The symptoms of (peri)menopause are many. It’s almost bizarre what happens to the body in the name of reverse puberty. Like indigestion.
I have had a cast iron stomach my whole life – until now. Now I find myself experiencing GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) and heartburn. The really bad part is that it takes away the joy of eating, a joy I don’t want to lose.
Enter recipes for people with gastric reflux. I tried a few I found via heartburn.about.com. Pictured here are my versions of “Cashew Vegetable Fried Rice” (above) and “Bean and Cheese Burritos with Avocado” (below).
Making the bean burrito dish required refried beans. Refried beans are not the sort of dish we ever made at home; we got it at Mexican restaurants. I’ve always liked them and, for a happy while here in Bergen, I found canned refried beans in the foreign food section at my local grocery store. But no more. So the question wasn’t just how to make refried beans, but also what are refried beans? I found a recipe at this stranger’s blog which answered both questions, and successfully made my first batch of refried beans. I used black beans, however, because I couldn’t find pintos, and I don’t own a potato masher (well, maybe I do, but I can’t remember where I saw it last) but a food processor works just fine. I ended up with fat-free refried beans and a very tasty burrito dish. I did add a bit of taco sauce to the burritos. Just had to.
By the way, did you know that the most stable atom in the universe is iron? The principle behind both fusion and fission energy is to either fuse or split (respectively) atoms until they become iron. See, while I cook, I listen to podcasts and I highly recommend the British The Naked Scientists – “science with a sense of humor”.
A Roll in the Universe 
16 replies on “Trying new recipes”
It\’s weird when new symptoms suddenly appear. When you\’ve had your body for your whole life, you expect it to be as you\’ve always known it, and then it changes. Good luck with your new food choices. It sounds like you found some tasty recipes.
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I\’d love the recipe for the cashew veggie rice.I\’m probably in the same phase as you, Keera. Trying to stay healthy via food/exercise and avoid drugs. I\’ve given up Advil and Excedrin even, and I don\’t miss them at all!
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I totally have to try this; I love beans and avocado and anything Mexican.;) And enough of that pre-menopause thing, you are simply just STILL too young for that!;)))
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Mmmmm!Next time I\’m in Bergen and have a craving for Mexican, I know where to look! Maybe you can set up a burrito stand at the fisketorget!
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Keera, at this point, even that food would give me indigestion. my option is to not eat at all.
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Spark, it does feel like being lost in your own neighborhood. :-)Paula, check out the about.com link in the post. All the vegetarian dishes are there. I found six interesting (didn\’t require something I wasn\’t sure I couldn\’t find here) and have tried three so far.Protege, perimenopause can start as early as late 30\’s. There is no hard and fast rule for how long one goes through peri. I\’m actually having a very easy time. And discovering new, tasty recipes helps!Jon, there is already a Mexican restaurant on the fisketorget. It\’s called \”Skibet\”. They never serve refried beans.Anon, so sorry food doesn\’t agree with you!
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Fat free? Did you skip the butter and oil in the refried beans recipe?I had refried beans yesterday that were wonderful — hot and spicy, which I hadn\’t experienced before. But I don\’t know what was in them because I had them in a restaurant. ;-(
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Yep, the only oil used was what the onions were fried in. I know there\’s supposed to be fat in the beans, but they turned out tasty and with a nice consistency, anyway. Didn\’t miss the fat.
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I\’m going to have to give that recipe a try — I have always been under the impression that refried beans were high in fat (a logical assumption, given that the name of the dish contains the word \”fried\”). But those sound quite reasonable!(I\’m making 15 bean soup today — another first for me!)
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Keep \’em moist! I lucked out. Got them just right.That 15 bean soup sounds yummy! But if I can count above 15, can I add more beans? 😉 Seriously, I hope you post the recipe.
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I\’ll see how it turns out, and if it\’s good the recipe will appear! I cooked today, but had no time to try it out — but spicy bean soups tend to be better after sitting around for while, so tomorrow\’s dinner should be just perfect!So, how many beans CAN you name? ;-D
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OK, I\’ll bite (!): Lima, navy, soy, black, butter, string, uh… Dang. 😉
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Heh! And I still haven\’t gotten around to posting about my soup (which, for the record, contains the following beans: northern, pinto, large lima, garbanzo, baby lima, green split pea, kidney, cranberry bean, small white, pink bean, small red, yellow split pea, lentil, navy, white kidney, black bean — I didn\’t know size made for a different variety!). My first try was good, but required quite a bit of seasoning at the table — next time, I\’ll add more spices in the pot. It\’s been a busy week for me, but I\’ll post about it eventually…
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Peas! Well, if you\’d said legumes I could have added peas. *harumph*;-)
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Well, I couldn\’t name many, either. And I still think they cheated with the different sized bean thing.I finally managed to take a picture of the soup today. We\’ll see how long it takes to get it up on my site…
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Looking forward to it!
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