Healthy Homemade Ranch Dressing

Tags

cooking, healthy, ranch, salad dressing, vegetarian

Summer time = salad time. Aside from fresh ingredients, the key to making a delicious salad is in the dressing. I love mixing up different styles of salad dressings to add some variety into my daily salad routine.

While traditional ranch dressings are full of saturated fat (mayonnaise AND buttermilk?) and sodium, I like to make a yogurt-based version that is much lighter and healthier, while still retaining that creamy texture.

Ingredients

• 1 cups of greek yogurt
• 1 tablespoon of garlic powder
• 2 cloves of fresh garlic, chopped
• 1 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 tablespoon of dill
• 1 tablespoon of parsley
• 1 teaspoon of dry mustard powder
• 1 teaspoon of black pepper

Direction:

1. Whisk all the seasoning together in a bowl.
2. Add fresh garlic to the greek yogurt in a large mixing bowl, then add the mixed seasoning to the yogurt. Whisk everything together x 30 seconds. Keep dressing in the refrigerator until ready to use.
3. Enjoy!

-NZ

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5 Healthy Foods That are Time-Savers and Stores Well

Tags

Beans, cooking, eating, frozen, healthy, vegetarian

Photo from Fun Learning Life blog – http://funlearninglife.com/2015/02/seeds-of-change-rice-microwavable/

I love the farmers market just as much as anyone else – here in San Diego, my favorite is the Hillcrest Farmer’s Market. Conversations about interesting vegetables you have never seen with the farmers that grew them, fruits that are in season, and the freshest greens ever! And lets not forget the weird/cool stuff – like a booth with just jewellery and decorative items made of old spoons! But lets face it, I end up throwing out about half of those fresh microgreens.

Once I started residency, the days of only cooking in cast-iron, never microwave and eating home-made salsa were a thing of the past. Instead though, I learned some new, really sustainable habits – I cook a big meal/s at the beginning of the week, and I buy ingredients that are easy to use and can last because I don’t have a long time to shop! And of course, because I LOVE food and have zero impulse control, and because I stress eat, everything at my house has to be healthy. I realized that some of you may benefit from knowing the staples I get – not just from Trader Joes (which has saved my Bee-Hind many times) but also from really anywhere.

1. Canned beans – Beans are one of my favorite foods to write about. They are eco-friendly, filling, great for your microbiome, FULL of fiber, help with glycemic control, and versatile. When you buy them in the can, they are pre-cooked and you don’t need to do much to them. Tip: wash the canned beans first (once or twice) to reduce the sodium content.
2. Frozen greens – There is nothing wrong with frozen food, so long as it is not full of fats, salt and sugar. Frozen vegetables might even be healthier than fresh, because they are literally frozen at the farm, ensuring that they lose as little nutrient content as possible. Frozen greens can be quickly added to soups, cooked rice dishes, casseroles,  and even fruit smoothies to increase the health-factor.
3. Frozen or pre-packaged grains – I use frozen brown-rice a LOT. To save time, I would throw the frozen brown rice into the dish as I am cooking, rather than making a stand alone brown rice as a side. Frozen brown rice is also a good filler for a dish, like adding it into a  soup as a thickener.
4. Arugula – Arugula lasts forever. Well maybe not forever, but pre-washed Arugula lasts me ~2 weeks. And my favorite thing about microgreens is that they are so compact and I can put a whole pack of arugula into a dish without feeling like it has taken over the dish.
5. Frozen berries – I keep all kinds of frozen fruit, but frozen berries top the list because they are nutrient dense without having a lot of calories. For example, on the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index, which wholefoods uses to label its foods, berries are on the top 5, with fresh cranberries topping the list.  Just remember to buy your berries organic – strawberries top the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen.

