I went back to researching fats and oils recently and came across an excellent chart for choosing the best oils for good health. But sadly, it omitted avocado oil, one of my favorites. So I did a little digging around to learn more about avocados.
Turns out avocado oil has many amazing qualities. First off, it has a fat profile almost identical to olive oil. As olive oil is generally considered one of the healthiest fats you can use, that means ditto for avocado oil. Check out all that avocados can do for you below.
While looking around, I found two interesting recipes featuring avocados and tweaked them both to my liking. The first one appears here. It’s my avocado and lime spread. It’s easy and can be made up to 4 or 5 days ahead. Store it in the fridge under plastic wrap pressed onto the surface to prevent exposure to air.
As my previous post has pointed out, we can never have too many beets for good health. And the leaves of beets are just as magical as the rosy roots. Because beets contain a compound that oxygenates the blood, they can improve athletic performance and keep our little gray cells working in top order. These properties become even more important as we age. In fact, beets are probably the best food we can eat to help ward off the onset of Alzheimer’s and other age-related brain disorders. It’s never too early to incorporate new and healthy foods to our diets. I hope you and your family will try these easy recipes.
Being a student of nutrition, I was intrigued by a recent give-away in our Buy Nothing neighborhood Facebook group. A member was offering a book with the intimidating title, “The Ultra-Metabolism Cookbook.” I have discovered over several years of trying to encourage families to forego processed foods in favor of healthy meals that people are hooked on the foods they grew up loving. It takes a LOT to get them to consider changes. I wondered whether this recipe book could make a good stab at getting people to consider a regular infusion of fruits, veggies, and good quality protein and carbs.
The seven keys to making your metabolism function well, according to this doctor, Mark Hyman, are
controlling appetite
lowering stress
reducing inflammation
preventing damage from oxygen, AKA keeping your cells from rusting from the inside out
burning calories
strengthening thyroid fuction
helping the liver do its intended job
But people won’t care about any of that if the food doesn’t taste good, if the ingredients are unfamiliar, and, especially these days, if food prep takes too long.
Hyman takes care of food prep hangups by posting tricks to make shopping, preparing and cooking meals easier. Healthier eating does mean forming new habits and, perhaps, making more of an effort in the kitchen than you are used to. You WILL have to make some changes. But the results for you and your family are worth it.
Hyman’s recipes look easy and they contain foods that promise to deliver on the good doctor’s seven keys to a healthy metabolism. In no time you will feel less stress, maintain a healthier weight, and find more energy. Best yet, a more efficient immune system can help you better fight off those nasty viruses that are making life miserable for most of us these days.
To test things out, I chose a tantalizing recipe for carrot ginger soup. It is made with lots of spices, herbs and foods that derive from nuts and seeds. All these things are chock full of healthiness. You can easily make this dish vegetarian and dairy free, if that’s your thing. I can attest to it being super delicious!
Carrot Ginger soup
Makes 4 large bowls for lunch or 8 small cups for appetisers. Can easily be doubled and frozen for another time.
1 tablespoon sesame seed oil
1 medium onion, peeled and diced (about 1/2 cup)
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, scrubbed and minced
1 pound carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
1 medium clove of garlic, peeled and minced (about 1 teaspoon)
3 cups low sodium chicken or vegetable broth (I use our home-made bone broth)
1/3 cup cream (or canned unsweetened coconut milk)
Prepare the above ingredients, all washed, cleaned, chopped, and measured
Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed large pot, over medium heat
Add the onion and ginger and cook for 3 minutes, until the onion is translucent
Add the carrot coins and cook for 2 minutes
Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute
Add the broth, cream and salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and boil gently for 25 minutes, until the carrots are tender. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly
Using an emersion hand blender, puree the soup until it is smooth and creamy
Add the lime juice and chili paste and adjust the seasonings. You may need more salt and more broth to achieve your desired consistency
Serve the soup in bowls or cups and garnish with the chopped cilantro and green onion. I didn’t have these on hand, so I used fresh dill and basil from my kitchen window.
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. More
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, More
I enjoyed participating in a few holiday craft sales this year, showing off my book Cook Up A Story. I met many wonderful people who bought up most of my stock and all of my aprons and chef hats.
