Exercise Beans

Exercise Beans

After Doug's stroke we had a lot of therapy experiences. At one point, for $76.00 an hour we learned exercises to do at home. Some involved arm routines, holding dumb bells. For these I filled four milk jugs with 1 pound of dry beans each, two for the patient and two for the leader, persuader, caregiver, wife, whatever. So there we sat, facing each other, raising our jugs of beans on high as if we were worshipping some god of healing, withme chanting our mantra, one, two three four. (The dog, Summer, was puzzled by this, because he was accustomed to hear these syllables as I dropped pieces of hot dog for him to catch. ) I had a fine supply of assorted beans because I had searched in many stores to find fourteen varieties of beans, and had bought at least one pound of each. 14 pounds of beans is a lot. As it turned out 4 pounds of beans is a lot, too.

In a few weeks, the patient decided he had had enough of this and the bean jugs sat in a corner, while I hoped he would use them again. When I knew this wouldn't happen I decided to recycle the beans. I made this unwise decision in the midst of the only real drought New Jersey has ever had. The house water system is fed by a spring, which dried up completely. I carried gallon jugs of water from the stores for everything. It took a gallon to wash the beans. It took several gallons to cover the beans to soak. More gallons to rinse them. More gallons to cook them. The small garden by the front porch was well watered for a day or two, with bean waste water. I learned that flowers accept dishwater, stale beer, bean water, bath water, anything wet. In the end I had 12 pints of cooked, assorted dry beans. Doug can only swallow pureed food, so I make a lot of soup, but not enough to use 12 pints of beans in a short time. Into the freezer, labeled Just Beans. About that time I decided that it was time for me to revert to sensible eating instead of the standard caregiver's custom of eating fast food and cookies while preparing proper food for the patient. Two and a half years of this were enough.

Sensible eating leads to salad. Romaine Hearts turned out to be a far better buy than lettuce, better tasting and better keeping. I add a variety of vegetables, bean sprouts, and a generous amount of cooked exercise beans.
Herewith Caregiver's Fast Salad and the 14 Bean Soup that started this whole bean thing. Now the stores have 1 pound bags of 13 varieties of bean, but I will never need to buy one. Besides the frozen cooked supply, there are still more colorful jars of mixed beans on the cellarway shelf. Fourteen pounds of beans is a LOT.