I loved baked beans, but not so happy with all the sugar that is added – the low sugar variety just don’t taste as nice to me!

So here’s a healthy version of baked beans – I make a huge batch in the slow cooker and freeze them in batches of 2 portions.  Easily defrosted overnight and added to breakfast (as I did this morning!)  408 calories for this breakfast!

Despite the mention of Tabasco, paprika and lots of mustard, the beans have a nice “kick” to them, but aren’t hot or spicy.

Preparation Time: 15 mins

Cooking Time: 8 hrs

Serves: 10

Calories per serving: 107.1

Ingredients

Red Onions – 280g

Fresh Garlic – 3 Cloves/9g

Olive Oil  – 6ml

Haricot Beans, in Water, Drained – 3 Cans/705g

Chopped Tomatoes, in Rich Tomato Juice – 2 Cans/800g

Worcestershire Sauce – 20g

Brown (HP) Sauce – 20g

Ground Cumin – 1 Tsp/5g

Paprika – 1 Tbsp/7g

Balsamic Vinegar – 20ml

Whole Grain Mustard – 45g

Tomato Puree, Double Concentrate – 100g

Tabasco Sauce – 10ml

Preparation/Method

Peel and finely chop onion. Peel and finely chop garlic. Place oil into a large frying pan and heat over a medium heat. Add onions and cook for 5 minutes before adding garlic. Do not allow to brown.

Add all the other ingredients into the pan and stir well.

Transfer into a slow cooker and cook on the medium setting for 5 hours, or 2-2.5 hours on the high setting.

Nutrition Data Per Serving

Calories (kcal) 107.1

Carbohydrate (g) 15.8

Fat (g) 1.8

Fibre (g) 7.1

Sodium (g) 0.159

Fruit & Veg 2.5

Protein (g) 6.7

I never have a problem getting my daily quota of vegetables.  I love them!  Roasting and stir-frying take many plain, boring vegetables to a different level!

Tonights dinner was a veritable feast of colour and flavour.

Butternut squash roasted in olive oil with paprika (189 cals)

Stir fried cabbage and leek, fried in butter and olive oil (108 cals)

Topped with 60g of goats cheese (164 cals) and 10g of toasted pine nuts (70 cals).

Total 531 cals

And this is what it looks like!

Amazing flavours and very filling!

Quantities:

400g Butternut, 7ml of olive oil, half a tsp of paprika

50g of leeks, 80g of savoy cabbage, 3ml of olive oil, 5g of butter

60g of Goats cheese

10g of pine nuts (toasted)

This is a picture of me using my TRX bands.  I am able to use my body weight to lean forwards and open up my shoulders.  As I spend a lot of my day with my arms extended forwards and my head hunched down, this provides a great stretch to combat pain.

TRX bands are strong nylon straps that can be adjusted.  These are anchored onto a door, but at home I have them attached to a rafter in the garage.

It’s a total-body training system that allows you to do all sorts of exercises using ones body weight. You have to use you core stabilisers to work out with TRX, so you build your core, strength, balance, agility and power.

Exercise doesn’t have to be hard work or done in a gym!

Over the three or four years that I have been trying to improve my mobility / strength / fitness (and lose weight!) I have used small pieces of exercise equipment I have bought on-line as well as trying out mat based Pilates

Because I am unable to stand for any length of time, I do a lot of exercising whilst sat on a gym ball… I find I can manage a much better range of movements.  Here’s a link to a video which may give you some ideas of how you may be able to create your own routine.

What’s more, keeping everything moving really does help with keeping pain at bay.