Orange and cranberry chutney

An essential, whenever you roast a turkey

This post offers one simple but tasty and traditional recipe for cranberry sauce, done up in bows and boasting less sugar and more pizzazz than you get from a can at the grocery store. This is a recipe staple now for our family’s celebrations.

Halloween cooked-carrot and tomato salad

• 

Halloween doesn’t have to be all about candy. Having gained a very bad 15 pounds between March and August in this year of the coronovirus, and now being well on the way to shedding it all again, I wanted to celebrate a sugar-free evening with the ghosts and goblins.

The powers that be have decreed that it’s not safe for children to go door to door this year… and rightly so, with numbers of covid-19 cases soaring in a second scary wave. So we have not bought the usual crazy amount of mini chocolate bars this year.

Instead of candy, I nominate the color orange to be our celebration vehicle for Halloween in our house.

Pumpkins are a bit cliche… so I chose to make a delicious dinner-time dish from the gorgeous, sweet, orange carrots available in the market these days.

The recipe is modified from one I published earlier for a big crowd. The recipe here provides eight servings as a veggie side dish for dinner. It has enough tangy sweetness to make you forget that there is no candy for you to gorge on, after all the little ones stop knocking on your door on October 31st. Happy Halloween!

• 

Halloween cooked-carrot and tomato salad
Makes eight 4-ounce servings

• 1.5 pounds carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
• 0.5 – 1 inch fresh ginger, skin scraped and finely chopped (I like lots)
• 5 ounces tomato sauce (I used roasted red pepper pasta sauce)
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
• 1 tablespoon sesame seed oil (optional)
• 1/4 cup vinegar (preferably apple cider vinegar)
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 8-16 ounces tomatoes, coarsely chopped (I used 2 large ripe tomatoes)
• 1 large green onion, sliced, or a handful of fresh basil leaves, chopped, for garnish (optional)

1. Slice carrots into coins, then cook in slightly salted boiling water until tender yet crisp, about 10 minutes. Drain, then submerge in cold water to cool.
2. Combine tomato sauce, oil, vinegar, ginger, and curry powder in a small sauce pan and simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Add the chopped tomatoes to the carrots and the cooled tomato dressing (sweetened if you wish with 1 tablespoon of my homemade liquid stevia or 1 tablespoon coconut palm sugar). Mix well.
4. Chill until serving time. Garnish with the chopped green onion or the chopped basil leaves. Stays fresh for 3 days in the fridge.

Note: I used pureed tomatoes instead of tomato sauce on one occasion and so I had to add salt and a little coconut palm sugar to taste. Otherwise it was too bitter/sour. There is plenty of dressing, and you may only want to add half of it at first and taste to see if that is enough. I had about a half cup let over the last time I tried this recipe. It’s great as a dressing on any salad.

• 

  Carrots are sweet enough for Halloween treats

Nutrition summary

Total calories per 4-ounce serving is 234. If you go easy on the dressing that pools in the bottom of the bowl, the calories are reduced somewhat.

Carrots are a sweet veggie, containing a significant amount of sugar. So there is no need for additional sugar. But I did use a little stevia sweetener, to take the edge off the vinegar. You might not need any sweetener at all.

One serving contains 6 times the vitamin A and 33% of the fiber, vitamin C, and potassium you need every day. This salad is also a good source of iron, calcium, and even protein, providing about 10% of the recommended daily amounts.

If you are diabetic, know that one serving provides 11 grams of sugar, twice the suggested amount per dish.

This is a delicious tangy side dish that can serve as your starch portion, as well as your veggie, in one single serving. Trick or treat? I hope you find this recipe more on the treat side of the equation. Boo!

“Eat more leaves,” says Pollan

Reviewing Michael Pollan’s book “In Defense of Food”

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Michael Pollan has distilled much of the research  into the Western diet over recent years into this simple formula. It’s that easy to eat well for better health.

Mood-boosting banana and oatmeal cookies

Is your family is feeling a little low what with all this social distancing we are having to endure for the public good these days? Cheer them up with  a batch of hearty banana cookies.  So easy! With just two key ingredients and a few optional add-ons for extra flavor and happiness, these cookies are sure to please your family.

Chocolatey low-sugar brownies

Chill out, everybody!

