Tag: recipes

Looking for a Mediterranean Diet Plan? Here’s a 7-day one

One of the fun things about doing this food blog for more than 10 years is that now people send me food story ideas all the time. Most don’t apply to eating less salt, fat and sugar, but some do and I try to share as many as possible of those with you. The website Total Shape recently sent me a 7-day Mediterranean Diet plan, for example.

“Research found that the Mediterranean diet supports prevention of cardiovascular diseases, increases lifespan, and healthy aging. Also, when used in conjunction with caloric restriction, the diet may also support healthy weight loss,” a Total Shape nutritionist says.

The diet plan:

Continue reading “Looking for a Mediterranean Diet Plan? Here’s a 7-day one” →
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A healthy salmon recipe for the New Year

Happy 2024 everyone! Now that the year-end holidays are out of the way, it’s time to get back to healthy eating. Here’s a tasty recipe to start with, Sheet-Pan Roasted Salmon & Vegetables.

Here are the ingredients with my notes on what to change to cut salt content and help in other ways as well:

  • 1 pound fingerling potatoes, halved lengthwise (red potatoes are better if you’re worried about sugar and diabetes)
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 5 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt (omit this, fish has enough of its own salt)
  • ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 4 5 to 6-ounce fresh or frozen skinless salmon fillets
  • 2 medium red, yellow and/or orange sweet peppers, cut into rings
  • 2 cups cherry tomatoes
  • 1 ½ cups chopped fresh parsley (1 bunch)
  • ¼ cup pitted kalamata olives, halved (substitute low-salt regular olives to cut salt)
  • ¼ cup finely snipped fresh oregano or 1 Tbsp. dried oregano, crushed
  • 1 lemon

Directions are fairly straight-forward:

  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Place potatoes in a large bowl. Drizzle with 1 Tbsp. of the oil and sprinkle with garlic and 1/8 tsp. of the salt and black pepper; toss to coat. Transfer to a 15×10-inch baking pan; cover with foil. Roast 30 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, thaw salmon, if frozen. Combine, in the same bowl, sweet peppers, tomatoes, parsley, olives, oregano and 1/8 tsp. of the salt and black pepper. Drizzle with remaining 1 Tbsp. oil; toss to coat.
  3. Rinse salmon; pat dry. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 tsp. salt and black pepper. Spoon sweet pepper mixture over potatoes and top with salmon. Roast, uncovered, 10 minutes more or just until salmon flakes.
  4. Remove zest from lemon. Squeeze juice from lemon over salmon and vegetables. Sprinkle with zest.

Salmon is great if you’re looking for a substitute for red meat main dishes. It has body and flavor to it, and supposedly some of the good fat we’re supposed to eat.

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

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Beware the apple sauce you give your children

Federal authorities are investigating apple sauce packets sold in 22 states that contain elevated levels of lead. the investigation centers around whether there pouches were intentionally contaminated, various sources report.

“The Food and Drug Administration is investigating elevated lead levels in apple cinnamon applesauce pouches sold under three brands — Weis, WanaBana, and Schnucks — and distributed by Amazon, Dollar Tree and other online retailers,” reports Patch.com.

“All three of the now-recalled applesauce brands were made at an Austrofood plant in Ecuador, where FDA officials announced last week they were focusing their investigation. The agency said health officials in Ecuador found that cinnamon from Austrofood’s supplier had higher levels of lead than the country allows. The company, Negasmart, is facing sanctions while officials there track down the source of the cinnamon, the FDA said,” Patch reports.

States where products have been recalled include California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and West Virginia.

I never much liked apple sauce anyway, but here’s one more reason to put it aside for now.

Beware these brands, there’s been a recall for high levels of lead.
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A Labor Day grilling option — grilled lemon-rosemary chicken and leeks

Grilling chicken with rosemary and lemon is such a classic, you can;t go wrong making it this Labor Day. And here’s a new take on it that involves grillings leeks to give the chicken an added flavor dimension.

Food Network Rosemary Chicken
Rosemary, lemon and chicken are a natural, and tasty combination.

I found this on one of my go-to recipe sites, CookingLight.com

The claim is it only takes 20 minutes to make. That will likely depend on your skills. The only heart-healthy modification I’d make to this recipe would be to not use the butter or salt. Continue reading “A Labor Day grilling option — grilled lemon-rosemary chicken and leeks” →

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A pandemic recipe suggestion — steamed shrimp and watermelon salad

Shrimp is always a nice change-of-pace to build a meal around. I’m always looking for new recipes that include shrimp, such as one with fennel and cucumbers I wrote about. So I was attracted to this recipe I found on CookingLight.com for steamed shrimp and watermelon salad.

