Broccoli, Edamame, and Bok Choy Skillet

Ben is always complaining about how he doesn't like eating beans. As vegetarians, though, we pretty much have to eat beans for protein, plus I like them, so I always make them anyway and he eats them and never seems to have too much of a problem with it. Still, I feel a little guilty about it. In an attempt to come up with some new, creative things to do with beans that he won't whine about too much, I got a new cookbook called Bean by Bean. It's not a vegan cookbook, but the author is vegetarian and almost all of the recipes in the book are either vegan or have a vegan option. I was pretty excited flipping through it - it's huge and extensive and there are a lot of things that look pretty great.

I started off with a recipe so simple it's hardly even a recipe - steamed bok choy, broccoli, and edamame, seasoned with the zest and juice of a lemon, plus salt & pepper. I picked this because it was quick and also because I was interested to see if it actually tasted good. There's not even any garlic in there! Or oil! How could it be tasty?

When I presented Ben with his bowl of plain pasta + green stuff he was not too excited, but it turned out to hugely exceed both of our expectations. How can there be so much flavor in lemons and salt & pepper? I also put some walnut parm on top. I'm going to be using this method a lot in the future for quick healthy dinners.

Then for dessert I made an ice cream sandwich out of cranberry-oatmeal cookies (from Vegan Cookies Take Over Your Cookie Jar) and Trader Joe's soy creamy vanilla. It was outstanding.