Welcome!

This blog contains my thoughts on sound eating. I am a Nutritionist and Advanced Home Cook--meaning I love food and I love to cook. I have two kids, 13 and 14 (Lord, help me!), and a wonderful husband whom I love to cook nutritious food for (and some not so healthy food, in moderation, of course). My concern is that most of us in our affluent nation are malnourished, and keep searching for an answer that only exacerbates the problem. My hope is to help people by sharing tips, recipes, and nutritional information for every person who struggles to get delicious, nutritious food on the table. I hope it helps!

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Recipe

We love pizza, but we love the unhealthy kind--pepperoni and cheese, and lots of both. In an attempt to make a pasta dish like our favorite pizza, only healthier, I developed the following recipe. It fills up a 9x13 pan, and is a great leftover. However, it is time consuming, so you might want to make it on the weekend.


Pizza Penne

8 ounces penne pasta, preferably whole grain
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon light olive oil
1 medium onion, small dice
1/2 bell pepper, any color, small dice
8 ounces mushrooms, chopped (my husband doesn't like them, so I almost mince them)
1/2 pound ground pork
1/2 pound ground beef
3 cups marinara sauce, homemade or jarred
1 small can chopped black olives
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 cups low-fat, small curd cottage cheese or ricotta cheese
2 cups part-skim mozzarella cheese, grated
2 eggs
2 cups fresh spinach, chopped small
1/2 cup grated Parmesan, divided
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 t. Italian seasoning or 1 tablespoon mixed fresh herbs (i.e. basil, parsley, and oregano)
Pepperoni slices, optional

Cook pasta in boiling, salted water for 7 minutes, should be slightly undercooked, and then drain. Saute the onion for 4 minutes, and then add the bell pepper, and mushrooms. Cook 6 minutes longer or until all the liquid has evaporated, and the vegetables start to brown. Add the meat and cook while breaking it up with a fork. Add the marinara, 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper, and olives. Simmer while preparing the cheese.

Mix the cottage or ricotta cheese with the mozzarella, spinach, eggs, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and a fourth cup of Parmesan. Mix the remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan with the herbs. Layer the pasta, meat sauce, and cottage cheese mixture in the dish in that order, topping with the Parmesan mixture and finally the pepperoni slices. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until bubbly. I broil the casserole for a couple of minutes at the end to get the pepperoni crispy, but that is your option.


This is not low-fat, but serve it with a side salad filled with great fresh veggies, and topped with an olive oil vinaigrette, and you have a well balanced meal.

Here's to healthy, happy eating!

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Vegetable Rampage

In this country, we have the unique blessing of having at our disposal almost every kind of fruit and vegetable available. I cannot say enough how fortunate we are. These are the very essence of health and vitality.

So why on God's green earth do we choose packaged, scientifically-engineered "food." WHY???

And we feed our kids this crap because they tell us they don't like most fresh fruits and vegetables. HOW ARE THEY EVER GOING TO GET THE CHANCE TO LEARN TO LIKE IT IF WE DON'T GIVE THEM THAT CHANCE?

Of course, if given the choice, they would prefer to eat highly processed, non-nutritious, overly sweetened or salted foods. Why do we think we should allow them the choice?

Take it out of your homes! Prepare wonderful, colorful, nutrient rich fruits and vegetables that will enable your kids to fight infection, to ward off disease, to develop normally, to have more endurance for healthy activities.

Our kids are going to live shorter lives than we are, and we only have ourselves to blame. When I was growing up, the only processed, packaged snacks we had were an occasional box of Little Debbie snacks. I never even got any because my brothers would eat them all. We never had soda, fruit drinks, energy drinks or the like. That use to be "expensive food" and fruits and vegetables were cheap. Now the opposite is true. Fast food is cheaper than buying the ingredients for a salad. Why? It is a simple matter of supply and demand. We are buying more of the crappy kind of food which brings down the cost of it.

This is a call to action. STOP buying crap for your kids to eat and START buying nutritious fruits and vegetables. This will drive down their cost--eventually. However, you will save money on medical bills and less time taken from work, so you will save money and time almost immediately.

Do your family a favor, go to your pantry or where ever you store food, and count how many different chips, flavored snack crackers, fruit-flavored treats, cookies, candy, snack cakes, buttered popcorn, sodas, fruit-flavored drinks, etc. and throw away at least half of it. Yes, throw it in the trash. That is where it belongs, not in our kids bodies! I want you to imagine money being put back in your pocket with each thing you throw away because you WILL save lots of money in trips to the doctor, medication, and time back at work.

Then the next time you are at the grocery store, buy 5 different kinds of vegetables that your family hasn't tried, and 5 that you know they will eat. Also, buy 5 different kinds of fruit. Each day, prepare one new vegetable and one tried and true vegetable, and serve a fruit for dessert. If they don't eat the new ones, that is okay. At least they have seen it and are now on their way to becoming familiar with it.

The worst thing you can do is give up on a fruit or vegetable at this point. Remember it sometimes takes 10 times of seeing a new food before a kid will try it. In the mean time, more for you and your health! Try it in different ways, and if all else fails, add a little olive oil, salt and pepper and roast it in the oven on high heat. This works for almost any vegetable and is delicious!

For the health of our children, I hope you take this challenge and start making changes right away. Our kids are at our mercy, and we are failing them. Please, please, please take control and take action!