After work I went for a lovely 40 minute run. No watch, no headphones (well, I never run with headphones…), no nothing. Just me…running. It feels so great to run just to run. I look forward to enjoying my surroundings and not worrying about my time. It feels great!
Dinner tonight was a mish-mosh of things. I had some leftover cooked quinoa from my Southwestern Quinoa Salad to which I added some lemon juice, salt, pepper, thyme, cooked lentils, raisins, chopped walnuts and goat cheese.
Served alongside some Parmesan baked asparagus – sprinkled with a little olive oil, salt, pepper and parm cheese before baking at 375°F for 15 minutes.
And some hummus with crackers for fun. 🙂
Then, I made up some 13 Bean Chili that I picked up at the store from Bob’s Red Mill. It will be perfect for the week and to freeze.
The chili mix is basically just a mix of 13 different types of beans which you can cook and use however you wish. It contains a mix of navy beans, black beans, red beans, pinto beans, baby lima beans, large lima beans, garbanzo beans, red lentils, great northern beans, kidney beans, black-eyed peas, yellow split peas, green split peas, and lentils. No spices are added so that you can add whatever you want.
I decided to make this into a chili, as the back of the mix recommends. But, of course, I added a few more ingredients to spruce it up!
I forgot to soak the beans overnight, so instead I boiled the beans for 5 minutes, then let them sit in that water for 1 hour. By that time, the beans had absorbed some of the water.
I dumped out the water, rinsed the beans, and put them in the crock pot covered with water on low heat for 2 hours.
Once the beans were tender, I added the following:
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 8 oz cans tomato sauce, no salt added
- 1 6 oz can tomato paste
- 2 15 oz cans diced tomatoes with pepper
- 3 cups chopped kale
- 4 carrots, chopped
- 2 celery stalks, chopped
- 2 tbsp chili powder
- pinch salt and pepper to taste
I chopped everything up and mixed it all together.
Then, set the crock pot to low heat and cooked for 1 hour until hot and bubbly.
Edited to add: I ended up simmering the chili on low heat overnight to make the beans more tender, and I definitely recommend doing that! The chili thickened up a bit as well.
This made a ton of chili! I have been making a bigger batch of 1 thing per week for the past few weeks to eat throughout the week, such as Millet Patties, Lentil Burgers and Southwestern Quinoa. I don’t eat it for every meal, but it really helps to not have to cook something for every single meal during the week. It is nice to have a lunch to grab and go, and to be able to have a healthy dinner within minutes. I am planning on eating this chili all week, and also freezing a few containers for lunches or dinners in a pinch. (It ended up making 9 single servings!!)
Normally, I would do this over the weekend when I have a little bit more time, but this weekend just got away from me! I love this bean mix, and the chili came out really good!
Filed under: Eating Laps, Product Reviews, Recipes | Tagged: chili, dinner, Eating Laps, quinoa, Running Laps | 6 Comments »
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