 

-DS

Making Ghee From Scratch

Tags

ayurveda, cooking, Food, ghee, gluten-free, health, healthy, nutrition, receipe, recipe, vegetarian

Seive through a strainer. Hubby helped with this

Frying is generally bad for you – example: frying unsaturated oils leads to the production of trans-fats which can contribute to cardiovascular disease, frying carbohydrates leads to the production of acrylamides & glycidamides which are carcinogenic, and frying proteins causes the production of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which can contribute to cancer and are one of the reasons processed meats are considered a contributor to cancer by the WHO.

So why do I suggest frying spices might be a good idea? When spices are slowly cooked in a tempering oil, the aromatic compounds, which are better drawn out by oil as they fat soluble, are released into the oil. When cooking, these aromatic compounds suspended in oil are better able to permeate the dish so that we taste and smell cumin, garlic, ginger, mustard seeds, and curry leaves leading to the sensory experience that is characteristic of Indian food.

Why ghee? Ghee has been used in Ayurveda for millenia as a food, a vehicle for herbs (it is a fat so it helps absorption of fat soluble medicinal compounds), and for home remedies. When I was growing up and no one was supposed to eat any fat, everyone stopped putting ghee in their food. I tell my family, friends and patients who are South Asian to continue to cook their spices in ghee and flavor their foods with it. Why? Because I would rather they enjoy half a teaspoon of ghee and to flavor their foods and cut the huge amounts of white rice, white flour, and sugar that South Asians tend to indulge in. Also, ghee is a stable oil with a higher smoke point, and cooking olive oil to high temperatures necessary to cook Indian spices for tempering may not be as safe as unsaturated fats can become harmful when they oxidize, and even become harmful trans fatty acids. The nutritional community has decided for sure that trans-fats are certainly worse than saturated fat. And yes, ghee has saturated fat, but if you plan to put as little as 1 tablespoon of ghee in a large portion of cooked vegetable, then you might as well do things the traditional way, especially if theoretically you are creating harmful trans fats by frying unsaturated olive oil.

Ghee is easily available in Indian grocery stores and online nowadays. I am particularly fond of a couple of different brands. Pure brand is a good one, and I recently discovered Eat Good Fat brand ghee. Both are grassfed and organic, and taste really fresh. I tend to trust organic valley and they have started making ghee as well, but I have not tried their ghee. So why make ghee? Because no matter how good the brand you buy, fresh ghee tastes the best. It is also MUCH cheaper to make the ghee than to buy all of the above brands I quoted to you and it lasts a really long time.

Below are step by step instructions on how to make ghee with pictures. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

3 sticks of butter – I use grassfed butter, preferrably from a farm.

Recipe

1. Turn the stove to medium, put 3 sticks of butter in a pot and place on the stove. Wait for the butter to melt and then boil. The boiling goes through 2 stages. The first time it boils, you end up with a white precipitate.
2. With the second boiling point, you start to see a film of proteins build up on the top and then the ghee boils again. As soon as the precipitate starts to turn brown, turn off the stove and take the ghee off the stove.
3. When the ghee stops boiling, you will see brown precipitate at the bottom. This is very much edible, but NOT healthy for you – my husband’s family mixes a spoon of sugar with it. It tastes amazingly deliciously unhealthy.
4. Sieve the ghee through a cheese cloth, and its done! I have pictures below for each step. Enjoy!

Boiling point number 1

Precipitate number 1

Boiling point number 2 with the film developing at the top

Precipitate number 2. This is the point at which you turn off the stove

When you stop the stove and the boiling stops, this is what you see!

Seive through a strainer. Hubby helped with this

Deliciously unhealthy part – look at the spoon

 

 

 

Healthy Kale Stir-Fry

Tags

cabbage, carrots, cooking, Food, healthy, kale, recipe, stir-fry, vegetarian

Nothing cooks faster than a stir-fry dish and nothing is healthier than kale. So when I am busy and hungry, my quickest solution is to do a quick kale stir-fry that satisfies my stomach and my body.

The recipe below is pretty easy and only takes about 15 minutes to cook from preparation until serving. I added eggs in my dish, but you can also cook without them if you want an vegan option.

