Rice Versus Quinoa A Low-Carb, Protein-Rich Alternative to Our Favorite Side Dish Having spent most of my life living in Japan and Hawaii, rice has always been a big part of my diet. Like most of my friends and family, I love rice! It’s the ultimate comfort food—a perfect complement to other dishes, and heavy in delicious carbohydrates. But that also makes it sort of unhealthy, because it’s easy to eat a lot of it, and excessive, unused carbohydrates typically end up turning into fat. For that reason, I’ve lately been exploring using brown rice instead of white rice. Brown rice contains the husk, germ, and bran of the rice grains, which include lots of fiber and nutrients, whereas white rice is basically just empty, starchy calories. This is similar to white bread or other white flour products (such as pancakes) versus whole-wheat breads and pancakes, which contain a lot more fiber and nutrients as well. Brown rice has a different flavor than white rice—sort of nuttier, earthier, and more wholesome—and takes some getting used to. But once you become accustomed to it, it’s actually quite delicious! Of course, there are certain dishes that simply go better with white rice—things...

Keiko’s Cooking Corner – Curry Rice My wife Keiko is a great chef who prepares a bunch of delicious dishes for our family. For the past few months we have been featuring a number of her recipes in our “Keiko’s Cooking Corner” series. This month, we will feature Keiko’s curry recipe, which is relatively simple to make and goes great over steamed rice or other staples such as quinoa. I love curry rice, and Keiko makes an amazing version of this dish. She usually doesn’t include tomatoes, but the last time she cooked it she added them to the curry a little sweeter, and it was pretty amazing!   To make her curry, Keiko starts by mincing half the onion and putting it into a pot with butter and garlic. She lightly browns the garlic and onions, then cuts the other half of the onion into larger pieces and adds them too, along with chopped potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes. Once those have browned slightly, she adds mushrooms and meat. The tomatoes release their moisture as they heat up and creates a stew, which Keiko allows to simmer for around 30 minutes. Once the stew has simmered for awhile, she adds...

Keiko’s Corner - Nabe   As I’ve shared in the past, my wife Keiko cooks a bunch of delicious dishes, many of them traditional Japanese dishes that I really enjoy. One of our favorites is Nabe, which basically means “things in a pot.” Ao when you make Nabe you pretty much are just stewing up whatever sounds delicious. We eat Nabe a lot—even during the summer, which isn’t really traditional. In Japan, they mostly eat Nabe in the winter, because it’s a hot dish, and the summers in Japan are super hot and humid. Imagine a Kona winds day on Oahu, but with 105-degree temperatures and 95 percent humidity—that’s Japan in the summer. But here in Hawaii it’s much more temperate, so we will eat Nabe pretty much whenever we want! When Keiko makes her Nabe, she often starts with a soup broth, such as a pack of goma miso from Nijiya Market. Goma miso is a sesame miso soup, which is super tasty and also quite healthy. It doesn’t have any MSG or other unhealthy things in it, so it makes a nice base for our Nabe. Then Keiko adds things like soft tofu, onions, maybe some chicken or...