Almost Clean Crock Pot Baked Beans w/Dried beans

Almost Clean Crock Pot Baked Beans

I have tried making truly "clean" baked beans, but I can never get it to taste... right.  We love our baked beans and we've had them for years, so I guess maybe we're just spoiled.  These are pretty close to "Clean" though, other than the BBQ sauce, everything else is good.  Here are a few that at least don't include HFC:

Stubbs Bar-B-Q Sauce
Bulls-Eye Barbecue Sauce (recently changed to no HFCS) -*note, it does have honey in it, but I'm fine with that.

Anyone have any more to add??

We are really enjoying family dinners in our new house!

Anyway, I appear to have finally gotten the right combination of a good crock pot and just the right beans.  My last crock pot had a hot spot and always burned everything in one section and didn't get hot enough throughout the rest of it to ever bake dried beans.  You can just use a pot in the oven if you like, but I am in love with my new crock pot and its... interesting settings, so I've been using it for everything I can.

I also use a variety of beans.  I don't know why... I'm just weird that way.  Using the crockpot takes ALL day.  I would recommend starting them the night before with the water, then adding your broth, BBQ & seasonings first thing in the morning so they'll be all nice and cooked up for dinner time.  These are odd measurements because I had random bags of beans half gone and I lost ALL the rest of my photos, so I can't even look back at them to see:(  Use whatever you want, you'll want to only fill up your crock pot or pan 1/3rd of the way full, because these suckers GROW.

Ingredients: (This filled my 5 qt crock to almost overflowing:)
1/2 bag of white beans
1 bag of black beans
1 bag of Great Northern beans
1 carton of beef broth or vegetable broth
1 medium-large onion
1 bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce
1 Tbsp. Chili Powder for a tiny bit of kick
*My meat eaters love it when I add bacon, sausage &/smoked sausage to theirs.

I LOVE this crock pot.  Seriously, it fits my A.D.D. nature perfectly:)

Directions:
1.  Put all dried beans in the crockpot.  Fill with water.
**Do not add salt or salt containing ingredients until the skins are soft**

2.  Cook on medium/low for 4-6 hours until the skins of the beans are soft.
**Our crock pot "low" seems to be much closer to the medium on my old one**
***If using the oven, bake COVERED on 300 for 4 hours or until skins are soft***

3.  Once skins are soft, drain 1/2 the water, then ADD broth, onions and barbeque sauce.  If you have meat lovers, you can add sausage, bacon, ground beef, hot dogs... but remember, these are NOT "clean" foods (My husband and 17 year old son don't really care about clean eating when it comes to meat:) To keep it clean, you could use chopped flank steak.

4.  Bake on high (oven 350-375) for 4 hours or until beans are soft.

5.  After two hours on high, uncover the beans and add the remaining seasoning.

DRIED BEAN TIPS:

Adding the broth as soon as you can AFTER the skins are softened gives them a LOT more flavor.  I used to make the mistake of cooking them in the water too long and they were always bland.

Stir at least every hour.  This helps the beans always cook evenly so you don't have annoying little hard beans in there.

Stir frequently when cooking for the last couple of hours uncovered.  This will prevent the beans on top from drying out, whilst allowing the sauce to cook down to a nice, thick consistency.

These beans cook down to a nice, thick, full of flavor texture that you will LOVE!   Let me know how it worked for you!

Clean Eating #149: Super Healthy Mexican Taco-Bean-Chili-Soup-Like-Dish

Super Healthy Mexican Taco-Bean-Chili-Soup-Like-Dish

Yummmy!!

Relax Ladies and Gentlemen, Children, Puppies and other small pets who may or may not have been waiting for me to come back...

Because I'm BACK!!

*Sort of.  Actually, next Wednesday, I'm heading out to L.A. with my two girls where we'll stay with several of my mom's friends, be all touristy and I'm going to audition for "The Voice Season 2".  We'll be gone about two weeks.  Unless we hate it, then we'll come back sooner.  Although I imagine a 33 hour train ride after a 4 hour drive will make anything seem tolerable... and, basically, anything that isn't rural town USA will surely be tolerable.

