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?
