Problem In The Kitchen by George Erdosh

We have problems. Whether you are a home cook or a food professional, we are confronted with the problem of how to cook foods that are reasonably heart healthy yet retain full flavor.

The problem is that most of our flavors are fat soluble, i.e., they flavors are mainly in the fat part of the food: in butter, in the fatty parts of meat, poultry and fish, in the oily parts of nuts and seeds and in the yolk of eggs. Remove the fat and you are getting rid of much of the flavor, too. What to do?

I have been eating heart healthy foods during much of my life and, like many cooks, I had to make a compromise. I reduce fats and oil as much as possible but not completely so flavors are still retained, and I eat foods in moderation. When two of the fresh-baked chocolate-almond squares are what my stomach asks for, I put my foot down and stop at one. I do like butter on my bread that I spread paper thin and I like cheeses a lot. But unlike sandwiches served at the deli where four ounces (115 g) of cheese is standard for a sandwich, I use 1.5 ounces (43 g).  For me, this works.

What works for you?

My next line of defense is a nice collection of recipes that are reasonably low in saturated fats and cholesterol. Here is one for a cookie, an old recipe with zero cholesterol and very little saturated fat.

Walnut Kisses

This recipe was created well before our convenient kitchen machines were available but a food processor makes this a snap to prepare. They are oven ready in 10 minutes. Make sure you use fresh walnuts that you buy in pieces, not ground.

Ingredients

2 1/4 c walnut pieces
1 c plus 2 Tbsp sugar
3/4 c all-purpose flour
2 egg whites
extra walnut pieces for topping each kiss

How to Prepare

1. Grind walnuts and sugar in a food processor until very fine, about one minute.
2. Add flour and process for a few seconds.
3. Pour egg whites into the bowl of the food processor through the feed tube while the machine is running and process until the mixture forms a dough, about half a minute.
4. Scrape mixture on a flour-dusted work surface and shape it into walnut-sized balls (24-28). (A small spring-loaded scoop is useful for this.)
5. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
6. Cover two baking sheet with aluminum foil.
7. Place kisses two fingers apart on the foil and press each down gently with flour-dusted fingers to make each into a thick, flattened disc. Press a small walnut piece in the center of each.
8. Bake kisses in preheated oven until lightly brown but still soft to gentle pressing, 18 to 20 minutes (baking too long makes kisses too crunchy).
9. Peel off kisses of the foil after they cooled.

Makes 24 to 28 walnut kisses.

nutty flickr image credit

find george at:  howfoodswork@volcano.net
www.howfoodswork.blogspot.com

In seeking summer guest authors Jon graciously agreed and sent this after a friendly reminder. It’s a dear jon letter or a bit of a ” please don’t make me write a guest author post for you” post.  Certainly not what I expected and yet coming from him …it’s positively perfect - I adore him for it.  

Dear Karen,

I’m supposed to write a guest post for you.

“Supposed to” is an interesting phrase use. You invited people to write. I offered. You graciously accepted.

So when I say “I’m supposed”, it is a self-inflicted supposition. It isn’t like it’s your fault, it isn’t a choiceless obligation, an other-inflicted burden. I volunteered.

And when I add “for you”, it further distances me from my willingness. “I have to do this to make you happy, to get you off my back.”

And when I phrase it as obligation, it can create sympathy in conversations in which I want people to pity me for my busy schedule and excuse what I’m not getting done. And it’s not like I haven’t known about the deadline for weeks. I have had lots of time to write lots of things.

Wow.

See, writing for me is an opportunity to discover something of what is going on in my head and heart. I sit with a blank screen and then learn. One learning style instrument tells me that I’m an intrapersonal learner. So writing helps me learn, helps me figure out what I know. The very process of ordering words teaches. Teaches me, I mean. It might help others, too, I suppose, but the first audience always is me.

And so, here I am, blaming you for an obligation that isn’t your fault, which isn’t an obligation at all, which is an opportunity, which could teach me what I don’t yet know, which isn’t for you anyway, which was freely entered into.

I don’t know, Karen. I’ll have to get back to you on whether I can get anything written in time. And I’m sorry for blaming you for my choices. And thanks for the opportunity to talk.

Jon

I write at levite.wordpress.com. And watch lent2008.wordpress.com.

taken exclusively for me by Jon – see the great smile?

Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Publisher
708.482.0678 ~ Websites: Nutrition, Weight Loss, and Green Clean 

Each one, like “giving birth” Franke says,  lands in my heart with such impact.  I feel this woman’s words and art in every part of me. She is a vibrant green walk the talk lady who a year ago gave up her SUV, and planted a green driveway. I admire the heck out of her.

