Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Recession meals


Well the warm weather has been wonderful and the girls and I have been down at the river almost daily. This past weekend we went to George Washington National Forrest to dip in Passage creek and it was paradisical. The dogwoods and redbuds are in full bloom and the water was perfect. It is one of the only places I know of where the water is prisine and unpolluted. (other than Gravagna of course --the land of unspoiled beauty.)

I also stared a detox this week as I really went over the top this Easter with the food and candy and haven't done a true cleanse in couple of years. I am already feeling much better and have lots more energy and am trying to do mostly raw fruit and veggies and legumes, nuts and grains.

I also saw that there was a chef's challenge on NPR for a 10 buck HEALTHY meal for recession era budgets. Here is our ten buck meal from tonight.

Black beans, soaked and cooked in water with cumin and two cloves of garlic thrown in.

I threw them in the fridge and then chopped up cilantro, one red pepper, and threw it into the cold beans along with a splash of lemon juice (lime would have been better) and a splash of oilve oil.

We ate these with brown rice and shredded sharp cheddar, and chopped lettuce on preheated corn tortillas.

8 comments:

Anne said...

I love the pictures of your beautiful girls. Look how big Angelica is getting!!

Annie Hatke Schap said...

Note to self: No more reading Anna's blog when I'm already hungry!!! Torture!

Sarah said...

I love how Angelica is scratching her bum in that picture!!

Hummingbirder said...

Sweet! The detox is what I need too after all the Easter feasting. Did you do a fast?

Anonymous said...

This is one of my favorite dishes these days, and lentils are high in iron, collards are a fair source of iron... and it is Vegan, cheap, and delicious!

1/2 cup lentils
2 TBls. olive oil
1/2 small yellow onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup carrots, diced
1/4 cup diced celery
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp curry powder
1 TBls. raisins (optional)
4 whole cloves
1 1/2 cups water or stock
1/2 cups diced potato
2 cups fresh collards

Rinse and soak lentils for 15 minutes. Remove stalks from the collards, clean and chop small (fold in half, cut the stalk out, then when you have a bunch roll then together and CHOP!)

Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onions, celery, carrots and sauté until tender.

Add salt, pepper, curry powder, raisins, and cloves and simmer 5 minutes....

Add water, lentils and potato, turn up the heat to medium high and return to a boil. Reduce heat and cook, uncovered, until lentils are tender, about 15 minutes.

Place collards on top of the lentils, cover and cook until reduced by half, about 5 to 7 minutes. When done lentil should be tender but not mushy. Remove from the heat, Stir gently....

you can top it with plain yogurt, but it is really good just as it is... :)

Laura

Anna said...

Yummy, thanks Laura!!!!

Diana, I wanted to do a juice fast but then decided not to since Julia still nurses quite a bit!

Anna said...

I love how Angelica is scratching her bum too!

Anonymous said...

Juice fast while nursing would make me sick, too. Maybe for a day, or 1/2 a day--but it probably isn't good to fast like that during Easter, right?

But going raw/vegan is always good. And it is almost gazpacho season...

And kombucha... Man I can't get enough of that stuff...

(laura :) )