Recipe: Slow-cooker Black Beans & Rice

This morning as I was going through my options for dinner I knew I had a bag of black beans, knew I wanted to be able to throw them into a pot and forget about them, and knew I wanted to have a tasty (and cheap) dish for dinner.  So beans and rice it was.  I got this recipe by doing a quick search on the internet.  It was simple - I cut it all up and threw it in the crock pot and my kids loved it - my toddler ate two big bowls of it!  Not to mention it was all REAL food.  The recipe calls for canned tomatoes but  I used fresh partly because of this article and partly because I had a couple ripe romas sitting on my counter in need of eating.  And we ate it on white rice just because we were out of brown. But it would have been good on brown as well.

I got a new crock pot (or slow cooker) back in December and it has rejuvenated my desire to cook this way.  It makes it possible to make some really healthy soups, stews, and main dishes with very little work.  If you've got one you know what I'm talking about and if you don't - you're really missing out.

Here's the recipe:

1	pound dried black beans (2 cups), sorted and rinsed
1	large onion, chopped (1 cup)
1	large bell pepper, chopped (1 1/2 cups)
5	garlic cloves, finely chopped
2	dried bay leaves
2	cups diced tomatoes (from 28-oz can), undrained
5	cups water
2	tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
4	teaspoons ground cumin
2	teaspoons finely chopped jalapeño chilies
1	teaspoon salt
3	cups hot cooked rice

1. Mix all ingredients except rice in 3 1/2- to 6-quart slow cooker.

2. Cover and cook on high heat setting 6 to 8 hours or until beans are tender and most of the liquid is absorbed. Remove bay leaves.

3. Serve beans over rice. We added lime and cilantro to really make it authentic. Easy, healthy, yummy!

Book Review: The Eat Clean Diet for Family & Kids

This is by far my favorite book for family nutrition. The nutrition information is grounded in clean eating principles. So you aren't going to find a lot of processed ingredients. What you will find is a full-color complete guide to transitioning your family to clean eating and some great meals to get you going. The book has a lot of information and success stories that is also very motivating.

Going against the grain and limiting what we feed our kids can be frustrating and a lot of work at times. We may even run into negativity from friends and family. So it is nice to have the validation that eating clean and helping our families to live healthier lives is a worthy goal.

I've seen the other hide-the-veggies-in-your-kid's-dessert books. I own Sneaky Chef and strongly prefer the Eat Clean Diet for Family and Kids. I want my kids to learn that vegetables are a good thing. Those other books are probably best for kids who are very stubborn or moms who are really concerned with getting more nutrients into their picky eater. But I think most kids like blueberries, carrots, and the like as long as their options are limited. If my kids are choosing between Captain Crunch and blueberries, the Captain Crunch will win every time. So it makes sense that my kids always eat better and are less picky when they don't have the choice of eating the junk. Eat Clean Diet for Family and Kids also has some great tips to hep avoid food power struggles as well and the recipes are not complicated or too strange.

I am excited to try the egg salad sandwich. I'll make it tomorrow and report back.

Portobello Mexican Pizzas

I think this has to be my favorite new thing because it is so easy, and seriously has to be only about 200 calories or so depending on your salsa and cheese. I love portobello mushrooms, but topped with salsa, green onions, mozzarella and sprinkled with garlic salt--yum!

Preheat oven to 400. Remove the stem AND the gills from the Portobello mushroom. I just peeled back the stem and removed the gills with a paring knife. Place mushrooms, upside down, on a baking tray and top each one with salsa, green onions and cheese. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Healthy Chocolate Coconut Frosty (Dairy Free!)

This is such a delicious shake, you’ll never guess that it doesn’t have any dairy in it. When our family did 100 days of no sugar, it was a good substitute for a Frosty. These days, my husband mixes a coconut with his chocolate mint protein powder to make a really tasty treat for the kids.

Years ago I was taught in a nutrition class to avoid tropical oils because of the high saturated fat. These days, coconut is the newest health food. Because the short-and medium-chain fatty acids of extra virgin coconut oil and coconut milk are easily and quickly assimilated by the body, they are not stored as fat in the body like the long chain triglycerides of animal products. Coconut oil is 50% lauric acid, which is also found in breastmilk. Lauric acid helps the immune system to fight off viral and bacterial infection. Also, young coconuts have far fewer calories than mature ones. I think they are about the same calorie wise as an avocado.