If you are looking for a low-sugar double-chocolate brownie that your children will devour, look no further. Each moist chocolatey square satisfies with two kinds of chocolate. The squares are sweetened with only 1/4 cup maple syrup and the sugar from the semisweet chocolate chips, plus one secret ingredient. No, it’s not marijuana.

Mini cheesecakes with stevia

Try our homemade liquid stevia solution to make these sweet little cheesecakes and you might become hooked on stevia forever. The cakes are moist, creamy, and flavorful. But most of all, without adding any sugar at all to the cheese filling, they taste sweet and tangy.

Maple glazed sweet potato dish

Sadly, I haven’t had much time of late to devote to my blog. But as Vinny loves sweet potatoes for their healthy goodness, I thought I’d share this simple recipe that I’m serving tonight in honor of our Canadian Thanksgiving…

Your key to using Stevia

Why stevia?

If you love sweets, this natural, no-cal sweetener from the leaf of the stevia plant is incredibly good for you. Unlike sugar, it doesn’t create an insulin response. Whereas sugar damages your pancreas, the organ that regulates blood sugar, stevia’s sterols and antioxidants actually nourish this essential organ.

Banana ice cream desserts two ways

A nutritional bonanza from our friendly banana

This dessert is so good, people call it Nice Cream. The riper the banana, the sweeter the dessert.

Ripe bananas also have higher levels of antioxidants, which as any frequent reader of Vinny’s blog will know, fight chronic disease and inflammation.

One interesting thing about fully ripened bananas is that they also produce a substance called tumor necrosis factor (TNF).  TNF combats abnormal cells to help shrink cancer tumors.  The more dark patches a banana has,

Copper penny cooked carrot salad

Turn carrots into a delicious, make-ahead party salad.

Pot luck party time

“What are you bringing to the pot luck picnic tomorrow, Vinny?”

Vinny looked at his super slim and very athletic friend. “Think I’ll bring a crunchy curried cauliflower salad, Val. It’s easy. I took it to a party on the weekend and it was a hit. I just added curly lettuce leaves and my own cabbage slaw to Farm Boy’s offering and I was done.”

“Crunchy?” asked Val. “Does that mean uncooked?”

“Why, yes,” said Vinny.

“Guess I won’t be eating any, then.” Val smiled.

“Oops, I forgot! You can’t eat uncooked fiber! Sorry!” said Vinny.

“No problem,” said Val. “There will be plenty of other things there I can eat.”

But Vinny loves a challenge and began to think how he could turn his salad into something his friend Val could eat too. Easy, he thought. Cooked carrots. Just peel, slice, and add a  dressing.

Yoda soda summer punch bowl

May the fourth be with you!

Enjoy a replay of a recipe we posted a few years back for a summertime drink that’s as good for you as it tastes. Fresh lime juice gives this cooler its Yoda color, and sparkling water adds the bubbles. For a gourmet touch, add some lime sorbet.

Click here for the recipe.

Celebrate Pi day with this easy chocolate cake — only 3.14-ingredients

A cake suitable for Pi day, photo by Tip Junkie

The story behind Pi day

Normally, I’d choose a pie to celebrate the math constant π (Pi = 3.14159…) on its special day, which is coming upon us soon. Scientists the world over will likely be tucking into a delicious slice of one, perhaps a banana cream or pecan pie,

Whipped goat cream, a tart cheese treat

Whipped goat cream

Once upon a time I came across a recipe that called for whipped goat cheese. So I took my basket and headed to the grocery store, where I eventually found a small tub of the stuff at three times the cost of regular, ordinary, every-day goat cheese.

When I finally had a minute to spare I sat down and examined the label. The ingredients were goat cheese and water… and a few chemicals. It seemed I’d bought a processed food fortified with who knows what. And I thought: why can’t I make that myself – and leave out the chemicals?

Candied nuts love coconut palm sugar

Crunchy sweet nuts are great for dressing up salads, cheese platters, and desserts at Christmas and for other special occasions. Plus, they’re easy!

Kids love to make them. Make lots and keep them on hand to use whenever you want some pizzazz.

The berry scary pie

“That’s scary!” Isla declared, her wide eyes shifting from the cooking pot to the finished product. I knew Halloween had been on her mind, now only a couple of weeks away.

“How so?” I asked.

Help Mr. Pancreas do his job – try low-sugar cookie-candy

Nuts and fruit slow down the release of glucose into the blood.