Ingredients: (serves 3)

• 1 tbsp of coconut oil (you can also sub it with olive oil)
• 1 bunch of kale, chopped
• 1 cup of cabbage, thinly sliced
• 2 Carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp of tumeric
• 1 tsp of chili oil
• Salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Wash and chop all the vegetables.
2. Heat a large wok or a frying pan with the coconut oil in low-medium heat.
3. Add the sliced green onions into the wok, then break the eggs into the wok.
4. Slowly let them cook until the egg white congeals. Stir the eggs occasionally like you are making scrambled eggs
5. Add kale, cabbage, carrots into the mix.
6. Season the mixture with salt (~1 tbsp) and tumeric. Gently mix and stir the content of the pan to mix the seasonings.
7. Cover the pan and let it simmer for 1 minute
8. Add pepper and chili oil into the mix and stir-fry x 5 seconds.
9. Serve hot!

-NZ

Gluten-Free Vegan Corn and Kale Porridge

Tags

breakfast, cooking, fall, gluten-free, healthy, kale, paleo, porridge, recipe, vegan, vegetarian

For me, nothing says comfort better than a bowl of warm porridge. I’ve recently discovered using corn as a grain-substitute for porridge. It is really fast & easy to prepare, so it’s a great meal for when you are short on time. To take advantage of all the fall vegetables, I’ve been making this savory grain-free corn and kale porridge. You can easily substitute the kale for other vegetables, like chard or spinach.

Note: be sure to purchase organic corn to avoid eating genetically modified corns.

Ingredients:

• 1 ear of organic corn
• 1 teaspoon of olive oil
• 1/4 of yellow onion, diced
• 1/4 cup of almond/soy milk
• 1 cup of kale, chopped
• 1/2 cup of water
• A dash of red pepper flakes
• Sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Use a knife, grate the corn kernels into a bowl
2. In a large pot, sautee the onion in oil on medium-low heat until they become translucent.
3. Add the corn, kale and water to the pot and cook x5 minutes. Then add your choice of soy/almond milk and sea salt. Let the pot simmer for 10-15 minutes until the mixture thickens.
4. Serve hot with red pepper flakes and ground pepper.

-NZ

this recipe is linked up at Real Food Fridays

Healthy Nutrition Dense Snacks

Tags

chia, chickpeas, chips, coconut crisps, Food, healthy, lesserevil, munchies, snacks, Super 4 Kale White Bean Bites

Many factors during residency are out of your control- one of those is night-float. Working during the night, the hormones in your gut get kind of wacky. In particular, ghrelin – a hormone that signals hunger- is not suppressed properly in response to your tummy being full. As a result, I constantly have the munchies during the night-shift.

To make matter worse, I had to work nights during the holiday season. There were holiday candies EVERYwhere. Thankfully, I discovered some healthy snacks that helped me get through the holidays without the stress of unmanageable weight-gain. Everyone is different and weight is more complicated than a “one-secret-strategy”, but strategies to consume calories intelligently can be helpful. In another words, eating nutrient dense foods can help curb calorie consumption. Below are 4 snacks that helped me keep the night-time munchies at-bay.

1. LesserEvil Super 4 Kale White Bean Bites

Three words – toss the Cheetos. These crunchy and delicious bite-sized snacks are made from white bean, chia, quinoa and lentil flours. The crunchy texture reminds you of corn snacks like Cheetos. The soluble fiber from the chia seeds and the resistant starch from the white-bean flour help to satisfy you and decrease the overall calorie content. The roasted garlic flavor is addicting. Thankfully, you can eat 45 of these little guys for a 110 calorie serving. Now that’s a night-float resident serving!

2. LesserEvil Chia Crisps

These are similar to popped chips, but are predominantly from black bean flour. Bean flour is great because of previously explained benefits. Keep in mind that some of the flavors are not vegan. My favorite flavor is feta and black olive. Opa!

 

3. Crunchy Chickpeas

The cheapest place to get these are from the Indian store, but of course the quality-control isn’t as good as foods manufactured in the US. The brand I have been eating is Saffron Road, and they have some fun flavors. My favorite has been Chilli lime. You can also make these in the oven. The good bean is another brand that I like.