Besides being cool, connected and a brilliant writer. She’s especially nice.  Her generosity shines here with this post and her willingness to guest author here at Best of Mother Earth   

Bloggy confession: when I first started blogging I wasn’t frequenting other blogs. I actually had never seen a blog before. I had never read a blog.  All I knew was that a blog would give me a stronger presence on the web.  All I knew is that if I had something to say or write about that a blog would be a medium for me. As a creative spirit imagine how I felt when I first read Franke’s work.  You can see my over the top emotional gushy and very first blog comment ever at her post My SUV and Me Say Goodbye

Franke James is one amazing discovery for sure and one who I feel can move green mountains.

I’m titling the post “Paradise Unpaved”, which connects with singer Joni Mitchell’s old song — see excerpt below:

Big Yellow Taxi

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
Put ‘em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ‘em The song continues but that’s the part that connects with my post.

Printed from the official Joni Mitchell website: JoniMitchell.com
Please respect the copyright owner by not profiting from this document.
http://jonimitchell.com/musician/print.cfm?id=BigYellowTaxi

i

See the rest of the story paradise unpaved …

Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Publisher
708.482.0678 ~ Websites: Nutrition, Weight Loss, and Green Clean  

A Fondness for Foodness: 

Food has been on man’s mind ever since

man had a brain. Or so i assume. The act of feeding is a primordial need and concern, just ask any Frenchman.. Some cultures center on different aspects of eating; the Chinese have traditionally searched the balance of nutrients and its medicinal effects upon the body. The Latin peoples have sought deep joy around the family feasts. The Jivaros have crystallized tribal unity around the dinner ritual, your head or mine? interjecting anthropological humor in the subject, but food is a serious topic, yes, ask any French chef.

Food is more than something to chew on,

animal instinct insures proper selection. Newly developed modern science has diverged from nature in the art of supplying wellness to society.

Folklore used to be a vehicle of long held knowledge, but the diaspora has disseminated and confused the principles of food as medicine. When the Jewish philosopher physician Maimonides found chicken soup to be a cure for such respiratory problems as asthma, he did not know that scientists would corroborate his theories, eight centuries hence.

When the Egyptians worshiped the trusty

garlic plant, they only had empirical savvy about its capacity to treat cryptoccocal meningitis. Then Pliny the elder, the Roman do gooder found it to be beneficial for thinning the blood, among its many properties. I can just see an Italian mother serving garlic laden sauce to her ailing family, “eat and your Tuberculosis will get better”, well actually, researchers have indeed proven the efficacy of allicin against myco-bacterium Avium and especially as treatment for TB.

So what do the rest of us do on a

regular day to improve our food intake? If it were only an act of nutrition, we’d trot over to some fast food place and stuff something in the dotted line that says ” insert here” open face, and presto, human is fed (up). I do know folks who would casually perform this soulless routine as feeding time, they can also simultaneously hold a conversation with co-workers and hold a cell phone close by.

Is this a diminished ritual or a multitasking feat?

Attitude holds power in the pursuit of

wellness, starting from the selection of fresh locally grown produce to the preparation of the food,. The connectivity between the supplier and the consumer can extend the value of the meal. I had a respectful relationship with the family butcher since i was tall enough to order my father’s preferred cuts over the market’s marble counters, nothing but the best for those who appreciate quality.

Farmers markets provide joy, the anticipation of organic produce’s direct path to your table adds an essential pleasure to mere consumption.

There is little continuity in the

plastic wrapped processed meat or canned veges, the ultimate product has been interrupted by an army of middlemen on the search for long shelf life and rapid profits. Laboratories have provided clues to sensory enhancement and whole generations have been addicted to artificial sweeteners and flavors. The palate is fooled, but the body is not my dear! just check the occurrence of common illness.

Hippocrates wrote ” let food be

your medicine”, he knew of the complexity of active nutrients in ordinary ingredients. A return to natural foods and carefully processed supplements would ease the health crisis in developed countries. Immune systems need the whole range of vitamins and minerals from a variety of plants and elements. Modern pharmacology has cleaved a divide between food and drugs, while the forty previous centuries had connected the art and science of foods as wellness.

Inseparably.

The body knows, the nose knows, take

your senses on a daily trip to the markets and grow some primal instinct at the heart of your nourishment, your happy table will tell you stories to fill more than the stomach. There is a glow about the well fed person; and nature holds the mystery.

flickr leek image credit

Leeks in blankets.

