If you’ve never eaten chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour, this is a great recipe to start with! Not only is it super flavorful, imparting a wonderfully nutty flavor to these zucchini fries, but chickpeas are also packed with protein and fiber, for a dish that sticks to your ribs and makes your heart sing for joy. Continue reading
Category Archives: Beans & Legumes
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: All About Beans PLUS Recipes
Many years ago, my then-vegetarian sister had a boyfriend whose mother served her “bean loaf” when she went to their home. Its dreadful, unappetizing name was nothing like its flavor, so my sister and I renamed it “chickpea pie.” The chickpea pie recipe stuck around for much longer than the vegetarianism (and the boyfriend). I wish I could find that recipe again. Chickpeas, like peanuts, are yet another type of bean. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Chickpeas & Posole
If you have never heard of posole, you are in for a seriously delicious treat. Posole is the same as hominy, kernels of corn that have been soaked in limewater, then hulled and dried. These are whole, not like the ones that are crushed for making grits. You can get some extraordinarily good posole from Rancho Gordo in Napa, or from a Mexican grocery, or from most anywhere that beans, nuts, seeds and grains are sold in bulk. Americans eat loads of grain, including corn, but not like this. Posole is the real deal. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Slow Chicken & White Beans
In honor of the upcoming marriage of HLJ to ESS:
Here’s a magnificent recipe, inspired by the fact that this year is the #Year of the #Pulse! You know how much I love beans and the flavors developed by slow cooking! Try putting it up right now, and you’ll have a very special, delicious and nutritious meal for dinner tonight. Of course, if you’re me, you might decide to make it tonight instead of in the morning, so it will be ready just in time for breakfast tomorrow.
Whenever food cooks in our slow cooker through the night, it gives me delicious dreams. Sometimes it even wakes me up, a few times for a few moments, to savor the smells. Then, when morning comes, I can barely get myself up and dressed fast enough in my hurry to get downstairs to eat my yummy breakfast from the crockpot! I’m not kidding — consider yourself forewarned.
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Lentil Soup & Sweet Potatoes
You know how much I love slow cooking and crock pots, greens and sweet potatoes. Put this delicious recipe up to cook on Sunday, and you’ll be all set for days. Consider it your “standby dinner” in case you get stuck in traffic, or at the office, or in a turnstile or a revolving door, or between a rock and a hard place. Or stuck for an idea. Or just plain don’t feel like cooking when you get home. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Roasted Garlic, Parsnip and White Bean Soup
Here’s a soup to, yes, satisfy your sweet tooth! One thing I really love about certain foods, like garlic, parsnips, and onions (tomatoes, too), is that their sweetness develops rather dramatically when you roast them or leave them to cook slowly. And, frankly, there just aren’t enough parsnip recipes around for my taste. Remember though, that if you want to be able to enjoy the subtle sweetness of foods like these, you will want to moderate your intake of sugar and especially corn syrup, both of which tend to overwhelm your tastebuds and raise your threshold for tasting the lesser (though more complex and satisfying) kinds and amounts of sweetness in fruits and vegetables. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Creamy Homespun Hummus
It’s never too early to start collecting recipes for the upcoming end of football season! A plate of this creamy hummus to share, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with spicy paprika, and you will be in seventh heaven, no matter what the score! Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Sweet Potato & Chickpea Soup
This post will be the third and final of YHIOYP’s one-pot Back to Life recipe series (see the prior two blog posts here and here). This time, I’m back to my old standby, my trusty crockpot, from which so many wonderful meals have come, and I’ve decided to make my own version of Gypsy Soup, originally from Mollie Katzen, the author of the famous Moosewood Cookbook. Through the years I have made so many recipes from that cookbook that it is now ancient and falling apart, even despite having been taped together with leopard-spot-pattern tape somewhere along the way). Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Some Moro Bean Soup, please!
Okay, the holidays are over. It’s January. It’s snowing. It will be this way for a while. To quote Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets, after she has just closed the door on Jack Nicholson’s inappropriate visit, “Okay, back to life.” Here’s a recipe that may help with that. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Heirloom Beans & Wild Rice Thanksgiving Salad
I usually thank people for their recipes at the end of my blog posts, but not today. This week, not only does gratitude itself deserve top billing, but so does our appreciation for this particular recipe. Continue reading