Vegan Recipe: Lemon Basil Butter Bean Salad

Mmmm butter beans, also known as lima beans, also known as in my belly. They have a flavour that is so stand alone indulgent that they don't need much doing to them. This makes these little pulses perfect for salads, so I set about making it happen. A little bit of dressing and the mineral rich sources of protein, potassium and b vitamins are ready to eat.

Lemon Basil Butter Bean Salad

Ingredients

250g cooked butter beans
2 medium tomatoes
1 tsp chipotle chili flakes
1 clove garlic minced
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 bunch of basil, chopped
pinch of salt

1. Mix tomatoes, chili, garlic lemon and basil together in a medium sized bowl. 
2. Add butter beans and mix until distributed evenly. 
3. Serve chilled over a bed of mixed leaves.

Happy Birthday to Hip Hop Vegan, Andre 3000

Source PETA

 It's May 27, which means that Roots and Greens has the honour of celebrating the birthday one our favourite human beings and commited vegan, Mr. Andre 3000. Along with performing serious services to awesomeness with hip hop crew Outkast, Andre 3000 has dabbled in acting, activism, fashion, and music production. His commitment to the cause earned him a place as PETA's Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrity in 2004. For his birthday, I put on the Love Below and I've prepared a special Andre 3000 inspired vegan meal that even Ms. Jackson would like. Happy birthday Dre, I hope you like the Bombs over Butter bean Cassoulet with Idle -Wild Rice and Spinachplayalisticohsosimpesideofsalad as much as I did.

  Idle-Wild Rice

Wild rice needs a little bit more prep than most store bought rice. I used a Thai Glutinous Black Rice for this and it need to be soaked for a hour before I could put it in rice cooker - but it was worth the wait for the beautiful colour and nutty flavour of the rice. I'll be honest, though, I didn't find it that sticky! 

Freestylin'...Mostly Minestrone

Just a little something I whipped up!

This is a recipe that I whipped up on the fly because I was too lazy to go to the shop! I had a can of butter beans and a can of tomatoes so I thought why not make some magic?

I've only started making soup recently but I'm really getting into it. They're really hard to get wrong and the result is something that you can have as a starter, a main or a lunch on the go. If you've never tried it making soup from scratch I thoroughly recommend it. You cut down on lots of the salt and grease in prepacked soups and it's a really good way to make use of vegetable leftovers.  So all you get is the goodness.

This is mostly inspired by what I had to hand but looking at it it's pretty similar to a long standing soup standard, but because there's no pasta or rice, I'm calling this....

Mostly Minestrone

Ingredients

• 1/4  onion , slice
• 1 celery sticks, roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 large chestnut mushrooms
• 1/2 sweet red pepper
• 300ml vegetable stock
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 400g can butter or cannellini beans
• 1 tsp of all spice
• 1 cup spinach

Just to note, I would have put garlic in it, but I didn't have any! If you do, go for it, it should only make it better.

The business

1. Grab a nice big pot and saute the onions, mushrooms, celery, and red pepper in the olive oil.  Let everything simmer unitl soft, should be about 10 minutes.


2. Get your beans out! Pour a little bit of the juice into the oniony stuff to get them sizzling and keep some more of the bean juice to one side for later to use as a thickener.   Pour the drained beans into the pot with the onions.  Let it all simmer for another 5 minutes or so.


3. Stir in the tomatoes and vegetable stock. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer, covered, for 10 mins.


4. This is a great time to get in there with the spoon and season your soup. This is when you add the all spice and pepper. If you're like me and like your soup with a little bit of zing, just tip in a bit of balsamic vinegar. And finally if your soup needs thickening, add a little bit of the starchy bean juice.


5. Now to finish, just plate up and add a handful of coarsly chopped spinach to the top.

And there you have it - healthy vegan minestrone type thing. I put my own stamp on it.  I'm sure you can too. Happy Munching!