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Tag Archives: healthy

Summer Soup

Posted on by Posted in Delicious Dishes .

There’s nothing more comforting than a cozy bowl of soup on a cold winter’s day, but can you replace that in the summer with a cold soup on a hot summer’s day?

Yes! Yes you can.

For many years I didn’t think so – but with this recipe, I’ve been able to capture that same comfort feeling with many of our favourite summer fruits and vegetables, while maintaining my “cool”ness.

Whether served as a snack or part of a meal, this soup has amazing versatility and should be a staple in your fridge as it is in mine. In addition, this soup is actually quite good for you, it is made from foods with anti-inflammatory properties. Chronic inflammation has been linked with many illnesses, from depression, heart disease, arthritis, and Alzheimer’s to cancer. We need to reduce inflammation and one factor that can help with this is diet.

Start with this soup.

There are many variations of this recipe, but this one has been my favourite.  Start with this, and then find your favourite:

What you need:

– 5 Ripe tomatoes, diced
– 1 onion diced (Option: roasted) *
– 1 Head of garlic, minced (Option: roasted)*
– 1 Cucumber diced
– 2 Jars of roasted red pepper diced
– Salt & Pepper to taste
– 1/3 cup Cilantro, diced

Optional add ons:

– Shrimp
– Chicken
– Croutons
– Fish
– Crackers (My favourite)

What you do:

Place all ingredients together in a large bowl, mix and serve. The flavours meld and come out more if left to sit overnight.

There is a lot of  dicing in this recipe

For those of you who love to dice, grab a sharp knife and get to work.

For the rest of us, the short cut is: A food processor! The food processor can be used for this recipe. Run it longer for a smoother blend. If you’d like a chunkier texture, use your pulse feature.

Tip:

*I like both the onion and garlic drizzled in olive oil and roasted at 350° for 30 min.

Enjoy with friends or family!

Have a great week


Danielle’s Pampered Kitchen..Healthy Meals in Minutes

 

Kale & Brussels Sprout Salad

Posted on by Posted in Delicious Dishes .

Get ready to kale to the chief…

Your Weekly GO-TO Salad that is HEALTHY and will last the WHOLE WEEK LONG!

The sun is shining, the air is warming, your feeling refreshed and ready to go!

Spring does that to people, it’s a fresh start, hence all the spring cleaning.

Why not Spring Clean YOU and your MENU!!

Today we are going to look at Kale- a cruciferous vegetable.. it should be on every family’s shopping list.  You’ve heard the hype, but have you tried it?

Here’s WHY you Should:

  1. IT’S LOADED WITH NUTRIENTS:
    • mainly Vitamins A, K, and C, but there is so much more.
  2. IT DETOXIFIES
  3. ANTI-INFLAMMATORY
  4. PREVENTS CANCER
  5. HEALTHY VISION
  6. SUPPORTS HEART HEALTH

Here’s HOW to Buy it:

ALWAYS BUY ORGANIC! – Kale is one of the most  heavily pesticide sprayed crops around.  No point turning to Kale for it’s health benefits and add more toxins to your body!

There are 4 Types of Kale

1. Curly kale (Most Common) – found in most supermarkets. It has a pungent, almost peppery flavor that is very pleasant but if you prefer less bitterness, look for younger kale as leaves have a milder taste. Or pair with lemon juice (it helps with the bitterness)

2. Lacinto kale – also popular,  a.k.a.  Dinosaur kale. Its leaves are narrow, dark green and wrinkly.

3. Redbor kale – Rich in it’s red/purple color, this kale is very pretty looking kale. As well as cooking, Redbor kale can also be used to accent gardens.

4. Russian (Siberian) kale – less common but just as nutrient dense it has flat, fringed leaves that look like large rocket/arugula leaves and vary in color from Green to red/purple.  It has a more mild taste with some sweetness to it.

KALE is the new BLACK, it goes with Everything and is never out of style!!

Ok, now you know why you should eat it… try this recipe and make it part of your weekly meal plan.  So delicious!

 

WHAT YOU NEED:

Salad

  • Kale:  One Bunch (your choice of type)
  • 9-12 Brussels sprouts (another cruciferous vegetable)
  • 2 Chicken Breasts cooked and diced
  • 1 apple diced (skin on)
  • 1/2 Cup dried cranberries (can sub with pomegranate)
  • 1/2 Cup Slivered Almonds toasted (can sub with pecans)
  • 1/4 of Parmesan Cheese shredded

Dressing

  • 1/2 Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 1/c Fresh Lemon Juice
  • 3 garlic cloves minced
  • 1/2 tsp salt

WHAT YOU DO:

  1. De-stem Kale, tear into bite size pieces, wash and spin dry.
  2. Cut the bottoms off of the Brussels Sprouts and Chop or slice thinly.
  3. Place Kale in the bottom of a bowl, next layer on Brussels Sprouts, Chicken, Apple, Cranberries, Almonds, and Parmesan.
  4. Mix all dressing ingredients and set aside in a resealable container.
  5. Place desired amount of salad in a bowl, drizzle with dressing and enjoy.
  6. Place leftover salad and dressing in fridge, it’s ready when you are!

