Bean Salad

If you know me at all, you know that I travel via food. Vacations are designed for and around eating. Although, this means that now that we are back I’m having to pay a little penance for my splurging. Meaning I’m eating pretty much only “green smoothies”, salads, and veggies this week. Somehow, miraculously, I actually didn’t gain weight on our trip despite the wonderful food, so this is more a nutrition thing than a diet thing. I always like to say I’m 85/15. Healthy 85% of the time and indulging 15% of the time. This week is me just trying to even out the numbers. Or me trying to make myself feel better, one of the two.

Anyway, Sunday afternoon was spent prepping meals for the week. I made 6 pints of smoothies for breakfasts and a bunch of salads for lunches. Knowing I would grow tired of leafy salad (I did not inherit my father’s ability to eat the same thing every day) I threw together this bean salad on a whim. It turned out GREAT! And, AND, it got Matt’s approval! I didn’t expect that.

Now here’s the problem, when I cook, especially when I am throwing something together, I don’t measure. So these are my closest approximations:

Bean Salad

1 15oz can Garbanzo Beans (Always strain and rinse canned beans)

3/4 of a can each of black beans and kidney beans (I have no justification for this measurement other than I don’t like them as much as garbanzo beans so I didn’t put in the whole can. And lest you think I wasted food, they went into the turkey chili for dinner)

1-1  1/2  cups green beans chopped into pieces (Now I guess you could use a can of green beans. I, personally, do not like canned green beans, they aren’t really green and are mushy, so I use fresh. Trader Joe’s sells them in a bag, you throw it in the microwave for 4 minutes and voila!)

1 red bell pepper, diced

1/2 of a red onion, diced

1 1/2 cups of cooked macaroni or other small pasta noodle (I used a whole grain, high protein version)

Fresh parsley, chopped

Fresh cilantro, chopped

Dressing: (Again I am approximating the measurements, so feel free to play with it! )

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup white vinegar

Juice of one lemon

1 tsp sugar

1/4 – 1/3 cup deli-style mustard

Salt and Pepper to taste

Put the salad ingredients together in a large bowl, mix it up a bit so everything is distributed. Make the dressing separately in a smaller bowl, and whisk everything together (or throw it all in a mason jar and shake it up!). Pour the dressing onto the salad and mix until the dressing covers everything.

I stored mine in a large mason jar and it lasted us all week!