Holding on to weight loss and healthy food choices in December is hard enough, but exercising in the wettest December since 1955 and maybe the wettest in 130 years is equally hard.
But if you pledge to walk every day you just have to get out there. So on Wednesday December22, I put on my lunar rain gear and ventured out into the wind and rain. As I left the house I saw that my flag was in the front yard, having blown off the front of the house with the flag holder still attached. Around the neighborhood, numerous palm branches lay in yards and the street. I am now well acquainted with the water drainage of my neighborhood and know when to get on the sidewalk because the water by the curb will be too wide at the corner to ford without getting wet shoes.
Nevertheless, I still have not missed a day of walking since April 18th and today was 240 something as dawn broke.
For the healthy minded, Trader Joes has a new creation to me - adzuki bean and rice chips, which of course aren't raw, but are reasonably healthy and better for me than corn or potato chips. Adzuki beans are one of the new health favorites and what follows in an article from the Providence, R.I. newpaper and a recipe for a colorful salad.
THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL
September 22, 2010
By MICHELLE LOCKE
BERKELEY, Calif. — Get ready to spill the beans on adzuki.
Wait. You’ve never heard of adzuki beans? You will. Also known as azuki, aduki and Chinese red beans, these pint-sized packages of protein have been moving from the shelves of ethnic markets to big chains such as Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s. They’re even showing up in snack foods and ice cream.
“They’re becoming a lot more mainstream,” says Wendy Esko, marketing assistant in charge of product development and research at Eden Foods, which sells the beans under the name aduki. “In fact, out of the 33 kinds of canned beans that Eden offers, aduki beans rank No. 7.”
And at Whole Foods, 18,000 pounds of adzuki beans were sold last year just in California, according to Patrick Wyman, grocery coordinator for the chain’s Northern California region.
As for the multiple names. No great mystery here. The beans come from Asia and there have been some translation issues.
Whatever you call them, the beans first cropped up in America in the ’60s as part of the macrobiotic movement, says Esko. The beans sold by Eden — both canned and dry — are grown in the United States from seeds imported from Hokkaido, Japan.
Vibrantly colored and sweet, adzuki are commonly used in desserts in Asian cooking. But in America they often are put to savory use, mixed into salads, cooked with rice and dropped into soups. Like other beans, adzuki are a good source of protein. Unlike many other dried legumes, they don’t have to be soaked before cooking.
And now they’ve even made their way into snack foods. Boulder Canyon Natural Foods sells several varieties of chips made from rice and adzuki beans, including chipotle cheese flavored and sun-dried tomato and basil (there is a Trader Joe’s version, too).
The beans also are showing up in American gelato. Even Food Network’s Emeril Lagasse and Robert Irvine have done recipes using them.
Dallas-area food blogger Alta Mantsch likes adzuki beans as an inexpensive way to add protein to her dairy and gluten-free diet. She first found the beans at the ethnic grocery stores where she likes to scout out new flavors, but has noticed they’ve been showing up in larger markets, too.
She’s used the beans to create dishes like masala-spiced adzuki beans and rice. “They cook up a lot quicker than other beans and that’s nice,” she says. “They’re cute and they hold together even though they’re small.”
Silvia Gregori, a private chef in the San Francisco Bay area, first tasted adzuki on a trip to the Paris Chinatown. She recently made a black quinoa and adzuki bean salad with fennel, carrots and mushrooms that was big on taste and color. She’s also turned them into a paste as a filling for crepes, appropriate since the beans are often used as a filling for mochi, the rice cakes popular in Japan.
“They’re sweet and they’re cute and I really like the color,” says Gregori.
As cute as caviar – Black quinoa, adzuki beans salad with fennel, carrots and mushrooms
I had bought some adzuki beans a while ago, yes I know there are so many kinds of beans, and
this one is one among many others. It’s a bean mainly grown in the Himalayas and used in Asia in sweet preparations, they’re mostly known as red beans. Of course, I am not Asian, therefore in my culture beans are prepared in savory dishes and I wanted to try to prepare them in a more Western way, because after all a bean is a bean. I love black quinoa, it tends to be more flavorful and earthy than white quinoa and its nuttiness in this dish allied with the sweetness of fennel and red beans make it a palate pleasing combination.
Honestly, I was not sure I would post this because I thought it will be another quinoa/bean dish which is not the first on on my blog. After the first bite, I definitely thought it was blog- worthy, the colors were so contrasting all together and it resulted in a delicious and harmonious blend of flavors.
Sometimes to speed up the cooking process of beans that have not been previously soaked, I add a little baking soda, it does reduce cooking time.
You can eat this salad warm or cold, either way it’s delicious.
Ingredients for 4
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1 cup black quinoa
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1 cup adzuki beans
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broth (1/2 onion, 1/2 carrot, 1 celery stick, 1 bay leaf, thyme)
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1 shallot, diced
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2 carrots, sliced in half lengthwise then crosswise
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1 fennel bulb, diced
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1 cup cremini mushrooms, diced
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1 garlic clove
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3 tbs cilantro, finely chopped
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salt and pepper
For the vinaigrette
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2 tbs olive oil
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juice of 1/2 lemon
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1 garlic clove, crushed
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1/4 tsp cumin powder
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salt and pepper
Preparation
Cook beans in water with all carrot, onion, celery, bay leaf, thyme. Cook for about 45 minutes until the beans are soft. Drain and rinse. Steam quinoa like you would do with rice. In a pan, heat olive oil. Add shallot and let brown, add garlic and cook for another minute. Add carrots and fennel. Cover and let cook for about 10 minutes. When the vegetables are half cooked, add mushrooms, salt and pepper. Stir well and cook until the mushroom water evaporates. Combine quinoa with beans, then add the vegetables. Let it cool.
For the vinaigrette, add all ingredients together mix well. Pour vinaigrette on the
vegetable/quinoa mixture. Add cilantro, toss and serve.
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