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Food Diary

Bean Not Afraid of Bean Salad

March 10, 2009 · By Monica Shaw

71DDBFDB-280F-4069-8CA3-AEACB2B0113E.jpgI have bad memories of bean salad. I think the picture says it all. Those cans of sad, soggy, limp legumes in a putrid, sweet and tangy “vinaigrette” put bean salad to shame. For that reason, I rarely include beans in my salad. But this weekend I was in the mood for a light lunch that was heavy on the protein and raw veggies and light on preparation. Thus I rediscovered the beauty of a bean salad.

Lunch Salad pre-SproutsFor me, a bean salad needs to be more salad than bean. Case in point: Saturday’s lunch, featuring butter beans!

You’ll observe in the photo on the right that the butter beans are mostly hidden by glorious mounds of fresh veggies, including mixed leaves, broccoli, red onion, carrot, tomato, mushrooms, and avocado. I dressed it simply in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and a little dash of oregano.

Chickpea Salad and FriendSunday brought another excuse for beans, when I made pizza for dinner. I wanted to round out the bready main dish with a little protein, so I took some inspiration from this Mediterranean Chickpea Salad from the New York Times and threw together some chickpeas, cucumber, red bell pepper, red onions, and kalamata olives with some lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and oregano. Delicious!

All of this has me in a bean salad mood. Do you have any tasty recipes to share?

Diary for Saturday, March 7, 2009

Swim

Knee was bugging me so swam with the buoy. 1200 meters.

Breakfast

Bircher Muesli with Bananas

Bircher Muesli with Bananas and TimeOut London

Lunch

English Breakfast without all the Englishy Bits

Toast, grilled mushrooms and tomato, steamed spinach. Not shown: a little avocado for my toast.

Vegan English Breakfast

Snack

Grapaefruit

Grapefruit

Dinner

Tofu Scramble with Toast and Spring Greens

Tofu Scramble

Diary for Sunday, March 8, 2009

Swim

Still taking it easy on the ol’ knee. A mega easy slow and steady 600 meters.

Breakfast

Bircher Muesli

Basic Bircher

Lunch

Butter Bean Salad

Lunch Salad

Dinner

Pizza with Chickpea Salad

And a little raw spinach, tomato and onion for good measure. The pizza was topped with Tim’s tomato sauce, onion, broccoli, mushrooms, fresh red chilis, and buffalo mozzarella. I put WAY too much red chili on this… luckily all was not lost; I only put chili on a couple slices.

Pizza and Salads

Organic Pitfield’s Eco Warrior Beer

A treat! I love this stuff.

Eco Warrior

Small Glass of Campofiorin

It probably would have been a Large Glass if there had been more wine left from last week’s Italian meal.

Masi Campofiorin

About Monica Shaw

Veg lover, dog owner, hill walker, wild camper, avocado addict, nerd. I write about how to be awesome through a "smarter fitter" approach to eating, drinking, living and working.
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Eat Sleep Wild is our nature-based business in the Northwest of Scotland. Join me on a guided hike in Assynt, stay at our dog-friendly self-catering cottage, or join Mark on a stargazing evening under Scotland's darkest skies!

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