I’ve been eating high-nutrient, plant-based food for nearly eleven years now.
And you know one of the “secrets” that keeps me on this path?
I keep it very simple.
Occasionally, I’ll get out one of my plant-based cookbooks and try a new recipe—because that’s the spice of life.
But mostly, I make a large, stock pot of vegetable soup every 2-3 weeks, and I make beans dips and spreads about once a week or so. . .but that’s about it. The rest of my meals consist of salads, green smoothies, steamed veggies, lettuce wraps, and a variety of luscious fresh fruit or fruit sorbets.
A “recipe” is just a fancy word for a combination of flavors and textures assembled together.
Here’s how I make “bean spreads.”
First, I put two pounds of dry beans in a large crock pot. (I prefer chickpeas or garbanzo beans.) I add enough water to generously cover them.
Then I cook on low for eight hours—or on high for four hours.
Two pounds of dry beans makes about eight cups of beans
This morning, I put about 1 cup of freshly cooked garbanzo beans in the Vitamix container. (any high-speed blender will do) Then I added another 2 cups of defrosted edamame beans. (They can be purchased in the frozen section of most grocery stores. They are in with the frozen vegetables.)
If you don’t have a high-speed blender, a food processor will work too.
Then I added about 1/3 cup of the drained liquid from the cooked garbanzo beans.
To that I added the juice of a large lemon and 3 cloves of garlic. Sometimes, I add 1/3 cup of nutritional yeast (if I want a savory-cheesy flavor). Other times, I add 3 stalks of diced celery, but I was out of it.
This morning I added about a tablespoon of Mrs. Dash’s Southwest Chipotle Seasoning. My daughter likes to add a cooked yam and a jalapeno pepper (but that is too hot for me). Bottom line, add no-salt spices and seasonings that you and your family like.
Sometimes I just add plain salsa to cooked black beans. The sky is the limit! (Did you know there are currently 40,000 varieties of beans in the world!? Only a fraction are mass-produced for regular consumption, but that’s still a lot of beans!)
Beans are a resistant starch and lower blood sugars. They are good source of protein, and they create healthy gut bacteria. Beans even bind cholesterol in the digestive tract and facilitate its removal.
Bean spread
Keep it simple and delicious. Keep it fun!
And most of all, keep it high-nutrient in order to enjoy life to the fullest!
I roll everything up and eat it like a burrito
Emily Boller, artist, mother, and author of Starved to Obesity, lost 100 pounds more than fifteen years ago by eating an abundance of high-nutrient, plant-rich foods. Today, she’s certified in whole plant nutrition from the Nutritarian Education Institute. She’s on a mission to combine practical, no-nonsense and cost-effective tips—with easy to understand science—in order to help anyone escape the addictive grip of the Standard American Diet. And now, she’s on a mission to bring awareness to the suffocating and potentially deadly trap of eating disorders as well.