Food of the Week (Week 1): Edamame

I know most of you are sushi-eating urbanites who have been eating edamame from the womb (though I have yet to hear of a pregnant woman who craves edamame specifically, but it could happen). If you are in this group, feel free to skip this post and 

I interrupt this post about healthy food to tell you that I just looked down at my left arm to find it covered in brown goo (don't panic--it's not that kind of brown goo). Also covered in brown goo? The left side of my favorite ragged sleeping t-shirt (the one that just says "Dude" on the front). Wha? My confusion lasted only a moment and I was able to use my excellent deductive reasoning skills to deductively reason that several of the chocolate chips I was eating (hey, I'm human) must have fallen between my arm and my shirt and melted there. You'll be relieved to know that Clifford the Big Red Couch was unscathed. 

Back to talking about soybeans. Edamame=green soybeans. Edamame (pronounced ed-eh-MAH-may...I think) is a much funner word than soybean. Soybean makes me think of tofu. And tofu, while it may be reasonably tasty when prepared with skill, is almost never fun. (Prove me wrong, folks. Prove me wrong.) 

Here's what you do. You go to the store. You buy some frozen in-the-shell edamame (you'll find it frozen in the freezer section) and you heat it up. You can even do it in your microwave--no fancy edamame steamer or boiler needed. Then you sprinkle it with a generous amount of course salt such as kosher salt. Then you take one of those ugly, hairy pods that looks like something your 6-year-old has in his/her "nature collection" and you use your teeth to remove the delicious little soys inside. Yummy! It really is. (Don't forget the salt.)

Here's what you get*:

1. 6 grams of fiber (woo! fiber!)

2. 11 grams of protein

3. oodles of vitamins and minerals

4. a mere 120 calories

5. a pile of discarded hairy pods for your little one's "nature collection"

Try it. You'll like it! (If you don't, try some chocolate chips instead.)

*in a 1 1/8th cup serving (in shell--1/2 cup shelled)

Oh!

Here's the situation that inspired me to write about green pods:

Earlier this week I was getting Joel's food ready for him to take to work (Egg Beater sandwich? Check. 2 cups grapes? check, frozen diet meal for lunch? check.). He requested a bowl of edamame to snack on. I got it for him, and as he was putting it and the other food in his backpack, Laura (age 4) ran up to him and said, 

"Mommy's going to give me a treat!"

Joel said, "What is it? Edamame?

Laura, laughing (and without missing a beat), replied:

"Adaboblo?"

Silly Daddy and his made up words!