As a member of Farm Sanctuary, I often get emails from them advertising their latest campaign or fundraiser. (Click here to read about our summer road trip to their CA farm where we got to see some of the turkeys rescued from slaughter.) I don’t always post their campaign information here, but thought this one was appropriate for Thanksgiving. More than 46 million turkeys were slaughtered this year for Thanksgiving alone and I’m happy to say that none were a part of my Thanksgiving day celebration.

Our cruelty-free meal started with homemade pizza and salad and ended with homemade caramel apple pie with praline ice cream.



The pizza was delicious. I ended up making one pepperoni and olive, one veggie no eggplant, and one that was half plain cheese and half veggie with eggplant. I mentioned in a previous post that I am in love with eggplant and eat it all the time, but Matt doesn’t share the same appreciation. Seriously, I bought 3 eggplants this week and have already eaten 2 of them. You can check out this post for my tips on making vegan pizzas.



The pie is one that I’ve made before, but the last time I made it I thought it was too sweet. I had also added vanilla, as some of the comments suggested to, and I didn’t like that either. So this time, I used all Granny Smith apples and made only half a recipe of the caramel sauce to pour on top. I also only had one crust in the freezer, so mine doesn’t have a top crust. This time it turned out perfect! I loved it. Funny thing– Emma was the one who begged me to make apple pie for dessert and she ended up not liking it. She loved the pizza and ice cream, though!

What did you do for Thanksgiving? I’d love to read all about it.

This cake kept me busy this weekend. It’s a chocolate cake with mocha buttercream for a repeat client, who happens to be my only vegan client (that I know of). A lot of people are drawn to my cakes because they or their kids have allergies to either eggs or dairy, but I don’t have any vegan clients except for this one. Her husband is a huge Giants fan and I think they won some kind of sporting event recently. I’m not sure, but a lot of my Facebook friends were really excited about it… and that’s where I get all of my sports updates.

Now that Emma is a bit older (4 1/2), we’ve been doing lots of reading. This post will be all about the books we’ve read, a brief description of it, how she’s liked them (and to what extent she was able to understand them), and my commentary. When I have more to add books to this list, I’ll create a new blog post and link back to this one. If you know of some books for kids that teach about vegetarianism, please let me know (either email me or leave a comment here). Okay, here we go…

Herb the Vegetarian Dragon: Herb is a vegetarian dragon in a land of carnivorous ones and is accused of eating people and imprisoned. He is sentenced to death until a little girl proves his innocence. In the end, Herb works with the carnivorous dragons to promote peace.

Emma loves this book and wants to read it all the time. She’s also able to understand the entire plot and often references this book when we talk about what we eat vs. what our family and friends eat. It’s been helpful in explaining our diet to her and in teaching her to be respectful of other peoples’ diets, but doesn’t go into any detail about why we choose to eat the way we do. It also introduces the terms “herbivore” and “carnivore” and explains each. This book is probably appropriate for kids ages 3 and up. 3-year-olds will likely find the story entertaining, but won’t really understand the concepts very well. Still, it’s a good book to have in your home library and one of our favorites. There are companion books to Herb (Benji Bean Sprout Doesn’t Eat Meat, The Organic Adventures of Tucker the Tomato), but we haven’t been able to find them at our library. I may try to get them as stocking stuffers for Emma’s stocking.

Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving: Written all in rhyme, this story is about 8 children who go on a field trip to a turkey farm. When they learn of the turkeys fate come Thanksgiving, they get really sad and hide the turkeys in their clothes to take them home with them. They have the turkeys as guests for their Thanksgiving meals instead of as their main course.

We liked this book and it was age appropriate for Emma. I think the story would have been more clear to her if it were not in rhyme (she was entertained by it, but didn’t follow the story line). Once I explained it to her at the end, it made sense to her. While I won’t be adding this title to my home library, it was a fun one to read before Thanksgiving.

That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals: This is one of my favorite books for kids about with vegetarianism, but it is most appropriate for kids probably 5 or 6 and up. It explains in pretty good detail all of the reasons not to eat animals, including how they’re raised on factory farms, the environmental impact of factory farming and fishing, and the toll that eating animals has on one’s health. It also explains the difference between vegetarian and vegan.

I love this book and will definitely purchase it to have at home. Emma likes the story and the pictures and does understand some of the concepts, but the book is pretty long and she most of it goes in one ear and out the other. This will be a great book to read to her when she is older when she’ll have more questions about vegetarianism and want to know more about why we eat the way we do (right now, she only understands that this is just the way it is and that we eat differently than everyone else).

