Last week, I made a very large pot of black beans. Since then, I've been having them several different ways (mostly involving rice and peach or pineapple salsa), but last night I wanted to try something a bit different. I had some fresh broccoli and some bulk quinoa, so while the quinoa was cooking, I stir fried the broccoli in some olive oil and a couple of pats of Earth Balance. I then got out a *third pan* (I know, crazy talk, right?) and made some peanut sauce. There wasn't a recipe, per se; I put in all the crunchy peanut butter that was left in the jar (4-5 tablespoons? Totally guessing here), enough squirts of Bragg liquid aminos to cover most of the bottom of the skillet, and enough flax milk to cover the rest of it. I then added several good shakes of powdered ginger, turmeric, and a tiny bit of salt and garlic powder, and then stirred it on slightly-lower-than-medium heat until it was all nice and smooth.
I added the peanut sauce and what was left of my black beans (1/3-1/2 cup, I think) to the pan with the broccoli, and continued to let it cook on medium low until everything was nicely mixed and the broccoli was just barely crunchy. I served it over the quinoa.
I personally thought it tasted amazing, and had that thought confirmed by one of my omnivorous hosts, who tried a bit of it herself.
Now, to the not-so-great part of this post.
I've had issues with my gall bladder in the past, and have had fairly painful attacks (usually at about 3-4 am - thanks, body!) after eating heavy meals. My friend Becca's delicious buffalo seitan has been known to cause an attack here and there (though it might be more because of the vegan ranch dressing than the two bottles of Frank's Red Hot Sauce), and generally, eating anything heavy within an hour or two of bedtime is just a bad idea. Since I've been up here in Kansasouri, I've been out with a friend to have Bean Curd Family Style at a local Chinese place (more about that in a later post). It hadn't bothered me before, but after eating it this past Monday, I had an attack. This one was fairly mild, as gall bladder attacks go, but it still woke me up and made it difficult to go back to sleep for a couple of hours. Last night, after eating the meal above (which includes beans, nuts, oil, and other things specifically listed as "not good" on gallbladderattack.com) and a few handsful of trail mix (pretty much just all bad), I had yet another attack. This one was worse than the previous one, and kept me up for at least 2-3 hours.
During the attack itself, I made the flax seed tea listed on the website (Boil 1 Tbsp of organic flax seeds in 2 1/2 cups of water for 5 minutes. Steep 10 minutes. Strain and sip slowly.) I did, in fact, start to feel better before I'd even finished the tea, and it didn't taste bad at all.
Today, instead of finishing my broccoli bean dish (which I would have liked to do), I decided to make the green soup recipe on the page. It calls for parsley, zucchini, green beans, and celery, but the HyVee down the street didn't have any celery that wasn't wrapped in plastic, so I left that out. Also, instead of steaming the veggies first, I just put them all in my BlendTec blender with a bit of flax milk (the page says flax is good) and set it on "Soup".
After it was blended, I poured it into a pot and heated it on medium for a bit.
This soup...is not very inspiring. I added some ginger and turmeric, since the site says those are good, but I would have dearly loved to have also added some salt and chili peppers. That, however, would have defeated the purpose.
It might have been pushing things a bit too fast, but I also had a very small sweet potato with a bit of avocado on it (both ok things, according to the website).
So, tomorrow is "Dinner & a Movie" Friday. I also had a special treat planned for my first "Feed And Omni" feature. I'm not certain I really ought to be eating either thing that I make, which is just really sad. Everyone, think good healing thoughts for my digestive system!