I only have a few copies left. In Canadian dollars I can offer a better price than that at the Blurb Book store, which quotes American dollars. Because of the current exchange rate, Canadian prices are lower than those quoted on Blurb Bookstore on-line. And conversely prices are 33% lower yet if you are paying in US dollars. As of Dec 17, I’m down to my last three copies:More
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. More
Vinny has been remiss! That means he’s made a big mistake, has been careless, or both. For although he has featured tomatoes in many posts, especially those where he is extolling the virtues of a bunch of super foods, he’s never devoted a post solely to these delicious vegetables… er, fruits, actually. More
Vinny’s been updating older posts recently and putting them up on Yum Goggle. Yum Goggle features food photography from contributors around the world. The photos whet your appetite for the recipes you can get simply by clicking on the pictures or the words GET THE RECIPE. It’s a great site and we’re proud to be a part of the team. More
It’s Sharon’s birthday today, so Vinny brings you a rich, chocolatey tart with no flour in the filling, that you can stick candles in and sing happy birthday around, merrily. With this dessert, you can enjoy a slice and know that along with your birthday calories, you are also getting a decent helping of nutrition. More
In honor of this versatile food group, we present a dish starring beans, lentils and dried peas. We served our spicy shrimp gumbo as the opening course for our Spanish tapas gourmet dinner this year. But it works well in larger amounts as a main course, too. More
As most of my friends fly south for the winter, I thought I’d inject a little sun into my own life with watermelon. Deep into February as we are, a food to lift our spirits seems in order.
I’ve covered some of this before, but for newer readers, are you surprised to learn that watermelon is a good source of the mood vitamins B1 (thiamine) and B6 (pyridoxine)? I was. Turns out thiamine is important for maintaining electrolytes and transmitting nervous-system signals throughout the body. Pyridoxine works with enzymes that convert food into cellular energy.
Who needs warm weather… Let’s party!
Watermelon pepo
Watermelon is a berry
Another surprising fact about watermelon… its fruit is a pepo, a special kind of berry with a thick rind and fleshy center.
Watermelon pepos offer the most nutrition per calorie of any common food.
Red is the give-away. Bright colors signal a big pay-off in lycopene, an antioxidant repeatedly studied in humans and found to protect against a whole slew of cancers… prostate, breast, endometrial, lung, and colorectal, for starters.
Watermelon offers lots of beta-carotene and another antioxidant, vitamin C. Besides helping lycopene to ward off cancer, these vitamins also battle heart disease, arthritis, and asthma.
Then there is the mineral potassium, guardian of our cardiovascular system, brain, and kidneys.
Finally, watermelon provides lots of the master mineral magnesium. Magnesium is the big boss for over 300 cellular metabolic functions. Poor soils make magnesium scarce in today’s foods. Lack of magnesium is related to irritability, tension, sleep disorders, and muscular cramping, including the heart muscle (attack!).
How to enjoy watermelon
Watermelons retain most of their nutrition even after being cut and stored in the fridge. But watermelon is best eaten at room temperature when the flavor, plus the phytonutrient capacity, is at its best.
Eat plain
Just quarter a large watermelon berry and slice off slabs. Eat the flesh right off the rind and spit out the seeds.
Watermelon salad Serves one
one cup watermelon cubes
2 teaspoons lemon juice
one cup kale, ribs removed and finely chopped
1 teaspoon avocado oil
1 ounce goat cheese
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
Chop the flesh into bite-sized chunks.
Drizzle them with lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, or vodka. Let them soak it up for a few minutes.
Use them to top a plateful of greens, kale in my photo, which I drizzled with avocado oil and massaged well.
Top with crumbled feta cheese or, my favorite, goat cheese.
Vinny’s pink watermelon cooler Serves four
2Â cups watermelon cubes, frozen
4 ice cubes
Juice of one fresh lemon (1/4 cup)
Juice of one fresh lime (2 tablespoons)
2-4 tablespoons of any sugar syrup you have. I used home-made red-current couli, But any fruit syrup, even grenadine (from pomegranates) or maple syrup, will do. I use an equivalent amount of stevia unless it’s a special occasion.
2 pinches of salt
2 pinches of black pepper
3-4 ounces raspberry vodka (optional)
¼ to 1/3 cup club soda, depending on whether you add alcohol or not and the size of your glass
Blend the whole works except for the club soda for a few seconds.
If you want to serve some of the cocktails without alcohol, leave the vodka out and add it back to the glasses of the folks who want it.
Fill each glass about halfway with the watermelon fizz. Add 1 ounce alcohol to each glass if you didn’t include it in the mix. Top up with club soda. Adjust flavor with more lemon juice if needed.
Spoon some of the pink foam into each glass and top with a raspberry or a mint leaf to garnish.
Watermelon
When the winter blahs get you down, break out some watermelon and smile :).
