Beans n Taters
Here's another lunch rerun that I've attempted to make a little healthier than the previous version. Nothing has changed about the beans. Again, it's just a can of pinto beans and a can of great northern beans mixed together. I would normally eat a bunch of onion on this, if I were at home, but out of consideration for the people at work, I usually leave that out for lunch.
One thing I did do to make this lunch healthier was to reduce the amount of potatoes. This time the Herbed Roasted Potatoes from VwaV are packed in the smaller container, leaving the large green container free to fill with steamed yellow squash, okra, onions and red pepper. I love the potatoes, and would fill all four containers with them if I could, but if I'm going to try and cut back on all those starches and simple carbs I guess I need to control myself and eat smaller portions of things like that.
That left one empty container. I thought about putting a cornbread muffin in there again, and I even thought about making them a little bit healthier by replacing the white flour in their recipe with whole wheat pastry flour, but I opted for making lunch a lot healthier and just leaving the bread out altogether and replacing it with some cooked greens.
Less potatoes and bread, and more veggies are about all I can think of to make this lunch healthier. I don't guess you can ever go wrong when you just add more vegetables. I've been really stirred up this week reading on the internet about raw food. I don't know if many of you are into that, and while I certainly don't know if I would enjoy eating like that all the time, it has grabbed my interest and I would like to read a couple of books about it. I am thinking about having a raw lunch tomorrow, just to be different. I'm not planning on doing any kind of elaborate food preparation like the recipe books have, but I am seriously just thinking about just gathering up a bunch of raw things and filling the lunchbox with them tomorrow. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how that works out. It would definitely be a change of pace for me.
Well, I guess that does it for Tuesday. I kinda' like repeating previous lunches and tweaking them to make them better for me. It's fun. Thanks to everybody for checking in today. Have a GREAT day! See you tomorrow!
15 comments:
Hi! I really like your blog! I was just wondering, why don't you try whole grains such as millet, quinoa, etc, if your trying to go healthier? Whole grains have so many health benefits, that IMHO I think everybody should eat them. :) Keep up the yummy meals!
Thanks! Quinoa is DEFINITELY on my list of something to try. I have never had it before. In fact, I only recently learned how you even pronounce it by hearing that guy's girlfriend (the one who was a vegan chef) say it in that movie "SUPER SIZE ME". I just have to pick some up at the store and decide on a recipe. I believe there are some in VwaV which use it, and I know those would be wonderful.
This lunch does look very healthy! Good for you for making the adjustments. The only thing I could really think of to make it healthier is possibly to rinse and drain the beans to lower their sodium content, but that might not be something you are worried about. Keep up the interesting posts!
I love your blog! Great ideas for my own lunches. Reading it at 10 in the morning is tough, though. Makes me hungry! I have to agree with scs - the liquid beans are canned in is very high in salt. Cooking dried beans in a crock pot is really easy. I make them all the time.
You guys are mind readers. That is EXACTLY what I was thinking when I was sitting here eating those beans today. I intended on looking at a can of them when I got home to see exactly how much sodium was in them. Being able to taste the salt in them got me wondering how much was actually in there. Lowering sodium intake is something that I have been trying to do, for the sake of my blood pressure. I only cook with NO-SALT (potassium chloride) now. I definitely need to cook my own beans and season them with that instead to lower the sodium.
Ok, I'm drawn from lurking. Great blog! I love Vegan Lunchbox, but it's nice to see something for adults. I have a laptop lunch box and love it.
I totally relate to the cholesterol/sodium issue since my doctor just yelled at me about both. Basically I've given up any kind of processed food because I've been told to keep my sodium to under 1800mg a day by the nutritionist I was sent to. If you track the sodium, everything else takes care of itself.
There is really little processed food that is not high sodium/high sat fat. Rinsing canned beans doesn't take out the sodium.
No more veggie burgers and tons of time in the kitchen. Keep up the inspiration
I forgot to ask, how did you make the greens? I so love greens and am always looking for a new way to make them.
Rinsing the beans may not drop the sodium content drastically in the bean itself, but that brine stuff they are packed in is LOADED with it. If I'm not mistaken, the sodium content on the lable is after rinsing the beans. If I cook with canned beans, I rinse them and don't add any salt to the dish.
I don't cook AT ALL. (i'm horrible at it) but those potatoes look easy to make. Is there any seasoning's in it? Do you boil the potatoes before hand and then fry them? Did i me ntion that I can't cook?
If you like veggie burgers you should try the VwaV veggie burger recipe. It is my favorite now. It makes a bunch and it has no sodium in it when I make it because I use NO-SALT.
I'm ashamed to say that the greens also came out of a can. So I was probably shafted on sodium again.
I started out with the VwaV recipe, which involves baking them, now I just do it in a skillet. No pre-boiling required. I used to but then I found out you could do it without doing that. Just chop 'em up, put in some oil (olive or canola) some garlic salt, more fresh garlic?, pepper, rosemary, stir around and then let them cook with a lid on, stirring every so often. Wait until the last 15 minutes or so to add the onions so they don't get too done.
I like 'em really good and done. You can always taste them at the end to see if you would like some more garlic salt or rosemary.
Tomorrow's lunch probably won't contain any processed food because I think I am going to just throw a bunch of raw stuff into the lunchbox for a nice change of pace, and a day of eating a few less calories.
I just noticed I never really mentioned that I was describing cooking potatoes in that previous stream of consciousness post. But just in case it's not obvious, I was.
I repeat lunches all the time. I am sure the laptop lunhbox flickr group people are sick of seeing strawberries and zoglos nuggets every week :) Kenny, just FYI, but I have written an article on dieting using the laptop lunchbox, and they tell me they want to print it in the next newsletter.
Great blog! Your daily descriptions are great.
Regarding quinoa, make sure you rinse it well before cooking or it won't taste good.
VeggieMamacita
Quinoa is my favorite grain. Just be sure to rinse it off first before cooking it! It's naturally coated in a bitter coating that acts as a pesticide. Rinsing it thoroughly will get it off. You can replace things that call for rice or cous cous with quinoa. I like to make veggie pilafs with it.
I updated your link! Sorry for being so slow!
I also like Quinoa and your vegan blog is fabulous! If you have a chance check out my culinary blog cheftami at http://cheftami.blogspot.com/
Try the Black bean, mushroom and quinoa stuffed peppers from VwaV. Rinse the quinoa in a sieve. I did find that the quinoa needed to cook longer than Isa suggested.
Post a Comment