Green Salad With Pineapple and Dried Tomato

Today I got home late for lunch and had been dreaming up a nice salad along the way, inspired by a visit to a Harry and David store.

GREEN SALAD WITH PINEAPPLE AND DRIED TOMATO
Makes one nutritarian-sized lunch or up to four small side salads :-)

Six cups mixed greens (I had leaf lettuce, spinach, and confetti slaw)
1/4 cup red onion, sliced into rings
1/2 cup fresh pineapple, cut into tidbits
1/2 small yellow (or other color) bell pepper, chopped
2 Tablespoons crumbled dried tomatoes
1-2 Tablespoons juice from fresh pineapple
1 Tablespoon Harry and David Charred Pineapple Relish (or a pineapple salsa)
3/4 cup canned white beans, rinsed (optional)

Combine greens, onion, pineapple, and pepper. In a small dish combine dried tomato and pineapple juice and microwave, adding water if needed, to soften tomato. Top salad with white beans, then tomatoes and relish, and toss to combine.

Verdict--Very good. I enjoyed this thoroughly, and I am sure it would be good with fresh tomatoes and canned pineapple if necessary, or rinsed black beans instead of the white. The relish was leftover from Christmas and had just a nice zing of heat to intensify the salad.  A more nutritarian version could substitute a bit more pineapple and a hot pepper for the relish. In any case, the relish was only 25 calories for that amount, similar to what a low- or non-fat dressing might be, and the salad was lovely without any additional dressing.

AWOL

Just wanted to note for those who read here that I'm going great guns with the Six-Week Holiday Challenge at drfuhrman.com .  I'm spending a lot of time posting there, especially my daily food lists, and though I'm trying some recipes, I just have too much else going on to put them in here.  Progress so far--in eight weeks of pretty dedicated nutritarian principles, I've lost 19 pounds, and that's a boost over Thanksgiving and leading up to Christmas! 

Last night I made a good salad dressing with a big over-ripe pear, 1/2 cup cashews, 1/3 cup Riesling vinegar, and a half a kumquat I threw in at the last second (a bit of lemon would do the trick, too, with rind).  It was very nice! And one quarter of the recipe is a good amount of dressing for less than an ounce of nuts.

In general I have the following:

Breakfast--green smoothie with about two fruits and a handful of kale or spinach OR a half cup of oatmeal with fruit and a few nuts

Lunch--big salad (six cups of greens and such) with  tahini-based dressing or a lowfat Italian or salsa for a Mexican bent, and with beans, or with bean soup on the side, and a piece of fruit

Snack--fruit with nuts

Supper--cooked veggies (usually two different ones, a cup or so each), more beans if needed, a couple of times a week a couple of ounces of fish or  chicken or even beef, and any fruit or nut or grain left for the day

Doctors Discuss "Best Weight"

Arya M. Sharma, M.D., and Yoni Freedhof, M.D. both deal extensively with weight management in their medical practices, and both blog on these topics in intelligent, compassionate, science-based, reality-based ways.  They've now come out with a publication for physicians to be used in advising patients about weight management.  Dr. Sharma is going to be sharing excerpts on his blog, and here is the first.  Highlights in my own words:

• A patient's "best weight" is that weight he can maintain while still enjoying his life.
• Exercise should be encouraged but not to the point of exhaustion, injury, obsession, or neglect of other important things in life.
• If there is no room for celebrations, for resting, for comfort, for pleasure, then any weight management strategy is too restrictive and cannot be maintained.

It seems to me on the one hand that these ideas make sense, and on the other hand that some of us need stricter life guidelines for weight management.  For me, eating nutritarian feels good, tastes good, and IS good for me nutritionally. And I know I have to be very careful with celebratory foods--had just a bite or two of most Thanksgiving treats last week, for example.  But I don't want to come to the dangerous place of calling foods "forbidden."  A little here and there of meat, oil, sweets, even chips is not deadly. However, it can be dangerous to me, since indulging even a little CAN trigger me into losing control.

It's always balance, isn't it, and knowing ourselves, and applying wisdom?

Copyright Law/Ethics and Recipes?

I have been posting cookbook recipes to this blog when I have found them, or their near-equivalents, already posted online.  But today when I was looking up a couple I started to have a qualm about it.  I'd appreciate your thoughts about what to do in such a case.

For example, you can Google the names of the two recipes I made today from the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites: Flavorful Recipes for Healthful Meals book I bought several weeks ago, and you'll find the exact recipes (one even seems to be a pdf from another version of this book!).

For now I'll just name the recipes, mention the main and interesting ingredients, and give a review. That should encourage you to buy the book, and then I'm doing the publishers a favor, right?

