Healthy Kick

Now that I am back in Key West and surrounded by all of my lovely cookbooks, I decided to get healthy with some grains. Thursday is my grocery day. To me, I know Deb get a life, this is like a social event. I get to cruise up and down the aisles of glorious foods and chat with an acquaintance, as there is always someone at the store that you know even if it is chatting with the cashier that I see every week. I actually look forward to my grocery day. I usually start preparing for my outing on Fridays! Yep, the day after I have just went grocery shopping. Friday's I start marking recipes in my cookbooks or pick up the magazines that I subscribe to and start listing the recipes I want to prepare the next week. Actually I have a hugh binder with all of the recipes listed I want to make sometime in the future that I refer to also. Then I make 2 lists. One list is recipes and where they are located. Second list is the ingredients that I will need to make the dish. I study my recipes and try to visualize, or maybe I should say "tastealize" what the dish will be like. Then I decide if I will make it my way or the books way. Then I go back over the recipe and my list to make sure I did not forget an ingredient because it makes me CRAZY when I get ready to cook and I realize I am missing one of the pieces! I am not the only one who gets "nuts" over this, as when I was over at Jenn's site the other day, she was talking about going shopping for her ingredients also. She made me chuckle as I know how she feels about the ingredient list!

OK, back to the grain subject! I was feeling like I needed a healthy kick this week so I picked up three packages of Arrowhead Mills brand of different grains to try this week. The one I chose for today is "wheat berries". Actually the package says Whole Grain Wheat, but these little gems are the berries of that grain. Wheat berries are the Mother Grain from which pasta, bread and flour are derived. When cooked, these little wheat berries pack a nut like flavor and are pleasantly chewy. Here is a chili that I made today and I got the recipe from Eating Well Magazine. This chili was very easy to make and was packed with tons of flavors!

Zesty Wheat Berry Black Bean Chili

2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

1 large yellow onion chopped

1 large yellow bell pepper chopped

5 cloves of garlic minced - I added extra, I love garlic!

2 teaspoons of chili powder

1-1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried oregano

2 - 15 oz cans black beans rinsed

2- 14 oz cans diced tomatoes with their juice

1 to 2 canned chipolte chili's in adobo sauce minced - note: these are HOT so be careful

2 cups veggie broth

2 teaspoons of brown sugar

2 cups cooked wheat berries

Juice of 1 lime

1 avocado chopped

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Saute the onion, bell pepper, garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano in the olive oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add the beans, tomatoes, chipolte, broth and brown sugar. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer covered for about 25 minutes. Taste and add salt and pepper if you think it needs it.

Stir in cooked wheat berries and heat through. Stir in lime juice. Serve with a garnish of cilantro and avocado. Delicious!

Now we had this for lunch so I did not serve a wine with it. In fact I am not posting about a wine today, can you believe that! Sorry. The wines we have had this week were ones that I have already told you about. But no worry - I will be back tomorrow with a weekend wine for you!

Cheers!