Hubert the Pudge: Pudge’s are pretend animals (modeled after pigs) that live on a pudge factory farm. The story explains their life on the farm (how they never get to go outside and are slaughtered before they are fully grown) and how they are processed into food products. One of the pudges, Hubert, escapes and grows to his full size. He is sad when he thinks that all his pudge friends will be slaughtered so he goes back to the farm to rescue them. The pudge farmer then starts eating healthier and exercising and he marries his trainer from the gym. Together they start a successful tofu hot dog company.

A cute story most appropriate for kids 4 and up. Emma likes the story, but I can tell it doesn’t all make sense yet. This is another one that I’d like to add to our home library. This book touches on the benefits of eating healthy foods and take care of your body, but I wish it didn’t focus so much on appearances. For example, before the farmer starts exercising and eating better, he is fat and ugly. After going to the gym, he’s thin, handsome and successful, which sends the message that you have to be thin and good looking to be successful or to find a wife. I’m sure this message is way over Emma’s head, but you never know for sure what they pick up on.

This morning’s breakfast: oatmeal with a touch of brown sugar and cinnamon, raisins, and chopped green apple topped with Nature’s Path granola, pistachios and rice milk. Seriously. Delicious. I just might have it again tomorrow for breakfast.

I eat quite a bit of oatmeal. It’s such a versatile base that can be dressed up a ton of ways.  And it’s so inexpensive too. Some of my favorite ways to enjoy oatmeal:

• Peanut Butter and Bananas:  peanut butter and agave stirred into the hot oatmeal, topped with sliced bananas.
• Peanut Butter and Chocolate:  peanut butter and agave stirred into the hot oatmeal, topped with chocolate chips.
• Pistachios:  whenever I’ve got ‘em, I always put ‘em on my oatmeal.  I buy the dry roasted and salted ones and I love getting a bite of a salty pistachio with the sweet oatmeal.  I generally add a little brown sugar and raisins to the oatmeal first.
• Brown Sugar and Raisins: the typical topping for oatmeal.

I think I need to branch out a bit, so please share with me your favorite ways of enjoying oatmeal or hot breakfast cereal.  I wonder what a peanut butter and jelly oatmeal would be like.  Maybe I’ll try it tomorrow.

I first saw this over at Vegannifer. So fun! If you want, feel free to copy and paste the questions and fill in your own answers in the comments section of this post, or onto your own blog.

What is one food you thought you’d miss when you went vegan, but don’t?

I thought I would miss cheese the most and, indeed, it was the thing I did have the hardest time giving up. I’ve tasted cheese since going vegan, just to see if I still liked it the way I did when I thought I was addicted to it, and it was so gross. It’s amazing how your taste buds change when you don’t have something for a long time.

And interestingly, it is possible to be addicted to cheese, as I thought I was and as I’ve heard many of my friends tell me that they are:

Well, in 1981, Eli Hazum and his colleagues at Wellcome Research Laboratories in Research Triangle Park, N.C., reported a remarkable discovery. Analyzing samples of cow’s milk, they found traces of a chemical that looked very much like morphine. They put it to one chemical test after another. And, finally, they arrived at the conclusion that, in fact, it is morphine. There is not a lot of it and not every sample had detectable levels. But there is indeed some morphine in both cow’s milk and human milk.

Morphine, of course, is an opiate and is highly addictive. So how did it get into milk? At first, the researchers theorized that it must have come from the cows’ diets. After all, morphine used in hospitals comes from poppies and is also produced naturally by a few other plants that the cows might have been eating. But it turns out that cows actually produce it within their bodies, just as poppies do. Traces of morphine, along with codeine and other opiates, are apparently produced in cows’ livers and can end up in their milk.

But that was only the beginning, as other researchers soon found. Cow’s milk-or the milk of any other species, for that matter-contains a protein, called casein, that breaks apart during digestion to release a whole host of opiates, called casomorphins. A cup of cow’s milk contains about six grams of casein. Skim milk contains a bit more, and casein is concentrated in the production of cheese.

If you examined a casein molecule under a powerful microscope, it would look like a long chain of beads (the “beads” are amino acids-simple building blocks that combine to make up all the proteins in your body). When you drink a glass of milk or eat a slice of cheese, stomach acid and intestinal bacteria snip the casein molecular chains into casomorphins of various lengths. One of them, a short string made up of just five amino acids, has about one-tenth the pain-killing potency of morphine.

