Brazilian Rice and Beans

My boyfriend lived in Brazil for two years serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the one thing besides acai that he just RAVES about is rice and beans.

so of course I had to try them out!

this was not my first attempt at rice and beans. My first attempt was from scratch, which meant boiling the beans for a full day trying to get them to soften, and ultimately lead to hard, flavorless, and generally disappointing beans.

Not today!

I tried again today because we had a smoked sausage in the fridge and Stephen was doing the puppy-dog pleading thing again. We went with a simple recipe with only 5 ingredients, and it was a big hit. It was delicious! It is 100% Stephen approved, which is amazing because he's pretty perfectionist in all things Brazil.

Rice and Beans

 3 cups canned pre-prepared black beans
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 1/2 lb cooked sausage, sliced
salt to taste
olive oil for sauteing

heat olive oil in a saute pan. saute the onions for about 3 minutes, or until clear and browning. Add the sausage and cook for another few minutes, then add the garlic and cook for 3 minutes or until fragrant. pour beans into a separate pot, then add the onion and meat mixture and bring to a boil on medium heat. If there's not enough liquid, add about 3/4 cup water or more depending on taste. Allow it to boil for about 20-25 minutes, and add salt to taste. During this time, cook the rice so it's all ready to go at the same time.

it's as simple as that! Next time we're planning on trying it with pinto beans and bacon, or black beans with bratwurst. It's such a versatile recipe. It can really take whatever beans or meat you like best, and it can be adapted to everyone's taste.

Enjoy!!

Apple Hand Pies

Alright! I have an AMAZING recipe!

I've made apple hand pies many times now, and each one was a learning experiance. I've never been able to pin down the recipe, but today I'm finally making myself write down what I do to make these fabulous pies.

apple hand pies are basically little personal apple pies with finely chopped apples and sweet pie dough. I love them even more than regular apple pie.

INGREDIENTS

Pie dough:
      1 1/4 cups flour
      1/4 cup ice cold water
      1/2 cup butter
      1 Tbsp sugar
      1 egg, 1 tsp water, and sugar for the coating
Filling:
      2 cups finely chopped apples. mine turn into little mini apple matchsticks from the way I cut them, and then I chop those in half. this process takes a long long time.
      1 Tbsp vegan butter or margarine
      1/4 cup -ish brown sugar
      1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
      1/8 tsp nutmeg
      1/8 tsp ground cloves

TO COOK:
      Dough: cut the butter as fine as you can and place in the freezer for a while. Combine flour and sugar with butter and cut until the mixture has small pebbles of butter and is relatively unified. add ice cold water until the mixture sticks into a ball without crumbling. wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour before rolling.

     Filling: chop apples. put on some Brian Reagan or something to keep you entertained. In a pot, or pan, or whatever's available that'll hold apples, melt the butter and dump in the apples. Stir until coated, and add in the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. cook until your roommates start drooling and get fussy, or until the apples reach the crispness or mushiness you desire. They will get more mushy later. remove from heat and cool.

                                                       Preheat the oven to 375
      Roll out dough between two pieces or more of plastic wrap until fairly thin. It's okay to go a little bit thicker than regular pie dough. cut out circles of dough and set aside. I use a fairly large cup as a cutter.
      Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and lay out half the circles. using the apple juice, make a damp ring of juice along the edge of the dough circle so the top will stick to the bottom. Heap on the apples, leaving a space around the edge. with the remaining half of the dough circles, cut notches in the top so the pies don't explode and carefully place over the prepared bottoms. crimp the edges with a fork to seal the deal.

     beat the egg with a little water, then brush over the tops of the pies. sprinkle sugar generously over the top.

pop the puppies in the oven for 20-30 minutes, depending on size, or until the tops and sides are golden brown and you can't stand waiting any longer. let them cool a little, and then devour warm.

Enjoy!!!

Dairy Free Pancakes Without Leavening

Baking soda and baking powder give me really bad issues, which is awful, because baking powder and baking soda are in every delicious baked good ever. I hated to think that I would never again be able to eat pancakes or waffles again, so I looked up a recipe for leavening-free pancakes and this is what I found.

MERINGUE PANCAKES

the fluffy lightness of a meringue meets a pancake and you get a perfect pancake with no need for leavening!

1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla (I always put a little more in)
1 cup milk (almond or soy or rice works perfectly well, depending on your taste, but I substituted for 1 cup water and it worked fine)
2 tsp cinnamon (added to the original recipe. SO much better!)
2 egg yolks

3 egg whites
1/4 cup sugar

mix flour, salt, vanilla, your choice of milk substitute or water, cinnamon, and egg yolks until just blended. do not over mix.

in a separate bowl, stir egg whites and sugar until it it forms stiff peaks. Do not attempt to do this by hand, no matter how great your egg-beating skills are.

fold the egg whites into the pancake mix until blended.

Heat pancake pan over medium heat and measure out about 1/4 cup batter per pancake. Spread with the back of a spoon to the desired width. unlike regular pancakes, it won't rise at all. There will still be bubbles forming at the top. Cook until all the bubbles pop and brown on the bottom. Flip over and cook until done. Ta-da! leavening-free pancakes!

You can experiment with your pancakes and add blueberries or whatever your heart desires to the mix.

