Green beans with five-spice tofu

Green beans contain vitamin A through their concentration of carotenoids of beta-carotene, and vitamin C. These two nutrients are important antioxidants that reduce free radicals in the body. Vitamin C as a water-soluble antioxidant and beta-carotene as a fat-soluble antioxidant. This water- and- fat- soluble antioxidant pair helps to prevent cholesterol from becoming oxidized and prevent cholesterol build up in blood vessel walls. I'm doing a warm salad of green beans and tofu here, that makes it antioxidant rich food at Sweetnicks. Have you ever confused yourself over long beans and green beans?

The other ingredient I using for this salad is...Tofu.

Tofu - a soy protein that we might not know of specific antioxidants. But tofu does contain nutrients such as selenium, that is needed for the proper function of the antioxidant system, which works to reduce the levels of damaging free radicals in the body. The tofu used here is five spice dried tofu (五香豆腐, in Mandarin) - a kind of dried tofu pre-seasoned with special blends of spices - in this case, "five spice". In substitution of five spice, all-spice is sometimes used.

How nice to combine these two ingredients together. Green beans are versatile, tasty vegetables. Don't overcook them or they'll become limpy, limpy, limpy...nasty nasty nasty.

You can blanch the green beans and then toss in with the tofu that has been cut into strips. You can also stir fry the green beans and tofu with minced garlic.

Tag: tofu, five spice tofu, vegetables, green beans