Cook Once, Eat Twice or Thrice..

If you tried my Spartan Diet Roasted Chili Beans, leftovers can be transformed into another wonderfully tasty and easy meal.

The first recipe published in this Spartan Diet Journal series was the Spartan Diet Roasted Bison Chili Beans, which embodies the core virtue of The Spartan Diet: total nourishment.

I also posted a recipe for unTortilla Soup, which is a recipe intended to be made with the Spartan Diet Roasted Bison Chili Beans leftovers as the main ingredient.

Spartan Diet recipes are designed for making generous amounts that can feed 4 to 6 people as a general rule. At the very least, you’ll have plenty of leftovers for additional meals later in the week — or have enough leftovers to create a second and even third meal from cooking one original recipe.

The unTortilla Soup recipe, as you might have guessed, tastes a lot like traditional tortilla soup. But it’s a healthy interpretation made without tortillas, but with wholesome nutrients and big flavor.

All my Spartan Diet recipes provide total nourishment. With every recipe you’ll have extremely healthful, fun to make and totally delicious meals that will make you feel alert and energetic after you eat them. 

The Spartan Diet Roasted Bison Chili Beans recipe is a good example of how a dish that’s generally known as a comfort food becomes "spartanized." That means it’s made not only with supreme health in mind, but also incredible taste and huge flavors. The Spartan Diet Roasted Bison Chili Beans recipe is still comfort food, but without compromising quality of ingredients, flavor or the achievement of maximum nutrition. 

Typical chili bean recipes default to industrialized ingredients that contain unhealthy ingredients and qualities resulting from the way the food is grown, handled, processed, manufactured, packaged, transported and stored. 

Instead of opening a can or a jar of tomatoes that were industrially manufactured in a factory and that may have also been sitting on a shelf for months or years (even organic canned or jarred tomatoes) you’ll blend fresh tomatoes with fresh garlic and water for this recipe. 

Instead of adding some kind of stock for flavor (from either a carton or from scratch) this recipe calls for gently sautéing vegetables and keeping them as part of the dish, creating even more luscious flavors and textures without any food waste. The flavors and aromas are retained and the essence of all the ingredients is preserved producing, a complex and balanced medley of flavors for maximum deliciousness.

Likewise, instead of canned beans, the recipe calls for homemade beans, for which I also provide complete preparation information and recipe for cooking beans at home and never using store bought canned beans.

With the same desire for maximum nutrition, I’ve also developed a unique way of preparing the bison meat for maximum deliciousness (before incorporating it into the chili beans). The meat is prepared by mixing it with spices, onions and red bell pepper then spread on a rimmed cookie sheet lined with parchment paper to slowly oven roast it. This helps the meat mixture roast evenly while developing some caramelization in its own glaze before transferring it all to the chili beans. This roasted meat mixture gives the chili beans a wonderfully enhanced flavor, texture and aroma that’s unparalleled when combined with the other ingredients. 

Over time, I will share details on how to shop for, prepare and cook all the foods that are part of the Spartan Diet. I'll explain preparation methods, techniques and give you more guidance on how to cook everything at home including soups, stews, salads, dressings, condiments, aioli, bone broths, spice mixes, herb mixes, salt mixes, sourdough bread, sourdough pancakes, fermented foods, sauerkraut, sourdough starter, healthy desserts, corn tortillas, flour tortillas, homemade kombucha, nut milks and more. 

I have developed many unique preparation and cooking methods as part of The Spartan Diet. (Spartan Diet Roasted Bison Chili Beans includes just a few examples of some of the unique Spartan Diet cooking methods you'll learn about.)

The unTortilla Soup is an example of maximizing efficiency in the kitchen as well as saving time by cooking once and eating twice or thrice.