Wholesome Wednesdays: Legumes

If it were a normal December, I'd be saying things like "brrrr, it's soup weather!" But La Nina is messing with my plans. That's not keeping me from making yummy soup though. I had some good friends over for a simple yet delicious meal of bean soup last night and was inspired to write my praises for legumes, those sometimes gassy forms of near complete protein.

Bean soup with tomatoes, peppers, onions and herbs from the garden, homemade chicken stock, free range chicken sausage, adzuki and black beans, smoked paprika, chilly powder, salt and lots of time.

Dried beans are a wonderful source of protein and they store so well. They can be kept in attractive lines of mason jars on your counter, or be stowed in conveniently shaped plastic tubs in the cupboard. They store for years and take very little effort to rehydrate into delicious concoctions of hummus, falafel, chilly, soup, or just about any yummy side or main dish you can think of. When paired with rice the amino acids chains form near complete proteins, making the ole 'bean and rice' simple meal a vegetarian's go-to meal for healthy, vegetarian protein.

Legumes pack in so much punch, in fact they can be hard to digest. This difficulty is also caused by the stachyrose and raffinose present in legumes, which are not ingestible by the small intestine, and pass down to the colon instead. Flatulence is also caused by a sugar –- oligosaccharide which cannot be broken down. Soaking beans overnight and discarding the soaking water can help eliminate the presence of these pesky elements. Combining the nutrient-rich bean with some ruffage (leafy greens), epazote or just a mixture of other cooked/raw foods can also help to make them more digestible. Lentils cause the least amount of flatulence and have some of the best nutrients, so they may be a great option for folks not desiring to scare away their co-workers the next day. Legumes have quite a bit of iron in them, another reason they're a great red meat replacement that's easier on the body and environment. Beans also have a large amount of fiber in them which will help you to feel full if dieting, aid in 'regularity' and help stave off cancer and obesity by boosting overall health.  You can never have too much fiber, in my opinion.

I could go on and on about beans, but i'll leave it at this: it's easy to buy canned beans. They make a very quick meal. But they're also lacking a lot of the nutrition that's essential to good health. It takes a little extra time to soak beans overnight, but really - is that so much effort? The beans are really doing all the work for you and they only take 45 minutes to cook the next day. You can let them simmer all day long as i did for the soup above, but you don't HAVE to. Go out and buy some dried beans today. You'll be thrilled with their price point: cents a pound versus dollars a can, and your overall health will thank you. The fields used to graze inefficient cattle instead of complete human-feeding foods will thank you as well when they eventually get turned back over to more efficient food raising. Or at least i can hope....    Dried beans! The musical fruit! The more you eat! The more resistant to cancer, obesity, irregularity and general malaise you'll be! hahaha.

What's your favorite use for dried beans?

Wholesome Wednesdays: Tomatoes

It's Summer! And of course in the world of homegrown vegetables that means it's 

TOMATO SEASON!

L

Little Porter Improved tomatoes

I look forward to this all year, especially sometime in January when i run out of the tomatoes i cooked down and froze the summer before. (froze? freezed?) I had very few tomatoes last year due to some nasty wilts, record highs, and an absence from my garden while away getting hitched and honeymooned. This year is shaping up a bit better, but all my plants are indeterminate and eeking out their ripened tomatoes slower than molasses, all the while being sucked on by nasty leaf footed bugs. Every year i hope to have enough tomatoes to warrant a good canning session, and every year my goal is thwarted by some element out of my control. Sigh. One day i'll have a larger garden to plant large crops of determinates for canning as well as indeterminates for other cooking. One day. One day.

In the meantime, i have plenty of tasty tomatoes for eating fresh, a few for cooking down and freezing, and am loving my slimmer waistline and healthy digestive system as a result of eating fresh cucumber and tomato salads every other night.

Japanese Trifele and Porter Improved tomatoes - cracked from the fierce rains of last week

As a note: i never buy tomatoes. The few times i do buy tomatoes they come from a local farmers market, or canned. I think canned tomatoes maintain more of the quality than those strange, tasteless, firm, waxy out of system odditites found in the grocery store produce section. At least they were picked ripe, in season, and 'put by' at the peak of their good form. I like the Hunt's diced with basil - it's the one canned staple you'll always find in my cupboard, even in my own tomato season. Add to soups, use as spaggheti sauce, mix with polenta - very versatile.  Anyhoo - i never buy fresh tomatoes from teh grocery store because they just don't TASTE like tomatoes. My homegrown ones do, though!

Tomatoes are chock full of vitamin C, so it's no wonder i'm feeling perky and immune (except to mold allergies).  One of the more recently publicized elements in tomatoes, lycopene is worth its weight in marinara sauce for its healthful properties: antioxidant and anti cancer - lycopene protects the DNA from oxygen damage, thwarting nasty cancers, and is found at the highest rate in organic, dark red tomato products. Lycopene by itself is a powerful element, but is at its most effective when paired with the many other elements working in synergy found within the rosy walls of the tomato.  For a power packed anti-cancer kick pair your tomatoes with broccoli: both veggies that have excellent anti-cancer properties that work even better when working together. Check out further details on the super powers of tomatoes at World's Healthiest Foods. Scientific research included.

Little Matt's Wild cherry tomatoes peeking out from the bottom. I have several volunteer plants popped up from scattered seeds from last year's plant. They're tiny tomatoes with large tomato taste, not sweet like most cherries. I pick my tomatoes right at "blush" to help them escape bug damage and allow the plant to focus on new fruits.

 

Tomatoes are most definitely a super food, and delicious - but how's the caloric breakdown?  As with most fruits "a large percentage of the calories in this food come from sugars" but i think the amount of vitamins and minerals compensate for any carb surplus.

The good: This food is low in Sodium, and very low in Saturated Fat and Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Thiamin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Copper, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Potassium and Manganese.    -Nutrition Data .com

At 30 or so calories for 1 cup chopped tomatoes - i feel safe putting tomatoes in everything i eat, as long as i give my mouth a break from the acidity every once in a while.

What's your favorite recipe for utilizing homegrown tomatoes?