Sugar’s role in our health

Sugar is Will’s favorite food group.

“Maybe you can cut back on the sugary things, once in a while,” Vinny suggests.

“Sugar is in everything!” Will proclaims. “It gives us energy!”

“That’s true,” Vinny agrees. “What I don’t like, though, is when we add sugar to our food, over and above what nature puts there. Have you heard about your pancreas?”

Fuhrman’s 10 worst foods

Added refined sugar makes these treats a no-no for best health

Last time, I introduced you to Dr. Joel Fuhrman and his list of 10 best foods for battling the effects of old age. Now I’m going to show you his list at the other end – Fuhrman’s 10 worst foods… foods that can lead you to an early grave.

Roasted cipollini onions – Sweep!

 

The side dishes

Pierogis and cipollini onions won the draw to complement the main course of our Frozen in Ottawa dinner theme. But why this pair?

Gut wars! Arm yourself with yogurt and prosper

Yogurt, yogurt everywhere!

 En garde!

Trillions of bacteria live happily in our gut. The goodies among them help us digest our food and absorb its nutrients. They also help our body make vitamins, absorb minerals, and get rid of  toxins. They make our immune system strong. And best of all, they work on our brain cells to help them battle anxiety, stress, and depression. Friendly bugs in our gut make up the army that protects us from disease, including mental illness.

Good bacteria, called probiotics, come to us in fermented foods. Buttermilk, pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, sour dough bread, raw-milk cheeses and kefir all harbor the good guys. For many, though, probiotics march forth  into our gut in yogurt.

Vinny’s brownie malfunction 😲

Sugary cocoa brownies are my favorite!

The good

Kids love brownies. And I have the perfect recipe that kids and their families can make from scratch.

It’s easy to bake with chocolate when you use cocoa!

A cake cup for Krista – Chocolate rules!

The candles spluttered out in a blast of air, as 9-year-old Krista blew across her birthday cake and made a wish.

“What did you wish for?” asked Vinny. “A unicorn for the backyard shed? A chest of gold Lego?”

“No… and no,” said Krista. “I wished I was skinny!”

“What? No!” Vinny was aghast.

Crown the meal with some savory fruit taquitos

Sweet!

If apples were pears
And peaches were plums
And chevre had a different name
If sugar was  ne’er
And cognac was rum
I’d love you just the same

Here it is, folks… a fabulous dessert filled with protein, vitamins and minerals and topped off with great taste… the finale of our Mediterranean small plates evening. It’s surprisingly easy, too.

I made the little rolls a couple of days ahead and froze them on a baking sheet. On party day, they went straight from the freezer into my preheated oven at dessert time, and in a few minutes they were ready to plate.

The Night Circus: Black-and-white torte with raspberries at centre ring

The clock chimes 4 a.m. at the Night Circus. Her bonfire burns strong, fed by Marco’s book of charms.

“What’s black and white with red in the middle?” Vinny asks.  “Give up? It’s the cake I made for my book club, when Erin Morgenstern’s novel “The Night Circus” was up for discussion.

On the surface, Morgenstern gives us an enchanting love story about magic. The circus, open only at night, shimmers in black and white. It is the venue for a desperate competition, as two wizards older than time pit themselves against one another through their best students. The light and the dark signify their two opposing ways of manipulating reality. Which will win out, Vinny wonders.

Mood Foods

Christmas bread smells like good times

Study Guide for Cook Up A Story

CHAPTER 6

This is the last in my series on study guides for the print version of Cook Up A Story. Chapter 6 is about how our moods affect our food choices. We’re wired that way. The part of the brain that stores memory and feelings detects smells, too.

Our last story, Melting Moments, shows how cheery memories are braided together with smells, sounds and tastes. That’s why when we’re blue, we crave foods that remind us of good times. When a small boy finds himself missing his grandmother at Christmas, he takes comfort in his family and its holiday traditions.

Guilt-free advent ideas for kids of all ages

English mansion

News flash – Vinny celebrates his third anniversary on WordPress today!

—————————————————

It’s December! Many people start counting down the days to Christmas with an advent calendar. Each day comes with a thought, a scene, and/or a chocolate candy that brings us closer to the real meaning of the holiday.

