Spicy Beans with Fruit

This was a big surprise!

Sauté togther over medium low heat:

• 1 finely diced clove garlic
• 1 diced medium eggplant (cut into 1/2 strips, then thinly slice)
• 1/2 dozen or so oyster mushrooms, torn into strips
• 3 small hard, cooking apples (diced into about 1/2 inch)
• 1 cup cooked white navy beans
• 1/2 bunch of young broccoli (coarsely chopped)
• 1/2 bunch dark green kale (coarsely chopped)
• 1 over ripe Bartlet pear – sliced
• about 10 over-ripe strawberries – cut in half
• 1 small Capsicum Chinese (small orange haberno)
• A few sprigs fresh thyme
• A few leaves fresh sage
• dried onion granules (no fresh onion!)

Cover and let simmer, over low heat, for about 30 minutes. Serve with quinoa.

I buy my organic bulk dry goods through an internet food club, and almost always cook my beans from scratch.  Canned beans just don’t cut it. And non-organic dried beans and legumes are just a plain waste of time and calories!

So I soaked 3 cups of dry, whit enavy beans for a couple days, draining the water and rinsing them a couple times. Then I cooked them – Al dente – for about 90 minutes.  TI froze the cooked beans in 1/2 cup jars, keeping 1 cup aside for today’s meal.

Then I dug through my fridge – the eggplant had to be used up. Organic. It had sat in the bottom drawer for a week. Same with the oyster mushrooms. A clove of garlic, some greens.

So I started by sautéing the garlic, mushrooms and eggplant in a little olive and avocado oil.  Then added the al dente cooked beans, the apples and the greens, the sage and thyme. As it cooked I kept thinking I wanted to add the strawberries and finally broke down and tossed them in. The pear also kept nagging at me to go in the pot, so in it went – and I found the little orange Chinese hot pepper in the freezer.

There’s no salt or regular pepper in this dish.  Rather I added a couple dashes of balsamic vinegar before I put it to simmer.

Served over a little freshly cooked quinoa, this is a healthy plant-based main meal.

I haven’t done the fat, protein, carb breakdown – but my sense is it’s balanced nutrition.

I started my day with a peach mango shake (seasonal flavor, oh it is so good! Pumpkin soon we hope!) made with extra whey protein, and for lunch had a small cup of muesli with half a dozen fresh strawberries and 1/2 cup of organic/rhubarb yoghurt.

There wil be cake later as I’m going to a Birthday Party.

And after that a movie – where there will be popcorn with butter.

That’s how I eat.  Some days I supplement shakes with whole foods and other days I supplement whole foods with shakes.

Hey people, it’s a lifestyle, not a life sentence to drinking shakes!  I get my convenience food in the form of delicious, nutrient dense shakes – that are made from triple tested ingredients, instead of fast food that’s contains I don’t know what.