I woke up at 7:30 this morning with 45 minutes to make lunch and dinner before showering and rushing out the door to meet my first client.

Time management applies in the kitchen, too, and thankfully with a little forced spontaneity, I was able to eat well.

Here’s how I did it:

Last night I poured some white beans into a pot and added water to cover the beans by a couple inches.

When I woke up this morning, I drained off the old water, rinsed the beans, and set them to boil on the stove in vegetable broth. Then I dropped in a piece of kombu seaweed to feed the beans additional minerals. Aside from the nutritional benefit that soaking the beans overnight allows, they cook up much more quickly, 30 minutes in this case, and I used this time to get working on the rest of the soup and prepping the next dish.

I sliced open a large acorn squash (see Halving a Squash post for tips), placed it face down in a pan with a few millimeters of water, covered the pan with foil, and set the squash to bake at 375. Meanwhile, I chopped an enormous yellow onion and sautéed half of it in coconut oil and a ton of cumin with an entire bunch of green chard and a bit of sea salt. Setting this mixture aside, I returned to the remaining onion and chopped it finely, along with 7 or 8 shiitake mushrooms, fresh sage leaves, and some sea salt. (I advocate keeping fresh herbs on hand to spontaneously brighten up any dish). When this mushroom-onion mixture began to caramelize, I removed the acorn squash from the oven, divided it up into each half of the squash, and returned it to bake for another 10 minutes.

While the stuffed squash was serving its time in the oven, the beans finished cooking. I put a batch of them in the blender with more vegetable broth and a bit of the chard and onions, and whipped them up together. I continued this process in small batches until all the beans and chard had been blended together into a smooth, delicious puree. By then the stuffed squash was ready, so I placed one portion on a plate and enjoyed it later on with a bowl of the white bean blend.

Here are the ingredients: 1 large acorn squash, 7 or 8 shiitake mushrooms, 1 jumbo yellow onion, tons of ground cumin, unrefined coconut oil for sauteeing, 1 bunch chard, a couple cups of soaked white beans, some vegetable broth, and sea salt.

There you have it: white been chard puree with stuffed acorn squash, in 45 minutes flat.

(P.S. This meal is also gluten free, easy to digest, and enhances fertility… sha-zam!)