal planning.
Planning out my meals in advance is a crucial step for me because:
- It allows me the opportunity each evening to examine what I will be making the next two days and if necessary begin the soaking process (details on how to do this below).
- It provides me with the opportunity to be intentional about finding and scheduling bean based (or supplemented) recipes.
I found this one page PDF summery explaining how to soak and cook dried beans very helpful.
Bean Recipes.
Bean based recipes are not something that I have felt very equipped with in general. I do have my favorite standard Chili recipe and within the last year I have discovered some other great favorites such as:
But lets be real, refried beans are a side dish and hummus is more of a dip/spread. These are not meals.
Lucky for me I have also been reading the Kitchen Stewardship blog. Katie has an ebook called The Everything Beans book which (even after cooking with beans for a year) has been a wonderful resource. Not only do I appreciate having an entire recipe book filled with new bean recipes as I plan out my weekly meals (this recipe book includes appetizers, soups, main dishes and desserts), but I have also found Katie’s detailed instructions on how to soak and cook beans to be extremely helpful.
I have learned things such as why it is helpful to do long bean soaks whenever possible, what foods to eat with beans to help make them a complete protein and helpful tips on how to reduce the gas that bean consumption can create. I also realized how easy it is to simply cook more than I need and refrigerate (for about a week) or freeze the extras for another meal!
I also was SHOCKED to learn that bringing my kidney beans to a boil for at least 10 minutes is absolutely essential to deactivating a toxic compound called phytohaemagglutinin. This compound can cause horrible nausea, vomiting and diarrhea by consuming as few as four-five beans which are raw or improperly cooked. Because I like to use my slow cooker, this was really good to learn because cooking kidney beans in a slow cooker without bringing them to a boil can actually make the toxic effects five times worse!
Don’t let that last bit scare you away from adding this healthy, economical and versatile food to your meal plans!
Do you already cook with beans? Why or why not? Which beans do you like best? What recipe(s) are your favorites?
Please note: I am an affiliate of Kitchen Stewardship’s eBooks, which means I’ll earn a small commission from any sales made through links to her book. I first read and used her book personally before deciding if it was one that I felt you would find valuable.
My first twitter hate message
By mom4life | Category: The Journey of Motherhood | Posted Tuesday, January 31, 2012
I will admit it, I still have a little bit of a hard time understanding twitter. I try, I really do. But something about facebook just makes more sense to me (maybe it is the way I can see the name and photo of the person talking and see the conversations all stacked together in a logical way so I don’t mistakenly wonder who is saying what to who and why).
So when I saw this twitter post saying “i.hate.you.mom.4.life.” you can understand why I sat there staring at my computer screen for a few minutes trying to decide if this was directed at me or this woman’s actual mother. After checking out her profile and seeing that see was a college student I decided to feel sorry for her mom.
How about you, do you prefer twitter or facebook (or neither) and why?
Lunch notes
By mom4life | Category: The Journey of Motherhood | Posted Wednesday, January 25, 2012
When I unpacked Hunter’s lunch bag earlier this year, I found this note:
I upped his rations and things had been going well. Then last week, I got this one:
I think he is starting to figure that as long as he is going to be making requests, he may as well throw in an extra.
For those of you well read in children’s literature, this all sort of reminds me of the children’s book “Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type“.
I am only half tempted to send two carrot sticks tomorrow and see if he throws in a third request 
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Waste more time in 2012 (and 52 other little goals)
By mom4life | Category: Creating a Home, Organize Me!, The Journey of Motherhood | Posted Tuesday, January 10, 2012
On New Year’s Eve we sat around the table and pulled some questions out of a hat taking turns reminiscing 2011.
I had to answer “what was your biggest time waster in 2011?” and although this may sound surprising, I was stumped. For better or worse, I have been “blessed” with a highly productive and organized personality which struggles to waste time (I know, pathetic right? I can practically hear you gagging. Please tell me I am not alone with this strange trait!). My husband was quick to provide some examples to illustrate this point. If I am waiting for my emails to download, I will throw in a load of laundry. If I am going upstairs, I will bring up the clean laundry along. If I am folding the laundry, I will be listening to a book on CD or talking on the phone. Leaving the house before wiping off the kitchen countertop or making my bed would be a huge mental hurdle and I almost never go to bed at night before first cleaning my sink. The poor man has been subject blessed to my mental efficiency and over the last 11 years of marriage, has adapted surprisingly well. The closest thing I can typically get to doing “nothing” is reading a book or watching a movie, but I can hardly ever justify wasting taking the time to watch TV. After some good hearted laughs at my expense, it was decided that one of my goals for 2012 should be to enjoy more downtime, or said a different way: waste some time!
52 ways to simplify life
I plan to consider this goal of wasting time as the year progresses, but before I get to that goal I am having too much fun reading my newest ebook from Tsh Oxenreider titled One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler.
In Tsh’s own words:
Merry Christmas!
By mom4life | Category: Activities with Kids, Creating a Home, Family Focus, Home Crafts, Kids Crafts, The Journey of Motherhood | Posted Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Our two oldest kids are home from school and we have been really loving the lazy days that provides us. Thanks to Pinterest, I have been inspired with some fun new ideas, crafts and traditions. I will share some of my favorites below and encourage you to see all of the ideas I saved here.
In order to spend the most time with my family, I will be taking a blogging break for the remainder of the year (my assistant may write up a post or two if we decide to have any product sales). Until I write again in 2012, Merry Christmas!
Psssst: if you missed it earlier this year, you can see the digital Christmas card that I created here. Then I linked that card to our family slideshow video (also shown below).
Activities and Crafts:
-Recycling socks with holes into the most adorable sock snowmen you have ever seen! I now have a special place to put all our socks with holes for making more snowmen 
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-Gathering up past photo Christmas cards, hole punching them and connecting them with two book rings. Each night the goal is to pray for one family using these cards as prompts. This is a great way to continue to enjoy photo cards from year to year!
-Making peanut snowmen tree ornaments.
-Making snow globes out of baby food jars, glitter and small plastic toys.
-Making a new Christmas Card holder using a wooden embroidery hoop, wood glue and clothes pins.
-Curling Ashlyn’s hair using strips of cloth.
-Teaching Hunter how to play Monopoly (and finding out he LOVES it)!
New traditions:
-Using the free Jesse Tree advent devotional from A Holy Experience.
-I wrapped up 24 Christmas and/or winter themed books and from December 1-24 the kids took turns opening one to be read.
Purchases:
-A $12 oil pan at WalMart to make a great magnetic surface for fridge letters as well as a drawing surface for dry erase markers.
Baked goods:
-These oreo truffle balls were unfortunately VERY GOOD .
-I am wanting to make these healthy peppermint patties!
If you have not read it year’s past I will leave you with one final Christmas reflection. Wishing you peace, joy and hope this Christmas!
((hugs))
