Sunday, April 13, 2014

Beginning Week 3 of Challenge

Here's this week's goal in the 8-Week Challenge:

Week 3: Continue Week 2 habits.  Add: Find a new way to prepare some healthy fruit or vegetable that makes it more enjoyable (i.e., edible). And share this with the rest of us.

BTW: You don't have to be participating in the 8-week challenge to share recipes with us! I really need all the recipe ideas I can get, especially for vegetables. 

The "personal sized baked oatmeal snacks" that Madame L shared have turned out to be a satisfying and easy-to-carry snack. I'm going to make that recipe again, but this time cut the recipe in half and use sugar or honey instead of the "natural" sweetener I used last time. 

I'm also going to add cinnamon chips to half of them and chocolate chips to the other half. Obviously this a departure from the no-sugar origins of the recipe, but I don't care. I have to be able to chew and swallow the things if they're going to do me any good! 

Also, I'm still not going to add the optional ground-up flax seed to the recipe because I don't like the way it tastes in bread and muffins. 

But we were talking about veggies and fruits, weren't we. Help! Give me recipes!


4 comments:

  1. Here is a recipe - not vegetable, and only partially fruit.
    First, I drain regular non-fat yogurt for about 24 hours through unbleached muslin and a colander. This switches the ratio of carbs to protein, practically doubling the protein to carb ratio - it is "homemade greek yogurt."
    Next I make smoothies with it, using one of those blending wands that you insert into the cup. My latest has been to use the bottled apricot nectar from Jim and Ellen's apricot trees of several years ago.
    I use about a cup of the greek yogurt, about a cup of the apricot nectar (but you can use frozen fruit or other canned fruit drained), and then I add a Tbsp of frozen juice concentrate - my favorite is the Dole Orange, Peach, Mango - that way I figure I'm getting some fresh vitamin C to go along with the fiber from the apricot nectar. Today I also added a tbsp of chia seeds.

    Here's another recipe using the homemade greek yogurt. It's based on the "chocolate milk is the best recovery drink" saying (that Laura's nurtitionist says is bogus). I put about a quarter cup to 1/2 cup of the greek yogurt with 4 to 8 oz of chocolate milk. You'll have to experiment with ratios. Yesterday I think I did about a quarter cup of yogurt w/1/2 cup of the chocolate milk. It was pretty good. A little sour, but not too sour. I figure I'm increasing the proteins in the "perfect recovery drink" with this.

    Here's another thing about vegetables that my nutritionist from Huntsman Hospital told me because I really don't like just plain raw broccoli. Get an ice bath ready, then bring water to a boil, then put the broccoli in the boiling water for just a few seconds, then quickly put it in the ice water.

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  2. Okay, I haven't tried a new way to cook anything recently. But I do have a recipe for a stew that has lots of vegetables in it. It's an especially comforting and satisfying and nutritious stew to eat when you need to be comforted or satisfied or nourished. It's what Brother Pardini made for Daddy when Daddy had his surgery in 1998. And we asked him for the recipe. And he wrote it out for us. So here it is:

    Beef Barley Soup from Hank Pardini of Walnut Creek, CA
    4 pounds boneless chuck roast
    1 bay leaf
    6 quarts cold water
    1 quart canned tomatoes
    1 cup pearl barley (or dry soup mix from the cannery)
    salt and pepper to taste
    4 chopped onions
    1/3 cabbage
    5 celery, sliced diagonally
    4 carrots, peeled and cut up
    2 cups frozen green beans
    3 cups potatoes, diced or sliced
    1 cup turnips, diced or sliced
    2 cups frozen peas

    Place roast with bay leaf in a large pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil. As foam and scum rise to the surface, keep skimmed off. Scum will be brown at first, then will come up white. Turn heat down to good strong simmer. Add 1 quart bottled tomatoes and the pearl barley. Cover and simmer slowly until meat is tender (about 2 or 2 ½ hours). Remove meat to covered container and allow to cool. To the stock, add salt and pepper and beef base (bouillon). Saute the onions until golden brown in oil–don’t scorch! Chop the cabbage and saute in oil until opaque. Add onions, cabbage, celery, carrots, green beans, potatoes, and turnips to stock. Cover and simmer until vegetables are tender. De-fat the meat. Cut into large dice and return to soup. Add peas and let cook 10 minutes more.

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  3. And another thing that I like to do is put lightly-cooked carrots and broccoli on my pizza. Seriously, it gives it a colorful appearance and the texture is similar to having mushrooms on it, which I also like. That and onions and red peppers. Those are my favorite toppings.

    Another thing I've tried is making a puff oven pancake with veggies on it. I just did a quick search for a recipe, and here's a link that came up: http://www.food.com/recipe/vegetable-oven-pancake-464227

    And, finally, there's nothing like a crunchy green salad or a veggie tray to satisfy my cravings for fresh vegetables. When Talena used to work for the Chillon Reception Center in Spanish Fork, they'd include all kinds of things on their veggie trays: carrots, tomatoes, celery, green onions, colorful peppers, purple cabbage slices that look all lacy, cucumbers, radish flowers--anything you can think of.

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  4. I'm sure we all know this one, but it's a standby for me and is something we all eat at my house - roasted asparagus.
    Snap the bottoms of the asparagus - the rough and tough stuff.
    Put tin foil on a cookie sheet
    Put the asparagus on the cookie sheet
    Drizzle olive oil on the asparagus
    Put sea salt (I suppose you could use any salt, but I like the chunkiness of the sea salt) on the asparagus
    Put it in the oven at about 450* for 8-10 minutes

    The result is a kind of caramelized yummy asparagus goodness.

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