I drink a (often disgusting) fiber-rich smoothie for breakfast almost every morning. (Okay, once a month I have a bagel. So hit me with a wet noodle.) It contains spinach, cuke, celery, apple, carrot, oatmeal, sunflower seeds and protein powder, plus a generous shake of cinnamon (which is the only thing that makes it palatable).
I do a lot of digging on the Internet and, as I knew, dried beans are rich in fiber. One smoothie recipe said to add them. So guess what's going into today's smoothie? I soaked the beans yesterday, and decided halfway through that, whoa! That's a lot of beans! So we decided to take 3/4 of the beans and bake them. (The other 1/4 went into the baby crock pot for the smoothie.)
Mr. L's mother used to make THE best lima beans, but she was a "toss this in" kind of cook who never had a recipe. So Mr. L got a recipe from his sister. I knew it wasn't the one his mother made, because her beans were white, and sister's beans use molasses--but the directions are kinda spotty.
They turned out pretty well. I skipped the brown sugar, as I'm trying to cut down on sweets, and they tasted just like Grandma Brown's Baked Beans, which is what we were going for.
Ingredients:
1 medium onion, chopped
1 pound bag dried beans (navy or lima) soaked for 8 hours or overnight
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon yellow mustard
3 tablespoons molasses
hot water
brown suger (to taste)
Preheat the oven to 300F. Place the onions on the bottom of a casserole dish. Add the soaked beans. Mix the salt, mustard, and molasses in a cup measure; fill the cup with hot water and stir until mixed. Pour over the beans and gently mix. Pour more water over the beans until covered. Bake for 6-8 hours, stirring every so often, and covering with more water until the last hour of baking. (You can add the brown sugar at any point.)
They turned out pretty well. The only problem? That's a LOT of beans. But luckily, beans freeze well. I'm going to be actively looking for more bean recipes. Are you interested?
Thanks for posting the recipe. I'm on the statins, too, so I should try this. How about posting your smoothie recipe? Or have you already done this & I've just missed it? You've got a lot of good stuff in there but the oatmeal kinda makes my eyes rattle. Cooked or uncooked? What kind of oatmeal? I've got to try smoothies more. Hugs!
ReplyDeleteRe: smoothies: I stuff a handful of spinach leaves (sorry, can't abide kale, which is even better for you), half a cuke, 2 stalks of celery and water. That's for part 1. I whip that into green juice, pour it into a Tupperware container, and start part 2. Two small grannie smith apples (peeled, because the ones I have aren't organic--screw the cost, I'm getting tired of peeling apples so I'm buying organic this week), a carrot, 2/3s a cup uncooked quick oats, a handful of sunflower seeds or slivered almonds, and some kind of liquid. (Usually water.) Then I mix the two together. You can toss anything you want in the smoothie. I had leftover asparagus and tossed that in today, as well as some of the beans. I gave it a big shake of cinnamon before mixing part 2 and it tasted wonderful. Cinnamon is very good for you, but I forgot why. (Google is my friend!) That's enough for 2 breakfasts. I've been drinking smoothies since early November almost every morning for breakfast. You'd be surprised, but they stay with you for HOURS. We seem to be eating lunch later and later (and I usually have my smoothie around 8 a.m.). I love the taste of raspberries (frozen) in a smoothie, but man, those seeds!
ReplyDeleteNot sure if this is allowed, delete if it isn't!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.incrediblesmoothies.com/green-smoothie-recipes/
The above website has some amazing green smoothie recipes. I drink one for breakfast every day and it is always delicious.