Greek Fava Recipe, Spotlight on Legumes and Gluten-Free Legume Pasta, and the Truth About Diet and Exercise
This is the time of year when I’m usually in Italy and Greece, tasting the most amazing, freshly pressed olive oils and working with my growers on creating flavorful and unique blends. There’s nothing quite like spending fall in the heart of the Mediterranean, with its comfortable daytime temps and cool evenings, wonderful for unwinding at a Greek taverna, savoring luscious mezze—their wide array of appetizers—and wine with people who not only love them, too, but are responsible for growing the crops that chefs and vintners depend on.
Mediterranean food is rich, heart-warming, stick-to-your-ribs cuisine. With this week’s recipe, you can bring one of my favorite tastes of Greece to your own table…
In Greece, “fava” is a creamy purée made from the yellow split peas traditionally grown on the island of Santorini. These split peas are not related to fava beans, though both are legumes. Yellow and green split peas are great pantry items, and supermarket brands cost just cents a bag. But if you really want to splurge, for just a few dollars more, you can buy true Greek yellow split peas from Arosis, a purveyor that sources them from small Greek farms. Many online merchants sell a variety of the company’s products.
Greek Fava
Healthy Ingredient Spotlight
Superstar Legumes
Legumes are superstars among plant-based foods because of their fiber, protein and wealth of other nutrients. Within legumes is the group called pulses. These are specifically plants that have pods, explains USA Pulses, and a pulse itself is the dry edible seed within the pod. Among the most delicious types are whole and split dry yellow and green peas; green, French green, red, black and small brown lentils; and a veritable army of beans, including the well-known kidney beans, great northern beans and black-eyed peas (a bean, not actually a pea!), adzuki beans, the oversized cranberry bean, and, yes, the fava bean. Explore more at pulses.org.
Healthy Kitchen Nugget
To Soak or Not to Soak
Not all legumes need a long soak before they can be used. Simply rinse lentils and dried peas, removing any tiny pebbles you might find. For cooking, a good rule of thumb is to start with 2.5 cups liquid per 1 cup lentils, 2 cups liquid for 1 cup dried peas, and add more as needed during cooking. They’re often tender after a 30-minute simmer.
You can cook beans without soaking first, but they’ll take a lot longer. For chickpeas, use 3 cups water to 1 cup chickpeas, and soak for 8 to 24 hours. For beans, use enough water to cover and soak overnight. Your bowl should allow for the beans to double or triple in size. Drain, rinse with cool water and simmer 1.5 to 2 hours, depending on your recipe.
For a faster no-soak method, USA Pulses recommends a quick boil and rest: Boil 2 cups water and 1 cup beans for 3 minutes, or 3 cups water and 1 cup chickpeas for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and wait 1 hour before proceeding with your recipe.
For Your Best Health
Gluten-Free Legume Pasta
You know that regular pasta is part of the pantheon of refined flour-based products that lack the micronutrients of whole grains. Enriched pasta contains some, but hardly all, of the vitamins and minerals lost when the wheat is refined. But whole-grain pasta isn’t the only alternative, particularly if you want gluten-free or simply fewer carbs. Enter legume-based pasta—black beans, chickpeas and red lentils are taking the starring spots among pasta alternatives from companies like Eden Foods and even pasta king, Barilla. Plus, they have more fiber and more protein than whole-grain pasta, according to a report by UC Berkeley. To keep the goodness going, think vegetable- and olive oil-based sauces rather than butter or cream.
Fitness Flash
The Truth About Diet and Exercise
Whether you’re a casual or serious fitness enthusiast, you know that exercise and diet work together to build a better body. But it turns out that some sports nutrition lore is actually incorrect. At last year’s meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine, renowned Newton, Massachusetts-based sports nutritionist Nancy Clark, RD, set the record straight.
- You don’t need protein supplements to build muscle. Getting about 110 to 150 grams of real protein a day will do it. To increase muscle size, the answer is strength training.
- Think protein if you want a bedtime snack. In fact, a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition in 2018 found that a cup of cottage cheese about an hour before you turn in will help with muscle repair while you sleep.
- For vegans, make sure to get enough leucine, the amino acid that triggers muscles to grow. Nonanimal sources include nuts, seeds, soy foods, lentils, beans and other plant proteins. Since a standard serving of most of these plant-based foods doesn’t have as much leucine as a serving of meat, for instance, you might need to have a serving at every meal and for snacks to get the recommended daily intake, Clark advises.