I LOVE KALE – there I said it!   My favurite is in the form of a salad… WHAT’s YOURS???  comment below.

 


Danielle’s Pampered Kitchen..Healthy Meals in Minutes

 

Consider a Plant-Based Life and Live Longer

Posted on by Posted in The Best You .

In our continued quest for wellness this month, we had the pleasure of speaking with fellow mom and A Plant-Based Life Cookbook Author Micaela Cook Karlsen.  She shared her take on why plants trump meat in the quest for a healthier lifestyle.  She was even kind enough to share some delicious recipes to prove it. You’ll be fascinated by the benefits of leading a plant-based life – it’s good for the whole family.  You’ll want to pick up a copy of her new book to learn more.

1. Why did you choose to lead a Plant-based life?

In the very beginning, around age 16 or 17, a couple of my friends were vegetarian, and I wanted to give it a try! I felt drawn towards eating more healthfully, but since I had struggled with feeling overweight for some time, I think the goal more in the forefront of my mind was to lose a little weight and maintain what I felt was a comfortable body weight for me. Over the years, my goals have shifted to be more focused on health for me and for the planet at the same time – and it’s nice that now that I’m so much more knowledgeable about a truly health idea, it’s very easy to meet both of those goals at once!

2.Why do you think it is important for people to consider living a plant-based lifestyle?

So many people in Westernized countries are facing either chronic illness or overweight. (Most people have heard that 2/3 of Americans are overweight and half those are obese.) As someone who has cancer, heart disease, and rheumatoid arthritis in the family, I’m concerned with living well into my old age, not just living longer. And as someone who struggled with weight and feeling comfortable in my body for many years, I feel so much compassion for anyone trying to lose weight unsuccessfully. As far as healthy weight goes, a whole food, plant-based diet is absolutely the easiest, most straightforward path to success because you can eat until you’re full without worrying about calories. I do believe with all my heart that important to accept yourself and your body wherever you are and whatever you look like. At the same time, for me, that’s balanced with my experience that when I finally got to a healthy weight for a woman my height, I started to feel so comfortable in a way I never had before! It’s easier than most people realize with plant-based eating.

3.How do you respond when critics say that a plant based lifestyle doesn’t taste good?

Many people mistakenly believe that tastes are fixed – almost as though your taste preferences were part of your personality. We enjoy what we are used to – so what we’ve eaten over the last few months, few weeks, few days, and even from morning to evening shapes what we want to eat and what we enjoy. Most people can recognize this with sugar – don’t eat it for a long time, and the attraction fades, but eat syrupy waffles on a Sunday morning and you’re probably in the mood for dessert that evening. People who say plant-based eating doesn’t taste good are simply accustomed to eating heavier animal foods and foods with added salt, sugar, and fat. If you switch to a plant-based diet without telling yourself you have to stick with it forever, if you can just stick with it for a few weeks, you’ll notice yourself starting to lose interest in some of the old foods. This means everyone has the ability to train themselves to genuinely enjoy healthy food!

4. What is your favorite plant based dish?

There are so many! Like most people who eat this way, I felt like diet expanded my diet rather than the reverse. Right now, one of my favorites is my own recipe Interstellar Lasagna in A Plant-Based Life. It’s a food I could eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

5. How do you recommend parents introduce a plant based lifestyle to their children?

It really depends on whether you are introducing it when they are little or older and have already established their own eating preferences. The second can be much more challenging. As parents, it’s inevitable that our children will exercise more and more free will as they get older. I think the best strategy is to help them develop good judgement, make sure they don’t feel judged for their eating habits, and then engage in a lot of dialogue with them about your own reasons for eating this way and your hopes that they will also choose a path of healthful eating – because, of course, you care about them! The biggest bang for your buck is cooking together. Let them choose plant-based recipes they are interested in, go shopping together, and then let them cook and experiment with minimal assistance from you. The more experience they have in the kitchen, the more empowered they’ll feel and the more ownership they’ll take over the food. Of course, make sure you keep delicious options on hand yourself in case what they’re making doesn’t turn out well!

6. What are the benefits of living this kind of lifestyle?

The benefits are many – you can easily achieve your ideal weight, you lower your risk for all types of chronic disease, and you can even arrest or reverse certain chronic diseases such as heart disease or diabetes. You’re doing something good for the planet, as a plant-based diet has been identified as the most environmentally sustainable choice we have. And of course, you’re living a compassionate lifestyle which millions of animals will appreciate.

ABOUT MICAELA COOK KARLSEN

Micaela Karlsen

MICAELA COOK KARLSEN is a founding employee and former Executive Director of the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies. A contributor to the New York Times bestseller Forks Over Knives and the creator of www.PlantBasedResearch.org, a free online database of research on plant-based nutrition, she holds an MSPH in Human Nutrition from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is a PhD candidate in Nutritional Epidemiology at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. She is the author of A Plant-Based life: Your Complete guide to Great Food, Radiant Health, Boundless Energy, and a Better Body (AMACOM). She lives in Boston.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Plant-Based-Research-303384226459892/

Blog:  http://micaelakarlsen.com/blog/

Website:  http://plantbasedresearch.org/

Interstellar Lasagna from Micaela Cook Karlsen

Posted on by Posted in Delicious Dishes .

A Plant Based Life Cookbook Author Micaela Cook Karlsen shares her delicious and nutritious recipe for lasagna with Urban Suburban Mommy.  Read our full interview with Micaela here.

Interstellar Lasagna

“I finished perfecting this recipe the week that NASA’s Kepler Mission found a new Earth-like planet, 452b, so I named it in honor of the discovery,” she said.

Ingredients:

Layer 1: 1 medium onion, 1 16-ounce package firm tofu (drained), 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 ½ teaspoons white miso , 1/3  cup nutritional yeast, 1/3  cup packed fresh basil leaves

Layer 2: 1 medium onion, 1 10-ounce package cremini mushrooms (stems trimmed), ½ cup frozen spinach, ¼ cup pine nuts, 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning, salt to taste

Additional components: 1 10-ounce box whole-grain lasagna noodles  and 3 to 4 cups of your favorite tomato sauce (or try Chef AJ’s Quick Sun-Dried Tomato Marinara)

Toppings:  1 medium tomato, sliced thinly, 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast, Salt to taste

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.

Make layer 1: Place the onion in a food processor, and pulse until it is finely chopped. Add the tofu, garlic powder, miso, and nutritional yeast and blend until everything is evenly mixed. At this point the mixture will be like a dry puree—grainy and not too wet. Add the basil leaves and pulse until the basil is chopped into small bits and evenly distributed in the mixture. Transfer the contents of layer 1 to a medium bowl.

Make layer 2: Place the onion in a food process and pulse until it is finely chopped. Add the mushrooms, spinach, pine nuts, Italian seasoning, and salt and blend until everything is evenly mixed.

Assemble the lasagna: Divide your noodles into three equal piles, to correspond with the three noodle layers in the final dish. Cover the bottom of a 9 x 13–inch glass pan with ¾ cup tomato sauce and ½ cup water. Use a spoon to mix the two and evenly distribute the liquefied sauce. Place one layer of lasagna noodles on top of the sauce-water mixture. Cover the noodles with 1 to 1 ½ cups tomato sauce, using a spoon to evenly distribute it. Add the mixture for Layer 1 to the pan. Cover layer 1 with the second layer of noodles. Add the mixture for Layer 2 to the pan. Cover Layer 2 with the third/top layer of noodles. Cover the noodles with 1 ¼ to 1 ½ cups tomato sauce using a spoon to evenly distribute it.

Add the toppings: Place tomato slices on top of the sauce evenly around the pan. Sprinkle each slice with a bit of salt for added flavor, if desired, then sprinkle the nutritional yeast evenly on top of the tomatoes.

Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake for 35 minutes, then remove cover and bake an additional 20 to 25 minutes or until the top surface has developed a skin. Serves 6-8.

Micaela Karlsen

MICAELA COOK KARLSEN is a founding employee and former Executive Director of the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies. A contributor to the New York Times bestseller Forks Over Knives and the creator of www.PlantBasedResearch.org, a free online database of research on plant-based nutrition, she holds an MSPH in Human Nutrition from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is a PhD candidate in Nutritional Epidemiology at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. She is the author of A Plant-Based life: Your Complete guide to Great Food, Radiant Health, Boundless Energy, and a Better Body (AMACOM). She lives in Boston.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Plant-Based-Research-303384226459892/

Blog:  http://micaelakarlsen.com/blog/

Website:  http://plantbasedresearch.org/