Steaming Potatoes Means a Cool Kitchen and High Energy
Red potatoes, purple, or Yukon Gold are all excellent for steaming. Cut into bite size pieces first.
Potatoes are one of nature’s most satiating foods. This means they get you full and keep you feeling full and satisfied longer than most other things you could eat. These nutritious spuds have gotten a bad name because they are usually made into chips or fried (read unhealthy and weight-promoting oil) or baked and smothered with a dairy topping. So it’s no wonder that potatoes have gotten a bad – but undeserved – reputation.
Baking and roasting are my favorite ways to make potatoes. In the heat of San Diego summer, though, the oven is best turned off. So I experimented with steaming potatoes and am cheering at the results.
First, I scrubbed and cut up about 10 medium sized Yukon Gold potatoes into (more…)
Whole foods are so tasty that, if you are not into cooking, you can still have excellent not-meals with little kitchen time. For example, after work, one of my favorite quick dinners is green lentils with vegetables on a whole grain tortilla.
The lentils cook from their dry form in about 40 minutes. I mix them with freshly steamed or leftover brown rice or some frozen organic corn. Then spoon onto the whole grain tortilla with some chopped leafy greens, salsa, and/or spices. Steamed fresh vegetables round out a super simple but yummy and filling start to an energetic evening.
Sometimes, though, I want a more elaborate taste experience. Just as important, I find chopping and mixing colorful whole foods to
Working with beautiful whole foods is fun and relaxing
be relaxing and fun. If you never liked cooking before, you may change your mind when you go the whole foods route.
Want cooking ideas? An unbeatable site for thousands of whole foods recipes is fatfreevegan.com. This super blog is friendly, fun, and overflowing with enough recipes to keep you happily hanging around your kitchen for years.
This site features food photos that will make you hungry if you aren’t already. The advanced search function helps you find a recipe to use up ingredients that are filling your garden or refrigerator. The home page has an extensive, convenient list of five star recipes.
Cooking ideas are conveniently grouped into categories either by ingredients (such as beans (more…)
The Southern tradition of eating black-eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day is now widespread. Prosperity and luck throughout the year are the promised benefits. The peas (actually a kind of bean) symbolize coins, while the greens stand for dollars.
Eating this combo at New Year’s started about the time the Civil War was ending. Union soldiers spared the humble black-eyed peas as they confiscated or destroyed other crops in the South.
Black-eyed peas are the stars on New Year's
Had the troops understood the outstanding health benefits of black-eyed peas they might have targeted this food as well. This legume shares the same health benefits as other beans, filling you up and satisfying your appetite. The beans are a nutritional powerhouse, rich in minerals, complex carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins, protein, and phytochemicals.
Just as important, black-eyed peas and greens are easy to cook and there are so many fun variations on the basic dish. Here is the recipe I made for 2010.
Any Day of the Year Black-Eyes Peas and Greens
The ingredients are:
Three cups of cooked black-eyed peas (or two cans if you don’t cook them yourself)
1/3 cup of liquid – water, vegetable broth, or wine
One large onion
1 teaspoon chopped jalapeno pepper (more or less to taste)
2 cups assorted chopped veggies (such as mushrooms, celery, bell peppers, carrot, tomatoes, or (more…)
Home Made Cranberry Sauce that Will Wow Your Guests
If you grew up eating canned, jellied cranberry sauce, as I did, you have hopefully already discovered how amazing the home made version of this perpetual favorite can be. No holiday gathering would be complete without the deep red and tart richness of this treat.
This cranberry sauce was so good that my friends started eating it before I could get my camera out
Luckily, fresh cranberries are still in season. Leave the cans in the store and bring home the ingredients for your own taste treat. While you can discover hundreds of recipes on the Internet, I have put together the following simple recipe that cooks in ten minutes. Even people who usually don’t like cranberry sauce will eat a plate of this.
Recipe for not-too-sweet cranberry sauce:
Ingredients
4 cups of cranberries (this is the amount in a 12 ounce package)
¾ cup water
½ cup sugar (see below)
½ cup agave nectar (this is the secret ingredient which keeps it yummy but not too sweet)
1 orange – sliver the peel into orange zest and juice the orange
½ cup dried fruit – raisins or apricots are perfect
½ teaspoon grated ginger
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Fun with Cooking
Boil the water with ¼ cup of the fresh squeezed orange juice (1 cup of liquid total). As soon as it boils, add the cranberries and stir. If the cranberries are very fresh, you will hear them pop. Otherwise they will just get soft and start to lose their shape. Immediately add the sugar and agave nectar and stir to dissolve. Simmer for five minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the dried fruit, orange zest, and spices and stir. Simmer five more minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat.
You can eat this warm, or refrigerate to eat it cold. Either way, it won’t last long after you put it out for your guests. In fact, you may find you need to double the recipe to have enough.
Note on the sweeteners: You can use ordinary sugar, but the cranberry sauce will be healthier and taste better if you use organic, unbleached sugar. This may include Succanat or Rapidura sugar or turbinado sugar or other organic varieties. Note that commercial brown sugar is simply bleached white sugar with some additives. Not to be used in this recipe.
You can find agave nectar in just about any natural food store. It has a mild sweetness that is not as overpowering as sugar. The agave nectar cuts through the tartness of the cranberries without making the sauce too sweet. Also, agave contains minerals that makes your sauce more nutritious.
Enjoy! This is perfect with any plant-based holiday (or any day) dinner.