Here’s a terrific treat for the family on a day that celebrates all things close to the heart. Whether it’s for your valentine, for your mom or dad on their special day, or just to say I love you to someone special in your life, these pancakes are terrific because rhey don’t involve candy, but they taste wonderful, anyway.
Here’s another easy recipe for small fingers. Kids learn how to separate eggs. Then they can make up these cute, tasty little Halloween ghosts and marvel at the mysteries of food chemistry.
Use eggs at room temperature for frothiest results. Or put eggs from fridge into warm water for 5 minutes or so to warm them up. More
Kids, get your aprons on. We’re going to whip up some brownies that are as good for the body as they are for the soul. Including time to wash up the dishes, these treats should take no more than a half hour away from your Minecraft play time. More
“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.
This recipe, inspired by the Redwall Cookbook for kids, has nothing to do with pigs. For the life of me, I can’t come up with a reason that explains why they named it a hogbake. Perhaps it’s a typo, and they meant to call it a henbake.
Regardless, I loved its simple healthy ingredients. More
Or is it? What’s easy for me may be hard for you. You might not have the equipment to make quick work of the tasks. Your kitchen may require too much walking, lifting, and reaching. Or you may not have had enough practice…Â the first time around is always hard. Finally, you may not realize that dirt and food are never best friends. In fact, the combo is darn-right dangerous. So you can’t ignore the sink and shun the dish cloth. Accept cleaning up as a basic part of the art, or you’ll never enjoy cooking. And there’s more… More
Sweet Patooty’s back! I raved about the fab qualities of sweet potatoes in an earlier post. But I’ve never posted a recipe for my favorite of all ways of having them… oven-baked fries. That’s because I never felt I’d gotten it quite right. But now, I think I can confidently tell you how to make these beauties come out delicious every time… crispy, not soggy, and definitely not burnt! More
If you have ever been tempted to buy a copy of Sharon Rudnitski’s book Cook Up A Story: Good Food Sets the Mood… now is the time.
For the next 3 days (until April 13), you can get it on-line for 35% off… the largest discount I’ve ever seen. Use the promo code APRILFLASH35 at checkout.
Kohlrabi – Huh? My picky eater surprised me the other day. Will’s vegetarian school buddy had given him a taste of this odd veggie and it turned out to be a hit! I had to look it up. More
Once upon a time, three little Billy goats were feeling a bit gruff. They hadn’t eaten since they left the barn in the morning, because during the night, their meadow had been grazed to the ground by a herd of reindeer, one of whom had a red nose!
The goats trotted and trotted, looking for fresh grass under the snow. But they had no luck. At last, they came upon a raging river. On the opposite bank, rows of cranberry bushes poked their heads up through the drifts. Lunch called!
The water looked deep and cold. But they soon spotted a stone bridge. The littlest and liveliest goat boy danced ahead. When he jumped onto the bridge, a troll leaped at him, all smelly and ugly.
“I eats goats for lunch,” the troll roared, “and you looks mighty tasty!” More
Avocado crostini with goats cheese and chouriço, garnished with pistachios and red endive
The little bites at the start of a meal are often what we remember best. Here’s an easy appetizer that should hit a home-run for the crowd.
Choose an artisanal baguette baked fresh that day. If you must buy it ahead, wrap it well and freeze it for up to a week. A crusty-type loaf works better with this recipe than a chewy loaf. The chewy ones don’t toast as crisply and it’s harder to break off dainty bites. I learned this the hard way.
If you can find a loaf made from whole grain bread, take bonus points for good nutrition! Some more tips… More
 Banana crepes banish the blues with just two ingredients…
No lie. This is the easiest pancake recipe on the planet. Make this gorgeous breakfast crepe from only two ingredients. Forget the milk and the flour. All you need are eggs and bananas. Sprinkle some cinnamon to garnish. Then wave good-bye to Little Boy Blue. More
No added salt – just wild Canadian sardines and water.
More on the omega-3s…
Omega-3 fats are vital to the workings of our brain, the most important organ of our body. They keep our memories sharp and our minds on target. Sadly, the average North American diet is not a welcoming place for these guys. More
This recipe from Chef Mo captured my imagine. Then it seared into my soul!
Banana leaves
When a reader from Texas told me where to find purple yams here in Canada, I figured it wouldn’t be that hard to find banana leaves, either. Sure enough, a small store just 10 minutes away sold them.
Giant leaves in hand (these things are humongous), I set about getting dinner ready for guests coming to a birthday party.
