get more greens!

Nothing better than fresh cilantro and basil from the garden, which were both incorporated into hummus from ED&BV. Dreena has some awesome recipes, and I hate to admit it, but when it comes to hummus, it really does help when you measure ingredients.

 

I think this Cuisipro Herb Keeper is pretty cool. No one likes soggy herbs.

Our lettuce is out of control! The back row is romaine, and the front is some kind of spicy green. I’m not really sure what to do with these, but they are strong. Maybe they’d be good in a sandwich?

 

In the winter, it’s sometimes hard for me to want to eat cold salads when it’s equally frigid outside. Summer is a perfect time to welcome an abundance of greens into my daily eats.

Joanie’s Salad {named after its inventor}

   

ingredients :: romaine lettuce, cashews, dried cranberries, shredded Swiss cheese, chopped apple and pear ::

dressing :: 2/3 cup sugar, 1/2 c lemon juice, 1 T chopped onion, 1/2 c. oil, 1 T dijon mustard, 1 T poppyseeds (I use half on whole bowl of salad) ::

Why should we even bother with greens?!

One of my fellow food editors {Megan of Making Love in the Kitchen} has a great post on different greens and their benefits, some of which include:

• antioxidant power and phytochemical content
• fiber
• calcium content (watch spinach, which contains oxalic acid and can prevent calcium absorption)
• B vitamins, vitamin A, C, K, iron and potassium

Happy 31st Anniversary to my fabulous mom and dad!

 

Ok, so I know that cake doesn’t fit into the greens family, but this recipe for banana cake from Joy the Baker is amazing. Glorified banana bread {but lighter and fluffier} + peanut butter frosting. I halved the sugar, used half whole wheat flour, and subbed yogurt + 1 tsp baking soda for the sour cream.

Enjoy!

What’s your fave way to eat greens?

On the running front, it’s a little cooler this week, and I’ve managed to run a couple 5 and 6 milers followed by an easy 3.5 miles yesterday…definitely appreciate the cool down!

Happy Weekend!

current beans

My beans these days:

Ingredients:

1 lb beans (any variety from Rancho Gordo)

juice from 2 lbs carrots--about 20 oz

juice from celery

juice from herbs from the garden (parsley, basil, chives)

water as needed

1 onion

1 lb mushrooms, any kind (Dr. Fuhrman now says all mushrooms are good for you).

Rinse the dry beans. Combine everything in a big pot, and soak overnight or for several hours. Cook for 2-4 hours, until desired tenderness, adding water as needed.

Note: I tried juice from collards (my garden is loaded with them) instead of celery and didn't like it as much. But you might like it.

Glorious summer

Hi Folks,

Sorry I've been absent so long. This is going to be a busy, busy year. I've been taking pictures of various things I've been preparing, but just haven't had a chance to sit down and post! So I decided just to write a quick post here without pictures.

Well, the highlight of the last few weeks is that I went to Dr. Fuhrman's Health Getaway. That was so much fun. I was expecting to be inspired, to learn a lot, and to enjoy not cooking for a week! But it turned out even better than that. I had sooooo muuuuuch fuuuuun making new friends and gabbing at each meal and exercising with them every morning. It made an impact on me how important community is. It's hard for people to adopt this program of eating, because you feel so alone doing it. So that's a reason we need to support each other. I'll try to keep posting more and please feel free to write comments and questions.

Some highlights of the Health Getaway were: 1) great lectures, as always. I got reinforced how important it is to eat healthy to make up for the first 45 years of my life when I did not. Cancer takes about 30-40 years to show itself after exposure to all the harmful toxins in our environment and diet. Fortunately, a healthy diet works to reverse cancer, so we need to flood out bodies with phytochemicals and micronutrients to allow our cells to repair. Onions, mushrooms. garlic, and cruciferous vegetables work to reverse cancer. The lectures on osteoporosis, heart disease and diabetes were disturbing to me because of what he told us about the harmful effects of the drugs used to commonly treat these illnesses. Wow. It is shocking and upsetting to me how our medical system is set up to feed the pharmaceutical companies, rather than heal people. 2) A screening of the movie "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead"' but Joe Cross. This is a must-see and will be available to the public in about 6 months I think. 3) A lecture by John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods. They are doing and planning great things to encourage people to eat healthy. You can watch these changes happen by visiting your local Whole Foods. 4) The great food, which I didn't have to cook. and 5) best of all, hanging out with my new friends. 6) Oh yeah, and I entered the talent show. It was a blast, well, not my performance, but watching and laughing with everyone else.

