Veggie Mexican with Refried Beans

Mr VST and I have both read and really enjoyed Chris McDougal's book Born to Run. It's a fantastic book about running, barefoot running and the Tarahumara Indians who live in the Copper Canyons and live a running lifestyle. There diet is very simple and when they go on their 50 mile runs they eat chia seeds, pinole and pinto beans. We were shopping a while back and Mr VST spotted some pinto beans. I think he was hopeful that eating a few beans might turn him into a super-runner without thinking too much about all the running that the Tarahumara do their whole lives.

I hadn't cooked beans from scratch before. It seems like a lot of hard work and it was. The packet says soak them in cold water for 8-10 hours and preferably overnight, which I did. It then says to rinse them, add fresh water, bring them to the boil and boil for ten minutes followed by simmering for an hour. I looked up some healthy refried beans recipes and came across a couple here. I decided to simmer the beans for 50 minutes, then add some crushed garlic, ground cumin, a dash of olive oil and tomato purée and let them simmer for a further 20 minutes before mashing them roughly.

They were surprisingly tasty and went really well in a flour wrap with my usual veggie mix and some salad.

Healthy Macaroni Cheese and Salad

Healthy option for meat free Monday.

Bangers, Mash and Onion Gravy

Sunday evening classic last night. The onion gravy was SOOOO good!

Cauliflower and Broccoli Cheese and Baked Potatoes

After our long walk today (12 miles) I thought I'd better finally eat the cauliflower and broccoli in the fridge. I send Mr VST to the shop to get some potatoes and popped them in the oven to cook while I made the cheese sauce and boiled the veggies. Can't go wrong with anything covered in cheese sauce really!

Veggies and pasta

A quick healthy meal last night veggies and quorn pieces and pasta.

Scones

My Mum bakes the best scones in the world. Well I would say that wouldn't I but she really does and usually they are huge. I asked her for the recipe way back in 2006 and she kindly emailed it to me so here it is. I'm even sharing her 'secret', I hope she doesn't mind.

Scone Recipe (I made 9 scones with this amount)

 

 

The SECRET of soft light scones is to dust the baking tin and the scones with flour before baking!

 

Ingredients

Rolled with my new Olive wood rolling pin

8oz plain flour

1/2 tspn salt

1tspn bicarb of soda

2 tspn cream of tartar

1 1/2 oz butter

1 1/2 oz castor sugar

1 egg beaten and made up to 1/4 pt with milk

2 oz raisins

 

Sift flour, salt, bicarb and cream of tartar (or use 4tspns baking powder).  Rub in butter, stir in sugar and rasins.  Make a well in centre and pour in egg mixture.  Mix together - its quite soft and shouldnt be sticky if it is add a bit more flour.

 

Roll out nice and thickly at least 1/2 inch but i make mine thicker.  Cut out scones

 

Grease and flour dust baking tray, then dust scones with flour too.

 

Bake in oven for 10mins on 220c or gas 7

 

Then eat while hot making sure you dont get indigestion!!!

These were Mr VST's. I do my scones properly with jam and the clotted cream. I think this proves that I do it the right way round and I quote "Executive general manager David Collas wrote: "I can confirm that we at The Ritz London would prefer to encourage the 'jam then cream' option as this is the traditional method of preparing scones."

The Devon vs Cornwall debate has been going on forever it seems! Despite being Cornish Mr VST makes his the Devonshire way around! Here's an article from the Guardian for more info.

Spelt Bread

Mr VST has been quite bored since having his laser eye surgery as he hasn't been able to the things he usually does to entertain himself like sports, web browsing and watching TV. I have been trying to set him tasks to keep him busy and decided to give him the task of perfecting the spelt bread recipe. When we were staying with friends last week we had toast made from home made bread which was delicious. It had been made in a bread maker with a mix of granary flour and white flour and it made me think about my heavy sticky but tasty spelt bread. I got Mr VST to make it replacing 200g of the spelt flour with strong white bread flour instead. The original recipe is here.

The result was great. A much lighter, but still sticky and tasty loaf. You don't have to let it rise but we did, using the hot water bottle method!

We took some slices of the finished product on our picnic today. It went really well with cheese mmmmm!