First up is SOUTHEAST ASIAN COCONUT ZUCCHINI, which is a sauteed mixture of cubed zucchini, garlic, turmeric, a hot pepper, and coconut milk, with accents of fresh basil, mint, and lime juice.  It was very pretty and very good (if spicy) over brown rice for my supper. And it used up one of our many remaining zucchini from the summer.

Then I tried JAPANESE SESAME SPINACH, but with Swiss chard, a very simple dish of the steamed green dressed with a paste of toasted and ground sesame seed, sugar, and soy sauce. Excellent.

Third in my veggie trio was my own concoction and something to get in part of my bean allowance for the day:

GREEN PEAS AND MUSHROOMS

6-8 ounces quartered mushrooms (I used baby Bella)
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 12-oz bag frozen peas
2 "ice cubes" of frozen stock

Dry saute the quartered mushrooms and garlic, then add the frozen peas and the stock and simmer until the peas are done. Or overcook and have the family say that slightly-charred peas aren't so bad after all!

Verdict: Very Good.  What a simple, filling staple

Supper tonight was hearty servings of all these items with a half cup of brown basmati rice. Very nice.

Just for the sake of recording it, I'll provide the rest of my food for today:

Breakfast--half cup of oatmeal cooked with pear, a banana, and 1/2 oz. toasted almond slivers

Lunch--can of Amy's organic minestrone soup (180 calories, 6 g. fiber, 6 g. protein) fortified with extra water, 1 cup of home-cooked pinto beans and about three ounces of fresh spinach, with a little garlic powder, dehydrated onion, and marjoram.  I intended to eat all of this but stopped at about 3/4. Also had an orange.

Snack--big Jonagold apple

And that makes a nutritarian day:
At least 1 cup beans
At least 1 lb. cooked veggies (had more like 1.5 pounds)
At least 1 lb. fresh veggies (skimpy on that today! But I had giant six-cup spring mix salads every day for most of the last week.)
At least 4 fruits (I've had about 3.5 today, so if I quit being full before bedtime I'll have a bit more)
No more than 1 cup grain/starch (was a little over today, which can make up for the calories but not the nutrition of that bit of extra fruit)
No more than 1 oz. nuts

Thai Curry With Bok Choy

Participants in Dr. Fuhrman's "Six-Week Holiday Challenge" receive daily recipes via email, and today's is for Thai Vegetable Curry. As I glanced over the ingredients I realized I had most of what the recipe calls for, but I'm never willing to just let things alone, so I created my own version.

Dr. F's recipe calls for basically boiling all the veggies in carrot juice for a while, then stirring in peanut butter, coconut milk, and so forth.  That just didn't inspire me, and I don't have any carrot juice nor any firm tofu (which the family wouldn't want anyway), so I made this variation:

THAI CURRY WITH BOK CHOY

1 T. peanut oil
1 cup diced carrots
1 small onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. grated fresh ginger
2 T. each, chopped fresh: mint, Thai basil, and cilantro
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 large eggplant, cubed
2-3 cups green beans, in pieces
3 cups sliced mushrooms
1 head bok choy, chopped
1-1/2 t. red curry powder (for a spicier dish, or yellow for milder)
2 T. natural peanut butter
1/2 cup coconut milk (didn't have the light called for in the original recipe)
1/3 cup peanuts
2 T. chopped dried mango

Heat oil in a wok or very large skillet and stir fry carrot and onion. When those begin to go tender, add peppers and green beans, then mushrooms, then bok choy, allowing five minutes or so between additions.  Cook until crisp-tender, adding garlic, ginger, chopped herbs, and curry powder between stirrings. Then add peanut butter, coconut milk, peanuts, and mango, plus up to a half cup or so of water if needed, covering pan to simmer a bit and combine flavors.  Serve alone or over brown basmati rice.  Serves 8 (or 4 very hungry nutritarians).

Verdict: Excellent. I don't know about the boiled carrot-juice original, but mine is wonderful! :-)  I had 1/4 of the recipe over a half cup of the recommended rice.  I think fresh bok choy is definitely superior to canned bamboo shoots and lots of watercress (though the watercress is nutritionally superior to bok choy, no doubt).  It's more fat than I'm used to having in a dish, but I cut back from the recommended amount of nuts while using full-fat coconut milk and that tablespoon of oil. I could have cut the oil back to 2 teaspoons easily, but I think it was a good first try. I estimate that my version is 150 calories per 1/8 of the recipe while the original is 200 calories for the same amount.  So my 1/4 of the recipe was 300 calories, plus the rice.

Personal Pumpkin Tart

Oh boy, was I happy with this experiment I tried yesterday!  It all started here, with Lilibeth. She linked to a recipe for a crust made with just almonds and oats. I noted the proportions and then lit out on my own, and with a filling of my own, too.

