Seeds and nuts.....
 

I am trying to become more aware of what types of foods I eat over and over again so that I can discover new foods. Here are some seeds and nuts that my family and I eat fairly regularly.

sesame seeds (in various recipes whole and freshly ground)
flax seeds (on salads)
almonds (in salads, with steel cut oats)
walnuts (in salads, on oatmeal as a snack, in certain recipes)

cashews (not very often but in some recipes and freshly roasted as a snack)
peanuts (not very often.. but sometimes)

This is all I can think of off hand.. of coarse I am not including grains.. saving that for a separate thread. I'll be looking for new ideas to use what we already eat and new seeds that we haven't tried.

suppose I should add beans to this thread....

soybeans (dried beans, fresh sprouts, tofu, soybean paste)
red beans (small Asian)
pinto beans
peas
black eyed peas
mung beans (dry beans and fresh sprouts)
kidney beans
black beans

That sounds about it ..

Great idea!

I had a pine nut for the very first time last week :)

ah, thanks Suzanne! pine nuts... I missed that one. We use it as a garnish in certain meat dishes, an essential ingredient in pesto sauce, and as a topping to certain teas. How did you use them?

Also forgot

sunflower seeds
pumpkin seeds

I add these to salads. Don't know what else to do with them.

ah.. add mukamame (shelled edamame) to my list of soybeans

Pistachios!! Not the red ones...why are they red???

And lately I'm loving white kidney beans...I don't know if they actually taste different or if I just like how they look.

Mmmmm...pumpkin seeds. I often roast whatever seeds we get out of squash when we have them. Sometimes they are great, sometimes mostly shell. Hit or miss really.

And I LOVE garbanzo beans/chick peas seasoned and roasted til they are crunchy. My husband equally HATES them because they are so LOUD...so I eat them mostly when he isn't around.

Pine nuts and tea? How? Am I reading that right? I love tea...have never had pine nuts.

Casey

Ah yes pistachios.. the red ones are red from an added dye.. why red? Beats me... :)

White kidney beans? I've never heard of them. Do you cook them the same way?

I add pine nuts to specialty teas. Rice tea (made from ground brown rice), date tea actually made from Jujubes, and something called "Royal tea" which tastes very sweet and is almost like medicine. The pine nuts are great in all of the above.

The kidney beans I've only used in chili...canned. I use black beans and white kidney beans...black and white chili...okay so you can't tell but I know and it makes me happy.

So with the pine nuts in tea do you use them whole (snack at the bottom of the cup?) or ground up as a topping?

Casey

Ah, so you can't tell they are white.. I will look for them.

Pine nuts float so they stay on top of the tea; Added whole they are attractive, add a little nutrition, and even a soft nibbling action when you get one in your mouth. I don't ever recall seeing them served in tea leaf tea.. black or green.

Well...no...they're white...and look white...its just once they are all mixed in with the other chili stuff its hard to tell! I bet in a bean salad or something they would be pretty. I've found them in the organic section and in the mexican food section.

Casey

oooh, I forgot about chestnuts. I buy them fresh in the fall and dried in other seasons. A friend of mine buys them frozen. I had never thought to look for frozen chestnuts, but after tasting her dish, I certainly will look for them.

I wonder if I buy them in the fall if I could manage to freeze my own. I guess they would just have to be peeled and frozen. It's worth a try.

Pine nuts are good in cinnamon tea. A friend of mine made a gallon of it for me yesterday. You make it with whole cinnamon. She won't give me the recipe. It's her "secret". :) It is very sweet so I froze most of it in smaller portions.

ooooooooooh Why didn't anyone tell me that jalapeno hummus tastes so good on sliced raw mushrooms???!!!

I've found a new lunch! um... but I need to buy some more mushrooms! yum yum

Okay...so maybe I'm a bit slow or just live in the boonies...but what IS hummus? I've seen it in the grocery...I know its like spread or dip...but I've never paid attention to what it is or tried it. I wouldn't know what to do with it if I did buy it so I'm just in the dark about it! Really, though...if it goes with mushrooms its probably okay by me!

Yup... maybe you live in the boonies. :D
Hummus is a chickpea paste. It is served many different ways but I usually use it as a spread on bread, crackers, or as a vegetable dip. I just never tried it on mushrooms before. I have to admit though, it is supposed to be easy to make but I just buy it ready made (careful to look at the ingredients first).

It is really good as an alternative to a peanut butter and bread craving. It has a lot of protein etc.

I use hummus as a dip for vegetables, chips, and a spread in sandwiches. Yum!

I bought some pine nuts the other day for some reason/recipe or another, and now I don't remember what I was using them in or what to do with them! Thanks for the ideas.

I wanted to do roasted chestnuts last year around holidays, but I couldn't find any.

I saw the best recipe once ... it was a "raw food" recipe: ground walnuts and something else to form a "crust", berries on top, then blended berries as a sauce on top of that. I'll have to see if I can find the recipe.

ok... now you have my attention. Depending upon what that "something else" is I want to try making this. Can you find it?

Mmm, it was in a magazine last July 4th, so I don't know that I could find the exact copy, but I do remember it was dates that was mixed with the chopped walnuts.

Great. That is enough to do a search. I'll let you know if I ever find it.

My husband grew up in the San Joaquin valley and they grow LOTS of pistachios.

The red ones are imported from other countries. They are dyed so the consumer and food brokers can tell whether they are domestic or not.

A pistachio tree is a thing of beauty. Pistachios grow in clumps like grapes. The trees are about six or seven feet tall and they have these beautiful large cream-color clusters of pistachios hanging from them.

By the way, i was here before and have decided that I feel better following this WOE than anything else I've tried. Hope there's still room at the table here for me... ;)

Welcome, Claire! Of course there's room for more here ... the more the merrier!

That's interesting, about pistachios.

HI Claire. I knew they were dyed.. but never realized the reason. I guess now I go find out which ones are domestic and which are imported. :dizzy: