Real Food for Life

Posts Tagged ‘healthy recipes’

Lentil soup has all the benefits of lentils (see article) plus much more.  And by the way, it tastes great.

Ingredients:
1 large Onion, chopped
3-6 garlic cloves, chopped
2 pieces celery, chopped
2 tsp vegetable oil
1 cup green whole lentils, cooked with water cooked in.
1 piece Kombu*
2 carrots, diced
2 cups fresh (or tinned tomatoes but fresh is best)**
3-5 tsp salt
1 tsp each of thyme and basil
3 tsp marjoram
Fresh parsley

Directions:
1.    Sauté onion, garlic and celery in oil.
2.    Add remaining ingredients.
3.    Simmer for one hour, adding more water if necessary.
4.    Remove Kombu and chop; return to soup.
5.    Serve in bowls garnished sprigs of fresh parsley.

* Kombu makes beans more digestable but you could easily leave it out.

** Uusally I do not make this soup with tomatoes any more which makes it into a stew.

Copyright © Diana Herrington  You are welcome to share this article with anyone who you think may benefit from this information as long as you give credit to Real Food for Life by including the link to the home page www.RealFoodforLife.com  or the direct link to this post.

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This is my favorite soup which I developed over a year a few years ago.  Every time I make it for friends they just love it and so do I!

KABOCHA SQUASH SOUP

Ingredients:
1 medium Kabocha* squash
1 large onion or two small onions
2 large leaves of Kale
4 to 6 cups water
2 inch piece of fresh ginger
½ tsp Cinnamon, cardamom, coriander,
1 tsp turmeric
5 drops of Sunny Dew (light Stevia)
Vege salt & pepper to taste

Directions:
1.    Cut squash in half then scoop out the seeds, then cut the squash into eight pieces.
2.    Chop onion and ginger
3.    Put squash, onions and ginger into a steamer and cook till squash is soft, remove it and let cool.
4.    Steam chopped Kale till tender, a few minutes.
5.    Sauté spices in sesame oil or coconut oil for a couple of minutes.
6.    Separate the squash flesh from the skin. Put the cooked squash in a large bowl or pot.
7.    Add 3 cups water from water used to steam the squash, stir in onion and ginger.
8.    Run the squash and onion mixture through a blender, portion by portion, until you've blended it all or use a hand blender and blend it right in the soup pot which is what I do but do be careful as it can splatter ever where.
9.    Put the blended mixture into a soup pot, adding the broth created from the steamer to make the consistency you like.
10.    Add cooked kale, spices, salt and pepper to taste.
11.    Serve with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream which can be a vegan one which is what I use.

* You may use butternut or any dark orang squash.

Note!  We did not have a personal picture of this soup so used a stock photo. Imagine that the bread is healthy rice bread!

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Copyright © Diana Herrington  You are welcome to share this article with anyone who you think may benefit from this information as long as you give credit to Real Food for Life by including the link to the home page www.RealFoodforLife.com  or the direct link to this post.

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This special occassion vegetarian dinner is easy to prepare and a balanced meal in terms of acid/alkaline and food combining.  The most time consuming is the nut loaf but it is so delicious that it is worth it and does not take as much time as cooking a turkey.  Also, it is full of protein from all of the nuts and seeds…even my non-vegetarian friends and family like it.

NUT LOAF

Ingredients:
½ cup cashews
½ cup almonds
10 almonds for decoration
2/3 cup sunflower seeds
1/3 cup pumpkin seeds
½ cup walnuts (chopped)
1 cup short grain brown rice
1/3 cup soya flour
4-6 tbsp soya sauce
1 onion
2 pieces of celery
¼ cup water
2 tsp basil
2 tsp. marjoram
2 tbsp flax meal

Directions:
1.    Lightly roast cashews, almonds, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds in the oven.
2.    Chop and sauté onion and celery.
3.    Chop all the nuts and seeds.
4.    Mix all the ingredients together and moistening with water.
5.    Pat mixture into a well-oiled bread tin.
6.    Decorate top with 10 almonds and line bottom of tin with grease proof paper.
7.    Bake at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes.
Serve with mushroom or onion gravy.
   
Usually the problem with cranberry sauce is that it is full of sugar. Here is my version of the popular Cranberry Sauce without any sugar which is no easy thing when is comes to cranberries as they are so tart.

CRANBERRY SAUCE (sugar free)

Ingredients:
1 Package whole, organic cranberries (fresh, not frozen)
1 Organic Apple, cored and chopped
1 Cup Apple juice
1/4 Cup Organic, Brown Rice Syrup
1 tsp Stevia (Sunny Dew is best)
Pinch of salt

Directions:
1.    Put all ingredients into a sauce pan and let simmer for a few moments.
2.    Remove and let cool.
3.    Taste and add more Stevia or Brown Rice Syrup if you like it sweeter.

Nutritional Tips: Cranberries are high in vitamin C, and have antioxidant and antibacterial effects in the body.

