Muffins with white beans

If you want to cook your own beans and soak the oats, you will need to start two days in advance with the preparation. We had the muffins for breakfast on Saturday. Therefore, I started soaking the beans on Thursday night and the oats on Friday morning. I cooked the beans on Friday afternoon and drained the oats at the same time. I baked the muffins on Friday night, after the beans were at room temperature. Cooked beans freeze pretty well, so I usually cooke a huge batch and freeze what I do not need immediately.

Soaking beans and oats makes them much more digestible and less irritable for the digestive system. To soak the beans, use filtered water and add some lemon juice or apple cider vinegar. Soak overnight or at least 8 hours, then discard the soaking water and rinse them. Use fresh filtered water and cook for about 2 hours or until really tender.

For the oats, I used water and lemon juice. I soaked them for about 8 hours. Then I drained them in a colander and squeezed as much water as possible out of them.

Put in the food processor and mix until smooth:

1 cup dates, chopped
2 cups cooked beans
1/4 cup olive oil
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
zest of one orange
1/2 teaspoon salt

Add the following ingredients and pulse until you have a homogeneous batter:

2 cups rolled oates, soaked and drained well (use gluten free if you are gluten intolerant)
1 cup almond four
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (add at the end when batter is ready)

Form muffins about the size of 1/4 cup. Bake for about 30 minutes at 350°F, longer if you think they are still too humid. I left them on the counter overnight and they were just fine the next morning.

Makes about 16 muffins.