Do I Prep and Cook EVERYDAY???

I actually love to cook and make food, but take the help when I can get it. One helper is storing salad makings already prepped in the fridge. They last for days and I have the convenience of having a salad whenever I want one. Here's what I do and have found that works the best.

I buy organic leaf lettuce of varying varieties or whatever is on sale. Some weeks I add finely chopped kale or whatever green I feel like adding. My salad spinner gets used a lot. I will wash the lettuce and chop it, then spin it in my salad spinner. My aunt gave me my spinner years ago and I've finally started using it regularly. The dollar store has spinners too, if you need a cheap option. They actually aren't that expensive, but you can't beat a dollar. So I spin the lettuce and/or greens to get them as dry as possible. Then I put them in a plastic or glass bowl that is fairly large. Large enough to hold a head of lettuce plus added peppers and such. Other veggies that I have found that last a while in this storage method are cut up peppers, cut up or shredded carrots, radishes, and other not-too-juicy veggies. On top of all the salad, I put a paper towel. The paper towel is the magic trick in this! It keeps the lettuce dry and helps prevent that nasty black goo that can form. On occasion, I will cut up cucumbers and tomatoes and store those on top of the paper towel, away from the greens, but they don't last as long.

Beans

Black beans

 Beans, beans, beans, the magical fruit...we all know the rhyme. When you first start to eat them, they can make you toot and toot and toot. But as your body adjusts, the tooting diminishes. I have found, especially in the first 4 months of eating to live, that if I didn't have at least a cup of beans a day, I was hungry quicker after meals.

When I started my journey, I used canned beans, but quickly converted to dry that I season and cook myself. They freeze beautifully and defrost just as well.

I have a small herb garden in my front yard that helps make my beans extra yummy, but dried herbs work just as well. Typically I grab a sprig of rosemary, thyme, sage and use about 5 dried bay leaves. I add all of that with my overnight pre-soaked and rinsed beans to a huge pot (they do expand) with about 3 smashed cloves of garlic. The garlic gets smashed to get all the good stuff out, but you want it whole enough to take it out at the end, or you'll have smooshy garlic in your beans, which is fine if you are good with that.  I also cut up an onion and add half of it, also keeping it in big enough chunks to pull out before freezing. My time is precious to me, so I usually do 2 pots of beans at a time. Usually different kinds. Today was black and white beans. So I'll put half of an onion in one pot and the other half in the other pot. If you are doing one pot, just save the other half in a baggie in the fridge for a salad or whatever you want. You can also just throw the whole onion in one pot. Bring it to a boil then simmer for about 2 hours. I rinse them in a colander and bring to room temperature.

White Beans

Storage has been an issue for me. I cannot find a reliable and space-saving way to store the beans in the freezer besides just using freezer baggies. If you have a great way to freeze them, besides using plastic, let me know! This is one reason I make sure they are not hot when I pack them up. I want as little of the chemicals of the plastic in the food!

They smelled and tasted so delicious that I added them to a leftover stir-'fry' for breakfast. YUMMO!!

Black Beans ready for freezer