These are the easiest pancakes to cook. I didn't burn a single one and all of them were perfect, which NEVER happens when I cook pancakes. These are about as simple and delicious as you can get.

enjoy!

COLLEGE STUDENT COOKBOOK

(dairy-free and *mostly* IBS friendly)

*all butter is vegan butter

1.       PB&J – yup. Probably the tastiest thing here. Although for variety, there’s always peanut butter and honey.

2.       FRIED EGGS – only way I’ll eat ‘em. Heat up some vegan butter and fry those suckers until brown and crispy. Make sure the yolk is cooked all the way. No runny yolks! Place on a slice of bread spread with jam.

3.       RICE-A-RONI – buy a box and follow the recipe. Get your boyfriend to cut the chicken, although if he’s helping you, don’t plan on leftovers.

4.       TUNAFISH WRAPS – tortillas (flour!!), shredded carrots (optional), shredded lettuce (optional), avocado (optional), canned tuna (optional), mayo (optional). Can also be called “tortillas” because dang those are good

5.       JIFFY MUFFINS – dairy free!! I know, right??

6.       APPLES & PB – mix honey and PB and then eat with apples! Or without apples.

7.       OATMEAL – cook with cinnamon, and then after it’s good and mushy, place into bowl and use the pan to cook blueberries with sugar to form syrup. Pour over oatmeal. Never use a microwave.

8.       OREOS – I KNOW!!!!! (also see – wheat thins, nutter butters, teddy grahams, graham crackers, Ritz crackers, etc.)

9.       FROZEN VEGGIES- cook in a microwave and mom can’t nag at you for a whole week!

10.   FRIED RICE – for those of us who need veggies with a soluble fiber. Cook some rice, cook some veggies and scrambled eggs, and combine with soy sauce and salt and pepper.

11.   LENTIL SOUP – cook up onions with veggies, add lentils and water with vegetable stock paste, season and simmer for an hour. Eat with bread or on top of buttered rice. Lasts ages for no cost at all. Seriously, it won’t go away.

12.   LITTERALLY ANY OTHER KIND OF SOUP – buy the canned stuff and heat it up. Although watch out for ingredients. They may be the misery kind of ingredients.

13.   RAW OATMEAL – nature’s pepto. The stuff is magical. You can mix it with water and put it on hives too.

14.   RICE AND BEANS – shout out to Brazil. Beans with onions and garlic and other yummy flavor stuff. Put on top of rice. Invite Brazil-obsessed friends for dinner.  

15.   TOAST – honey with butter, butter with jam, no one’s judging.

16.   RICE CRISPY TREATS – butter, marshmallows, and rice crispies. All cheap knock—off brands. This IS college.

17.   FRENCH TOAST - Get annoyed at your bf’s puppy dog eyes and use the whole dang loaf you bought yesterday. Although totally worth it if you use cinnamon and nutmeg.

18.   APPLE HAND PIES – apple pie filling with realllly small apple bits put in a SWEET pie dough cut into little circles. Egg wash with sugar. Feed to worshiping bf. Mmmmm….

19.   FROZEN BURRITOS – the best thing since sliced bread.

20.   ASPARAGUS – coat in olive oil and season slightly. Roast for 15 minutes in the oven. Do NOT put every seasoning in the kitchen on them.

21.   CHICK-FIL-A – realize you can’t eat fried foods. Be depressed the rest of the day.

Hello everyone!

My whole life I have dealt with stomach pains and other problems associated with the digestive system. My problems climaxed when on a road trip to Oregon. I got carsick from reading Vanity Fair for hours on end, and felt nauseated when we ate at a restaurant that day. And the next day. And the day after that. For the next two years I was unable to eat at restaurants. When I tried to overcome my strange affliction, I ate a bowl of yogurt and granola at Brent's and ended up introducing my dinner to some bushes outside the restaurant. I took every possible test the doctors could think of and nothing came up. It wasn't just restaurants, either. At school or home or anywhere, I would get nauseated after eating barely anything for no reason at all. Some days the only thing I could eat was a nutrition bar. Some days were better and some were staving times. Nothing helped. Then, the summer before I started college, I found out that I'm allergic to milk. I cut out every milk product from my life and although I got better, I still wasn't cured.

The best explanation for what I have is called functional dyspepsia combined with IBS (irritable bowl syndrome). All that means is that I get nauseated easily after eating and that my intestines sometimes don't take kindly to what I'm eating.

I had to do something. The problems I had were taking over my life. I couldn't even leave my apartment to go to school. I had no social life, no cure, and no hope. So I started to research. 

People like me react to certain foods. Unfortunately, the list of potentially problem-causing foods seems to include every edible thing known to man. And it was my job to figure out what was the problem.

Sugar and candy seemed to be pretty big, as well as excessive fat. That started to cut out my only fast-food option, chick-fil-a, as well as red meat, any fried foods, and most pre-packaged frozen foods, like burritos.

I also discovered that I react well to eating lots of soluble fiber, like oatmeal and rice. So I began to make them staples of my diet, adding in veggies for fried rice and keeping it simple. 

I started discovering new foods that would provide good nutrition as well as helping my intestines be satisfied with the good things I needed them to take. Lentil soup was perfect for me, and cheap and easy to make.

I'm still discovering new foods to keep me healthy and active. I can now eat and participate in clubs on the same day, which is a miracle.