Foodwise, I've been enjoying simple delicious foods from the garden and co-op. Tonight I had onions, garlic, greens, and herbs from the garden cooked up in the pressure cooker for a couple of minutes, and added my yummy beans, a Tbsp of pine nuts, and a bit of spicy pecan vinegar. It was yummy! I've got lots of greens in the garden--collards, kale and chard, so am eating them every day, cooked or in smoothies. We also have eggplant that I sometimes steam and blend up with a Tbsp seeds, making a sauce to add to the greens. Here's another yummy thing I made this weekend: cabbage salad made with cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli (optional), cherries, grapes, apple, orange, and vinegar (d'angou pear and blood orange). Just throw it all in the food processor using the grater blade. This was soooo good with the cherries and grapes, like dessert! I've also been making smoothies with greens from the garden and yummy berries from the co-op. Add a little vinegar, lime or lemon to cut the bitterness of the greens. A note on the smoothies: I mix collard greens half and half with romaine lettuce. All collards is a bit too strong. I use about 2 oz of collards, 2 oz of romaine and 1/2 lb of fruit per smoothie (though I make a double batch at a time). That's about it right now, just eating lots of greens, beans, nuts&seeds, and fruit.

even a beet hater will like this…

First news of the day…I passed my RD exam or the national examination to become a registered dietitian! It’s been a long road of schooling [7 years!], and it’s nice to have the credential. I feel very blessed from all of the support of my family and great friends.

My mom and I visited the farmers’ market in town for some fresh produce this week. After being spoiled by the expanse known as Soulard in St. Louis, I was still pretty impressed by the offerings of my much smaller hometown. 

Loved the abundance of local produce. Read about the benefits of eating local food here.

We bought some homegrown carrots, which I think are much better than anything you can purchase in a grocery store {definitely not as slimy and gross as baby carrots}.

  

We also bought some raspberries that are amazing. No blueberries because we can pick those ourselves. My mom usually freezes them to be enjoyed all winter long {and then I eat them on my oats whenever I’m home}.

     

I have an extreme dislike for water chestnuts, jicama, and beets. Maybe it’s the texture? Anyway, after seeing the article, “beet recipes even a beet hater can love” in the New York Times (Toby Bilanow), I decided to expand my culinary horizons, using these beets from the farmers’ market.

I chose a recipe by Martha Shulman for risotto with beet green and roasted beets. Anyone who’s ever made risotto before knows it’s basically like babysitting rice. However, the end result is definitely worth the in-between steps.

photo credit: andrew scrivani [mine was much less aesthetically pleasing].

Beets* pack a lot of nutritional punch. Their reddish-pink pigment, called betacyanin has been linked to cancer prevention.

1 cup of boiled beets provides:

• excellent source of the folate, a very good source of manganese and potassium, and a good source of dietary fiber, vitamin C, magnesium, iron, copper, and phosphorus.

1 cup of cooked beet greens provides:

• a good source of protein, folate, pantothenic acid, phosphorus and zinc; a very good source of dietary fiber, vitamin A, C, E, K, thiamin, riboflavin, pyridoxine, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, copper and manganese.
  

So now I’m curious…do you like beets? Any fave preparation methods or recipes? I can’t say I love beets…yet, but they’re growing on me.

Don’t forget to vote for Donate Life America on the right side of the blog! If you don’t see the widget, refresh the page a few times. :-) ------->

what nutrients are in your food?

 

After reading my post about asparagus pesto, Anna asked: “You say that asparagus is an excellent source of vitamin K, folate, vitamin C, vitamin A... etc. Are these for raw or cooked asparagus? I mean, I don't eat raw asparagus (don't know can you even do so??) and it would provide greater information for me to know the actual nutrients in the food I consume. I am not an expert on how well different nutrients keep after cooking -maybe you could tell us?”