The ingredients (I made a HUGE batch of this and it was REALLY cheap, so it would be great for a big family gathering, potluck or some kind of group gathering.  My family ate half of it in one 24 hour period.  All 6 of us (except the ten year old doesn't really eat much... she prefers to paint):

Oh wait, I was going to start with the recipe.  With school starting soon, my A.D.D. is in full swing... my apologies!

THE INGREDIENTS:

1 bottle of Low Sodium Tomato Juice

1 Large, Industrial sized can of Tomato Sauce 

(if you're going small, just use about equal amounts of sauce and juice and vary according to your tastes)

1 Carton of Vegetable Broth

2 bags of Kidney Beans

2 bags of small red beans

2 bags of White Navy Beans

1 bag lentils

1 bag of frozen spinach

Seasonings:

Mrs. Dash Extra Spicy (1/2 bottle)

Mrs. Dash Southwest Chipotle Seasoning

And here I am modeling the secret ingredient (well, if secret means that I told everyone, but you can't SEE it, then that's what I mean by secret).  You guessed it, pureed spinach in tomato sauce.  I AM that good.

You can also see some of the 20 pounds I've put back on since the epic stress has taken over my summer.  And on a perhaps unrelated note, let me just say that parenting can be hard as hell.  Even if all the things you THOUGHT might go wrong DIDN'T ~ you get new, EXTRA surprises... ahhhh... yeah, its lovely.

Directions:

Prepare your dried beans (you might want to do this the night before, I just did it in the morning and had the soup for dinner.  You could even use a crockpot if yours works well and you're gone for the day)

*I soak mine for about 3-4 hours or even overnight if I remember.

*Then bring to a boil on the stove, then turn to medium or med-high heat & cook until soft. (they grow a LOT, so keep them covered with lots of water!)

*Do NOT add anything with salt until the skins of all the beans are soft

ONCE YOUR BEANS ARE READY:

Drain 2/3rds of the liquid.

Puree your frozen spinach with some tomato juice **Note:  Do NOT do this if the juice is hot, thinking that SURELY the frozen spinach will cool it off enough.  Scroll back up if you think you might forget this tip.

Add all of your other ingredients (including the lentils) and simmer until you're ready to eat.

This soup tastes fantastic with grilled cheese, tortilla chips or whole wheat tortillas.  My kids all have their own way of eating it (all of these include cheese:).  As my resident carnivore, Kainan even cooks ground beef to throw in his.  I tend to 'toast' a whole wheat tortilla under the broiler and use it as a dipper:)

Verdict: This was AWESOME.  Even my meat eaters didn't miss the ground beef in this.  With all the different textures of the various beans, it was just wonderful.  The pureed spinach seemed to deepen the flavor without actually adding any 'green' taste to it.  My husband is reading this book:

 

And is totally sold on the "Slow Carb Diet", so he wants a lot of lentils and spinach.  This soup is a great crowd pleaser, it fits his diet, its incredibly versatile and tasty and HEALTHY!  Yay!!

And for anyone who came back to read again, thank you!:)  I'll try to be better now that it isn't constantly over one hundred and ten degrees outside!

Non Clean Eating: Wisdom Teeth Removal Comfort Food: Cheesey Potatoes

Okay, sorry I've been out of the loop AGAIN.  I have about 7 recipes, photos and everything ready to blog about, but I forgot to make time to actually BLOG about them, which means I have no posts.

However, yesterday my boys got their wisdom teeth out and I had to make comfort food for them.  

PLEASE watch their HILARIOUS on the way home video:)

Milk shakes and protein shakes are all well and good, but they wanted some "real" food.  Since we're at the end of a paycheck period, I had no extra $$ for getting special things, so I had to make do with what we had on hand.  Thankfully I still had several types of veggies prepped and frozen from earlier this month, so I went with loaded twice baked potatoes.

