Exhibit A: Edamame
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| The Chinese name translates to "hairy bean" which is kind of weird-sounding but true. You don't eat the pod anyway, so it's not like you have to swallow a hairy hull. |
Edamame is ridiculously easy to make and is also pretty cheap. Buy a bag of frozen edamame at the grocery store, the Asian food store, or the coop. A big bag will be just a few bucks. Then, the actual preparation is easier than making spaghetti. Just boil some water in a pot, add the desired amount of frozen edamame, let the water boil for a few minutes, drain the water, and add a light sprinkling of salt.
Edamame is a fun finger food. Because of the few added seconds required to pop the seed out of the pod, a hungry person can't scarf down too much too quickly. Even if speed were not an issue, I don't think there would be many negative consequences of eating too much edamame; it's just soybeans! Soybeans are full of complex carbohydrates, protein, fiber, omega 3's, and vitamins. Also, if you are a young lady, your doctor will tell you to make sure to consume plenty of folic acid, which edamame offers. So nom this up whenever you are hungry! So tasty and fun!!
Exhibit B: Ginger Almonds
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| Look at the granules of ginger powder! So yummy! |
Alton Brown's show Good Eats suggests spicing up the super-food of almonds to create a savory, flavory snack. Alton's recipe is super quick and makes enough almonds to last for a week. Since I didn't want to go out of my way to buy an arbol chili, I substituted in some cayenne pepper powder. The resulting snack was a warming, crunchy, filling snack.
While doing a little research on almonds, I stumbled across a website that informed me that almonds are not actually nuts! Apparently, almonds are "the seed of the fruit of the almond tree." Fancy that! Another cool thing is almonds have tons of calcium, iron, protein, and fat. Yes, they have a lot of fat, but apparently a study found that those who consumed almonds had a reduced risk of weight gain. Nice. This supports my idea that eating fat doesn't necessary make you fat. To celebrate, I will go eat ice cream.