Frugal Babe

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Garden + Dry Beans + Solar Oven = Bliss

September 18, 2012 By Frugal Babe

Our garden is producing all sorts of lovely stuff right now.  Like carrots.  We have a lot of carrots.  Yesterday I made a big batch of hummus using chick peas that I cooked in our solar oven.  I paired them with carrots from our garden, and it was a wonderful, simple lunch.

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I did cut the carrots up before I served them.  That picture is just to show how nice and long and straight they are.  We added sand to our carrot bed a few years ago (thanks to a tip from my dad) and it allows us to grow straight carrots in our otherwise hard, clay soil.  We also add lots of compost to all of our garden beds, but the sand is especially good for the carrots.

I’ve also been canning tomato sauce and roasting tomatoes to put in the freezer.

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Yesterday I cooked up a big batch of kidney beans and black beans in the solar oven (the beans are not from our garden, but cooking them on the back patio with free energy from the sun makes me happy anyway) and used them for two awesome recipes.

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First, I made an oat/chocolate/black bean dessert that I found on the Facebook page of a lady who was briefly a host on Bodyrock.  Jessica Lynn posted the recipe on Sunday, so you might have to scroll through her feed a bit to see it.  The picture had me at hello!  I made a few changes, based on the ingredients I had available.  For the dry sweetener, I used 1/4 cup of sucanat (it was plenty sweet with the reduced amount).  Instead of brown rice flour I used coconut flour.  For the chocolate protein powder, I used Sun Warrior Chocolate Protein (it’s good stuff, but expensive.  So I stocked up last time The Raw Food world had a great sale).

For the wet ingredients, I used almond butter instead of pecan butter, and I didn’t have any toffee flavored stevia.  So I used plain stevia (3/4 tsp) plus 3/4 tsp coffee extract (Coffee and chocolate go together just as well as toffee and chocolate, right?).  I used mostly black beans, although some of the kidney beans snuck in there too.  Otherwise, I followed the recipe as written.

It was awesome.  My husband loved it.  Both of our sons loved it.  And it makes a ton.  We had a huge bowl full of it, so it will last as dessert for several meals.

Then I made these super-tasty West African Baked Beans from Economies of Kale.  So good!  My husband was half-way through his dinner when he looked up and said “is there any more of this?”  That’s always a good sign that the meal is a success.  All three of my guys loved these baked beans.  They were very easy to prepare, and I was able to go do my workout and then play with the kiddos during the baking time.  We will definitely be making this again.  I didn’t have any peanut butter, but I did have a bag of raw peanuts.  So I used almond butter and then chopped up a couple Tbsp of peanuts to mix in to make it chunky.  I didn’t have a can of diced tomatoes either, but I have a garden that is overflowing with tomatoes so I just chopped several of them into pieces and added them to the pot.

That’s our latest food adventures.  We try to keep it simple, wholesome, and mostly veggies.  It works for us, and it’s especially easy this time of year when the garden is producing at its peak.

How are your gardens doing?  Any fabulous recipes to share?

 

 

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Filed Under: food, garden 4 Comments

Comments

  1. Economies of Kale says

    September 18, 2012 at 4:53 pm

    I’m so glad you liked the west African baked beans :) They were a hit over here too. Thanks for the link to my blog as well :)

    I love the idea of cooking beans in a solar cooker. We have been toying with the idea of making one for a while now, but I’m not sure if we would get enough sun on our balcony since it’s usually in shade after 11am. Did you make or buy yours?

    Reply
    • Frugal Babe says

      September 18, 2012 at 5:10 pm

      We bought our solar oven, but we got it on Craigslist for about half the price of a new one.  It was brand new, still it the original box with shrink wrap still on the cooking pots.  The lady got it as a gift and never used it.  We’ve been using ours about once a week for the last four years, and we love it.  In our old house, we had to move it from the back yard to the driveway halfway through cooking because the neighbor’s house blocked our sun.  But here, we can cook all day on our patio.  It works in the winter too, even when it’s really cold outside. 

      Reply
  2. Jennifer @ kidoing! says

    September 18, 2012 at 5:46 pm

    What is your favorite hummus recipe? Just cooked a batch of sprouted chickpeas last night that are waiting to become hummus. Love the solar oven…thinking about it and have seen one on organicgrace.com recently.

    Reply
    • Frugal Babe says

      September 18, 2012 at 9:46 pm

      I use this one: 
      http://allrecipes.com/recipe/real-hummus/  But I use half olive oil and half hemp oil.  And then I sprinkle smoked paprika over the top.  Yum!  I  use that recipe because it had so many positive reviews and was one of the first ones I found a long time ago when I went looking for a recipe.  It’s quick and easy and definitely one of my faves.

      Reply

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