Ingredients:  (told you it wasn't "clean", but there is still no MSG, HFC or artificial stuff, so we're still good:)

10 pounds of potatoes, washed, but not peeled

2-3 medium onions, diced

3-4 heads of garlic, diced (or you can roast it if you prefer)

1 bunch of green onions, chopped

1 pkg of firm tofu

1 pkg cream cheese

1 16 oz container of light sour cream

2 cups of shredded cheese

2-4 leaves of fresh kale, finely chopped

1 cup fresh spinach leaves, finely chopped

1-2 cups of milk as needed for desired consistency

Assorted diced veggies from your freezer:)

*I used a little bit of green bell pepper, cabbage, celery, red & orange bell pepper)

Sautee all of the vegetables (except the potatoes:)

Boil the potatoes until tender

Mix your sauteed vegetables in a bowl with the cheeses and your choice of seasonings.

I used 1 Tbsp of celery salt, 2 Tbsp of pepper and 2Tbsp of garlic salt

When the potatoes are done, drain and mix in with the cheese/veggie mixture.

Add milk as needed until you reach the desired consistency.

Bake at 400 for about 20-30 minutes.

 Viola!

After baking, you can add some butter and extra garlic salt if you REALLY want to be bad:)

The boys gobbled it up... as did the rest of us.  YUM.  Great, SOFT, filling comfort food.

Clean Eating #21: 4 or 5 Ingredient Mexican Pasta, Super Easy, Super Fast & Potluck Favorite

Mexican Pasta

*This is courtesy of my hubby as well... he likes his Mexican and Italian food so much that sometimes he doesn't wait for me to put it on the menu.  I love that about him:)

Ingredients:
Salsa (Recipe here for those who want to make your own)
Whole Wheat Pasta (We like medium shells or egg noodles)
1 bag of frozen corn
Chopped, cooked flank steak or Cooked very lean ground beef or turkey

Directions:
Cook pasta until almost done, add frozen corn and bring to a boil again. 
Cook on Medium/Medium High for 2-4 minutes.
Add salsa, cooked ground meat and black beans if you like.
If you're on a maintenance phase, or can handle some cheese, my kids and hubby like to top it with a little bit of finely shredded cheddar cheese.

Variations: 
Prepared Black Beans (we use dried beans, prepare and freeze ahead of time, you can use canned. This is an old post on cooking with dried beans, it is NOT a "clean" recipe, but the preparation process is the same.)

When we make this for a potluck or for a time when guests might see it, we'll put the nearly done meal in a casserole dish and sprinkle cheese across the top and bake it instead of just having a one dish meal. 

What I'll do differently next time:  I think next time I'll use at least twice as much corn, because I love the crunchy texture in there... and some sauteed red peppers... yummy!

Ahhhh!! Everyone ate it ALL GONE!! I thought I'd make myself a dish today with the leftovers and those greedy boys ate it ALL. I will take a photo next time.

That homemade salsa is SPICY!!  A little goes a LONG way!

Clean Eating #19: Chicken Kitchen Sink Soup (veggies, couscous, lentils, healthy stuff)

Chicken Kitchen Sink Soup

I gave up trying to name my soups. I'm a lover of many textures, colors and flavors in my food, especially my soups. My chicken soup has evolved over the years to the point that I just about throw everything except the kitchen sink into it.

This time I actually ran out of room in my pan before I got very many different veggies in it.  I usually have everything from green beans to zucchini and whatever I have on hand.  In the winter I like to use frozen veggies because they're quick.  This is deinitely a 'quick fix' meal (Which is probably why I made it on a Thursday, when we are often gone from 8:30am to 9:30pm).

PREP:  If you have a prep day, go ahead and dice/cut up your chicken and store in a freezer bag/container in the freezer.  Dice onions and either roast garlic or dice and store in a bag along with any other veggies you like in your soups (bell peppers, fresh veggies, etc).  Anytime I do cook a full chicken, I keep the broth in freezer bags as well as boiling the last of the chicken to make stock for soup later on.  This time I had to buy new broth because we're out.