What are these opiates doing there, hidden in milk proteins? It appears that the opiates from mother’s milk produce a calming effect on the infant and, in fact, may be responsible for a good measure of the mother-infant bond. No, it’s not all lullabies and cooing. Psychological bonds always have a physical underpinning. Like it or not, mother’s milk has a drug-like effect on the baby’s brain that ensures that the baby will bond with Mom and continue to nurse and get the nutrients all babies need. Like heroin or codeine, casomorphins slow intestinal movements and have a decided antidiarrheal effect. The opiate effect may be why adults often find that cheese can be constipating, just as opiate painkillers are.

So off-topic, I know, but pretty interesting.  Read the full article here.

What is a food or dish you wouldn’t touch as a child, but enjoy now?

As a kid, I didn’t like most green vegetables and probably still don’t now.  I’ll still eat them to set a good example for my kids, but I wouldn’t say I ever crave broccoli or asparagus.

What vegan dish or food you feel like you “should” like, but don’t?

I’m agreeing with Jennifer and going with tempeh.  I’ve had it in dishes that were prepared for me and I very much liked them, but can’t seem to figure out how to like it in something that I make.  It’s supposed to be super healthy for you, but I just don’t have a taste for it.

What beverage do you consume the most of on any given day?

Water.  Lately, I’ve been drinking a lot of decaf and herbal teas, but I drink more water than anything else most days. I also really like flavored coconut waters, but those are expensive and I only buy them occasionally.

What dish are you “famous” for making or bringing to gatherings?

Dessert of any kind, but mostly cake or cupcakes.

Do you have any self-imposed food rules (like no food touching on the plate or no nuts in sweets)?

I will say that I don’t like it when my food touches on the plate, but it’s more of a preference and not a rule.  I also prefer to not mix cold and hot foods in one meal (e.g. hot soup with a cold salad); it hurts my teeth, but again is more just a preference.

What’s one food or dish you tend to eat too much of when you have it in your home?

Anything sweet or baked.  I have a horrible sweet tooth, which seems to have gotten worse after having Amanda.  I don’t really care for candy or anything like that, but if there are extra cupcakes around, I can’t stop eating them.

What ingredient or food do you prefer to make yourself despite it being widely available prepackaged?

Bread because my bread machine makes it so easy and it tastes so good.  The problem is that my bread machine makes such a small loaf that it only lasts us a day or two, so I don’t really make it myself that regularly.

What ingredient or food is worth spending the extra money to get “the good stuff”?

Coconut oil.  It’s expensive, but lasts a long time so I only buy the organic, raw, unrefined kind.  The funny thing is that I don’t ever cook with or eat it.  I use it as lotion, put it in my hair and on my scalp, rub it all over Amanda’s dry skin and cradle cap (it really makes a difference), but I have yet to ever cook with it.

Another interesting tidbit: coconut oil is naturally antifungal (and antiviral and antibacterial) and I’ve been treating Amanda’s thrush with it.  When I took her to the doctor a couple of weeks ago for her cold, she had a moderate case of thrush and her doctor said that I could continue treating with coconut oil since I was going to be back in the office for her two month visit within a week or so.  When I took her back this week for that checkup, her thrush was much better and even though I was prepared to get a prescription for it, he said that it wasn’t even worth treating with a prescription since it was so improved.  Coconut oil is amazing stuff!

Are you much of a snacker? What are your favorite snacks?

No, not really.  Crackers and hummus is one of my favorite snacks.

What are your favorite vegan pizza toppings?

Daiya cheese, veggie pepperoni and olives like when I made it here.

What is your favorite vegetable? Fruit?

My favorite vegetable is salad, which I understand is a mix of lots of different veggies.  As I mentioned above, I don’t really like most vegetables, but I really like salad– oh, and eggplant.  I’m addicted to eggplant right now.  I also like any kind of fruit, my favorites being warm weather fruits like mangoes, peaches, and nectarines.

What is the best salad dressing?

My balsamic dijon is my favorite homemade salad dressing.  Annie’s Goddess dressing is the best store bought one I’ve tried.  These two happen to be Emma’s favorite salad dressings too.

What is your favorite thing to put on toasted bread?

Earth Balance (soy free) and jam.

What kind of soup do you most often turn to on a chilly day or when you aren’t feeling your best?

I love vegetable soup, so long as it’s homemade.  I hate canned soups of any kind.

What is your favorite cupcake flavor? Frosting flavor?