Super moist banana bread with coconut palm sugar

Turn waste into want with moist banana bread

Waste not want not

“Yes, we have no bananas…,” Vinny said to his  friend Will, who turned up the other day wanting some of his favorite fruit. “We have bananas, but you won’t want to eat them,” Vinny explained, showing Will the goods. The black, squishy fruits resembled bananas only in shape.

Sweet potato makes flaky scones a snap

Flaky, moist and healthy eating.

The sugar quandry

In my last post I came down pretty hard on refined white flour.  I was referring to the silky white wheat flour that bakers love to use in cakes and cookies. That’s because upon contact with the acid in our stomachs, refined flour breaks down quickly into the sugar our body uses for energy.

What’s more, refined flour likes to hang out in baked foods with ordinary sugar. Thanks to refined flour plus added sugar, our favorite cakes, cookies and biscuits deliver sugar to our blood stream in double doses.

Wheat and the Glycemic Index… Loaded question!

The glycemic load might be a better guide to healthy eating than the glycemic index

What should we believe? The Internet bombards us with so many facts, ideas, opinions and outright lies, it’s hard to make out the signal from the noise.

Dr. Davis in his book Wheat Belly makes a lot of noise about wheat. He calls it a blight and a poison and says no-one should eat it, not just the 6% of us who are gluten intolerant. But many of his statements are misleading.

The 17-day diet, starring Dr. Mike Morano

A doctor’s plan for rapid weight loss
Sharon talks to Vinny about her adventures with the 17-day diet

Vinny: How fast can you lose weight on this diet plan?

Sharon: Ok. Right off the bat my radar goes up. Anybody knows you can’t expect to lose weight fast… and keep it off. But Mike says, yes you can! He promises results that last. It’s right there on the front cover.

When I crack the book open, his first words to me are, “Just give me 17 days.”

Vinny: How is this plan any different from all the other pitches out there?

Help, I’m Drowning in Sugar!

Sculpture by Salvador Dali, Dali Museum-Theatre, Figueres, Spain. Photo by me!

If, like me, you’ve found yourself drowning in a tsunami of baked goodies this holiday season, perhaps you’ll want to make a New Year’s resolution.

Repeat with  me: In 2013,  I promise to choose fruit instead of baked sweets for treats, snacks, and dessert.

Angels we have heard on high

Tell us to go out and buy!

So says Tom Lehrer, mathematician, teacher, lyricist, pianist, composer, singer/songwriter and all round great guy. He wasn’t much impressed with the consumerism that Christmas often embodies. His little holiday ditty from the 1960s is just as relevant today as it was when he penned it:

Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly.
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don’t say when.

This year we’re trying to fill our cups and plates, not with folly, but with great-tasting foods that feed our bodies and minds with goodness. Our host of angels are made from

Shape Up with holiday cookies

Our Christmas-shapes inventory is pathetically low.

The problem

“Those aren’t Christmas cookies, Vinny,” says Isla. She’s looking at a new batch of Melting Moments fresh from the oven, each decorated with a jewel of raspberry jam (no sugar added) and crowned with flakes of real gold.

“Of course they are,” I say. “I make these every Christmas. Ergo, they are Christmas cookies. Delicious!”

“But, Vinny! Christmas cookies gotta have shapes! They gotta look like candy canes or Christmas trees!”

Count Down to Christmas, Sugar Free!

 

Here we are, boys and girls, December First! It’s that magical time of the year when we start celebrating all things family, beginning with that special couple 2000 years ago who  rejoiced together  in a stable over the birth of their new-born son.

One fun tradition of the season is the Advent Calendar. Kids everywhere will be

The Queen’s Beets – Let Them Eat Cake

“Woe is me!” sighs Marie.

How Queen Marie learns to dance

Marie Antoinette found herself  bored silly. She had everything she wanted. If she clapped once, her servant would come with a tray full of chocolate cake. Twice got her steaming mugs of cocoa and cream. Three times and she went mad over baskets of truffles and éclairs. But she wasn’t happy.

Skinny Brownies with Three Kinds of Chocolate

Happy occasions demand chocolate!

A very chocolaty recipe jumped right onto my screen just after Halloween, from Chew Out Loud.

Vinny, however, found this recipe a tad high on sugar (2 1/2 cups). So we experimented with stevia in place of sugar.

Bananas make great skinny monkey cookies

Not only monkeys eat bananas… kids like them too

Sesame Street’s guest star Harry Belafonte sings beautifully about bananas: Come, Mr. Tally Man, Tally Me Bananas, he goes.

