Kidney Stone Diet - Oven Baked Vegetables In A Spicy Chilli Sauce

These amounts serve two people.

2 oz (50 gms) dried chick peas or 4 oz (100 gms)canned chick peas
4oz (100 gms) canned butter beans
4oz (100 gms) plum tomatoes either fresh or canned.
5oz (125 gms) white Basmati rice
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 red sweet pepper
1 zucchini
1 celery stick
2 carrots
2 onions, white or red or one of each
6-8 cauliflowerets
6 cloves of garlic

Unless you are using canned chick peas, take the dried peas and soak overnight in about 3/4 pint of water. Next day, when the peas have swollen up, boil for about 45 minutes, topping up with fresh water, if necessary.

Chop all the vegetables into large pieces and lay out in a large baking pan and cover with olive oil. This can either be extra virgin olive oil or simply virgin olive oil. The one exception are the cloves of garlic, which require less cooking time and so will be put in later.

Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes at 190c or 375f. After twenty minutes cooking, add the garlic cloves, making sure to baste them with some of the olive oil.

Boil the rice in about one pint of water. This should take about ten minutes.

Make the chili sauce by adding the chili powder, cumin and cayenne pepper into a jug with 2-3 fluid ozs of water and stir well. 

Put the chick peas, butter beans and tomatoes into a pan and mix thoroughly. Then pour in the chili sauce and stir the mixture. Heat this up on the stove for about ten minutes.

Put half the boiled rice in the center of the two plates and top off with half the chili mixture. Add the roasted vegetables in a circle around the rice.

Kidney Stone Diet: Health Benefits Of Oven Baked Vegetables In A Spicy Chilli Sauce

Apart from the amazing contrasts in tastes in this very satisfying meal it is also crammed with good things for your body to help it prevent kidney stones.

Every single vegetable has health benefits and cooking them gently in an oven preserves most of the vitamins and minerals, whilst intensifying the flavor.

Most vegetables lose vitamins and minerals when cooked, which is why cooking should be as gentle and as sparing as possible. However, carrot is one vegetable which actually benefits from cooking, as this breaks down the cells and allows it to release more of the beta-caratone (which provides the orange color). Beta-caratone is a pre-cursor of Vitamin A, which the body can use to safely produce just sufficient Vitamin A for its needs. Getting your Vitamin A this way avoids the possibility of overdosing on this vitamin, which is a possibility with Vitamin A pills.

Garlic is, of course, well known as a cholesterol buster and strengthener of blood vessels, as well as being anti fungal and anti-bacterial. The most active ingredient in garlic is allicin, which is released when the clove is crushed, so by gently roasting the clove whole, this wonder food still retains some of it's tremendous health giving benefits, whilst becoming far more palatable than when raw! 

Onions are a member of the garlic family and so also a powerful  anti-oxidant, combating the free radicals which -- literally--  make our bodies rust up. Although we use white onions in this dish, you can use red, yellow or white onions -- or all three! Red and yellow onion, whilst not having such a strong flavor as the white, are more beneficial, being the richest dietary source of quercetin, which is a potent antioxidant and sedative (also found in shallots).

The body cannot store Vitamin C, so it's necessary to have a daily intake of this vital element. Sweet peppers (particularly the bright red ones) are an excellent source of Vitamin C and a medium sized red sweet pepper provides more than three times the recommended daily intake.

By only cutting the pepper into large slices and lightly roasting, you minimize the loss of this valuable vitamin. Sweet peppers also contain capsaicin which appears to have the ability to stop damaging cell changes.

The cauliflowerets are one of the cruciferous family of vegetables, which also include cabbage, broccoli, spinach and Brussels sprouts. Scientists are investigating the phytochemical, called suloraphane, found in this group of vegetables. Suloraphane appears to have the ability to detoxify carcinogenic molecules in cells by activating phase 2 enzymes, which are naturally occurring proteins preset in human cells. The most effective of this group of vegetables is Brussels sprouts.

Chief among all the ingredients are the butter beans and chick peas, which are full of fiber. Fiber is a most important part of a kidney stone diet, because fiber contains phytates, which prevent the crystallization of calcium in the urine. This is vital, because the most common kidney stones by far (accounting for about 80% of the total) consist of calcium whihc is precipitated out of the urine. The further combat this, you should get into the habit of drinking plenty fo fresh water daily, as this will dilute the urine. 

Celery, is one of the mainstays of cooking in the southern United States and has been used as a remedy for high blood pressure since 200BC. It works by reducing concentrations of stress hormones, which cause the blood vessels to contract.

Whilst brown rice is more beneficial than white, this dish does taste better with white rice. However, white rice also has merit, so there's not much  harm in having it once in a while. An American professor compared the eating habits of large group of folk with their health and found that those who eat large amounts of rice plus beans and sweet corn enjoyed low rates of colon, breast and prostate cancer.

Kidney Stone Diet