My favorite cake and frosting combo is vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, but I don’t discriminate.  Any kind of cake with any kind of frosting (so long as they’re both vegan) are winners in my book.    I actually just made some really delicious gluten free vanilla cupcakes last week and those may be my new favorite.

What is your favorite kind of cookie?

Oreos.  I never buy that brand specifically, but I’ll buy the Trader Joe’s brand sometimes.

What is your most-loved “weeknight meal”?

Anything that can be made in my slow cooker.

What is one dish or food you enjoy, but can’t get anyone else in your household to eat?

Eggplant.  Matt hates it.  Emma won’t touch it.  I could eat it at every meal and still want more.

How long, in total, do you spend in the kitchen on an average day?

Maybe 1 or 2 hours.  Depends on what I’ve got going on.

How many fingers am I holding up?

Uh… none?

What kind of things are you doing for VeganMofo?

I’m trying to blog more regularly, which also means cooking more regularly.  I also added the Vegan Mofo blog bundle thingy to my blog reader and have been trying to keep up with everyone else’s Vegan Mofo blog posts.  It’s not going well and I’m very behind, but it does give me something to do when I’m up in the middle of the night with Amanda.  I’ve also been reading lots of books on vegetarianism to Emma since she’s older now and I plan to dedicate a post to that soon.

Happy Weekend Everyone!!

I remember so vividly the day I went vegetarian. It was just a couple of days before Thanksgiving after having sat through one of my college classes where we were discussing the book Diet for a New America. Want to know where your “food” comes from and have a good cry all at the same time? Read that book and change your life forever. I vowed that day to never eat meat again and haven’t regretted the decision one bit. That was 8 years ago and in these last 8 years, I’ve never had a Tofurky for Thanksgiving. Truthfully, I don’t really enjoy traditional Thanksgiving foods that much and I was always fine with eating whatever vegetarian side dishes were offered. Now that Thanksgiving is almost upon us, I was considering picking up a Tofurky roast this year for a couple of reasons:

1. We usually spend the holiday with family, making stops at both my and Matt’s family feasts, but this year we’re staying put. We live about 80 miles away from our families, a drive that has taken us up to 5 hours with all of the holiday traffic. Seriously, traffic on Thanksgiving is worse than any other holiday, at least in the direction we are traveling. And besides all that, there is a slight possibility that Matt may end up having to work some or all of the holiday weekend and we need to be close to work in case he can’t do what he needs to remotely.

2. I would like to enjoy a family meal, something that we don’t get to do very often at all anymore, but I don’t have the time to prepare anything super complicated. My days are jam packed with baby feeding, butt wiping, and chauffeuring, so my time in the kitchen is pretty nonexistent.

Tofurky and I have had a love affair that has lasted since I first went vegetarian. I really like the Hickory Smoked Deli Slices and am in love with their new-ish line of frozen pizzas. Really, anything from them that I’ve tried has been good so I thought why not? Why not, indeed, since I was offered a coupon for a free sample: a Tofurky feast that includes a roast, gravy and stuffing that’s boxed with some organic chocolate cake from Amy’s Kitchen. You’ve got your main dish and your dessert all in one, saving you tons of time come Thanksgiving (or Christmas) day. Whip up a couple of side dishes and you’re all set to spend time with your loved ones instead of slaving away in the kitchen.

Because I was so excited to try it and because I wanted to get this post up before Thanksgiving so that you all can run out and get your own Tofurky, we enjoyed our Thanksgiving feast a week early. Preparation instructions are really simple: all you gotta do is prepare a simple basting broth and wrap it up in foil. It bakes at 350 degrees for 1.5 hours. That’s it! While that was doing it’s thing in the oven, I prepared a few simple side dishes: mashed potatoes with chives, homemade cranberry sauce and roasted Brussels sprouts. Then I heated the gravy that came with the roast.

After baking, I sliced it up pretty thin. It’s pretty impressive how much stuffing there is inside there (it’s a wild rice type stuffing, by the way, not a bread one).

My potatoes turned out really yummy. I had an open container of plain coconut milk yogurt and I added a few heaping spoonfuls to my potatoes as I was mashing. It made them super creamy. I don’t particularly care for Brussels sprouts (the hubby loves them!), but the recipe I followed– linked above– was really good. I enjoyed them quite a bit. The Tofurky wasn’t bad. Please note that I am not a fan at all of seitan and, as I said above, I don’t really like traditional Thanksgiving foods, but I did think it was okay. It’s not something I would ever have a craving for, but I would eat it if it were served to me. I have a lot of it leftover and have a few ideas in mind of some creative ways to use it up. The best part of the entire meal was the gravy. It was the best vegan gravy I’ve ever had. Yum!

