I promise. Those big, huge beans will not jeopardize your weight loss management efforts, it’s more, you’ll be a very happy person after eating them. 

Get more legumes in your life

I don’t have a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight. I don’t think I need it, since I earn my living by teaching others the proper way to manage their weight.

My resolution was a simpler one: to cook more legumes this year. I know how healthy they are but I feel lazy to cook them from scratch, which is the yummiest way to eat them. And it is not that it is difficult or time consuming… well, maybe a bit scary, especially those huge ones which I had never, ever cooked before.

What to do with such big beans

Well, I was brave this time and I got the big beans!  When I saw those Big, Huge, Sexy Beans (sorry, but they are!) at Whole Foods I couldn’t resist them. Although they were from Mexico (the Goya brand), we have them in Spain.

It was love at first sight because they brought me the memories of my time living in Santander. I used to eat a dish called “Judias con Almejas” (beans with clams) while living in that medium town in the North of Spain. Although I live in New England now, I knew it was going to be a challenge to find the time to get the clams to do the dish but I got the big beans anyway.

Time passed by and the dry beans stayed in my kitchen. I never had the opportunity to look for a recipe for those beans much less to look were to find the clams.

So the other day, I decided to go ahead and cook them with whatever I had at hand.

I have to say that I am not a cook, I don’t cook legume too often, and I don’t cook for fun. My interest for cooking is because I like to eat well and healthy, both, for me and for my family.  So, I have to cook! You know what I think about cooking right? Check my last post 

Well, I didn’t add chorizo or tocino. There is no translation for those fatty pork products and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to add them to my beans, and of course I didn’t want to look for them at a grocery store in the middle of another snowy day! So I ended cooking a light “Big, Huge Sexy Beans! And they were DELICIOUS!

I haven’t answered the question yet: Are those Sexy White Beans going to make you gain weight?

And the answer is no! Since I haven’t added the tocino or the chorizo (the fatty bombs), there are basically vegetables, chicken broth and legumes. There is the misconception that legumes make you fat per se, because they are high in calories.

But legumes are low in Glycemic Index (GI), and learning about GI and having a diet low in GI foods is a much more effective approach to lose weight than counting calories.

A low GI diet allows you to maintain glucose levels under control and avoid insulin peaks, responsible of ups and downs in hunger as a consequence of hormone imbalance.

Legumes are an essential part in very healthy Diets like the Mediterranean, and making them weight loss management friendly is a matter of cooking them with healthy ingredients. If you want to know more about this check my post Why are Americans more Overweight than people from other countries? 

That’s what I used for the sexy white Beans Recipe:

• 1 package of Huge Beans (I got the Goya brand at Whole Foods)
• 1 large onion chopped
• 1 head of garlic
• Just enough olive oil to stir fry the onion
• 1 can organic diced tomatoes roasted
• 1 carton organic chicken broth
• water
• 4 leaves laurel
• 1 tsp savory (I always use it with my legumes because it is supposed to reduce flatulence)
• ½ tsp herbs (Italian or Provenzal)

That’s what I did with them:

Soak the beans overnight. Being so big I think this is totally necessary or it might take forever to cook them.

Stir fry the onion in olive oils slowly until golden.

Add the chicken broth and 2 cups of water.

Add the tomatoes, beans, the head of garlic, laurel and rest of the herbs.

Cook them very slowly, addling water when necessary to get a soup consistency. The time it can take you to cook them can vary depending on the type of pan you are using, but probably between 1 and 2 hours.

 Add salt and pepper once the beans are cooked. I am just a survivor cook, but I read somewhere that if you add the salt before they are fully cooked it can make the beans hard.

I promise you, the result was delicious!