Happy Cinco De Mayo!!!

Isn’t she a beauty???  We celebrated Cinco de Mayo with me making a yummy Mexican inspired dinner.  From scratch of course!  No cans or short cuts for my precious family.

Dinner consisted of my homemade layered bean dip, ground turkey with mexican spices for the meat eaters, corn tortillas and my delicious aloe lemonade.  Well all I can say is that everyone’s plate and glass were emptied within minutes.

Happy Cinco De Mayo :)

Black Bean Burgers

1/2 lb. of dried black beans
2 tbs. of worcestershire sauce
1 small chopped onion
2 garlic cloves
2 tbs. of olive oil
1/2 cup of whole wheat bread crumbs
1/2 cup of almond milk or any milk substitute
1/2 bunch of cilantro
4-6 whole wheat thin buns (depending on the size of your patties)

Soak black beans over nights will help rehydrate them and cook quickly.  If you are not in a rush you can start off by taking a pot adding olive oil and sautee onions and garlic.  Once they are caramelized add black beans and 6 cups of water.  Cover and reduce heat to medium.  It will take about an hour to cook if they have not been soaked and 30 minutes if soaked over night. You can tell they are cooked once they plump up and are tender.

Drain beans and add to a mixing bowl along with remaining ingredients.  Take a potato masher and mash up all ingredients.  grab about a palm full of mixture and form your patties.  Here you have the option to either put them on a cookie sheet and bake for about 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees or pan fry them 4 minutes on each side.  I pan fried them and though the consistency was perfect it was a little challenging to flip them without them falling apart.  Be very gentle when flipping.

Guacamole
4 avocados
1 chopped shallot
1 lime juiced
1 tsp of oregano
salt & pepper to taste

Add all ingredients in a bowl and mash in a mortar and pestle or a regular potato masher will work well too.

Salsa
1 bag of frozen roasted sweet corn or 4 roasted whole corns shucked
2 chopped vine tomatoes
1/2 bunch of cilantro chopped
1 lime juiced
2 chopped deveined jalapenos
1 large red bell pepper chopped
salt & pepper to taste

Defrost and drain corn add all ingredients together.

Aloe Vera Healing On The Inside As Well As Outside

A few months ago I finally remembered to buy some aloe to make aloe lemonade.  Well I came down with a horrible stomach flu that had me lying in bed for 3 days recovering.  Those days were a blur.  Needless to say since my dear husband wound up taking care of me and the kids the aloe got shoved to the back of the fridge.  That was pretty much the end of me with the aloe.  

I’ve been trying to stay on track and trying to incorporate more live ingredients in my life.  I finally got the aloe again last night and today I had the chance to fillet and add to my green juice.  (I think I might be the only person that has everything but the kitchen sink in my green juice.)  I only cut off 1/4 of the leaf.  I know when researching everyone claimed there was no taste but I was a little nervous it might change the taste of my green juice.  Well guess what?  Everyone was right, no change what so ever.  If anything I feel like the consistency of my green juice was even smoother than usual.

So why you might ask am I on this aloe kick?  For me personally I know that it is an anti-inflammatory.  Now why is keeping inflammation at bay important to me?  We now know that most diseases such as Alzheimer’s, arthritis, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer are associated with inflammation. So of course I want to avoid all of these as much as I possibly can.  The way it helps in preventing all of these diseases is that aloe boosts the oxygenation in blood cells.  by having your blood cells be full of nutritious oxygen it prevents free radicals such as cancer from thriving.

Inflammation also accelerates aging.  EEK!!!  Now I don’t know about you but I certainly don’t want to start aging sooner that I have to.  Goodbye Botox!  Hello Aloe!!!

When doing some research ideally a whole aloe leaf should be added to your diet regularly .  Whether that be in your favorite homemade juice or lemonade.  

Other uses for aloe include the well known topical remedy to skin burns, acne (I like a mixture of aloe with Manuka honey), dark circles and scars.  It is also an anti-microbial and boosts immune system since it is jam packed with anti-oxidants.  Aloe is also one of the few vegetarian sources of B12.  

Mike Adams (The Health Ranger) has an in depth and extremely informative article further explaining the vital need to have aloe in your daily life.  He also has step by step instructions on how to properly fillet an aloe leaf.  I just winged it and was very simple.  The link to his article is http://www.naturalnews.com/021858.html