4. Coconut Crisps

Literally coconut shavings flavored with sea-salt and vinegar. They are chewy so you take your time eating these. I was first introduced to them at the people’s co-op of San Diego.

Enjoy!

-DS

Roasted Cauliflower with Cinnamon

Tags

baking, cauliflower, cinnamon, cooking, Food, gluten-free recipe, healthy, holiday recipe, roasted, savory, snack, spices, vegan recipe, vegetarian

No spice reminds me of the holidays more than cinnamon. Prized by ancient Egyptians as a panacea, it is shown to have many health benefits. Not only is cinnamon great for lowering cholesterol and stabilizing blood sugar, it even helps to fight against a cold or bacterial infection. No wonder this is the perfect holiday spice!

Unfortunately, cinnamon is often associated with desserts and other sugary foods. So I want to share a quick-and-simple savory recipe that uses cinnamon. Plus it is gluten-free! Not only does the cinnamon really enhances the flavor of the cauliflower, these two powerhouse ingredients can boost your immune system and help you stay healthy during the cold winter months.

Roasted Cauliflower with Cinnamon

Ingredients (serves 5)

• 1 medium-sized head of cauliflower
• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons cornmeal
• 2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC, or gas mark 6).
2. Cut the cauliflower into bite-size pieces. Place the cut cauliflower in a large bowl and coat evenly with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil.
3. In a small bowl, sift together the cornmeal, cinnamon, and sea salt. Sprinkle evenly onto cauliflower and toss with your hands until the cauliflowers are well coated.
4. Transfer the cauliflower to an ungreased baking sheet, discarding any excess cornmeal. Drizzle lightly with the remaining 1 tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil.
5. Bake for ~40 minutes without flipping or until the cauliflower is browned on the edges and bottoms.
6. Serve hot

-NZ

Vegetarian Thai Curry

Tags

carrots, coconut milk, cooking, curry, healthy, kale, onions, pumpkin, recipe, vegetarian dishes, zucchini

We did a post a awhile ago on easy vegetarian recipes, where you can use vegetables readily available to you and customize the spice to your own preference. The vegetarian thai red curry is another example of such dish.

I use zucchini, carrots, onions, and mushrooms in the recipe. However, you can adapt this to whatever you prefer, such as adding potatoes or pumpkins for zucchini, or you can substitute with some hearty greens like bok choy or kale.

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 2 tablespoon red curry paste
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon Thai Kitchen® Premium Fish Sauce
• 1 cup onions, cubed
• 1 cup of carrots, chopped
• 1 cup of zucchini, chopped
• 1 cup of mushrooms, chopped
• ¼ cup of fresh cilantro, chopped
• Spices: curry powder, basil, cayenne pepper (~1 tbsp each)
• 2 cup of brown rice

Directions:

1. Cook brown rice in rice cooker, or a medium pot (~1 hr)
2. Heat coconut oil in a large skillet on medium heat.
3. Add chopped onion and carrots to the skillet, cook for ~5 minutes
4. Add the rest of vegetables, and coconut milk. Cook in medium heat until coconut milk boils.
5. Stir in the red curry paste, bring to simmer on medium heat.
6. Stir in the other spices and cook for another 1 minute, then add the cilantro.
7. Remove from heat and serve hot over rice, Enjoy!

-NZ

Freezer-Friendly Tomato-Onion Indian Curry Base

Tags

cooking, curry, dairy free, freezer friendly, healthy, onion, quick recipes, recipe, spice, tomato, vegan, vegetarian

As a resident, I am forever trying to find the fastest way to eat fresh and healthy food. When I am working long, exhausting winter days, salad just doesn’t cut it for me. I need comfort food! For the past few months, I have been stuck on the idea that it might be convenient to  make large amounts of a curry base in bulk. This way, I can divvy it up in small portions, and then freeze them to be thawed and used to for flavoring in cooking, or as a base for a bean or vegetable dish. Some considerations when deciding whether a dish is freezer-friendly:

• Soups tend to freeze well
• In what form have I eaten this vegetable frozen and enjoyed it before?
• As water freezes, it expands, destroying the cell walls of plants which are hard. That is why thawed fresh vegetables are more limp than fresh ones, even though they have been not been cooked. For the same reason, pre-cooked vegetables tend to taste better than raw ones because you have already broken down the cell-walls in the cooking process.
• The flavor of herbs and spices intensifies in an already cooked dish once it is frozen because of the increased cell-wall breakdown. Keep this in mind when thawing an already spicy dish!

Tomato and onion curry base

My first successful attempt was a tomato-onion curry base. Tomatoes are the ultimate stew-friendly veggie and they absorb flavor well. Their tangy juice is wonderful for flavoring almost anything. The flavor becomes more concentrated as you cook them down, but they are delicious from the beginning so they are pretty idiot-proof.

Ingredients:

• 6 small vine ripened tomatoes or 3 large beef-steak tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 2 onions chopped into 1/4 inch pieces
• Jalapenos, chopped into thin rounds
• 2-3 cloves of garlic chopped finely
• Olive oil or grape-seed oil
• Spices: 1/4 tsp turmeric, 2 tsp salt, chilli powder

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a fry-pan
2. Add a piece of garlic to the heated oil to see if it starts to sputter/bubble. If it does, the oil is ready!
3. Add the garlic to the pan
4. Once it is slightly done, add the onion. Sautee until almost translucent. Try not to continually stir the onions but rather wait until they cook a little, then move the top onions to the bottom. Keep repeating this process until all the onions are mostly translucent.
5. Once onions are cooked, add 1 tsp salt and turmeric. Adding turmeric too early makes it harder to tell if the onions are cooked. Adding salt too early releases the moisture from the onions into the rest of the dish too early. This makes them boil more than fry, which makes them more sweet and less pungent.
6. Now, add the tomatoes. Cook them to your desired thickness and flavor. Add the other teaspoon of salt to help release the moisture from the tomatoes into the dish

And voila! You have a finished curry base. My favorite way to incorporate this dish is to add about 1/4 cup with 2 cans of refried beans and some water. This makes them a hundred times better than when they started.

Different ways to use the curry base:

• Sautee black mustard seeds, ginger-garlic paste, cumin and dried red chillis in olive oil and add it to the base with almost any bean or lentil, you get tomato daal.
• Add it to a cooked grain to make a tomato based rice or pilaaf.
• Add it to cooked cracked wheat along with black mustard seeds, cumin, ginger-garlic paste and curry leaves sauteed in oil, you get upma.

-DS

Simple Shishito Peppers Recipe

Tags

cooking, greens, healthy, recipe, sautee, shishito peppers, vegan, vegetables, vegetarian

I love a simple recipe that doesn’t require an a litany of ingredients. Maybe it’s because I tend to cook for myself, or because I am a purist and love to savor the natural taste of each fresh ingredient. That’s why shishito peppers are among my favorites. They taste amazing on their own, and with just 20 calories to a cup, they are a perfect snack! These peppers are also a great source of vitamins A and C.

The recipe below takes less than 4 minutes to cook and has almost no prep time!

Note: shishito peppers are NOT spicy, so if you want some kick, you can add cayenne or other chili peppers for taste.

Ingredients: (serving 1)

• 1 cup of fresh shishito peppers
• 1 tbsp of olive or sesame oil
• 1 lime wedge
• sea salt (optional)

 

Directions:

1. Wash the shishito peppers and pat dry
2. Add 1 tbsp of oil into a skillet and heat the skillet in medium heat until hot.
3. Add the shishito peppers into the hot skillet and cover. Toss the skillet in a circular motion with the lid on, so that the peppers cook evenly. You want them to be charred on one side.
4. Let it cook for ~2-3 minutes.
5. Serve hot and sprinkle lime on top. You can also add sea salt for taste.

ENJOY!

-NZ