In clinical studies cranberries have been shown to help maintain a healthy urinary tract and be especially beneficial to the eyes (significantly improve symptoms of cataracts, macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy)

ASPARAGUS WITH LEMON JUICE

Ingredients:
1 pound asparagus, washed, trimmed, and cut diagonally into 2 inch lengths
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 lemon juiced
Dash of Spike seasoning

Directions:
1.    In a large frying pan over low heat, heat the olive oil
2.    Add Asparagus and cover and cook for 5 minutes.
3.    Add Spike and stir cook an additional 1 minute.
4.    Add lemon juice stir well and serve.

Nutritional Tips: Asparagus is full of nutrients!  It is a very good source of vitamin K, the B vitamin folate, vitamin C, vitamin A and also numerous B vitamins (B1, B2, B3 and B6) as well manganese, copper, phosphorus, potassium and protein.

 
Here is a simple dish to make and have in the oven at the same time as your nut loaf.
 BAKED SQUASH WITH VEGETABLES

Ingredients:
1 medium squash
2 sweet potatoes
2 medium carrots
2 parsnips
10 very small onions
3 – 7 cloves garlic, sliced (optional)
1 tsp rosemary
3 tbsp. vegetable oil or butter
Salt to taste

Directions:
1.    Cut carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes and squash into 2 inch pieces.
2.    Remove skins from onions and leave whole.
3.    Place all vegetables into a glass casserole dish.
4.    Mix in sliced garlic, rosemary, vegetable oil, and sprinkle with salt.
5.    Bake in 450º F. oven for 35 to 45 minutes till tender.
6.    Stir occasionally while baking.

Copyright © Diana Herrington  You are welcome to share this article with anyone who you think may benefit from this information as long as you give credit to Real Food for Life by including the link to the home page www.RealFoodforLife.com  or the direct link to this post.

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I feel like a master chef!  

I've created more new dishes from my kitchen in the last few days than in the last few years.  I'm the 'test cooker' for Diana's new recipe book filled with Powerfoods.  That means I get an advance copy and see if I can easily follow all the directions and come up with great tasting meals.

The key words here are easy and practical. I've done my own cooking for a long time but I don't tend to use cookbooks because they are so fussy and particular. I find that I can go to all kinds of work getting the ingredients for just a single recipe and not use it a lot, therefore wasting the ingredients and my time. Because of this, I end up eating a limited set of meals I know I can make well and fast.  It HAS to be simple, easy and useful.

It's great therefore to learn new possibilities and master new skills – and that is what this book was intended to do.  It gives a new person starting into a healthy way of eating the basic knowledge and skills to get on a healthy diet. One that was easy to prepare. 

Diana has carefully planned out every possible meal for more than two weeks.  It includes a shopping list of easily available food items that will be used several times thought the program, special getting ready sessions that allow a person to prepare several aspects of the weekly routine ahead of time,  and then the actual recipes themselves with plenty of nutritional and cooking tips included.

The reason I like this book and think it would be great for others is:

• Gives a new person an easy simple start to eating and cooking healthfully – so they don't get discouraged or overcome.

• Shopping lists filled with Powerfoods can be bought almost exclusively at the local grocery store so that a person is not spending a lot of time buying unknown (read weird) stuff that they are not sure of.

• Many of the meals are simple meals that a person has already experienced or heard about. They are included because they are already in a healthy category or they have been slightly adjusted to make them more healthy

• Carefully planned out the meals for maximum efficiency have been created by Diana. For example she plans you to make extra rice for your evening meal because she has a menu that uses that rice for the next day's salad or a dessert. This kind of efficiently saves both TIME and MONEY.

• Book is filled with nutrition tips and preparation tips.

• The meals taste great. Do I need to say more?

• Once a person has mastered these meals – there will be more advanced planners to keep it all interesting and more refining in terms of balancing the body.

Using this cookbook has even made my daughter more polite!  My just-past-teenage daughter Asha usually kind of ignores or avoids my cooking whenever she can.

Just last night for example I had asked her if she wanted to eat with me but she said she was in too much of a hurry and was going to eat with her friends.  As soon as she tasted the peanut sauce  I had just prepared from the book though, suddenly she had lots of time to hang around the stove and dip steamed vegetables into the sauce with her fingers … and eat up a large portion of my meal!  This kind of thing has happened several times since I started on the book. I'm sure she was just being polite. The only other explanation would be that these meals actually TASTE better than my own regular fantastic meals …..but that is impossible of course. Yes it's most certain that her personality has changed.  It's amazing

The only problem with being the 'test cooker'  is that I am no longer  the 'test taster' for these meals which I used to be.  Diana would cook the meals herself and I got to feast with the only requirement that I give her feedback.  That was one of the better jobs in my life!   Oh Well…..I look forward to the next book – the one with the more advanced recipes – with a little more gourmet quality integrated in – and more tasting!  I'm also looking forward to the rest of THIS book – since Diana only gave me the first week.

This nutrition/recipe book is not yet available but will be soon.   We will let you know.

Feel free to share this information with anyone who you feel may benefit from it.

P.S.  Those of you who know me (Randy) know that the picture is a joke.  I'm not that scary!

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