healthy laps

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 |