Ingredients:
Cooked Chicken breast, cut into bit sized or smaller pieces
Natural Chicken broth
Lentils
Whole Wheat Coucous
2-3 bags of a variety of diced frozen veggies.  We had corn, peas and carrots this time.
1 onion, diced
1-2 heads of garlic, diced or roasted garlic
Stalk of celery
Mrs Dash Tomato, Basil Garlic seasoning
Fresh ground black pepper

Directions:
Since I didn't follow my own rule and have a prep day this time, I had to start from scratch. 
On the stove
1 pan with cubed chicken, diced onions and garlic being sauteed
1 large pot with water, chicken broth & lentils brought to a boil, then simmered on low-med for about 15 -20 minutes until the lentils are mostly soft. (I like my veggies kind of firm in my meals, so I tend to make sure that everything is nearly all the way done before I add frozen veggies, fresh veggies need to cook a little longer, especially carrots)
Add box of couscous to the broth & bring to a boil again, then simmer
Add frozen veggies
Add chicken mixture
Add more water/broth as desired.  I like soup without too much broth, unless I'm treating myself with bread, which is why my "soup" tends to look more like a plate of veggies sometimes:)

Verdict:  YUMMY!  I love all the different textures in this soup.  I loved the couscous and lentils both together.  It was almost as good as wild rice! 

Variations:
Sometimes I use wild rice instead of couscous, which I actually prefer, but we're out.  Again.  I don't want to get stuck in a rut, so I try to get different things.
Seasoning Suggestions??  Experiment with different seasonings.  I'm curious what other people use.  Some day I want to try a spicy version with some of my spicier seasonsing.  I've never been very knowledgable about spices, so any info is good!  No MSG and No Salt added is good for us.

Clean Eating #12: Potluck or side dish Simple Sweet Ginger Baby Carrots

Simple Sweet Ginger Baby Carrots

Another Super easy recipe.  Dinner was Roast (slow cooked all afternoon), Sweet Ginger Baby Carrots, Whole Grain Bread and Salad.

Paris said she had another full plate of salad after she finished this.

I made a full pan of these carrots, they are slightly sweet and the ginger gives them a very nice flavor... there was only one serving left when Kainan and I got home. Paris, Abyni, Jaedin and Patrick ate nearly the entire pan
All you need is baby carrots, fresh or powdered ginger & brown sugar substitute Xylitol or honey.

Ideal Brand brown sugar substitute.  I love it:)

Boil the carrots until slightly tender (we like to leave ours with a little crispness in them)
Peel and shred the ginger

Melt coconut oil in a skillet, add the carrots, ginger and sweetener until they are at the desired thickness.
Viola!

As I said above, these are a family favorite.  We just replaced the powdered ginger we used to use with fresh (which I liked much better) and regular brown sugar with Xylitol.

Refried Beans from Dried Beans

Refried Beans

Here are the ingredients we used today (and if anyone has some suggestions for the canned item replacements, that's great, but this time I just didn't have time to go hunting for all the fresh ingredients after having been sick for a week, so canned it is:(

I usually use beef broth if its needed, but I forgot to buy it because I forgot I needed it so it wasn't on my list.  I hope to get better at that part:)

The pain about dried beans is that they need to soak for a long time.  You can simmer them on the stove for a shorter period of time, but I generally just cover them with water (a LOT of water, they expand a lot, especially when they're cooking!) and leave them in a covered bowl overnight.  

Then I cook them on the stove with some chopped onions and a little garlic, checking on the water levels every once in a while (When I can remember:) because these beans grow and soak up water.  I cook them on 5-6 (medium - medium/high) for a few hours.  Do not add ANYTHING with salt to the beans until the skins are soft, because otherwise that will cause the skins to get hard and your beans are shot.  Stir them every once in a while, and depending how many you make (we always, always make a lot, so ours takes four or 5 hours).