Usually, I link to the food profile, so you can verify all this information for yourself. Asparagus and many other vegetables do retain nutrients after cooking…some are even improved after cooking. I like the World’s Healthiest Food website (they use Food Processor, a program we use in the nutrition and food science world a lot, to determine nutrient values). You can read about their food ranking system here.

Another good site is the Nutrition Data website, where you can analyze recipes and enter foods based on preparation (i.e. boiled asparagus).

I’ll try to be more specific about serving sizes and preparation methods in the future. Here is some general information about preserving nutrients in fruit and veggies*:

• Choose local produce, which is picked at the height of its growing season and contains the most nutrients.
• Chopping or slicing into small pieces increases the amount of surface area exposed to the air and allows for greatest nutrient losses.
• Water soluble vitamins (B vitamins, Vit C) are more subject to destruction by heat and light than fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K).
• Refrigerate fresh produce to prevent enzymatic action from degrading nutrients.
• Use a small amount of water when boiling veggies or steam in small quantities.
• Avoid overcooking produce, especially that which contains vitamin C.

*Source: USDA

The nutrition camp I’m helping to run this week has been going pretty well. Anyone who’s ever done any community programming before knows that this sort of thing requires a ton of flexibility and patience.

We took the kids to a local organic garden yesterday, but I didn’t get any photos of it because I was too busy trying to prevent plant trampling and fist fights. Today, the kids got to try new kinds of produce, which they really enjoyed.

    

I think it’s great to expose kids to new kinds of fruit and vegetables, but it really bothered me that the lunches they received as they were leaving were full of Corn Pops cereal, white pb & j without the crust, fruit snacks, and cookies [+ apples & cheese sticks]. Really? How am I supposed to teach kids appropriate nutrition when the government-subsidized lunches are so nutrient poor?!

An afternoon in the 90 degree heat calls for banana blueberry fake froyo. Just blend frozen bananas and blueberries with almond milk and a tablespoon of almond butter for a delish (and dairy free) treat. I like to peel and cut the bananas when they’re overripe before tossing them into the freezer…then I always have frozen bananas ready for smoothies.

Hope everyone is staying cool…the temps = crazy hot. I think we’re going to have a water balloon fight tomorrow! No one really felt like running around for games today. Any tips for tying 100 water balloons in record timing?

1 vegan, one not…

Hope everyone had a great 4th!
In the great state of Michigan, the vegan recipe experimentation goes on. This is Dreena Burton’s (of Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan fame) recipe for black bean, quinoa, and sweet potato spicy croquettes topped with pumpkin chipotle cream. I don’t really know what a croquette is…but it reminds me of a game involving mallets and metal hoops [that I was never too fantastic at].

Anyway, these croquettes represent a good source of protein (click here for info on quinoa, which is a complete protein) and fiber. Pumpkin seeds are a very good source of magnesium, manganese and phosphorus, a good source of iron, copper, protein, and zinc.
This week, I’m helping with a nutrition education day camp in my community…I think it’s safe to say that I’ve had plenty of experience doing this after the school education sessions during the dietetic internship. Hello, 14000 # of lettuce!

We’ll be taking the kids to a garden and farmers’ market and talking about sustainability and the importance of buying local produce. Definitely reminds me of this day, when we prepped countless pounds of salad made from veggies grown in the gardens of local schools. Fortunately, our snack prep will be much…smaller.
 
This recipe isn’t vegan, but it is vegetarian! We had a bunch of apricots and peaches ready to be used, so I adapted this cherry cobbler recipe from 101 Cookbooks.

It’s definitely not super sweet, so I’d highly recommend adding a scoop of your favorite ice cream (milk-based or not). Plus, I just think cobbler calls for ice cream, no? What’s your fave cobbler filling? My first choice is always berries!
  
I have an interview on Friday for a job that I’m really excited about…it’s {pretty much} perfect and involves nutrition, creativity, and communications…we’ll see how it goes.