Hearty Pinto Bean Stew

I opened a can of pinto beans by mistake thinking that it was refried beans. As I was contemplate what to do with a can of pinto beans, I saw this recipe in The Kind Diet and decided to give it a try. It was so good! I modify the recipe to use canned instead of dried beans and enough to serve 4. It's a very quick and easy soup.

2 teaspoon olive oil

1 small onion, diced, medium size
2 cans of pinto beans
4 cups of creamy tomato soup; Imagine Creamy Tomato Soup is dairy free. Pacific Creamy Tomato Soup is not. I use Pacific Creamy Tomato soup; it available @Costco.
4 teaspoons shoyu
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil or 1 tablespoon dried
1/4 teaspoon of dried oregano
dash of red pepper flakes

Lightly sauté the onion in olive oil in a 2 quart sauce pan. Add the rest of the ingredients: pinto beans, tomato soup, shoyu, garlic, basil, and red pepper flakes to the onions, cover and simmer for 30 minutes over medium heat.

You can substitute 2 cups of dry pinto beans for the canned beans. Cover the beans in water and soak overnight. Drain and rinse the beans. Bring the beans and 4 cups of water to a boil over medium heat, reduce the heat to medium low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until the beans are tender. Drain the water and use the beans in the above procedure. You can also cook the soaked beans with a pressure cooker.

Here is a link to more information about cooking with beans: http://missvickie.com/howto/beans/beanframe.html

The Vegetarian Burger

This is a recipe from my friend Lynell. It dated back to 1990's. We used to have it quite often until Kimberly protested very loudly that she had enough of "vegetarian" meals, "fake" cheese, "pretend" burgers, or anything that had the "organic" wording on the package. We were never vegetarians, but were trying to eat meat sparingly. Back then Cassidy was allergic to milk and soy, so for a few years we did not eat anything that had milk, soy, nor anything that had milk product in it. That was a pretty tough thing to do ten or twelve years ago since there were not as many alternative products out there and organic food was not as common. Maybe that was why Kimberly hated the restriction so much. I have been thinking about this recipe lately because Roland and I actually like the vege-burger a lot. I just make a batch today and am excited to let Kimberly try it again now that her taste buds are more interested in healthy food.

Ingredients:
2 eggs or 1/2 C soaked garbanzo beans blended well with 1/2 C water
1 C rolled oats, uncooked; I like to blend 2/3 of rolled oats for a few seconds in a blender, this helps the mixture to stick together better.
1 C finely chopped walnuts or use 1/2 cup chopped sunflower seeds and 1/2 cup walnuts
1 medium onion minced; I like it lightly sautéed
4 table spoon of milk; or rice milk
1/2 tea spoon of salt
1 tea spoon of sage (powder)
1 table spoon of soy sauce; I use 1 1/2 table spoon of soy sauce

Lynelle like the mixture thin so she can pour it onto a electric grill like pancake batter. I like the mixture thicker and I form it into patties and pan fry with a little olive oil until it's golden brown. It makes about 8 vege-burger patties.