Toasted Sea Salt and Black Pepper Edamame

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As I write this I’m working through whether or not I should actually go back to sleep (that notorious ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ idea) or use this time to get some work in the not-so-off chance that this may be my only chance today to get consecutive hours to myself. If anyone tells you life doesn’t change when you add another child to the mix, then they’re lying to you. Read this post for a laugh and to really get what I’m talking about.

Things like eating have totally gone to crap, and I’m working sort of hard to figure out the healthy balance of treats and good, healthy food again. I say sort of hard because honestly? When mama’s tired and starving and has two children literally screaming and/or crying the easiest thing is just to grab portable food (think cold pizza), take a deep breath, and then dive into meeting whatever the current needs are. I never want to take for granted the blessing of having these boys, but I also don’t want to gloss over the fact that it’s life-changing in so many different ways. I want this space to be real and share our authentic life.

Yesterday Austin was refusing to nap again and right when I was about to go nuts he stopped screaming, looked up at me with a big gummy smile, and cooed on purpose at me. Y’all, those little moments make up for weeks of boycotted naps and screaming gassy rampages. Isn’t that nuts? Literally weeks of frustration are completely covered up by one moment of sweetness. I can’t get over it. And the fact that it doesn’t change as they get older. Wes is three, and I’m starting to understand in full the term ‘three-nager,’ but one big hug, sweet kiss, or exclamation of ‘Mommy I wuv you’ and I don’t even remember the fact that he was just hitting me with a random ruler he found while I was nursing the baby.

So this edamame. It’s honestly so good and was such an accident, but a happy one at that. They’re great for on-the-go snacking, and you could change up the seasonings as you desire. I really love the salt and pepper version though; I feel like it works well with the nuttiness of the toasted soy. It’s mostly crunchy with a bit of chew, although if you want complete crunch you’ll want to roast it a little longer. I like it both ways, but this recipe is much easier. It requires a lot of hands-off cooking (think just letting it sit in the oven) but that’s perfect because it works well with our “schedule” these days. And of course you could double, triple, quadruple the recipe as necessary!

Enjoy!

TOASTED SEA SALT AND BLACK PEPPER EDAMAME

Ingredients:

2 cups frozen shelled edamame, thawed
1 tablespoon olive oil
sea salt
black pepper

Directions:

First off, after the edamame is shelled you’ll want to dry it completely with paper towels. If there’s extra moisture it’ll just steam in the oven and won’t get a great crunch on outside. I actually left mine uncovered overnight in the refrigerator after drying (accidentally) and it helped to reduce the moisture even more!
Preheat oven to 400ºF.
Toss the dried edamame with olive oil and spread on a large sheet pan. It needs to be a big pan so that the edamame have room to spread out and get toasted.
Sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper (about 1 teaspoon of each, but as you desire).
Toast in the oven for 25 minutes.
Open the oven and shake the pan to spread the edamame around a bit again, then turn the oven off and let the edamame cool in the oven. The residual dry heat will help dry it and create that crunch even more.
Enjoy!