Super easy vegan & vegetarian recipe - Cooking as natural as possible

One of my problems is that my body is extremely sensitive. I have various environmental allergies (very allergic to the pollens of various plants, grasses and trees), I have food allergies (soy, tofu, bananas, mint, etc), and the list goes on.

Over the years, I have eliminated a lot of things that cause me allergic reactions (it ain't pretty, so I'll spare you the details) and I've found that the more often I cook meals from scratch using natural ingredients, the better I feel.

So in our home, we cook a lot of things from scratch, but since I'm not allergic to chips, it seems that in the past year, I've had them for a snack nearly every single night (ahem.... and I wonder why I gained so much weight in this past year.............).

So, last night, instead of inhaling countless chips for my evening snack, I took the time to make myself one of the most delicious snacks/meal in my cooking arsenal. It's so quick, easy and delicious, I can't figure out why I haven't made this for myself for a snack every night. MUCH healthier, less or the same amount of calories, but more importantly, the QUALITY of those calories is what makes a huge difference. It's actual nutrition for the body instead of empty calories coming from deep fried chips.

My Ultra Quick Ultra Tasty Homemade Refried Beans!!! YUMMO!

Here's what you do:

• A dash of olive oil (or canola or other)
• 1/4 cup of finely chopped onion
• Leftover cooked beans of your choice (I used leftover lentils)
• Half to a whole fresh tomato, remove the seeds and juice as much as you can, diced - if you don't have lots of beans leftover, just use half a tomato, and reserve the rest for decoration.
• 6 or more large black olives, no pitts, sliced

In a small pot, put in a dash of oil on medium-high heat, and cook up the onions until they become translucent. Toss in the rest of the ingredients, and turn the heat to medium. Stir everything so that it all warms up evenly, then add Salt & Pepper to taste, and remove from the heat. Mash it all up in the small pot with a potato masher to turn everything into a paste.

Then, you can put that vegan fresh homemade refried beans mixture into what ever you like! You can do a lettuce wrap, tortilla wrap, spread it on some cooked leftover heated rice, etc...I find that the olives give it a lovely taste.

Last night, I heated a large whole wheat flour tortilla (basic ingredients, no preservatives or additives, and uses veg oil, no animal products), and added in some lettuce, the rest of my diced tomato, and I added in some light sour cream* and a sprinkle of light shredded cheddar cheese*.

(* those aren't vegan, I know, I'm aiming for Lacto-ovo-vegetarian at this point, and I'm highly allergic to soy and tofu, but you can replace those products for things that you can eat, since there's so many alternatives out there, or remove them of course).

I wrapped up everything in a nice little bundle, and really enjoyed my much healthier snack (compared to the chips I would have otherwise eaten). I didn't have time to take a picture. The camera was upstairs and I was hungry... there was not a crumb left after a minute...LOL, sorry!

You'll have to make your own if you want to see it :)

Natural ingredients, made from scratch at home, no preservatives, no chemicals, high fiber, high nutrition, good oils (olive oil)... and so quick, it took less than 5 minutes to do this from start to finish.

That's MUCH better than grabbing a bag of chips, don't you think? :-)