The night before the big day, disaster struck. More
Fennel’s a bit of an odd vegetable. Although it turns up in the produce departments of most super markets, it’s not really a regular guest at most people’s tables. Fennel is best pals with Celery, another kind-of-blah veggie that is often left languishing. These two veggies have the same pale greenish-white crisp flesh. And Fennel’s stalks grow around one another like Celery stalks do. Both veggies can be served raw or cooked. And both have a fibrous, mild flavor.
But Fennel deserves a closer look. Once you get to know it, you’ll see it’s loaded with character. More
This walnut soup idea grew from a recipe I had saved from a teenage chef in Texas, who says his friends loved it. He’s probably grown up by now and very smart indeed if he’s continued down the walnut-tree-lined road of healthy eating.
I found the earthiness of the walnuts in my Texan’s dish very nice. His recipe might be something the kids in the family would take to. But for me, I needed a little more oomph on my spoon. More
Walnuts slash diabetic risk by a quarter. Click pic for more.
Continuing with walnuts…
Walnuts raw (see Verse 4 in my previous post) not only develop the jaw, they also strengthen teeth as well as bones in your whole body.
Then too, walnuts help you remember things… like the make-ahead party salad in last week’s blog entry I promised to post. That’s because of the huge amounts of the rarer fat component omega-3 that walnuts have. More
Can you spot the walnut hiding among all these other tasty tree nuts?
Verse 4
Walnuts, raw
Develop the jaw,
But walnuts, stewed,
Are more quietly chewed.
—with a gentle nod to Ogden Nash
I’m nuts for walnuts…
I lied, when I promised I’d stop waxing poetic about nuts. I forgot about the walnut, one of nature’s treasures! Carrying on with my nutty soliloquy, I present verse 4.
Crunchy or pureed, if we’re smart, walnuts will be found hiding on our plates in everything from soup to salads! I’m so impressed with walnuts’ healthy benefits, I hardly know where to begin… perhaps with the letter A. More
My little granddaughter Came to visit me, And all for a taste Of my almond cook-kie.
Another pineapple and almond dessert…
Last week’s post featured Verse 1 of Vinny’s ode to almonds and the grilled pineapple dish with almonds I pictured there.
This time, I made another version, using the microwave instead of the barbecue. I drizzled some liqueur over the pineapple (which I sliced really really thin and spread across the dinner plate in a single layer). Then I nuked the plate for 1 minute in the micro. Finally, I topped the pineapple with Greek yogurt sweetened with stevia, then with lots of chopped almonds, candied ginger, and cinnamon. It tasted like Paris. OO-la-la!
Gluten-free almond-butter cookies
Here’s an easy recipe you can make with the kids. You can even serve these cookies along with my pineapple dish for a special treat. It uses almond-butter. My friend Esther sent along the idea. She says, “These are tasty, just sweet enough, very nutty, and a touch chewy, as long as they are taken out of the oven when just done (no darkness on the bottom).”
I liked that there are only a few ingredients, no special tools needed except a hand-mixer, and no temperamental mixing instructions. These cookies taste like a treat straight out of a candy box :). Yet, they’re packed with good nutrition. Yay Esther!
On the left, no quinoa flour. The cookie is oilier and more crumbly than the one on the right, made with my recipe. Both taste the same.
Some tips
When I opened the jar of almond-butter, all the oil had pooled at the top. I had to pour the oil into the mixing bowl, scrape out the nut solids, and mix vigorously with a big spoon to incorporate the oil again. Thinking things over, this may have been because I used almond/hazelnut butter, because that was what I had in the cupboard. Hazelnuts are considerably more oily than almonds.
I halved the sugar in Esther’s recipe, using a scant half cup. I wanted each cookie to have an acceptable level of sugar (the guide is 5 grams a serving). My cookies clocked in at 7 grams each. They taste plenty sweet.
I added a third of a cup of quinoa flakes to the mix. The cookies didn’t hold together well without it. The quinoa absorbed the oil that seemed to leak all over everything without it. If you don’t have quinoa flakes, use oat flour… or even whole wheat flour if you aren’t allergic to gluten. Five ingredients make for an easy recipe kids can whip up themselves.
I buy quinoa flakes at the health food store. The beauty of quinoa is that it has no flavor of its own, unlike whole wheat. The cookies with quinoa flakes taste identical to the cookies without it – they just handle better. Plus they have a bit more protein and fiber.
