July 5, 2018
Three Sisters – An Amazing Whole Dish
I would like to share with you a simple but amazingly whole dish that I chose not necessarily because it’s better than other foods I eat, or more special, but because I cooked it yesterday and I said to myself “why don’t I write my blog post about this one?” It’s hard for me to choose a food over another. I believe it wouldn’t be fair- it’s almost as hard as choosing who I love more- my wife or my mother-in-law…😁
However, let us get back to food.
This Is Why I Love The Three Sisters Dish
- It is a first nations dish which comes with a legend behind it and I love it just for that reason
- It is colourful and combines the sweetness and crunchiness of corn with the consistent nature of beans and the soft and sweet squash
- It is simple and made with ingredients that can be grown in our own backyard
- Just yesterday it occurred to me how perfect this dish is and how the first nation people-just like other cultures, knew how to combine foods in an instinctive way, so that they result in a nutritionally balanced meal. For example in the 3 sisters you get protein, starch, fibre, beta carotene from squash lycopene from the tomatoes or tomato sauce, and many other nutrients. So not only you get your macronutrients (that everybody cares about so much) but other phytonutrients give it the potential to become a cancer fighting, eye and skin protecting, anti-aging and anti inflammatory bomb. Just think about it!
However I rarely follow a recipe when I cook. It gets boring when the food tastes the same, so I improvise a bit every time.
This time this is what I used in my three sisters dish:
Equal quantities of organic frozen corn, black beans (that I soaked overnight, and acorn squash, 2 cups pasta sauce, 1 big purple carrot, 10 garlic cloves, 1 big red onion, salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, sage. I threw it all in the pressure cooker for 16 minutes and unfortunately at this time I don’t have much of this left anymore because I eat a lot and I had a bunch of it once it was done. For a normal person however, this quantity will last for many days.
Voila, the three sisters for you ladies and gentlemen. Bon appetit!
