Although now listed on Lisa’s Page; this was originally from my kitchen.
Early in 2011, I published a detailed description of my two favorite go-to meals in this blog. Those pages have been seen thousands of times and hopefully have been helping people achieve success on our 4Leaf Program. Over the weekend, I decided that it was time to develop a recipe version of those two meals. Scroll down for a printer-friendly version. Here’s the second one:
Sailors Super 4Leaf Lunch -- This version includes the 1/2 Josephs pita, stuffed with spinach, avocado and olives.
Sailors Super 4Leaf Lunch (or dinner)
No Cooking Skill Required. This is about as basic as it gets. No complicated recipes to follow; just a little planning ahead and you can be ready to have a piping hot, delicious lunch or dinner in less than seven minutes from going into the kitchen.
My Main Meal of the Day. Depending on your portion size, this great meal delivers about 600 calories; with well over 80% of them from whole plants – still in Nature’s package. It’s quick, easy and enables me to easily stay high in the 4Leaf range before going out to dinner each night.
Leveraging the simple, yet powerful concept of maximizing the percent of your calories from whole plant foods -- still in nature's package
Ingredients:
- ½ cup of brown rice ½ cup of wild rice (serves 7)
- ¾ cup of black beans (serves 7; see batch below)
- ¾ cup of red beans (serves 7; see batch below)
- 1 small broccoli crown
- 3 ounces of shitake mushrooms
- 1 slice of raw eggplant
- 3 cups of raw spinach
- 1 small slice of lime
- Spray bottle of Braggs Liquid Aminos
- ¼ of an avocado
- 3 medium black olives
- 1 small tomato
- Basil seasoning or Mrs. Dash to taste
- ½ of a Joseph’s whole wheat pita
- I teaspoon of hummus
- 10 baby carrots and bite-size celery
Directions (batch of rice and beans)
- With the quantities above, I make up a batch that yields seven individual servings.
- After mixing the brown and wild rice in advance, pour about a cup into rice cooker.
- Do the same for the two black and red beans and put in a saucepan. Cover the beans with plenty of water and let them overnight.
- Drain the beans, then refill with tap water to one inch above the beans. Put seasoning in there and stir it up.
- Simmer the beans for 75 minutes.
- Turn on the rice cooker; then both mixtures are ready to be eaten or stored in less than two hours.
- Put equal amounts of rice, covered by beans in seven small plastic containers. (from hummus).
- Store in fridge until ready to prepare meal. They last about 5 or 6 days.
Sailors Super Lunch -- without the Josephs pita. A very healthy 4Leaf meal, it derives almost 100% of its calories from whole plants. This was my lunch on Monday, adding edamame beans for the first time.
Directions (to prepare the meal)
- Put the raw spinach in bowl, squeeze lime juice and spray the Braggs on top; then microwave for about 30 seconds (to just blanch).
- Empty container of rice and beans on a plate; the rice will now be on top (a cylinder shape).
- Add bite-size pieces of broccoli, eggplant, celery and mushrooms to fill up the plate.
- Spray with Braggs and season as you wish. Put in microwave on high for two minutes.
- Put ½ Joseph’s pita on top for 15 seconds to warm it. (Optional, when I am less hungry, I go with the bread-less version in this photo.)
- Spread hummus on the warm ½ pita, then fill it halfway with blanched spinach. Add a few small slices of avocado and olives. Then fill the pita with the rest of the spinach.
- Add raw baby carrot, sliced tomatoes, and the remainder of the olives and avocado on top.
You’re ready to serve. This is my go-to meal for lunch or dinner and even most of my guests seem to like it a great deal. Most are probably surprised that an aging, single guy like me could make anything in the kitchen.
Want more flavor? Always looking for ways to make my routine meals taste better, I have found a delightful line of totally organic seasonings.
For a “printer-friendly” one-pager, ideal on your fridge with a magnet—Just click here for a PDF.
J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth
One more thing, in case you’re interested, here is the original posting of this great meal — posted on 2-13-11. Sailors Super Lunch; single men can eat healthy too…
Click here for the Lisa’s page containing all recipes.
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J. Morris Hicks, engineer. writer. big picture guy. 
This sounds delicious but I hear different things about microwaving. Is it ok to microwave everyday?
Hi Mark, Other readers have asked about the safety in the past. After investigating, I concluded that, for me, the convenience outweighed the risks. I will say that, for most of my meals, the “heavy duty” cooking of the grains and legumes takes place the old-fashioned way—on a stove.
For more information, check out this earlier blog: https://hpjmh.com/2011/10/18/are-microwave-ovens-safe-do-they-destroy-nutrients/
Please forgive me for asking what may appear a stupid question, but now you’ve got me really confused, Jim. Is your 1 cup of uncooked rice mixture for one portion or for a seven portion batch? Likewise the beans – Do you soak one and a half cups of dried beans and use that for your 7 portion batch? Or are your recipe measurements for cooked servings of rice and beans?
Now that you have clarified your recipe in response to my initial comment, here is my follow-up:
In your sailors breakfast the amount of oats you use is HUGE! Probably about twice a normal portion, but THAT’S GREAT – a really filling, healthy meal to stoke you up for the day’s activities.
But for your sailors lunch/dinner the amount of rice seems quite small. OK, its with the beans and there is also the pita bread for starch but, added together, the starch part of your meal totals just over 300 calories, so how are you going to make up the rest of your 600 calories from spinach, broccoli, eggplant, celery, mushrooms and carrots? Maybe the avocado, olives and hummus bump up the total?
I am not in the habit of counting calories but I do aim to eat enough pulses/wholegrains/starchy vegetables (NO OIL, of course) to satisfy my appetite at a meal, otherwise I will be snacking 2 hours later.
Hi Frances and thanks for your comment. For both my oatmeal AND the lunch, I was thinking that everyone would adjust the quantities to suit their needs. For example, my son uses more oatmeal than I, but I use more fruit. As for the lunch, the rice/beans together is just one of the side dishes; the meal also includes a huge amount of broccoli, eggplant, mushrooms, tomato, olives. The pita also contains a little hummus along with the spinach, avocado and olive.
As for me I almost never count calories anymore and I never worry about getting the right balance between starch, leafy greens or fruit. When in doubt, I am often reminded of the Tarahumara, who eat nothing to corn, squash and beans and are one of the healthiest and long-lived peoples in the world. Be well, J. Morris Hicks.