Vinny’s no-flour, no-butter almond cookies Makes 16 cookies
1 cup natural almond butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup quinoa flakes (available at health food stores)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
almond slivers to garnish (optional)
Preheat the oven to 350 F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Using a hand mixer, mix all the ingredients together on low speed.
Scoop 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough 1 1/2-inches apart onto the baking sheet. I used my hands to make nicely shaped round balls.
Flatten the dough balls (gently) with a fork, making a cross pattern on the cookies.
Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes. Watch them the last few minutes and take them out once they start leaking too much oil and before the bottoms darken. Mine were done at 9 minutes. Let the cookies rest on the counter in the pan for 2 or 3 minutes so that they have time to set before transferring them to a cooling rack.
Nutrition per cookie made from Vinny’s recipe
150 calories
10 grams fat (of which 9 grams is monounsaturated)
13 grams carbohydrates (of which 7 grams is sugar)
Mother Turtle, made from apples here, casts a healing spell among First Nations people.
The turtle myth…
In Native American stories, the turtle is a symbol for Mother Earth. This ancient animal commonly lives as long as 150 years. Its shell keeps her safe. And her slow even pace through life sets an example for people to keep going when the going gets tough. Turtle always makes time to enjoy each moment life has to offer.
To honor the turtle, I suggested to my friend Isla that we could make some for Christmas. “They’re so tasty!” I said. More
Howdie! If any of my faithful readers are in downtown Toronto on Saturday, November 9, why don’t you drop by for a visit?
Sharon and I are in town for a child-development conference sponsored by Sick Kids, Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, talking about our book Cook Up A Story. We’re at the Novotel Toronto Centre, 46 The Esplanade, second floor, from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm. Come by for a chat. It will be so nice to meet you! More
I’m helping Vinny set up a new page in his main menu, calledStudy Guide.
The plan is to present a guide to healthy eating at home and school, for parents and teachers, based on Cook Up A Story.
Cook Up A Story started out as a way to introduce kids and their families to healthy eating ideas. I hoped to make nutrition fun through stories.
I began with a print book of six adventures for kids, where food is a part of the plot. The stories make bridges to nonfiction articles on the basics of nutrition the whole family can enjoy. The book also features recipes with healthy ingredients, so families can cook up the dishes that star in the tales. More
Our Sweet Patooty is not just another pretty face. There’s so much goodness under her skin, I hardly know where to start. She comes from a large family. There are at least 18 relatives you might meet at the supermarket. All of them bring great qualities to the table. Some have orange or reddish skins, while others are purple-skinned. The purple ones can have white or purple flesh. But we don’t discriminate based on the color of the skin… More
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. More
Who would have thought the common watermelon is a berry? Botanists call its fruit a pepo, a special kind of berry with a thick rind and fleshy center.
Like other berries we love, the watermelon is packed with goodness. It has the most nutrition per calorie of any common food. Click the link for the latest info.More
Add sunlight and grow your own vitamin D! Mushrooms are the only item in your produce section that can provide this important nutrient.
Grow your own mushrooms
Enjoy Vinny’s photo story about the magical mushroom garden he grew in his own home. Put your store-bought mushrooms in a sunny window with the gills facing up and increase their vitamin D content in a 2 days by up to 1000 times. “Majic!!!” Then make yourself a tasty, easy mushroom omelet, packed with vitamin D.
Blue oyster mushrooms weave a safety net for your heart
Story time – The blue-haired one’s majic cure
The Faerie Queene hung her head. Her heart ached and she knew not what might mend it.
She summoned her trusty knights to her fortress deep in the forest. “Dear Sirs,” she began. “Your mission is to find a way to chase the chill from my blood.”
Sir Woe-be-Gone spoke first. “Rub a paste of mustard and lemon over your neck,” he said. “And get a good night’s sleep.”
Sir Cry-No-Tears piped up next. “Balderdash! What’s needed is a steamy tea, flavored with garlic and thin slices of onion.”
If a kid can read, he can likely cook. But the watchful eye of experience is a wonderful thing. Witness the action in Vinny’s one-act play and decide for yourself… More
Boost your soup’s healing power, flavor, and presentation
Turn your Cinderella leftovers into a healing soup stock fit for a princess. Here are a few magical ways to take my basic recipe for garbage soup and boost the healing power of your bone broths.
Will and Isla carefully chop through mountains of cabbage.
“In the old days,” Vinny says, “people made their own sauerkraut so they would have veggies to eat during the long winters.Your great grandpappy was a sauerkraut-maker extraordinaire. People came from all over to buy his home-made kraut. Now, we just go to the deli. It comes in jars or cans, too, at the grocery store. I like the Polish kind best myself. It’s good to keep the old ways alive. Keep chopping!”