Obviously beans, like home made bread are made on a day when we are home for the day and don't have a lot of running to do.  That's why we always make a lot because we eat it all week while we're busy out and about.

Once the beans are soft, add in your chosen spices, seasonings and whatnot.  I use seasoned diced tomatoes, green chilies and burrito or taco seasoning which gives the bean some kick:

Then, when they have cooled down some, sitck them in your handy dandy blender and make what my kids like to call "Bean Smoothie"  Yummilicious!  Here's Squatchmo making his smoothie:

The, um, not so pleasant sounding process of pouring the bean... "smoothie" back into the pan for making bean dip.

Dried beans are AWESOME.  They are nutritious and extremely inexpensive.  I love using them because we can cook big batches and freeze what we don't need right now.  It took us a bit to get used to the different texture, but now I can't eat canned beans without it tasting like paste.  Ick.

I'm trying to get away from using canned foods as much as possible, but I'm not there yet.  Our goal is to make one healthy change with each recipe until we can get to a place where most of our meals are healthier than they were before.

So, there you have it, refried beans!  Tonight Squatchmo is using some of these beans to make taco pizza!  Yay!!  We'll use the other pan of refried beans to make bean dip.  We add ground beef, corn, black beans and salsa, topped with shredded cheese to eat with tortilla chips.  The kids LOVE this dish and it always gets gobbled up fast at pot lucks!

The Finished Beans, ready for burritos, or in this case, Taco Pizza

Clean Eating: Quick and Easy Party Food

Hi all, my name is Byn I'm a fitness instructor, artsy type, clean eating blogger (most of the time, when I don't get distracted by weird family style posts or other strange things). 


 Although I love and adore fashion, I don't have the focus, money or energy to devote any time to it... I think it was having five kids that did it, I just spent too much time in maternity clothes, I guess.  


I used to design my own clothes back in the day when I was in school/young and single... but now I guess I'm in a mood for cooking and appearing reasonably homemaker-y.  Well, at least in the blogging world. 


Although I will say, THIS outfit was a complete joke to freak out my hubby...

And I do clean up nice at times and do fun things with my hair (But admittedly, other than date night, I generally have on my workout gear or a fitted T and jeans.  Pretty boring...:)

Quick & Easy Party Food:  Cracker Dip & Sandwich Wraps

Its hot in Oklahoma and I'm not used to it. Wasn't prepared for it.  AND I DON'T LIKE IT!!
No, really.  Its HOT.  It has stayed pretty much well over 100 degrees for far too long this summer.

I hate cooking when it gets hot.  I don't even like to go grocery shopping.

Thus, the decrease of recipes on my blog.  This also results in me eating crappy convenience foods most of the time and gaining 10 plus pounds.  I hate emotional eating, but I do it too often, especially when stressed.

At any rate, I do like to make some cold foods, so we've been pretty much living on sandwich wraps, breakfast burritos and crackers with dip.  Fresh fruit is always good, and smoothies with lots of frozen fruit.

Lately we've found this great combination and these have become our favorite (our carnivores generally add some meat if we have any, but the rest of us keep it simple):
Ingredients:

• Whole Wheat Tortillas
• Cheese
• Mozzarella cheese slices/shredded
• Cucumber, sliced lengthwise
• Tomato, sliced
• Lettuce (We usually use Romain or Green Leaf

Start by spreading your whole wheat tortillas with Neufchatel Cheese.  Sprinkle on or layer your choice of cheese (we're using Mozzarella this time).  Layer with lettuce, a long slice of cucumber and some tomato slices. Roll them up and enjoy!

Roll and Viola! You can also cut them in slices for cute pinwheel sandwiches, but my kids devour these so fast, its not really worth the time.

Bonus!  SUPER SIMPLE Salmon Dip for Crackers:

Ingredients:
1 onion, finely diced
1 package of Neufchatel Cheese
1 can of Salmon

Mix ingredients together, refrigerate for an hour and serve with or on crackers.  Super easy, and super yummy protein snack.