Growing Fresh Herbs in the House

I love to use fresh herbs to my cooking. Just before the last frost I dug up the mint, thyme and rosemary from my garden and brought it onto my sunny kitchen window. I am really enjoying having the rosemary and thyme to cook with during the holidays.

I also put some green onions in the pot.

My husband’s super power fruit almond breakfast shake

This is the best breakfast shake ever. My dear husband invented it, a major feat considering he often asks me how to cook rice. And he is from India!!

A big glass of this and you just might have the energy and will power to resist that mid mourning donut.

Almond Super Shake (serves 2)

2 1/2 cups plain soy milk

1 cup of blueberries, strawberries, and/or raspberries, fresh or frozen

1 medium banana

15 almonds

1. If using frozen fruit defrost it in the microwave.
2. Put the soy milk, fruit, banana, and almond in a blender.
3. Blend until smooth.
   
4. Pour into two glasses and serve.
   

Should I eat that Pie?

Sometimes you need a treat, for example holidays or birthdays. Here are my rules for enjoying the occasional treat:

• Try to make it a homemade treat. Yes spending that hour making that pie will help you understand just how much sugar and butter goes into a pie. Just maybe you might eat less. Your homemade pie will not contain things like high floccose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils. Plus it will taste better.
• Do not use a mixture to make your dessert. Make it by hand, you can burn a few calories working the batter by hand.
• Make a plan to share your treat. After all you only wanted a piece of pie, not a whole pie. Volunteer to bring dessert to potluck, invite friends over, or take the leftovers to work the next day to share. What ever you do not eat the whole thing yourself.
• Make it fruit or vegetable based dessert. There are more nurturance and fiber in carrot cake than pound cake.
• If you must go chocolate, use dark chocolate inside of milk chocolate. Fewer calories and more chocolate; which some studies have shown to be good for you.

Vegetarian Stuffed Thanksgiving Kabocha (Japanese Pumpkin)

Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) comes in both a green and orange variety. Inside both pumpkins have a golden flesh with richer and sweeter flavor than an America pumpkin. It is also more firm and less watery. I love it. This recipe takes about 2 hours to prepare, most of that time includes baking time.

Here is a recipe for a stuffed thanksgiving pumpkin. It is filled with wild and brown rice and cranberries. This will serve 4.

Vegetarian Stuffed Thanksgiving Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin)

1 medium orange Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin)

¼ cup wild rice

¾ cup brown rice

2 ¼ cups vegetable broth, preferably homemade

1 leek

1 tablespoon virgin olive oil

2 stalks celery, finely chopped

1/3 cup dried cranberries

1 teaspoon thyme, fresh or dried

½ teaspoon rosemary, fresh or dried

1 tablespoon parsley, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Put the wild and brown rice in pot and add the vegetable broth. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, cover and reduce the heat to low. Let cook for about 30 minutes or until the water is gone. Turn off the heat and leave covered.
   
2. Thinly slice the leek, and place it a bowl of cold water. Carefully wash the leek to be sure there is no dirt or sand on it. Drain the leek and set aside.
   
3. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a heavy pan. Add the leek and cook until limp, string occasionally. About 3-5 minutes.
   
4. Add the celery to the leek and cook until the celery until lightly cooked, about 4-5 minutes.
   
5. Add the dried cranberries, thyme, rosemary, parsley, cook a few minutes more. Turn off the heat.
   
6. Preheat oven to 350.
7. Wash and dry the Kabocha pumpkin. Cut the top off the Kabocha pumpkin and clean out the insides.
   
8. When the rice is cooled add the leek and celery mixture to the rice.Add salt and pepper to taste.
   
9. Stuff pumpkin with the rice mixture. Put into roasting pan and bake until pumpkin is soft and browned all over. About 60 to 80 minutes.
   
10. Cool a few minutes before serving.

Roasted Apples and Brussel Sprouts

Brussel sprouts are high are high in fiber, vitamin C, folate, potassium, and calcium and can be very tasty if roasted. As a child my mom would boil them and cover them with butter and vinegar. High in saturated fat and low in tastiness. Here is a healthy and tasty recipe. This makes a wonderful fall side dish. Or serve it on Thanksgiving. Makes 4 servings

Roasted Apples and Brussel Sprouts

1 pound brussel sprouts, about 20

1 apple

2 tablespoons virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon thyme, fresh or dried

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Trim all brown parts of the bruseel sprouts. Slice the bruseel sprouts into slices. Peal, core and slice up the apple.
3. Put the apple and brussel sprouts in bowl, add the olive oil, thyme, salt and pepper. Mix to combine.
   