And the best part of any meal: the dessert. As you might have guessed, I’m a bit of a cake snob. For a store bought, frozen cake, it was actually really good. I whipped up a super simple espresso glaze to top it with (because cake isn’t cake unless it has some kind of frosting on it, right? Isn’t a cupcake without frosting just a muffin?). The cake is really moist and very flavorful and that espresso glaze tastes just like melted coffee ice cream. Even though I liked it so much, I only had one piece. I’m pretty proud of myself for that.

If you’re interested in picking up a Tofurky feast for your family, you can find them at pretty much any store that sells Tofurky products. I got mine at Whole Foods in the freezer section. Price-wise, you’re looking at $20 for the feast box (the roast, gravy and cake), which serves 6.

Oh! Funny story– the feast box also comes with some Tofurky jurky “wishstix.” When I opened the box, I was like what the hell is this for? and I tossed it aside. I seriously couldn’t figure out what it was and then it donned on me: it’s the vegan version of a wishbone! LOL! It’s been so long since I’ve feasted on turkey carcass that I had forgotten all about that tradition of making a wish and pulling apart the wishbone.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’m curious, what do you look forward to most at Thanksgiving time? Is it the food? Time with the family? All the awesome deals on Black Friday?

This year, I’m most looking forward to spending a relaxing long weekend with my husband and kids. We don’t have any plans aside from enjoying each other and maybe seeing Tangled. (Yep, when you’ve got kids, you look forward to seeing the newest Disney film in the theater. How times have changed!) Everyday I’m so very thankful to be surrounded by unconditional love. I have the best life!

I was offered a free sample of Kirkland Signature Nature’s Path Organic Ancient Grains Granola with Almonds. This granola is a little different than others out there in that it’s made from high fiber whole grains including spelt, kamut, amaranth, quinoa and oats, as well as almonds and a touch of cinnamon.

Our package came last week and we’ve been enjoying it every day since. Emma really likes it– she’ll snack on it dry and have it with some rice milk for breakfast. For me, I find it a little too sweet to eat straight up, but I really like it on top of my oatmeal.

I make oatmeal like normal, add in some raisins and top with the granola. It was really good and super filling!

Granola not your thing? Nature’s Path has a whole bunch of products to suit everyone’s tastes. Emma likes pretty much everything from the EnviroKidz line; her favorites are any of the Crispy Rice Bar flavors and the Gorilla Munch cereal. For a special treat, I sometimes have the flax waffles for breakfast. They even have an impressive selection of gluten-free products, which is something that is important to several people we know. I try to make a mental note when I come across these GF snacks so that we can bring snacks for everyone to share when we have playdates and gatherings with friends who don’t do gluten. I’ve even considered going GF myself. When I say Nature’s Path offers something for everyone, I really mean it. Check out all of their products here.

A while back, I blogged about how my copy of The Joy of Vegan Baking fell apart. I was a little annoyed that it just came apart like that, so I contacted the publisher and sent them pictures of it all torn to bits. They were so generous in sending me a replacement copy… THAT HAS ALSO FALLEN APART!!!!

What the heck? When will cookbook publishers get smart and start using spiral binding? Cookbooks are not the type of book that you sit in bed and leisurely read while sipping a cup of tea. No, they get battered and bruised and things spill on them and they get put in those cookbook holders so that they stay open… I’ve never had a book fall apart the way this one has and I have half a mind to contact the publishers again to complain. I don’t want to be a nag, but I would hope a cookbook could stand up to normal use. Anyone else have problems with this book? I swear, I’m no more rough with this cookbook than I am with any of my others and yet my two copies have both fallen apart.

So anyway, I had 4 bananas that needed using. They were past the point of spotted and nearly black and had only hours of life left in them. I had already made banana muffins a couple of weeks ago and still have a stash of those in my freezer, so I wanted to do something different. I had the idea of making cookies with them and googled a few recipes, but had the good fortune of this recipe finding me. Jennifer just blogged about it on Monday… what excellent timing! In her post, she mentioned two slight changes that she made to the recipe: halving the amount of sugar and oil. I decided to give it a try with her modifications.

