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Ultimate Healthy Baked Beans Dinner

Lots of perfectly fantastic beans are often drowning in sugary syrup and called baked beans. Why not make them healthy instead and enjoy the nutritional benefits of swiss chard and carrots too? I used a specially seasoned link of chicken sausage, but you can use any kind you choose or none at all for a completely vegetarian night. (Just make sure it doesn't have nitrites.) Beans like this taste wonderful over quinoa and will leave you will feeling full for hours.
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Prep Time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
Servings: 6 servings
Course: Poultry, Vegetarian
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 1 1/2 cup(s) quinoa
  • 1/2 lb(s) turkey sausage
  • 1/2 cup(s) onion chopped 1/2" pieces
  • 2 carrots scrub with water and cut in 1/2" pieces
  • 2 garlic clove(s) crushed
  • 1 bunch Swiss chard cut off stems and chop leaves small
  • 1/2 cup(s) water
  • 15 oz(s) canned tomatoes
  • 30 oz(s) pinto beans drained and rinsed
  • 15 oz(s) white navy beans drained and rinsed
  • 1/2 cup(s) parsley

Method
 

  1. Prep Work: Cook quinoa according to directions in step #1. Chop carrots and onion; store together. Chop chard and store separately.
  2. Place quinoa in small cooking pot and cover with twice as much water. Bring to a boil and then simmer with lid on for 15-20 min. or until moisture absorbed.
  3. In large skillet with a little cooking oil saute sausage until no longer pink, then set aside leaving drippings in pan.
  4. Add more cooking oil to pan drippings and saute onion and carrots until softened, 3-5 min. Add garlic during last minute and 1 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. pepper (for yield of 6). Add more to taste.
  5. Add chard, cooked sausage, half of the water and let simmer for 3 more minutes until chard starts to soften. Then add tomatoes with liquid and simmer for another 5 min.
  6. Add beans, parsley, the rest of the water and simmer very low for 30-45 minutes, or until the liquid starts to thicken. Serve over quinoa on plate or in bowls. (adapted from Food Network Magazine July/Aug. 2011)