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An “improper meal” for the family: Rice and Bean Salad
February 3, 2009 |
When relatives from India visit, things usually run to a predicted script. You serve them their white rice and sambhar and whatever it is they normally eat, and you join them. We don’t usually eat white rice around here. For us lunch or dinner is usually a one-pot meal thrown together at the last minute, often involving very little or no cooking.
On day 3 when you crave your usual food and fix sandwiches for dinner, they will play along with bemused expressions. On day 4, fix a pasta salad or another sandwich, and one of them will pipe up:
“Tsk Tsk. Why aren’t you eating proper food? Look at you, how thin you are!!”
On day 5 you serve “improper food” again, and they’re frantic. The male who picks the fruits and herbs out of his salad (let’s call him “Uncle”) is usually as subtle as a Mack truck. He may volunteer his wife to teach Bee (always Bee) how to cook. “Aunty will show you how to make x, y and z.”
Bee will smile sweetly and volunteer Jai to learn: “Aunty, that would be great. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Jai can cook the way you do?” Aunty’s enthusiasm to teach cooking vanishes like water in the Kalahari.
If we invite others over for dinner, they will be informed that “Jai and Bee, poor things, don’t get time to cook. So see, Aunty has cooked rice and korma and sambhar and poriyal to fatten them up a bit and give them a taste of real food.”
We get it. Our culinary preferences are a fad. Theirs is the “real deal”. But guess what, after they return to India, Aunty will call to let us know that she has started incorporating salads in the dinner menu.
Rice and Bean Salad: Dinner for a lazy part-time-vegan phamilleeee
This is an easy one-pot meal.
Use
cooked whole grain of choice (brown/red rice, wheat berries, hulled barley, quinoa, millet)
cooked beans of choice (canned works too, just rinse it well)
lightly toasted nuts
dried fruit (raisins. cranberries, dried figs, unsulphured apricots)
chopped veggies (raw or lightly steamed)
fruit
herbs
This is an easy way to incorporate plant protein into your diet. We need about 1.2 gms of protein per kg of body weight for the average person (about 1.6 gms for athletes).
Caloric and Protein Needs
Plant Protein Q & A
Bhutanese red rice is one of our favourite grains. It’s grown at 8000 feet with run-off from Himalayan spring water and is 100% organic. It’s higher in protein and fibre than white rice. It has a nutty delicious flavour and cooks much faster than brown rice.
For the difference between white, red and brown rice, see Pantry Audit: Rice.
For information on how to cook them, see How to Snag a South Indian Guy
Dinner for two
Bhutanese Red Rice 1 cup (measured after cooking)
Kidney Beans 1 cup (measured after cooking)
1 carrot, large
1 cucumber, medium
1 red bell pepper
1 oz almonds
1 orange
1 tbsp golden raisins
2 tbsps chopped parsley
Toss with low-fat dressing of choice. We like
maple-mustard,
lemon, honey salt and pepper
or
seasoned rice vinegar with a pinch each of salt, pepper and sugar.
Does not include dressing
Our entry for Monthly Mingle: Healthy Family Dinners hosted by Michelle @ What’s Cooking Blog.
- Bee and Jai
Almond, Beans-(Dried), bell-peppers/capsicum, bhutanese-red-rice, Carrot, Cucumber, kidney-beans, NUTRITION, Orange, Parsley, Raisin, Rice, salad, vegan recipes, vegetarian recipes
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