Young coconuts are different than regular coconuts. They are found in the refrigerated section of the grocery store. Most health food stores and Asian markets carry them. They have the thick white husk on the outside, instead of being brown. Brown coconuts will not work for this recipe.

The fun part is hacking it open! I just use a big knife, or a serrated bread knife. Either one works.

Turn the coconut on it’s side and cut it a few inches from the pointed top. A few good swings and it should come open. It might be kinda tricky the first few times you do this, but it gets easier! And it is kinda fun to weild that knife and hack it open. Just watch your fingers. LOL. Jared uses a really sharp serrated bread knife and just slices off the top. As soon as it is slightly open, I pour the coconut water into the blender cup, then remove the rest of the top of the coconut. The water can be clear, yellow, pink, purple etc. The meat is white and soft instead of hard like in a mature coconut. Take a big spoon and scoop the meat into the blender cup. My kids love to eat the coconut meat. It is slippery and really yummy.

Add two heaping tablespoons cocoa powder, 1 tray ice, and some agave to taste. Usually a couple of tablespoons. Honey, sugar, or stevia work too. Or you can mix with a scoop of protein powder.

Blend well and enjoy!

Rao's: Best Marinara Sauce I've Tried

I bought my first bottle of Rao's Marinara from Whole Foods when we were poor first marrieds. At ten bucks a bottle, it was definitely the "special occasion" sauce. I think I was most intrigued by the price. Marinara sauce that costs that much has to be good. It was. It is the best. I've tried lots of different sauces, and this one is my favorite and has the purest ingredients.

I like pasta, and this sauce is great for those nights that you just don't want to make your own. No fillers, no paste, just good stuff.

Here are the ingredients:
Imported Italian tomatoes, Italian olive oil, sweet onions, fresh basil, fresh garlic, crushed black pepper, salt and fresh oregano.

This one is pricey, but very tasty and with $1 for pasta, I figure I am feeding my family for $6 (we can get about two meals worth). Not too bad. Cheaper than Del Taco anyway.

The Arrabiata sauce is also great. Too hot for the kids, but I love it. I've seen it on sale on occasion at Whole Foods (used to be Wild Oats around here.)

Coconut Curry in a Hurry

I just tried another simmer sauce by Seeds of Change. Wow. It is so good. It is the Korma coconut curry sauce. I sauteed some chicken, cut up some veggies and mushrooms and poured the sauce over. I cooked brown rice in the rice cooker to go with it. Very easy, very good.

And right now it is on sale at the Good Earth for $2.65/bottle. Go get some if I haven't cleared them all out!

We ate at a Thai restaurant last week, and this was almost as good. Ingredients aren't quite as good as the Jalfrezi sauce. But it is really tasty. It isn't very spicy, so add some red pepper flakes if you want to make it a little hotter.

Here is what is in it:

Water, heavy cream* (milk*), coconut*, onions*, evaporated cane sugar*, tapioca starch*, sunflower oil*, sea salt, lemon juice*, garlic*, cilantro*, ginger*, turmeric*, coriander*, cumin*, cayenne pepper*, paprika*, cardamon*, cinnamon*

140 calories per serving. With 1/2 cup cooked brown rice, 1/2 chicken breast, and veggies, mine was about 370 calories.

It is possible! Non perishable HEALTHY fruit snacks

My husband likes to order new and interesting healthy stuff online. And a few months ago, he came home with something to add to our food storage that he tried at his sister's recommendation. Freeze dried fruit. It didn't last because we ate all of it within a couple of weeks. It was so delicious. This dried fruit is crunchy and sweet, and 100% fruit. You can rehydrate if you want for cooking.

The freeze dried process removes 97% of the moisture with a vacuum and a very low temperature. It is shelf stable for up to 15 years. I like that better than canning because it doesn't have to be packed in syrup, it is lightweight, and doesn't have to be refrigerated like our frozen foods.

My kids love it! We felt it was a perfect replacement for sugary, artificial fruit snacks. They are already diced and ready to go. It was really good in yogurt. I've been buying freeze dried apple slices for the kids lunches from Costco, but they were getting so expensive. These come in big cans and are much cheaper per oz.

We mainly eat fresh fruit, but we are trying to build our food storage with healthy non-perishable foods that we'll actually want to eat. I think these are the perfect solution.

Here is a link for the peaches. Those were my favorite. We bought raspberries, blueberries, peaches, strawberries and apples. Yum!

http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/freezedriedpeacheslargecan.aspx