Loaded Salsa
I started college in the Summer, and for that term I was in a dorm with 5 other girls. There were 3 bedrooms, a big bathroom with multiple showers, and a little kitchen. We all got along really well, stayed up super late every night playing beach volleyball, and ate a lot of food. In fact, I’m pretty sure I gained the dreaded freshman 15 in that short Summer. And I’d like to give full credit/blame to my super cute roomate from Mexico.
Bean, Green and Coconut Milk Soup
Here’s another idea on how to use those beans you soaked, cooked, and froze for quick meals.
I love soup. It’s such a great one-bowl meal. You often find your carbs, your veg, your protein, lots of flavor, and it’s hydrating on top of all of that. This recipe comes from me scrounging through my pantry and fridge, not knowing what to make for dinner, and having a lightbulb moment. But more importantly, it comes from knowing some crucial soup-making basics.
White Bean, Avocado, and Kale Salad
Wait, did that title just scare anyone away? Please, no! Come back! It’s so good! And I won’t talk (write? type?) your ear off today. I’ve pretty much covered the whole how to cook your beans thing, so let’s just get excited about what we can do with those nutrient-packed beauties.
Walnut Hummus
Last week I showed you how to cook beans properly to maximize nutrient absorption and eliminate the awkwardness that comes as a result of eating beans. And it seriously works! So this week I want to show you a few easy ways to use those beans that you spent so much time properly soaking and cooking. And we’re going to start with hummus.
Cooking beans 101
Beans. Don’t we all have a love-hate relationship with them? The love because they are so good for you! Depending on the specific type you eat you can get varying amounts of soluble fiber, protein, antioxidants, copper, folate, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, just to name a few. And the hate because, well, how do I approach this delicately? We all know the end result problem with beans, right? [cough, cough]
Pesto Basics
When I was a little kid, my parents invited family-friends over for dinner once in a while. Honestly, I have no idea how often it was. It’s all a big blur for me. I just remember waiting at the window, asking my parents (probably every 5 minutes because that’s the kind of annoying thing that all kids do) when the guests were going to arrive.
And, I remember the meal.
Step-by-step: Onigiri (Japanese rice balls)
You know how when you think of a typical packed lunch, there’s a sandwich in there somewhere? Peanut butter & jelly or ham & cheese, maybe? Well, the Japanese equivalent is the onigiri. It’s basically rice (always Japanese short grain rice), gently shaped into a ball or a triangle, either with some kind of filling or some seasonings mixed in, and then usually wrapped in nori, a crispy roasted sea vegetable. And pretty much every Japanese kid has these in their bento box everyday. I did. The 2 most traditional fillings are probably either a little piece of salmon or what’s called umeboshi, which is a pickled plum. Onigiri are so common and classic that they sell them in convenience stores everywhere. And the fillings are anywhere from classic to super updated and unique.
Soaked Brown Rice 2 Ways
Several years ago, long before I became this paranoid health-foodie of a mom, my husband worked retail in a pretty remote little town and he always came home with awesomely hilarious lunchbreak conversation stories. My two favorites were “Have you ever noticed that water ain’t got no flavor?” and “Did you know that eating a bowl of rice is like eating a bowl of sugar?”
We always had a good chuckle, but in the back of my mind that second one haunted me. I mean guys, I am Japanese. (Well, half, but let’s not get too technical here) I LOOOOOOOVE me some rice. And Japan has one of the top 10 highest life expectancies in the world, and one of the lowest obesity percentages in the developed world, and we love rice. So things didn’t add up in my head. I mean, we’re all told that whole grain is better than refined, but is it really ever explained? We throw around buzz words like “healthy” and “high fiber” and “slow carb” and we’re generally pretty satisfied. And frankly, I was happy eating my bowl of white-rice-sugar 3 times a day and didn’t want to find out the reasons behind why I shouldn’t be eating what I wanted to keep eating.
But I’m a mommy, and these little babies entrusted in my care deserve the best. So, I swallowed my cultural pride and did a little digging. And hoooooly moly, people are passionate about this subject. There are heated articles on both sides.
No-churn Ice Cream, 2 ways
I’ve never been one with a substantial sweet tooth. As a kid I often asked for dinner seconds rather than dessert. And even now, I’m a self-proclaimed choco-holic, but only if it’s 80% or darker, preferably 90%. So sometimes when I have people over for dinner, I totally forget to plan for dessert, and end up serving up some fresh fruit. Which, I suppose isn’t exactly a bad thing.
The Better Breakfast Cereal: Bircher Muesli
My mom, like many moms, went through a lot of health-food phases, and one that I liked was her Bircher Muesli phase. It was basically this bagged, untoasted cereal blend full of oats, nuts, and some dried fruit, and she would soak it overnight in milk and yogurt. It had an awesome creamy, thick, kind of … for lack of a better word … slimy (did I really just use “slimy” as a positive adjective?!) texture to it, and I loved it. But that phase eventually ended, and I kind of forgot about it. Until about a year or two ago, actually. I had just come across the word “phytic acid” and started my own mom-health-food phase where my nutrition world was thrown upside down, I panicked, rampaged through my pantry and fridge and threw stuff away, cried to my husband that I was slowly killing our children, and curled up in the fetal position in the middle of my kitchen.
