These days many food sites exhort us to “eat the rainbow”–a colorful visual cue to remind us of the importance of incorporating a variety of nutrients into our daily diets.  Good advice. I know I need the nudge.

Here is a recipe for a rainbow in a bowl, a nutritious roasted edamame salad redolent in garlic and marinated in a delightful basil vinaigrette. It is so good that I’ve found myself raiding the refrigerator late at night for this salad rather than the usual desserts. How funny is that?

Edamame?

Edamame are (Aargh! Is edamame plural or singular? )  young soybeans and they are powerfully nutritious–high in protein, dietary fiber and micronutrients.

While records indicate they were first available in the United States in the 1920s, they didn’t take off here until the 1980s when, depending upon the food writer you read, the Shogun series hit U.S. TVs and American interest in everything  Japanese  (including Japanese food)  spiked or the U.S. organic food movement took off. Maybe it was a bit of both.

Edamame has long been a staple of Asian cuisine. In fact, the consumption of young soybeans in China and Japan predates American interest in the food by a couple thousand years. It was the Japanese who gave the young beans their modern name edamame, beans on a branch.

In Asia, edamame was consumed for both its culinary flavor and its medicinal applications for conditions as varied as diabetes and hypertension. A 17th Century Chinese writer even claimed that beans would “kill evil chi.”

Modern nutritional research has validated many of the earlier beliefs about edamame’s value in the human diet, noting that the bean is a complete protein with all the essential amino acids and a single serving provides substantial amounts of your daily dietary needs: 17% Iron, 78% folate, 26% vitamin K.  A cup has only 120 calories but 10 grams of protein. Wow!

Try this great and great-for-you recipe. Who doesn’t need to exorcize a little evil chi anyway?

Yields 4 Servings

Edamame Salad

15 minPrep Time

15 minCook Time

30 minTotal Time

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Ingredients

• 12 ounces frozen shelled edamame (about 2 cups)
• 1/2 C. fresh corn kernels
• 1/4 C. finely diced scallion
• 1 clove garlic (minced)
• 1 T. olive oil
• 3/4 t. kosher salt
• 1/4 t. freshly ground black pepper
• 1 C. chopped fresh tomato
• 1/4 C. chopped fresh basil leaves
• 1 T. red wine vinegar

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Combine edamame, corn kernels, diced scallion, minced garlic, olive oil, kosher salt and black pepper in a bowl and toss to combine all the ingredients and coat them in the olive oil.
3. Spread vegetable mixture on a rimmed metal tray and bake for 10-15 minutes. Remove roasted edamame mixture from the oven and chill in your refrigerator for 30 minutes.
4. Add tomato, chopped basil leaves and red wine vinegar to the chilled edamame mixture. Toss to combine. Adjust your seasonings to your taste and serve.

Nutrition

Calories

52 cal

Fat

4 g

Carbs

3 g

Protein

1 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

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55

https://bluecayenne.com/edamame-salad

This recipe is an adaptation of one that appeared on The Good Network. Here is the link: Roasted Edamame Salad

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My friend Sarah recently went to lunch at the new Farmhouse Restaurant at Roger’s Gardens in Newport Beach. She came home raving about the food. The cauliflower steaks with chimichuri sauce particularly impressed her.

I decided to see if I could recreate the dish and went on an online searching expedition. I found several recipes. Coincidentally, I also attended a Sur La Table cooking class where cauliflower steaks were one of the dishes we prepared.

It turns out that cauliflower steaks are having their moment and they are being served with a rainbow of complimentary sauces–romesco, vinaigrette, pesto and on and on. Epicurious even has a recipe for cauliflower steaks sauced with cauliflower puree. That one sounds kind of redundant to me but I haven’t made it. Maybe it is wonderful.

Once my cauliflower steak was roasted, I had some fun plating it. I decided that it should sit on the sauce rather than having the sauce as a topping. I also added roasted pine nuts as a garnish and that turned out to be a major flavor and texture treat with this dish.

Hope you enjoy this.

Roasted Cauliflower

Yields 4 Servings

Roasted Cauliflower Steaks

20 minPrep Time

40 minCook Time

1 hrTotal Time

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Ingredients

• 4 1/2-inch thick cauliflower steaks cut from a heavy and firm cauliflower
• 2 T. olive oil (or more)
• Sea salt and freshly-ground pepper
• For the sauce:
• 1/4 C. pitted green olives
• 1 T. capers (rinsed and dried)
• 3 T. roughly-chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1 small garlic clove (minced)
• 1/2 t. Dijon mustard
• 1 t. lemon zest
• 2 T. fresh lemon juice
• 5 T. extra-virgin olive oil (or more)
• Garnish with roasted pine nuts, chopped parsley (or cilantro), a strip of tomato peel, and an extra drizzle of your best olive oil

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper. Move oven rack to the top position.
2. Wash the cauliflower and discard the leaves. Do not core the cauliflower. You will need the core to keep your "steak" slices in one piece. Cut the cauliflower in half and begin slicing the steaks about 1/2 inch thick. As you move to the outside of the cauliflower, the pieces of the cauliflower will not hold together. You can either roast those pieces and serve along side the steaks or reserve them for another purpose.
3. Brush cauliflower steaks with olive oil and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Roast until a knife inserted in the steaks punctures the steaks easily. This will take about forty minutes. Turn each steak over at the mid-point in roasting. When the steaks are done, you will have pretty golden brown bits on the edges of some parts of the cauliflower.
4. Make the sauce by combining all the sauce ingredients except the oil in your food processor. Process until the ingredients are well combined and the greens are chopped into small pieces. You will want to use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the processor bowl once or twice while you are processing the sauce. You don't want to over-process because you want some texture in your sauce. Next, with the food processor running, slowly drizzle the oil into the bowl until the oil combines with the other ingredients. Add salt and pepper to your taste.
5. To plate the cauliflower, smear some sauce on a white plate. Arrange the cauliflower steak on top. Sprinkle chopped parsley and roasted pine nuts over the steak. Decorate with a strip of tomato skin and drizzle with some extra olive oil.

Nutrition

Calories

903 cal

Fat

97 g

Carbs

7 g

Protein

2 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

7.8.1.2

53

https://bluecayenne.com/roasted-caulifower-steaks