ginger baked beans

• 6 cans of navy beans, drained and rinsed
• 4 strips of bacon
• 2 large vidalia onions, chopped fine
• 5 tablespoons molasses
• 5 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 2/3 cup of ketchup
• 2 tablespoons bbq sauce
• adobo
• ginger ale

In a frying pan over medium heat cook bacon until just done, remove and blot with paper towels. In same skillet cook onion for 3-5 minutes or until translucent. Add cooked bacon and onion, along with all your other ingredients to the crock pot, cook on low for 6-8 hours. Adjust seasonings to taste.

The dish: People often think of their crock pot as being purely an appliance for cold winter nights, when the days are short and no one wants to leave home once they arrive there. Visions of stews and roasts, with a warm house filled with tantalizing aromas pop into people's heads and they feel that during the summer the crock pot should sit on the floor of the closet their parka hangs in. The closet that you rarely think of and never open in between Memorial and Labor day. All of this is true, but the versatile slow cooker can be just as handy in the warmer months as well. We try to mountain bike every chance we get and there is no better feeling than coming home after a long day of hitting the trails and having a warm dinner ready to eat, or at least a hearty accompaniment waiting to be chowed down. All of this and our kitchen doesn't get heated up one single degree. So dig it out and keep it on the ready. I showed you a German potato salad a while back, and there's few things that scream out "summer" better than baked beans, so forget turning on the oven and plan to go low and slow all summer long.

confetti salad

• 2 cans dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 can white corn, drained and rinsed
• green onions, chopped fine
• fresh parsley, chopped fine
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 tablespoons white wine vinegar (I'm still using that bottle of Champagne vinegar I have, but any will do)
• juice of half a lime
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Combine beans, corn, green onions and parsley in large bowl. In separate bowl, whisk together oil, vinegar, lime juice and sugar, adjusting amounts of each to taste. Once dressing is to your liking, stir into larger bowl mixture, taking care not to break the beans. Serve cold.

The dish: Full and fair disclosure: I pretty much suck at science. I limped through my college science requirement by taking the extraordinary chemistry of ordinary things, which while remarkably interesting (we made polyester- it doesn't get cooler than that), was about as technical as reading the back of a cereal box. The course basically existed as a way to shuffle through finance majors who would never again think of science save studying the trading range of the pharmaceutical sector. I say this because if I tend to sound like I know something about the natural world, as I may have with the last bean salad I posted, it's only because I recently read all about legumes and how they react with our body. I typed out the recipe hoping that constant consumption of beans really helped with their side effects, but was not certain of that fact at time of posting. Kim and I both ate that salad as a part of our lunch last week, and lo and behold, the advice was true. Any discomfort or side effects that were there on Monday were all but a memory by Wednesday. If it seems like I'm going a little heavy on bean recipes recently, it's only because I'm giddy of this new found knowledge and feel the need to perpetuate this cycle as long as I am able. Fear not, I'm sure this is only a phase and as with all things when eating a diet rich in beans, this too shall pass.

black bean salad

• 4 cans of black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 yellow pepper, seeded and diced
• 1 orange pepper, seeded and diced
• 1 cup of cherry tomatoes, halved
• fresh cilantro, chopped fine
• juice of half a lime
• good quality olive oil
• good quality balsamic vinegar

Place beans, peppers, tomatoes and cilantro in large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together lime juice with close to equal parts of oil and vinegar, about a quarter cup total. Use very good quality of each, you know, those bottles you got on close out (vinegar is a preserving agent, it's not going to go bad). I had some scallion oil that I used as part of the oil and it added nicely, but regular olive oil works fine. Stir whisked dressing into beans and toss to coat. Serve cold.

The dish: Beans are popular in almost every culture on the globe, and with good reason, they're plentiful and healthy, packed with protein and fiber with no fat and very few calories. Beans are a powerful weapon against high cholesterol, diabetes, diverticulitis, constipation, even cancer and a host of other health maladies. If you tend to avoid them because of their most notorious side effect, begin eating a small amount of them on a frequent basis, maybe a bite three times a day. This will help your body produce a beneficial bacteria (which is all that Beano is) that will help in dealing with the complex sugars (complex is the key- your body will burn them for energy but not store them as fat) that cause gas. Draining and rinsing is also key here; what you're doing is washing away extra sugars that cause discomfort, as well as the lions share of the sodium.