Despite the spontaneous baptism of this recipe, this is a tradition in my ancestral Southern France. ( poireaux a la bechamel)

I have simplified the list of ingredients to suit busy schedules and shopping opportunities.

1 large bundle of leeks (ramps), or

asparagus, or salsify (oyster plant)

1 package of thinly sliced ham

1 package of grated or sliced Swiss cheese (Gruyere)

——————

White sauce/ Bechamel:

2 cups of organic whole milk

4 Ts whole wheat flour or corn starch.

sea salt/pepper.

Shake all cold ingredients in a well sealed jar and pour into a sauce pan, stir constantly over low heat till thickened. I add a tsp of olive oil to smooth the sauce.

——————-

Wash vegetables thoroughly, leeks can be gritty between leaves.

Trim to equal lengths, steam or boil for 5 – 10 minutes. Save the juice to drink later.

Roll each leek or asparagus stalk into a slice of Swiss cheese, or grated Gruyère or Romano, then into one of very thin ham; use a wooden toothpick to secure if necessary.

Place the rolls in a glass pan rubbed with butter.

Pour sauce all along the line up, especially at center, lightly sprinkle grated cheese on the spine.

Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees; aslight brown crust indicates all flavors have blended.

Potato quarters can be treated to same roll and bake method, add a tsp of garlic and onion powder to the sauce for those. Lean bacon may be used as wrap.

Bon appetit!

More of Nadine’s work.

I’d like you to meet Thea, who’s blog Shades of Life I stumbled upon in the fall. I was intrigued by her musings, her gentle spirit and most of all her wonderful rich oil paintings. I have been a collector of local art for sometime, and when a cash gift arrived for my birthday I decided to spend it on the tea cup painting you see in my header! In her recent email she said she’s exhibiting but also had guests in her Bed and Breakfast. I didn’t know she had a B&B !

Hi everyone, it is an absolute honour to be a guest blogger to Karen’s well known site.

My name is Thea Burger, I am a full time artist painting in oils. My family and I live in South Africa. Our home language is Afrikaans (as you will recognise in my grammar).

Thea

I met Karen through blogging, she bought one of my small paintings. I was all exited sending it all the way to her. I love visiting her site; learning all about health.

Living in South Africa is a challenge. There are so many daily changes, eg. interest rates, fuel prices, crime etc. but… I know nothing better. We have excellent weather, as artists we work really hard to climb the ladder for popularity.

My art is mostly vintage, shabby chic.

I grew up on a farm, learned to speak Zulu. Most of my paintings are inspired by farm and kitchen memories. I love painting vintage cups, people, flowers, fruit, farm animals.

rooster by thea

I frame these mostly in frames made from old doors, window frames, leaving the pealing paint as is… Something very popular now here in South Africa.

fruit in shabby chic frame

Enjoy visiting Karen’s site; I am sure you never leave here without more knowledge.

Amazingly the picture of the rose she shares below blossomed the day she was writing about me. It’s such a beautiful photograph!

A Double Delight!

Best “Bloggette-ing” Wishes for your 1^{st “Birth-blog-day!”
I am honored and a thrilled to offer you my congratulations!}

When I think about our friendship and the mentorship we share, I liken our relationship to my favorite rose in my Pear Tree garden… a “Double Delight.”

Little did I realize the “Double Delight” your phone call would offer me. Once upon a time in January 2008…my friend Susie Duboe-Bryant, owner of Hinsdale Furriers, suggested that you call me about presenting a What Color Is Your Brain? ® Workshop and selling my new book What Color Is Your Brain?  at the West Suburban Women Entrepreneurs (WSWE) February meeting.

After discussing the details of our agreement for the WSWE meeting, we continued our conversation as if we were overnight campers attending our reunion.

I quickly recognized your helpful and creative “Blue Brain” attributes. Then, our divergent thinking processes led us through a labyrinth, beginning with my Brain Colors, switch-backing to blogging, and an hour later, concluding with your gracious offer to help me find solutions to my digestive issues related to gluten and food allergies.

You generously shared your blog knowledge and suggested I contact blog consultants Michael Snell and Derrick Sorles 

^{Then, you offered me information about two Shaklee products: Optiflora Probiotic Complex “my pearl” and EZ-Gest}

“My Pearl” and EZ -Gest changed my life. No more brain or belly bloating!

You are a quintessential problem solver. “Thank You!” I am most grateful for the comfort and trust you offered for my Brain, my Blog and my Belly!