“Um, Excuse me… Sorry. Mr. Tally Man?” asks Fozzie Bear. “Uh, what’s that? What’s a tally man?”

The singer tells his muppet pals the tally man is a very important person. Without him, people in northern countries would have no bananas.

“Daaaaay yo! No bananas?” Vinny asks. “What would kids ever do without bananas?”

Apples and a Misty-Moisty Cake

An apple a day keeps the doctor away

This little rhyme is one of the first things kids learn about healthy eating. One of baby’s first solid foods is apple sauce. And as kids grow, they often choose apples as a favorite snack. But are apples really so good for us?

Stevia sweetens sand-dollar cookies

Make us some sand dollars, please Vinny?

“If I owned this cottage, I would never go home,” Will proclaims. We were packing up after three weeks at a glorious lake house, and it was hard to say goodbye.

A favorite activity there was playing on the beach. Will got Bank Street and Isla hung out on Alta Vista, one rock over, building shark pools, irrigation systems, and frog forts. Builders had to keep one eye open in case wily Billy, the water snake, popped in for a visit… but for the most part we were left alone.

We did work up an appetite though. “Have you got any cookies for us today, Vinny?” Isla asks.

Avoid sugar and artificial sweeteners by switching to stevia

In a land neither near nor far, there lives  a magical sweetener, named Stevia. It comes from a plant that is a cousin of Chrysanthemum and sister of Sunflower. But it is incredibly sweet. The truth is Stevia is 300 times sweeter than her ugly stepmother, Sugar. Better yet, Stevia is sweet without any added calories. And best of all, Stevia is so much kinder than any of her catty artificial friends, who promise the same calorie-free hit but deliver nothing but trouble. I’m referring of course to the chemical sweeteners Splenda, Aspartame, Saccharine, Sucralose, and Acesulfame.

Nutella: Easy home-made spread made from hazelnuts

Our elf Hazel is deeply wise.
Love her and she’ll quench your thirst for knowledge.
Then, she’ll bless you with a silver tongue,
for teaching others what you’ve learned.

So it is said. But is there any truth behind the power of Elf Hazel? What we know for sure: Hazel harnesses the strength of her namesake, the hazelnut. Like some other nuts and seeds, hazelnuts  feed the brain. Hazelnuts  are one of the most concentrated sources of vitamin E available, and vitamin E is associated with less age-related cognitive decline.

Christmas advent fun can be had, without chocolate!

London Tower helps bring Christmas closer

Only 10 more sleeps until we turn the calendar on a new month – December. Then the fun begins! Many people start counting down the days to Christmas with an advent calendar. Each day comes with

Pickled Pink! Eggs Make a Great Snack

Pink up your pickled eggs for even more pizzaz!

Like pickles? Then maybe this easy recipe from Auntie Marlene will tickle your taste buds. Pickled eggs make a healthy snack, whenever hunger fangs sink their teeth into you and dinnertime isn’t anywhere in sight.

Maple syrup magic

The sugar shack: Maple goodness is best in small packages! Story source: click my photo

If you really need to have a sweetener, choose maple syrup. It’s good! And now there is some proof that it might also be good for you.

Diet Soda: Cause for Concern?

Danger!

Too much sugar’s bad for us, but sugar-free soda could be even worse. It’s not proof positive, but new research raises concern about diet soda.  Studies find higher risks for stroke and heart attack among people who drink sugar-free soda every day versus those who drink no soda at all.

The findings should be “a wakeup call to pay attention to diet sodas,”

Sugar – get the picture?

OK, kids. If you want a good picture of just how much sugar you are eating when you chow down on your favorite foods, have a look at this link. And while you’re looking remember this: We should have no more than 5 or six teaspoons of sugar (five or six cubes) at each meal. Are you getting too much of a good thing? Thanks to Barb Cooper for forwarding this information to me 🙂

It’s not always as easy as pie…

Sugar bombs!

Just when you think you know what things are good for you to eat, someone throws you a hot potato.

An advent calendar that’s more fun than chocolate

Braided bread at Christmas

Only five more sleeps till Christmas! And today I clicked the button for the 20th of December and watched my pal Chudleigh (a friendly black Lab) make a new friend.

My advent calendar this year is a little English Internet village… which gets more and more lively the closer we get to Christmas.