Healthy Eating Recipes

[xoxo]

Mark Bittman is awesome. I read his blog and it's wonderful. (Recipes, Food and Cooking by Mark Bittman - Bitten Blog - NYTimes.com)

I want How to Cook Everything

Amazon.com: How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition), Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food (9780764578656): Mark Bittman: Books

Amazon.com: How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition), Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food (9780764578656): Mark Bittman: Books
Amazon.com: How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition), Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food (9780764578656): Mark Bittman: Books

he has a vegetarian version of this book out too, for even healthier eating:

Amazon.com: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food (9780764524837): Mark Bittman, Alan Witschonke: Books

Amazon.com: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food (9780764524837): Mark Bittman, Alan Witschonke: Books
Amazon.com: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food (9780764524837): Mark Bittman, Alan Witschonke: Books

[rahma]

I have how to cook everything, but alas, one cannot find everything in it. No liver recipes that I could find, nor a recipe for tortillas When I search in the google index, a few liver recipes pop up, but none of them are listed under liver. Instead, I'd have to know that I should look up deviled liver. Um yeah.

But, the pita recipe is quite good.

[xoxo]

i think that some ppl view liver as more of an "ethnic" type of food that certain cuisines enjoy more commonly than others...jewish, asian, some european and south american cultures etc. and a lot of folks out here just don't like it...it's rare to even see chopped liver or pate as an appetizer at most restaurants these days, but that could be b/c of an increased awareness about the production of foie gras and animal rights etc.

i always figured it wasn't a very american sort of food...except for in the south/west I guess, where any part of the animal pretty much goes!

speaking of offal...i roasted a chicken last night and had to remove its innards myself manually...seeing them made me reconsider vegetarianism once more...

[Variable]

Here's a good breakfast I made...



eggs made with:

kale
red peppers
garlic
cheese

on a pita with purple cabbage, humus and squeezed lime.

(and fresh ground pepper)



Oatmeal:

Pumpkin, sunflower, cashews, almonds, raisins and hemp hearts.


It's low in sodium and pretty low in fat and cholesterol.

[hijabihoodlum]

Variable said

Here's a good breakfast I made...


eggs made with:

kale

eggs with kale! ? how was it? did you just chop the kale up fine from raw and cook it in? or did you cook/saute the kale first before the eggs?

[Caramel_Candy]

thats a huge breakfast. i love it.

[xoxo]

good stuff, Variable. very creative!

a tip I wanted to throw out there that's helped us to eat better especially during winter, when you crave comfort foods that can be somewhat unhealthy...eat a small salad or have a cup of soup (or both) before you eat lunch and dinner, especially if you're really hungry. this way you'll fill up on healthier stuff and not OD on huge portions during your meal.

For a salad we just have romaine, cucumbers, and tomatoes w/ a little bit of homemade ranch dressing, and for soup I just throw together some vermicelli noodles in chicken broth with frozen mixed vegetables simmered for about 3 minutes or so. we also get our daily veggies fix this way!

[IrishMuslimah]

mmm breakfast.....nom nom nom.

I havent eaten yet and im hungry!

[salmasays2]

where do you buy hemp hearts? i didn't know what they were so i googled them, they look like something I should be eating lol.

Variable said

Here's a good breakfast I made...



eggs made with:

kale
red peppers
garlic
cheese

on a pita with purple cabbage, humus and squeezed lime.

(and fresh ground pepper)



Oatmeal:

Pumpkin, sunflower, cashews, almonds, raisins and hemp hearts.


It's low in sodium and pretty low in fat and cholesterol.

[Variable]

hijabihoodlum said

eggs with kale! ? how was it? did you just chop the kale up fine from raw and cook it in? or did you cook/saute the kale first before the eggs?

*edit - the short answer is: I put the veggies in raw and cook it all together.

It's basically an omelette with a ridiculous egg to kale ratio. I have this mug that I put 2 eggs into, then chop everything up and fill it right to the top (mostly with kale). Then when you dump it onto the pan, it kind of comes out like this lump of greens, but the egg immediately runs down over it and soaks it all, finally flattening out in the bottom. I spread all the veggies out with my flipper, and press them down a bit. Then I grate the cheese on top, and fold it over on itself, and the cheese helps glue it all together.

So in the end it kind of ends up being partly sauteed, partly steamed kale kind of.

xoxo said

good stuff, Variable. very creative!

a tip I wanted to throw out there that's helped us to eat better especially during winter, when you crave comfort foods that can be somewhat unhealthy...eat a small salad or have a cup of soup (or both) before you eat lunch and dinner, especially if you're really hungry. this way you'll fill up on healthier stuff and not OD on huge portions during your meal.

