Tag: nutrition

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

This is not the first time that I’ve devoted a week of recipes to pesto genovese – basil pesto. But it is the first time that I can vouch for a basil pesto that retains a gorgeous green color. I’ve been forever flummoxed by the color problem with pesto, the way it goes from bright green to olive drab so quickly. I’ve tried this and that – been told about citric acid, covering the pesto with olive oil, or even lemon juice (which makes little sense to me because acid usually turns bright green olive). Anyway, I read up on the problem this week and decided to try blanching the leaves.

It worked! I blanched them for five seconds, and that was enough. I was nervous about losing the vivid flavor that we love in pesto, and yes, a bit of that is sacrificed. That’s why I blanch the leaves for only five seconds. But my friends who tasted this week’s recipes had no doubt that they were eating pesto, and that it was delicious. I kept each batch in the refrigerator, without the garlic and cheese added, for at least a couple of days, and none of them faded. I’m thrilled with this development.

~ Martha Rose Shulman ~

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

I took advantage of my garden’s tomato bounty and made a pasta-like dish with sautéed cherry tomatoes and a sort of eggplant Parmesan casserole with a layer of Israeli couscous at the bottom. The couscous absorbs the wonderful flavors of the tomato sauce and eggplant. I also pulled some leftover cooked beans from my freezer and tossed them with the couscous, a tomato concassé and lots of basil for a wonderful main dish salad. [..]

I’m still focused on salads as the warm weather continues. So with the half-cup of brown rice, two tablespoons of red lentils and third of a cup of barley that were lingering in the pantry, I made a main-dish mixed-grains salad with a creamy curry dressing. It’s amazing how you can make grains and legumes stretch to make a filling meal.

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

I am on vacation so this week’s Health and Fitness News is abbreviated. The full edition will be back next week

Wheat berries like farro, spelt and kamut are hearty, and I usually associate them with cool-weather dishes. But I’m working on a pantry cleanout, as I do every summer, and I found a number of half-filled bags that needed my attention. I cooked up big pots of farro and spelt after soaking the grains overnight. I usually soak wheat berries for only an hour, but I thought I’d see what an overnight soak yielded. Then I used them in several cool summer dishes. [..]

No matter what you call whole wheat berries, they’re all cooked the. Soak one part farro or spelt with three parts water for an hour or longer. Bring to a boil, add salt to taste, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 50 minutes, or until the grains begin to splay. Some brands of farro are softer than others and yield a softer, starchier grain. One cup raw farro or spelt yields three cups cooked.

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

Taco night is nothing new, but over the last five days, we’ve had taco week. The markets are piled high with irresistible produce – summer squash, tomatoes, green beans, corn, peppers and chiles, greens and herbs – and corn tortillas are a great vehicle for them.

~Martha Rose Shulman~

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

Fish can be challenging. We’re told to eat it twice a week because it’s such a lean, high-protein, high-omega-3 animal, but we’re also told to avoid certain fish like swordfish and large tuna because of high mercury content, other types like Atlantic cod (or what’s left of it) because of overfishing and farmed salmon because of ecological considerations.

But it’s worth it to become friendly with different types of fish, not just the farmed salmon found in every supermarket. If you seek a fishmonger that has a reputation for sustainably caught or raised, fresh seafood, you’ll be on the right track. Broaden your repertoire; think sardines, petrale sole and Pacific cod.

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

There will be a bounty of peppers mild and hot through October. Go to a farmers’ market for peppers with the most intense flavors. They are especially sweet when roasted, good grilled or boiled. These recipes mainly look to the Mediterranean for their inspiration. Peppers are low in calories and packed with nutrients.

From now on, right through October, you should be seeing an array of peppers in your farmers’ markets. They’re piled high at mine, all different colors, mostly sweet ones but hotter chiles as well. They are a treat, and if you’re used to supermarket peppers, the intensity of the farmers’ market pepper flavors will be a revelation.

~Martha Rose Shulman~

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

Cooking Up Change is a national healthy cooking competition that challenges teams of students to create menus that meet the national nutrition standards and budgetary restraints for school lunches. Mendez and Sanchez, both from Manual Arts High School, beat out students from other Los Angeles high schools for the chance to compete in Washington. They placed second over all.

Mendez and Sanchez’s recipe is served as a fruit cup and will be on the menu at Los Angeles schools during the next academic year. The reason it inspired me to make some fruit salsas is because they season their fruit with a little bit of chili powder and cayenne. I love the juiciness and sweetness of fruit against heat and pungency, so I decided to make some salsas with fruit and chiles. I worked with watermelon and with pineapple this week, as well as with mangoes.

~Martha Rose Shulman

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

Once summer tomatoes are flourishing in my garden and at farmers’ markets, capturing their bounty for the rest of the year becomes a weekly ritual. This mostly involves the making of marinara sauce; I try to have enough of it in the freezer to last me through a winter’s worth of impromptu pasta dinners.  [..]

I reserve my paste tomatoes (the oblong varieties like romas and San Marzanos) for marinara sauce, and use the sweet, juicy ones for salsas and uncooked tomato sauces that I serve with everything from pasta to grains to fish to cooked vegetables to eggs (this week, I topped wilted chard with a tomato concassé, and poached eggs with a blended tomato mint sauce).

~Martha Rose Shulman~

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

I love my summer stir-fry weeks. The list of ingredients sometimes looks daunting, but think of the effort required to put a stir-fry together as family time. Start the rice, pour yourself a glass of wine, put others to work measuring and chopping, and visit while you prep. Once your mise en place is ready, have the others set the table while you make the stir-fry in under 10 minutes. You barely heat up the kitchen.

Martha Rose Shulman

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

On the Fourth of July, before the meat and fish hit the grill, I decided to throw on some fruit. I’ve always loved the way roasting summer stone fruit like peaches and apricots deepens their flavors, and I thought a sizzle on the grill might do the same. It did. Just a few minutes on each side – enough to create griddle marks on a peach or an apricot and soften it, but not so long that the fruit collapses, brought out the juices and warmed the fruit through. When I removed the peaches and apricots from the grill I tossed them with a little honey and lemon zest. [..]

I couldn’t get grilled fruit out of my head, and worked on other recipes after I grilled the peaches and apricots – not just desserts, but salads with grilled fruit (some wonderful combinations) and a starter of grilled figs.

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

This week I cooked up two simple pots of beans using two varieties: a somewhat large, roundish dark reddish-brown mottled bean called Good Mother Stallard, and a gorgeous black and white mottled bean, a little larger than standard black beans, called vaqueros. All I did was add a quartered onion, a few minced cloves of garlic, and plenty of salt to the soaked beans; I didn’t even sauté the onion and garlic first.

I cooked the beans in their soaking water, simmering them for about one and a half to two hours, and ended up with deeply flavored, plush beans that really could have stood alone. In fact, the following day – and beans are always better on the following day – I just snipped a little bit of cilantro into the broth and enjoyed them just so; they were even good cold.

Martha Rise Shulman

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

50 Ways to Love Your Quinoa

You’d think I would eventually run out of ideas for quinoa. I’ve posted over 50 recipes on this page over the years. But ideas keep coming and I keep loving this grain (O.K., Paleos, I know, it’s a seed, not a grain. But we use it on the plate like a grain, so that’s what I’ll continue to call it.) [..]

Quinoa keeps well in the refrigerator, so cook some up and make these salads through the week. They make great lunches or light suppers.