Health for life

Dont get me wrong – a good chunk of my love for the greenmarket is love of, and belief in the goodness of, local eating. I like meeting my farmers, I like minimizing my foods road trips, I like the dirt on my kale that comes from nearby. (Okay, I did not love the cocooned caterpillar that came along with that local kale and its local dirt this weekend, but thats my own problems with squeamishness. In theory, I loved that caterpillar.)

But I also fell in love with the farmers market because, during our early courtship, everything was so new. Kale, collard greens, kohlrabi, lambsquarter, Brussels sprouts still on the stalk – my first couple of greenmarket years, I took home something new and strange almost every weekend. I hit the internet and hit the books, and almost every time I added a new and delicious veggie to my repertoire.

I still love the greenmarket, lo these many years later, but things have become a little... predictable. A few extra bucks in my wallet this summer are opening a few new doors – berries, grapes (that actually taste like something!), and endless varieties of stone fruits – but the veggies are all familiar territory. As each veggie comes back into season, sure, theres a weekend or two of excitement, but true vegetal strangers are few and far between.

So I hope youll allow me a digression from the agricultural bounty of the greater New York area (love you, Pennsylvania peppers!), as I allowed myself when I met an international temptation too strange and exciting to ignore.

Fresh garbanzo beans.

The bin of fuzzy green pods was nestled between portabellos and quail eggs in the Whole Foods produce aisle, and I could not resist. At $4/lb I thought my few experimental handfuls would cost me a buck or so. These beans are so light, though, that my bag rang up at a mere twenty-nine cents. Score one for the beans.

I hit the internet, and hit the kitchen, and here is what I learned:

1. Fresh garbanzo beans can be eaten raw. Popped out of the pods they look just like their canned and dried cousins, just green. They have a fresh, not particularly strong taste, like starchier edamame.
2. The internet will tell you that they should be steamed in salt water in their pods. This works, but the pods are so roomy that they become little saline capsules, which then burst in your mouth or in your hands. The beans are still tasty, but they get lost in the saltwater, and it doesnt really work. So, fresh garbanzos edamame-style: technically works, but not so awesome.
3. If you use the same method, though, but shell the beans first, well bingo, there you go. A quick boil in salted water gives you bright, salty, tasty little beans.

The internet is full of more elaborate preparations, but I like to get to know a new veggie simply, at first. (Okay, I often end up sticking with those most basic preparations – salt, and sometimes oil, usually make veggies taste like their best versions of themselves.)

Next time – if I even see them again, because their appearance was sudden and they may vanish as quickly and with as little fanfare - I may try some sort of pan-frying, with cumin and other chickpea-friendly spices. I bet the green flavors of the fresh beans would play nicely with that. But for now, for my new friend the fresh garbanzo, simple and quick is the way to go.

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If you enjoy this, you might also enjoy:

• Pasta with Zucchini and Chickpeas
• Steamed Asparagus
• Sweet Potato and Chickpea Puree

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Fresh Garbanzo Beans
Serves 2


1/2 lb fresh garbanzo beans (about 1 cup shelled)
1 T (or so) salt

1) Shell the garbanzo beans. They usually pop out easily, but scissors can be helpful.

2) In a sauce pan or small soup pan, bring a couple of inches of salted water to a boil.

3) Add the garbanzos. Boil, covered, for about a minute.

4) Drain, and eat warm or cooled.

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, Protein, and Cost Per Serving
134.5 calories, 2.1g fat, 6.3g fiber, 7.3g protein, $0.26

Calculations
1 cup fresh garbanzo beans: 269 calories, 4.2g fat, 12.5g fiber, 14.5g protein, $0.50
1 T salt: 0 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.02
TOTAL: 269 calories, 4.2g fat, 12.5g fiber, 14.5g protein, $0.52
PER SERVING (TOTAL/4): 134.5 calories, 2.1g fat, 6.3g fiber, 7.3g protein, $0.26

Green Kitchen is a bi-weekly column about nutritious, inexpensive, and ethical food and cooking. It’s penned by the lovely Jaime Green.

Although I became a vegetarian when I was fifteen, it wasnt until almost ten years later, when I started visiting my local farmers market, that I learned to love vegetables. What I dont talk about as much is how long it took me to get my protein healthily and deliciously, too.

For many years I lived on processed fake meats – veggie burgers, chik patties, and immitation lunchmeats. They tasted good(ish), and I knew what to do with them. (Okay, I admit – Morningstars chik patties taste amazing.) They have respectable protein numbers, and I figured that was good enough for me.

But processed food is processed food. Thats one big way mock meat differs from the real thing – fresh, humane, grass-fed meat is a pretty awesome food. Reconstituted, flavored, and styled soy protein? Not so much.

Oh, and also theres the $5-a-box price tag. Ouch.

So in the last several years Ive gotten to know tempehs, tofus, and seitans (and cottage cheeses and eggs). I learned – finally! – to press tofu, and cook it hot and fast; I made my own seitan. Tempeh, tofus healthier, meatier cousin, has its own flavor and bite.

