Recipe for Bean Mash

Recently I've read an article in a triathlon magazine about nutrition. Gone are the ways of the past when we consumed large amounts of pasta, rice, potatoes etc. in order to get in the carbs. Now we're being told that we should be swapping the refined pasta for quinoa, the white rice for wild rice or barley, the mashed potatoes for mashed beans! As for the quinoa, sometimes it doesn't settle right in the stomach, I like it but Paul doesn't. The main point of swapping pasta out is to get creative in finding healthier alternatives for refined foods such as pasta (white pasta). I have tried whole wheat pasta before and it's just not the same so we went straight back to regular pasta because we knew we needed pasta and our mindset wasn't on an alternative. Every triathlete eats pasta, that's just the way it is. But not anymore.
Now I get to the mashed beans. I thought it was crazy to think of it as a substitute for mashed potatoes until I tried it. It tastes great and so I want to share it with everybody. Ideally you want to find some canned cannellini or butter beans but any kind of white bean would do. It doesn't have to be canned either, it can be dried but it's a longer process of soaking overnight and then cooking them until they're soft. Anyway, I got canned navy beans to try so here's my simple recipe.



1 can of navy beans
1 clove of garlic, chopped fine
extra virgin olive oil
dried thyme
sea salt

Drain the can of beans, rinse. Put in a sauce pan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and heat the beans through. Drain the water. Add approximately a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil, garlic, dried thyme and sea salt. Mash with a potato masher until the beans are of a smooth consistency.

And there you have it. It looks just like mashed potatoes, it tastes good and it's full of beany goodness.