4. Put the brussel sprout mixture into a large roasting pan. Back for 30 minutes or until nicely browned.
5. Serve.

A Simple Romantic Healthy Vegetarian Birthday Dinner for Fall

Here are the recipes for a simple romantic healthy vegetarian birthday dinner. This is great dinner for fall.

All recipes serve two.

The Menu

Fall Salad of Fennel, Frisee and Apple

Pouched Egg, Zucchini and Leek Soup

Mandarin Orange and Green Tea Ice Cream

Sparking Cider

Salad of Fennel, Frisee and Apple

1 small bunch frisee, washed and dyed

1 medium bulb fennel, thinly sliced

1 small tart apple, pealed and thinly sliced

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons dried cranberries

2 tablespoons virgin olive oil

Pinch of sugar

Pinch of salt and black pepper

1. In a small bowl add the balsamic vinegar to the thinly sliced fennel. Let the fennel sit for 5 minutes in the balsamic vinegar.
2. Toss the olive oil with the frisee, and add the a pinch of sugar, salt and black pepper.
3. Add the sliced apple and fennel the freisee. Put onto serving place and top with the cranberries.
   
4. Serve.
   

Pouched Egg, Zucchini and Leek Soup

4 cups vegetable broth, preferably homemade

1 leek

2 small baby zucchini, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/4 teaspoon red chili flakes

1 tablespoon virgin olive oil

Pinch of black pepper

2 large eggs (preferably free range)

Chili sauce to serve

1. Thinly slice the leek, and place it a bowl of cold water. Carefully wash the leek to be sure there is no dirt or sand on it. Drain the leek and set aside
2. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a heavy pot. Add the leek and cook until limp, string occasionally. About 3-5 minutes.
   
3. Add the zucchini and cook until the zucchini until lightly cooked, about 4-5 minutes.
   
4. Add the vegetable broth, soy sauce, chili flakes and cook until the zucchini is tender, about 10 minutes.
   
5. Turn up the heat to medium-high and bring the soup to a boil. Carefully add the eggs, one at time. Do not stir. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the eggs are pouched.
   
6. Ladle the soup into bowls, being sure there is an egg in each bowl.
   
7. Serve with black pepper and chili sauce.

Mandarin Orange and Green Tea Ice Cream

1 cup French vanilla ice cream

1 fresh mandarin orange

1 teaspoon green tea powder (matcha)

1. Soften the ice cream for a few minutes.
2. Chop the orange into small pieces.
3. Add the green tea powder and the orange to the ice cream.
4. Stir and serve.

Low fat lollypops are not health food

One of the first things is to realize how much miss information and false advertising there is out there regarding health food. Here is an article which posses an important question; does low fat equal good for you?

http://health.msn.com/dietfitness/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100148860&GT1=8717

I am off to make a healthy birthday (and maybe romantic) dinner for my husband.

I need to lose 25 pounds

In the past six months I have gained 25 pounds. I blame this weight gain my inability to control my intake of food and a stressful job where I was surrounded by unhealthy food.

The bottom line is I love food, cooking and I have no self control. This is something my husband does not get. He can sit there with a whole cake and it would rot before he would finish it.I on the other hand, would wake up in the middle of the night to finish it.

I grew up in a big family where the competition over scared resources of sweets and fatty/tasty foods was highly completive. I must take a short break to seek another sliver of the raspberry mouse cake left over from my husband’s birthday party last night….

Plus we have decided to become vegetarians again! I was a vegetarian for 7 years and my experience with vegetarianism is that it meant that I ate French fries for dinner every time we went out to eat. My husband despite being from India is becoming a vegetarian for the first time in his life.

In this blog I will post recipes that are tasty, low calorie, low fat and vegetarian. I will all talk about how I lose weight.

Weight: 166 pounds

Height: 5’7”