Each day, I look forward to your lyrical, educational, magical and (often) hysterically funny posts. Last month, I jotted a note on my calendar about you and your writing. It simply read: Caring and Grace. I was confident that the appropriate time to share those adjectives would appear.

Ta- Da! When you invited me to be a “Guest Author” for your blog, I addressed my reply message to “Car’n Grace.” You replied with an innovative revision “Caringrace.” Now, “Caringrace Hanrahan” resides in my email address book.

I chose this date, to contribute to your blog because it is personally and professionally significant to both of us. June 19th is the 1st delivery/birthday of my What Color Is Your Bran? books to my office.

“Caringrace,” I am extraordinarily proud of you and your accomplishments.

Mazel Tov,

Sheila

stunning “double delight” rose in bloom  from sheila’s garden

Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Publisher
708.482.0678 ~ Websites: Nutrition, Weight Loss, and Green Clean 

( she says she talks alot – so do I!  When you get to folks together that have the same interest one can see how a consult could take 90 minutes! ) 

First, let me thank Karen, Mother Earth, for asking me to be a guest author on her blog.

I can’t tell you when I first started reading Best of Mother Earth during the past year. I subscribed because I like her “Mother Earth” groundedness and honesty. I enjoy Karen’s recipes and stories about her life. I enjoy reading about how to be more green and how to help the planet. From reading Karen’s articles on going green, I am making small changes in my own life such as greener cleaning products that are better for the environment and for me.

Sometime over the past few months, I found out that Karen is a Shaklee distributor and more recently I found out that she is a Best Wellness Consultant with Shaklee.  After I signed up with Shaklee to buy directly from them just for my own personal use, Karen offered to give me a free consultation.

Through emails, Karen and I exchanged phone numbers. I called Karen and the consultation lasted about 1 1/2 hours. (I talk a lot.) Karen asked me questions about my health (I have a blood sugar disorder which the doctor calls diabetes, high blood pressure, migraines, and sinus infections and headaches.) and any medications and nutrients that I was already taking.

I have been, over the past ten years, leaning more toward alternative and natural remedies for my health because I am so allergic to antibiotics. The pharmacist recently told my husband that all of the antibiotics on the market today are made from at least one of the six medicines that I am allergic to.

Karen gathered the information together that I gave her and later sent me an email of a plan of suggestions for me to implement to become healthier. She gave me suggestions to reduce high blood pressure, to assist and rebuild digestion, to reduce inflammation naturally, and to support nerve function and brain health.

Karen gave me a list of nutrients that are depleted by stress, a list of nutrients that benefit the sinuses, a list of nutrients that benefit hormones (I am post menopausal.) Then she gave me a list of what she considered the most crucial nutrients that she felt I needed to start out with. My doctor has never taken the time to do any of this. I was truly impressed with Karen’s caring and knowledge.

She is a wonderful wellness consultant.

I was already impressed with the Shaklee business. I fully intend to implement the suggestions that Karen wrote out for me. Karen has hooked me as a Shaklee customer and as a friend. Thanks Karen.

Patricia Singleton -  Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker

Patricia, her husband Daniel, and grandchild McGavyn taken 2 years ago

Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Publisher
708.482.0678 ~ Websites: Nutrition, Weight Loss, and Green Clean 

Brad Shorr of WordSell.Inc is someone I met a year ago, at a class where he spoke about blogging. He made the wonderful distinction about the anatomy of a blog, vs a website – which I found particularly insightful. We met up again at SOBCon08 and found we had a lot in common. Since then we have been reading and commenting on each other’s blogs, which is another thing I love about the bloggy people I have met this past year. Great folks!

Brad sent me an email that said,  I’ve been checking out your blog. You have some really fine information here. Kudos!

Tell me that wouldn’t just make your day!

I liked Brad’s share, it’s very true that a bit of weightloss – in his case just 15lbs, can have remarkable impact on overall health and well being. 

Thank you.  

My Life on Atkins

By Brad Shorr

When I went on the Atkins diet about five years ago, everyone was skeptical, including me. The stereotypical image of an Atkins dieter was (and maybe still is) someone shoveling down 64 ounce steaks and shoebox-size blocks of cheese. Much to my surprise, the actual diet turned out to be nothing like that at all. The health benefits I experienced were amazing and totally counterintuitive.

The first thing to know about Atkins is that you can and should eat plenty of vegetables. Since a good number of other foods are discouraged, including grains and many fruits, I found myself eating – and enjoying – a greater variety of vegetables than I ever before. Though I’m no longer rigidly on Atkins, my taste for spinach, cauliflower, endive, and broccoli thankfully remains.