Of course, I made a few modifications of my own. Since I had 4 bananas, I doubled the recipe but still halved the amounts of sugar and oil. I also used brown sugar instead of white, omitted the coconut (I love coconut, but the dried stuff in baked goods is an unpleasant texture for me) and instead added a generous handful of chocolate chips. Hey, chocolate makes everything better!

These baked up fluffy and moist and almost have the texture of a muffin top. The best part is that Emma likes ‘em too.

These last few days have been more chaotic than usual. My husband ran a half marathon over the weekend in Fresno and we all went to cheer him on. This is is second half marathon– the first was about 5 weeks ago. Even though we were standing at the finish line waiting to watch him cross at the first marathon, I managed to somehow miss him completely. This is why it was important to me to go this time because I really wanted to be there when he finished. For those unfamiliar with California, our house is the “A” and Fresno is the “B”:

It took us about 3.5 hours to get there and it wasn’t too bad of a drive.  There are a lot of farms (like fruit/vegetable farms) south of us and that’s always fun to drive through.  There are  a lot of fruit stands off the highway that sell fresh, local produce for pretty cheap.  The best deal I saw was a 5 lb. bag of oranges for $1.  If we hadn’t been in such a hurry to get there (he had to be in Fresno by 6 pm to pick up his race packet), I would have stopped for some.  The best part of the drive is that Amanda slept the entire way and Emma took a nap for a good part of it.  Matt and I were able to have a conversation with each other where we could actually hear each other and not be interrupted.  It was nice.

Matt finished in 167th place out of 3316 overall; 142nd place out of the 1220 men; 27th of 196 in his age group; with a time of 1:41:47. He was in the top 5%!  Ok, I’m pretty impressed.  I’m not a runner and lost most of my athletic ability when I graduated high school, but I’m sort of inspired now to maybe start training for an itty bitty run– like maybe a 5K.  And our friend whom Matt ran the race with is the biggest inspiration of all.  Check out Travis’s blog here.  Travis has lost nearly 100 pounds so far and is training for a full marathon coming up here in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, so that’s why I didn’t post anything this weekend.  And prior to our trip, I had gotten a cupcake order that was pretty time consuming.  About a year ago, I started baking on the side in my spare time (back then I actually had some).  I started making cakes and cupcakes for people and really find it to be a lot of fun.  If you want to see some of the stuff I’ve done, you can fan me on Facebook and check it out:

Bliss Bakery

This particular job was 4 dozen mini cupcakes, a mix of chocolate and vanilla, each topped with handmade race cars.  The race cars are all made from fondant and are 100% edible, but were very time consuming to make.  Now that I have so little free time I realize just how time consuming these special details are.  Before Amanda was born, I would make these types of things at night while watching TV.  Now that she’s here, I make it a point to go to bed when she does so I have to find time to do them during the day. My client picked these up the night before the party so I had to send the race cars separate from the cupcakes (otherwise the fondant softens too much from the moisture of the cupcake).  Here’s all 48 race cars boxed up and ready to go:

I had a few leftovers and made a little display to get some photos:

Emma always loves it when there are leftovers!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  I’ll be back with more tomorrow.

I’m chuckling to myself as I type this as it reminds me of Jennifer’s blog post from a few days ago when she talked about how she frequently has to cook one-handed. You see, I am typing this one-handed for the exact same reason and it is taking forever!!

I stopped buying canned beans a while ago because they’re just so expensive! It might not seem like a lot to buy a can now and then, but when you compare that to how inexpensive it is to cook them yourself, the savings adds up. Besides that, beans that I’ve cooked myself have so much more flavor than canned ones. Yesterday I cooked up a whole bunch of pinto beans and they were so good that I’ve been eating them plain. Here is my favorite method for cooking all types of beans.

Like most brown foods, beans are not very photogenic.

1. About 12 hours before you plan to cook your beans, put them in a large bowl and cover with water.
2. After soaking for 12 hours, drain and rinse them. Place into your slow cooker.
3. Peel one large onion and cut in half. Throw it in with the beans.
4. Peel and chop 2-3 cloves of garlic.  Add t the pot.
5. Cut a jalapeno in half, remove the seeds and add to the pot.  I don’t always have these on hand so I don’t always add them.
6. Pour in enough water to cover everything.  Put on lid and cook on low for 8-10 hours.
7. When the beans are cooked, add S&P to taste.

I like to fill up glass jars (quart size) with cooked beans and freeze them. They’ll last forever in the freezer and take only a few seconds in the microwave to defrost when you want to use them.   It’s so easy and you won’t believe how much better they taste than canned beans.