“Val deree, val derah, val deree, val der-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha,” sing Will and Vinny at the top of their lungs. Isla just hums, too busy chopping to get involved with words.
Today we know that the old ways were healthy ways. Sauerkraut is what you get after cabbage is well salted and allowed to rest for a few weeks in a crock, closed off from air. Salt pulls water from the cabbage to make a brine. The little bugs that thrive in this environment are good bacteria. They make the brine acidic, in a process called fermentation.
Cabbage makes good sauerkraut
Probiotics
These healthy bugs go by the name probiotics. They work against the bad bacteria in our stomachs to improve digestion.
Many people think the healthy bacteria protect us by keeping inflammation in check, reducing allergies, preventing constipation, and boosting our brain power. The science is still young. But to be safe many nutritionists recommend two servings of probiotic foods a day.
Probiotics are found in fermented foods… like pickles, yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, and, of course, sauerkraut. You can also get probiotics in supplements. But unless you’re taking antibiotics, which wipe out the good bugs along with the bad ones, it’s best to rely on real food for your probiotics.
Sauerkraut processed in cans or jars doesn’t have any live probiotics, because heat kills all those cute little helpful bacteria. Instead, buy it raw at farmer’s markets or delis for the real stuff. Or make it yourself!
But processed or cooked sauerkraut still has all the nutrients from cabbage. Enjoy it both ways. It’s packed with vitamin C!
Meal suggestions
Pair well-rinsed raw sauerkraut with soft poached eggs in the morning. The meal has a nice tang and makes a satisfying start to the day.
At lunch, sauerkraut makes a tasty addition to salad. But what I like best is putting a big scoop into the bottom of my bowl before pouring hot soup over it. Yummy!
For dinner, Vinny suggests a Polish chicken dish, starring a heap of sauerkraut.
Vinny’s Polish chicken serves three
2 teaspoons olive oil (optional)
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 large apple, cored and chopped
8 ounces sauerkraut, well rinsed to remove salt (if you have raw sauerkraut, reserve some to add to the plate at serving time)
12 medium Brussels sprouts, stemmed and cut in half
1Â teaspoon Dijon mustard
1Â teaspoon caraway seed
1/2Â teaspoon paprika
3/4 cup chicken stock
3 chicken breasts or legs, or a small roasting chicken
Add the rest of the veggies, spices and other ingredients and over medium heat, bring to boil.
Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
Chicken
Before you start cooking the veggies, put a small chicken in the oven to roast or prepare three boneless chicken breasts for the barbecue. If the meat is ready first, keep it warm, then serve the chicken on top of the veggies.
Alternatively, poach the chicken breasts in the soup pot, submerged in the liquid. Add the chicken after the liquid has come to a boil. Reduce the heat and allow the meat to cook through, about 20-30 minutes. This method is easier, but I like roasted or grilled chicken better :).
Garnish
2Â teaspoons fresh dill weed, chopped
2 teaspoons paprika
Paprika boosts metabolism and fresh dill contains vitamins.
This dish is one of my favorites. The stove-top veggies are good with lots of lean meats… tasty even for folks who say they don’t like cabbage (or Brussels sprouts).
Nutrition
The veggies (per serving): Calories (kcal)100.1, Fat (g) 3.6, Sodium (mg) 377.0, Potassium (mg) 433.1, Fibre (g) 5.1, Vitamin A (RAE) 27.4, Vitamin C (mg) 48.7, Calcium (mg) 60.9, Folate (DFE) 51.4. The chicken: a 6-oz breast has 252 calories and 46 grams of protein.
A Polish meal is all I need To make my day complete. It’s hard to keep account of all The cabbage that I eat.
On a winter’s night after a long day’s walk, a ragged beggar finds himself in a quiet farming village. He dreams of a warm fire and a hot meal. He knocks on the door of a tidy house. A pair of eyes peer out at him from behind the printed curtain. But no-one opens the door. At the next house a young woman with a crying baby tells him she has nothing to spare. He is even turned away from the Ukrainian church, where a few women are sewing together on a patchwork quilt. More
If you hate smelling up your kitchen, don’t let that stop you from enjoying the deliciousness of fresh or fresh-frozen fish. Just cook it on the barbecue, outside! It’s easy for every day and delicious enough for any special occasion.
Fish is full of those hard to come by but oh so important omega-3 fatty acids. They are important, first, because we can’t manufacture them in our bodies. More
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Cook Up a Story 