But even now, as I type the word “tempeh,” I see the supermarket case, the packages of tempeh and one variety with an enticing, bright red label. It holds about half as much food as the others, and costs almost twice as much, but man, does that label make it seem worthwhile.

Tempeh Bacon.

No, it does not taste like bacon. Nothing does. (Though good, crispy Brussels sprouts seem to, I swear, satisfy something similar.) But these thin strips of smoky, savory tempeh make my vegetarian mouth water.

And so, like a good and frugal vegetarian, I set out to learn how to make it myself. The strip shape wasnt important to me; the delicious, bacon-adjacent flavor was.

It turns out that what was missing from all my years of marinating and cooking my foods was this:

Liquid smoke. Made by running smoke through water (and then filtering out the nasty stuff), it adds that je ne sais quois, which we actually know exactly what it quois – smokiness. Bacon gets it by, you know, being smoked. My tempeh gets a few drops of this elixir. Boom.

Ive been tweaking and playing around with this recipe for months, and just about every variation (dictated by what’s in my fridge) has been delicious. A tablespoon or two of maple syrup doesnt make it too sweet but adds a great layer to the flavor. Less ketchup or nutritional yeast makes the marinade thinner and less strongly savory. Play with the spices, play with the sauce. It doesnt taste exactly like bacon, but thats become sort of beside the point now. What it does taste like is good.

This recipe makes a bit more sauce than needed to cover one packages worth of tempeh. Once the tempeh was browned (ahem, very browned, sadly, in this execution), I added a bunch of trimmed string beans and a splash more oil. I sauteed until the beans were bright and just barely cooked – the freshness of their flavor plays nicely with the strong, salty sauce and tempeh. Also, the pretty green beans distract from the fact that some of my tempehs on the blackened side of golden. Luckily, still delicious.

This sauce works brilliantly, too, as a tofu marinade. Just press the tofu well first, for at least half an hour, and let it sit at least overnight. Whereas tempehs got its own flavor, tofu needs to really absorb the sauce. After that its basically the same thing – cook it fast and hot, get a good brown on the outside, and enjoy.

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If you enjoyed this recipe, you may also like
Seitan: Make Your Own Meat
BBQ Seitan Bites
Tofu Bahn Mi (Spicy Vietnamese Sandwiches)

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Bacony Tempeh with String Beans


Serves 3

1 package tempeh, cubed (I used Lightlife Flax tempeh)
1 lb (or so) string beans (about 3 cups)

Marinade
2 T canola or other neutral oil (plus a bit more for sauteeing)
3 T soy sauce or tamari
2 T ketchup
2 T apple cider vinegar
¾ t liquid smoke
1 T nutritional yeast
½ t cumin
½ t hot paprika
½ t powdered ginger
a few dashes garlic powder
one dash nutmeg

Instructions

1. Combine marinade in a bowl or a resealable container. Whisk (or shake) to combine. Add the tempeh. Toss (or shake) to cover. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, up to a day or two.

2. Heat a splash of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add tempeh, saving extra sauce, and cook, tossing or stirring every so often, until the tempeh is hot and somewhere between golden and browned on all sides.

3. Lower heat to medium. Add string beans and remaining sauce, plus another little splash of oil if you need it (and a tiny splash of water if your beans are dry). Cook covered, stirring or tossing every so often, so nothing burns, until beans are bright green and soft, about five minutes.

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, Protein, and Price Per Serving
346.7 calories, 20.4g fat, 12.1g fiber, 18.6g protein, $1.62

Calculations
1 package tempeh: 460 calories, 18g fat, 22g fiber, 40g protein, $2.49
1 lb string beans: 102 calories, 0.4g fat, 11.2g fiber, 6g protein, $1.50
3 T canola: 371 calories, 42g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.15
3 T tamari: 32 calories, 0.1g fat, 0.4g fiber, 5.7g protein, $0.27
2 T ketchup: 29 calories, 0.1g fat, 0.1g fiber, 0.5g protein, $0.07
2 T apple cider vinegar: 6 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.08
¾ t liquid smoke: 0 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.08
1 T nutritional yeast: 27 calories, 0.3g fat, 1.7g fiber, 3g protein, $0.19
½ t cumin: 4 calories, 0.2g fat, 0.4g fiber, 0.2g protein, $0.01
½ t hot paprika: 3 calories, 0.1g fat, 0.4g fiber, 0.2g protein, $0.01
½ t powdered ginger: 3 calories, 0.1g fat, 0.1g fiber, 0.1g protein, $0.02
a few dashes garlic powder: 1 calorie, 0g fat, 0.1g fiber, 0.1g protein, $0.01
one dash nutmeg: 0 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.01

TOTAL: 1040 calories, 61.3g fat, 36.4g fiber, 55.7g protein, $4.89
PER SERVING (TOTAL/3): 346.7 calories, 20.4g fat, 12.1g fiber, 18.6g protein, $1.62