Exploring grains and legumes

spaghetti, ravioli, baked beans, peanuts. Sound familiar? Cooking is pretty straight-forward, many people in the USA could pull these out of the cupboard and cook them up.

How about coucous, edamame, lentils, navy beans, chick peas, hummus? Getting a little more out of some people’s comfort/familiarity zone.

Faba bean, mung bean, japanese eggplant, buckwheat, tricale, quinoa, teff, spelt… A couple of these I couldn’t even identify if you put them in front of me. Variety is THE KEY to a healthy diet, and I think we could all use more of it. I’ll try to work my way through some of these unfamiliar foods and offer any tips I have about their preparation and nutrition. I’d love other’s input as well!

In the meantime, a friend asked recently how to cook couscous; and the basic answer is:

1:1 water to dry couscous (ex. 1 cup water for 1 cup dried couscous). Boil the water, dump in the couscous, cover and remove from heat, wait 5 minutes before serving. After basic prep, you can add anything. Last week I chopped up some fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil and had a great dinner.