Part of what makes a traditional pumpkin pie so creamy and nice is the evaporated milk in most recipes. I learned years ago that if I simmered my own fresh milk, even letting it scald a bit, reducing it by half or more, I had a better product. So that explains the bit of milk in this recipe.

PERSONAL PUMPKIN TART

Crust

1/4 cup oats chopped very fine with 2 T. raw almonds
1/2 t. tahini (can’t find my almond butter or I’d have used that)
1/8 t. each nutmeg and powdered ginger

Combine these ingredients with just enough water to make the mixture stick together to press into a large custard dish, then bake at 425 until toasty brown. Meanwhile, prepare filling:

Filling

1/4 c. low-fat milk (soy might work)
1/2 cup fresh baked pumpkin, mashed or pureed (canned would be okay)
2 dates, snipped very fine
1/4 t. cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves

In a small saucepan simmer milk until reduced by half--scalding it is fine. Stir in pumpkin, dates, and spices and cook gently, stirring as needed, until thickened. Spoon into crust and bake at 350 until further firmed up and slightly browned on top.

Verdict: Excellent and Amazing, and it uses only half a day’s nuts and grain (ala drfuhrman), then the additional calories of the milk (25) and the two dates.

For Thanksgiving at my sister's tomorrow (about a dozen people) I'm taking the following:

Baba Ganouj (or Dr. Fuhrman's Eggplant Hummus--same thing) with carrot and cucumber and blanched fine green beans and peppers as dippers

Ambrosia--just Valencia and Cara-Cara oranges with coconut, though I'm going to throw in some pomegranate arils I splurged on at Costco the other day

Winter Squash Soup I made the other day (see previous post)

Lower-Fat Yogurt Pound Cake (Joy of Cooking) with a tipsy elderberry sauce I made up.  No, this is not really healthy, but I was assigned a dessert. :-)

Warm and Creamy Winter Squash Soup and a Method for Broth

Another two down of our butternut squash inventory, but I'm adjusting the recipe to one squash, for normal people. :-)  The warmth in this comes from the fresh ginger and a little chile.


WARM AND CREAMY WINTER SQUASH SOUP

1 medium onion, diced
1 tsp olive oil
1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 small chile pepper, minced
1 pint high-quality broth (see below)
1 sprig rosemary (optional--I just floated a stem sprig in the pot at the last minute)

Heat oil in a large saucepan and add onion, stirring occasionally to brown evenly while you're preparing the squash.   Use a potato peeler to take off the outer skin, then cube the squash with a heavy knife, removing seeds. Add squash cubes to onions and continue browning with occasional stirring while you prep and add the other ingredients.  Add water as needed to cover squash cubes. Simmer all for about thirty minutes, until squash is soft, then puree in batches and serve.

Verdict: Excellent.  Smooth and satisfying, with sweet body and a kick from the pepper. I didn't even notice the lack of salt (though my broth may have had some) I had two small bowls of this to start off my lunch, being willing to use up a significant portion of my starch allowance on it today.  The only disappointment about this squash is that it doesn't have any fiber!  But I get plenty of fiber elsewhere. :-)

I think I'm taking this to my sister's for Thanksgiving, with some fresh rosemary to decorate the top of custard-size bowls of soup.  

Inspiration for this recipe comes from my friend Renee and from The Joy of Cooking.

VEGETABLE BROTH

This is a method I am initiating this week, and I thought I'd record what I'm doing.  Beginning several days ago I started freezing a gallon zip-loc bag with vegetable trimmings (onion skins with some adhering onion, garlic peel, the rind of a lemon, several brussels sprouts bottoms, some bell and pimiento pepper stems, butternut squash peel and fiber and a few seeds, the butt of a bunch of celery, etc.), and today with a full bag I dumped the contents into a pot with some water and boiled it for about an hour, then drained it and had a beautiful brown broth which tastes a bit weak only because it doesn't have any salt.  I am freezing it in ice cube trays to then keep in a bag so I can pop a few cubes into a dish as I'm cooking later.

Holiday Challenge and Apple-Carrot Salad

Drfuhrman.com is having a Six-Week Holiday Challenge to help people maintain and even increase their health during the holidays. You can join for free and get six weeks' membership in the Member Center and a Vook (video-enhanced e-book) of Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss.  There's a new version of this book coming out in January, I believe.

In joining the challenge you're pledging to eat every day a big salad, a plate of steamed greens (though I'm sure having them in soup or otherwise is fine, too), three fruits, and a cup of beans, and to avoid white flour and sugar (as well as sugar substitutes).  With that much fruit every day, you should find your sweet tooth diminished, actually.  Dr. Fuhrman is a kind and reasonable man, and he believes you CAN have a little splurge on the holiDAY, but most of us take that way too far and make it a holiMONTH or similar.