Ugh soup... i need to make some sweet potato soup and I keep forgetting. One thing I always wanted to know... soup is supposed to be really good because you're eating all the captured nutrients that were leeched out of the veggies during cooking. But are those nutrients affected by the heat at all? Or are they still good for the most part?

salmasays2 said

where do you buy hemp hearts? i didn't know what they were so i googled them, they look like something I should be eating lol.

You can usually buy them at trendy health-food grocery stores that yuppies shop at. It's best if you can find them in bulk. But if you check out any place that fancies itself to be a 'whole' or 'health' or 'natural' food store, i'm sure if they don't have any, they could point you in the direction of somewhere that does. I haven't been able to find any in major grocery stores, but truth be told, i haven't looked very hard.

[xoxo]

Variable said

One thing I always wanted to know... soup is supposed to be really good because you're eating all the captured nutrients that were leeched out of the veggies during cooking. But are those nutrients affected by the heat at all? Or are they still good for the most part?

It really depends. I've read that some nutrients will inevitably be lost by applying heat, while others supposedly become more "available" to us when the cell walls of the vegetables break down once they're cooked a little. Also, it can be harder to digest some vegetables when they're eaten raw so that's something to consider (you don't want to be gassy all day as a result of eating raw bell pepper or broccoli, etc). Obviously it's better to have some cooked veggies vs. little or no raw veggies, so I guess that as long as you get em in somehow (and try to avoid cooking them until they're mush), you should be fine

[afrakabob]

xoxo said

for soup I just throw together some vermicelli noodles in chicken broth with frozen mixed vegetables simmered for about 3 minutes or so. we also get our daily veggies fix this way!

time for 20 questions! is that the order in which you do it? cook the noodles in the chicken broth, and then add the frozen veggies at the end? do you just use like, a stir fry mix or is there a specific kind of mixed veggies that works best in soups?
and.... what proportions of everything do you use? do you dilute the broth with water or something?

i've never made soup before and i'd love to try . i hate buying the canned stuff, i spend the entire meal thinking about how much sodium im ingesting, and wondering what random chemicals have leached into my soup from the inner lining of the can

[xoxo]

afrakabob said

time for 20 questions! is that the order in which you do it? cook the noodles in the chicken broth, and then add the frozen veggies at the end? do you just use like, a stir fry mix or is there a specific kind of mixed veggies that works best in soups?
and.... what proportions of everything do you use? do you dilute the broth with water or something?

i've never made soup before and i'd love to try . i hate buying the canned stuff, i spend the entire meal thinking about how much sodium im ingesting, and wondering what random chemicals have leached into my soup from the inner lining of the can

Yeah, canned soup is compared to homemade stuff.

Take some chicken broth, about 4 cups...no need to dilute it because you want the full flavor of it since it's already seasoned. I bring it up to just a boil, then add in about 1/2 cup of uncooked vermicelli noodles (but you can use any small variety of pasta, like orzo or pastina). I find that using the Middle Eastern type of vermicelli works better than the Desi variety because our variety is usually cut much, much thinner and toasted, which doesn't work well in soups, only in sheer korma

I let that cook for a couple of minutes until the noodles soften, and then I add in about 3/4 cup of frozen mixed vegetables...the mix I use is Trader Joe's "Organic Foursome" which has sweet peas, sweet corn, green beans, and julienned carrots in it...but you can use anything which has small, quick-cooking veggies in it, or even add in chopped fresh veggies if you have them on hand. Let that come back up to a boil and in 4 minutes, the soup is done. You can always adjust the seasoning at this point, add more salt/pepper etc. if you like.

[afrakabob]

that sounds simple and delicious. i think i'll try it one of these days. thanks xoxoxoxo

[onetspvanilla]

my fav winter soup is chicken noodle (with the yolk free egg noodles). the deliciousness is in the broth though.. toss a cut up chicken in a stock pot with some crushed garlic, whole peppercorns, sliced carrots, onions and celery, and bring to a boil and then cover with a lid, allowing a letting steam to go through. take out the chicken after an hour or so, take some forks and shred the meat and then put the bones back and let it simmer with the lid uncovered just a bit for another 1-2 hours. then strain and toss the bones/whatever else and it is seriously the best chicken broth everrrr. to that i just add the egg noodles for a couple of minutes, some of the chicken, diced carrots and onions, and maybe some chopped parsley and season with salt/pepper. if you want more of a thicker soup you can slowly add in some flour mixed with water to the pot, but we prefer the brothier version.