Oh, chickpeas. They are super delicious, don’t you think? After a couple years making my own hummus (sans tahini, because really, why?) with canned garbanzo beans, I finally took the plunge into dried beans. And oh my goodness, are these little guys amazing when soaked overnight and cooked on the stove with a simple blend of “aromatics.” Snack worthy all on their own, I say! And today, I’m going to give you the simplest “how-to” I could muster on cooking chickpeas. All of my knowledge comes from this wonderful cookbook: “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone” by Deborah Madison. The steps for taking your dried chickpeas to the stage you would find them at in a can are listed in my own words below. If you want the full scoop, with loads more information, I highly suggest you check out Deborah’s book.

SOAK: Did you know that beans absorb 3 to 4 times their volume in water AND swell to 2 or 3 times their size? It’s true! This means they need loads of water to absorb as well as space and time to do it. Fill your large pot with nearly 4 times the volume of your beans (I always use the entire package). Soak “overnight” for the beans to absorb as much water as they can. This can mean as little as four hours, or quite literally overnight, which is what I usually do for convenience sake.

DRAIN & PARBOIL: Now that your beans have soaked, replace the soaking water with enough fresh water to cover them. Bring the beans to a rolling boil for 5 to 10 minutes. Scum typically forms on the surface during parboiling which you can skim off with a spoon. No worries if you forget to de-scum, it’s not a vital step!

COOKING (STOVE): According to Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, “a perfectly cooked bean is soft and creamy inside, never hard, its skin intact, not broken.” While there are various ways to cook beans (pressure cooker, oven, slow cooker), as of now I only have experience cooking them on the stove.

I love to snack on chickpeas as is, but if you’re looking for a recipe to make them a bit more flavorful, check out the recipe in volume two of Off Switch Mag! And trust me, there IS a huge difference between canned and dried beans. I’m a convert and I hope you will be too!

Juicing gets a whole lot of buzz these days — and rightfully so. There are so many nutrients packed into an 8 oz. glass of freshly juiced veggies and fruits, it’s kind of a no-brainer. However, like most things worth doing, juicing takes quite a bit of time, energy, and clean up from start to finish. So what’s a health-loving, time-saving gal (or guy!) to do? Juice in bulk, of course! My mom has been using her trusty Jack Lalanne juicer for years now and today I’ll share a couple of her simple, yet time-saving and efficient tips for the juice lover in all of us. Read on for the full scoop!

1: Juice & freeze in bulk. Instead of cleaning the produce, juicing, and cleaning the juicer every single day, we will make a large quantity (see below list) and divide up the juice into Tupperware cups with lids. We take a glass each to enjoy that day and then freeze the rest. Each morning we can take two cups out (one for each of us) and leave it to thaw out in the sink. By mid day, after a little shake, the juice is ready to drink. Sure it isn’t “same day fresh,” but when we’re being realistic about creating healthy food habits that are easy to stick to, this is definitely an option that fits the bill for us.

2: Juice the fridge. What does this actually mean, you ask? When we juice we’ll typically use a couple bags of carrots, a large handful of parsley, several stalks of celery, a few large beets, a couple cucumbers, romaine lettuce, a bag of spinach, some bell peppers, and if we have one on hand, a granny smith apple. Basically, whatever is in the fridge — literally.

I used to hate the way theses juices tasted. Since adjusting my diet a couple years ago, I have become interested in the nutritional benefits of juicing. And low and behold, I now think fresh juice made from the ingredients above is fantastic. If you want/need to add in more sweet fruit to make the juice tolerable, go ahead. For me, juicing is a way to get in all the vitamins and minerals of the veggies that I often have trouble eating enough of on a daily basis. However I have no problem eating enough fruit in it’s solid form. Everyone is different though, so go with what works for you!

3: Juice the pulp. This is my mom’s trick for getting every last bit of juice from the vegetables and fruits. As my mom is cleaning the produce and I’m feeding it through the juicer, I will keep an eye on the container in back that catches all the pulp remnants. As the container gets full, I will distribute the pulp onto three or four paper plates and continue juicing the second round. After we are done juicing and our big tupperware bowl is full of richly colored deliciousness, we take the pulp and run it through the juicer a second time. It sounds gross and is pretty messy, but you’ll be surprised how much more juice can come from the leftover pulp you were about to throw away!

Granola is such a fun treat to have on hand. Whether you snack on it, top a yogurt and fruit parfait with it, or enjoy it as a cereal with fruit and milk — the possibilities are endless. With my first foray into the world of grain-free granola I chose to combine three different granola recipes I found online. I definitely enjoyed the result, but as with most things I’ll continue to tweak the recipe a bit each time I make it.

I hope you find some inspiration in my hodgepodge recipe, and please do share if you have a favorite grain-free granola recipe or ingredient suggestion. I’m no professional here; just sharing my food journey with you all in hopes that it can inspire a few readers along the way. Enjoy!

I’ve had a mild cold the past week, and because of it I was craving a lighter soup with loads of broth. We also had an about-to-hit-the-trash bag of green beans still living in the fridge from the week before. Put those two together and I was off hunting for a green bean soup to make on the spot last Saturday night. I found two recipes from Taste of Home, one of which I followed more closely than the other. Then I threw in a couple of my own adjustments and voila! It’s a simple soup perfect for easing us all from cold nights into slightly less cold days. Enjoy!

PS: I made this dish a second time to photograph it, which is why those green beans are nice and pretty.

THE SQUASH METHOD // By John Bray

The oven light washes her face in a muted yellow as she peers at the spaghetti squash, now passed its bake time. He knows she’s worried and he watches over the rim of his wine glass. The oblong vegetable has been quartered, scooped to perfect concavity, and placed rind-down in a glass baking dish.

Should they have been placed rind up in the dish, with a bit of water in the bottom, she wonders. He responds that he doesn’t know and suggests the Internet. She already looked there, she argues, turning back to the glow, this time noting the liquid pooling in each quarter, stating that it seems logical to think that if the quarters were placed rind-up, the liquid would drip on the baker and steam the squash.

Two burners on the four-burner cook top to his left are on. The blue flames reflecting off the stainless pans, contrasting with the oven light. In the saucepan, a bright red stew of crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, and on-hand spices simmers on low. In the frypan, all but neglected, sit yellow squash, zucchini, and garlic, tossed in olive oil and black pepper.

She removes the baker and flips the quarters. The pooled moisture sputters, affirming her suspicions, and she shares the fork with him so they can both poke the smooth rind. The consensus is almost done though possibly dry. She pours warm water into the baker and they hope for the best.

The meal, a trio of color, will be a base of squash topped with sautéed vegetables and the sauce. If either the sauce or the sauté fail, the meal moves forward, but without the squash there is little to the dish. He remains positive; she remains worried. When it is finally considered done, she also considers it dry. He admits to himself that it is dry, but also flavorful. The sauté and sauce are flawless. She finds the dish more enjoyable than she thought.

Lessons are learned silently, food is enjoyed over conversation, and the dryness of the squash is forgotten. The meal is considered a success, with both him and her recognizing that next time it will be different. With just a bit of water in the baker.