Here are two other important realities of Atkins. First, by no means should you limit your protein intake to red meat and cheese. It’s just as good if not better to go heavy on chicken and fish, which are more nutritious and save calories. Which brings me to the second point – Atkins is not a license to eat unlimited calories. The idea that you can eat 30 slabs of ribs a day and not gain weight is incorrect. Calories always count.

What happens on Atkins is that you have less of an appetite, because without the carbs your body doesn’t experience the spikes in sugar level that stimulate appetite. For the first few weeks on Atkins, I had to force myself to eat. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t perpetually hungry.

After one year on Atkins I went in for a physical exam. For one year, no carbs, virtually no fruit, large portions of vegetables, and lots and lots of protein. You might be as surprised as I was to find out –

q My cholesterol had dropped from 275 to 210

q My blood pressure had dropped from slightly elevated to normal

q My glucose levels had plunged from borderline high to below normal

Go figure! All this in addition to dropping about 15 pounds and having more energy than I had felt in years. That said, I eventually went off the diet because I really missed things like pasta and rice. However, I still stick to general Atkins principles and seldom eat those nasty, “empty” carbs. If you want to give the diet a try, read Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution cover to cover before you do anything. The book makes an awful lot of sense.

Happy Blog Birthday, Karen!

Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Publisher
708.482.0678 ~ Websites: Nutrition, Weight Loss, and Green Clean 

My ballet mentor shared Lill with me and I found her writing contagious. She’s brilliant, funny, sometimes to the point of bust a gut funny.  I have roared at times, at how she phrases or views things. I see myself in this post with the frustration of person to person communicating – the banging head on tub part, and I also marvel at the use of the internet for entertaining the young.

As Lill would say, Shine on

One of those sayings that I’m really tired of hearing is: “It takes two to argue.” True, but it only takes one to disagree. For instance, if one says to one’s child, “The sky is a beautiful shade of blue today,” and one’s child says, “No, it’s not really blue. It’s blueish-gray,” and you bite your tongue and go into the bathroom and shut the door and pound your head against the edge of the tub for a few moments of downtime, it’s not an argument. But it is a disagreement which means that someone is being disagreeable, which gets old when it happens almost every time one opens one’s mouth to make an innocent remark.

We’ve run into these phases before. They stand out as I look back over my kids’ developmental continuum “like quills upon the fretful porpentine” and seem to occur about every two years. They last for a month or a couple of months and then recede. I’m sure my late mother could have charted my bouts of being oppositional about everything also and the poor woman didn’t have the resources we have today to deal with disagreeable kids.

Nope, her method for dealing with kids who disagreed was direct and unyielding. She sent us outside or told us to shut up. Or both. Since we liked being outside anyway, it wasn’t a hardship. And we were used to adults telling us to shut up, and thought it was their loss when they did, so that wasn’t a self-esteem smasher either.

Me, I don’t tell anyone to shut up. (Well, sometimes the dog when she barks at a squirrel, but she doesn’t listen anyway.) Instead, I try to give my kids a little more space, so that they don’t have so many remarks to disagree with. (And I don’t spend so much on blood pressure lowering meds and the tub gets less abuse.)

If your kids are at a delicate developmental stage at the moment, or even if they’re not, here are some links to places they can go to get out of your hair. I think they’re all educational and fun, although your kids might disagree. If they do, don’t tell me, okay?

Kidipede History that doesn’t bore the pants off kids.

Mango Kids can learn to argue in a dozen languages for free with fun interactive lessons.

Funology No attention span? No problem. This site changes every time you log on. And it has ideas for offline fun too.

Whyville An alternative to Club Penguin where kids can get clams for playing learning games and make an avatar that can chat safely with other kids’ avatars. Or argue with other kids, if they like.

If you have bibbits – very young kids – check out Poisson Rouge. No words, just lots of animated games with no wrong way to play. Give yourself a nice break from that Dora video and let your tot explore music and coloring pages here too.

Then, after you put the little darling down for a nap, go back to Poisson Rouge and click on the first alphabet block or the mobile or the ladybug or any of the other icons for a soothing, zen-like experience that’s better than a bubble bath and almost as good as chocolate. I love this site. No arguments, just my favorite sound in the whole world: a happy baby’s laugh.

flickr image credit disagreeing dr seuss style

Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Publisher
708.482.0678 ~ Websites: Nutrition, Weight Loss, and Green Clean