If you decide to join the challenge, look for my thread there and join me for daily accountability! I've been doing this with focus for a bit under a month and have lost over ten pounds already.

Below is a recipe I submitted to the drfuhrman.com Member Center Recipe Guide, and it was accepted today. I have others on this blog--please search by the tag.

APPLE-CARROT SALAD

  

1 large apple, in chunks

1/2 cup matchstick or shredded carrot

1/4 cup chopped celery

1/2 ounce chopped nuts, toasted if desired (optional)

1/3 cup plain lowfat yogurt or non dairy substitute

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

a few drops vanilla

Combine apple, veggies, and nuts in a bowl. In a separate dish combine yogurt with spices and vanilla, then toss with the apple mixture. Verdict: Excellent! The day's flax seed meal works nicely with this as well.  I think the cinnamon and vanilla help cut the need for any other sweetening, but if it's too tart for you, try adding in some clementine or pear.

Two Wobblies and a Winner

The other day I tried a couple of recipes from my new Moosewood Lowfat Favorites book, and I'm sorry to say they're not that great, though I will make use of the leftovers of one when I'm hungry and need to fill up with "beans and greens," and the other was definitely better the next day.  I tend to find that with some of these nutritarian recipes--I don't enjoy them a lot the first day, but the leftovers are fine.  Maybe it's overexposure to all the ingredients while preparing the food, maybe it's a need for the flavors to meld . . .

Black-Eyed Peas 'N' Greens <--The discussion on the page where this recipe is linked pretty much explain the problem--dry and kind of bland.  Scallions on top and the malt vinegar I tried help somewhat.  But I think the real thing to do with the leftovers is to make this:  Black-Eyed Peas and Greens Soup.  In a nutshell, add water, tomatoes, and oregano and see where to go from there.

Baked Sweet Potato Salad  except that I used butternut squash, which has half the calories and none of the fiber of sweet potatoes--so pick your poison/magic. :-)  This is a beautiful salad and definitely better the next day, and the book suggests either the dressing on this link or a curried mango yogurt dressing, which would be sweeter but I'm not sure better.  It was just not too inspiring. The Cilantro Lime Yogurt Dressing is very promising for other purposes, too--I look forward to using it later.

But here's a real winner, thanks to my friend Marci:

McDougall's Curried Swiss Chard Soup
This quick soup of leek (or onion), broth, tomatoes, white beans, fresh ginger and curry powder (I used McCormick's red), and fresh Swiss chard (I used red) is really wonderful. Half the recipe is a BIG bowlful for a nutritarian lunch, including two cups of chard and 3/4 cup beans. EXCELLENT.

Dr. McDougall has a lot of the same approach as Dr. Fuhrman, except McDougall emphasizes using grains central to the diet and eliminating nuts and not allowing any animal products, if I've got that straight (and am not mixed up with Esselstyn) . So stricter in some ways, easier in some ways, but with a lot of overlap, so the recipes work well both ways.

Marinated Mushroom Dressing

I have many favorite recipes from Traditions: A Taste of the Good Life, a 1983 cookbook by the Junior League of Little Rock, Arkansas--received as a wedding gift in 1986. I once saw this cookbook reviewed as a classic in perhaps a San Francisco newspaper. I agree.  The carrot cake is fought over by two of the May birthday people in my family.

One favorite recipe in that book is for a fairly simple mushroom salad, in which a mustard vinaigrette ("garden dressing") is poured over a salad of mixed greens and sliced mushrooms.  Really simple.  But I discovered years ago that marinating the mushrooms in the dressing first made it really luscious.  Today I made a variation on that recipe to make it more nutritarian-friendly:

Marinated Mushroom Dressing

8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup good vinegar (I used a homemade tarragon-red-wine vinegar)
1 tablespoon olive oil (the original recipe calls for 1/2 cup)
2 tablespoons minced red or green bell pepper (I used fresh red pimiento pepper, which is "meaty")
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons good dijon-type mustard
2 teaspoons dried herb (I used marjoram) or 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 tsp. cayenne

Combine all ingredients and let marinate in a shakeable container for at least an hour, then serve over mixed greens. Even better the next day.

Verdict:  Very Good. I started with less honey and just felt I had to increase it to cut the harshness of the vinegar. Anyone have suggestions on how to do that more successfully?  I had half of this on a very large salad of red leaf lettuce, spinach, and romaine, with some red cabbage shreds and yellow bell pepper, plus diced beets (that helped sweeten it up a bit) and a cup of rinsed canned navy beans.