A wonderfully simple shrimp, fennel and cucumber salad
A wonderfully simple shrimp, fennel and cucumber salad

It sounds pretty basic to make, if you don’t want to devein shrimp, buy them already cooked, I find that a handy time saver. Doing that eliminates the first step of this recipe, which is cooking the shrimp. Continue reading “A pandemic recipe suggestion — steamed shrimp and watermelon salad” →

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Stuffed Zucchini and Red Peppers ala Giada

I always enjoy watching Giadi De Laurentiis’ cooking shows, even though she often uses more fat or salt than I can eat on my restricted diet. But this recipe for stuffed zucchini and peppers caught my eye because it uses ground turkey instead of ground beef.

True, it calls for dark meat turkey, which is the highest inf at of any turkey meat. But you can easily substitute lean to extra lean ground turkey to cut the fat substantially.

Zucchini on the gas grill, basted with olive oil and Italian spices.
I normally grill zucchini but I may try stuffing them next.

Having ketchup in here surprised me too, I’d say use it or not to your taste and if you do use it, use a salt-free, low-sugar variety.

So, the ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 small onion, grated

1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

1 large egg

3 tablespoons ketchup

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/3 cup grated Pecorino Romano

1/4 cup dried plain bread crumbs

1 pound ground turkey, preferably dark meat

2 zucchini, ends removed, halved lengthwise and crosswise

1 short orange bell pepper, halved and seeded

1 short red bell pepper, halved and seeded

1 short yellow bell pepper, halved and seeded

1 1/2 cups marinara sauce Continue reading “Stuffed Zucchini and Red Peppers ala Giada” →

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Here’s a handy heart-healthy cookbook for pandemic cooking

If, like most of us, you’re doing more homecooking during the Coronavirus pandemic, you’re liekly running out of new recipes at this point to give some variety to your daily meals.

The American Heart Associaiotn has a free cookbook available, Cooking in Color, that could help with that dilemma.

Among the recipes in the book, which you can grab as a PDF by clicking here, are:

Fruit Kebabs
Tomato and Ricotta Toast
Teriyaki Salmon with Cauliflower Rice
Couscous-Stuffed Portobello Mushroom Caps
Grilled Cuban Mojo Pork Tenderloin with Plantains
Orange-Glazed Turkey with Potatoes and Carrots

Of course, you’re still on your own trying to find the ingredients you need amidst increasing sparse food stroe shelves but hopefully this book will give you some ideas to vary your menu.

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A quick spring salad — radicchio and asparagus give it variety

The trick to keep salads from getting boring for those of us who eat a lot of them is to mix up the variety of items to add to the basic lettuce. This salad, using bibb lettuce along with radicchio, and asparagus, popped up recently in a Cooking Light email I receive and I thought it sounded worth sharing.

Ingredients are simple and easy to prepare (leave out the salt as we usually advise):

  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
  • 2 teaspoons honey
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt  (who needs this)
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 cups thinly sliced radicchio
  • 1 cup diagonally sliced asparagus
  • 1 head Bibb lettuce, leaves separated and torn (about 6 oz.)

Continue reading “A quick spring salad — radicchio and asparagus give it variety” →

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A fall chicken recipe, modified — chicken braised in two vinegars

I keep on eye on the New York Times for recipe ideas, but usually what they feature has too much salt, fat or sugar for my needs. Such was the case when I recently received a Times email entitled 72 Recipes You Should Make This Fall.

The Times suggests serving this chicken over polenta, I’d do it with a side of green beans or asparagus.

 

Looking through them, I didn’t see many heart-health choices until I came across this chicken braised in two vinegars recipe. The Times uses thighs, high in fat, so I’d substitute breasts and leave off the salt mentioned as something you can add for serving.

The ingredients (with my changes): Continue reading “A fall chicken recipe, modified — chicken braised in two vinegars” →

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Pasta, swordfish, eggplant — if you like all those, try this

Rigatoni with swordfish, eggplant and tomatoes.

Pasta is always a favorite for me, although these days I eat only multigrain pasta because of my heart issues. I normally make my own tomato sauce to avoid high-salt processed alternatives. But occasionally, I’ll try something without a traditional tomato sauce, like this fun-sounding dish, Sicilian Swordfish Pasta With Eggplant and Tomatoes.

Rigatoni with swordfish, eggplant and tomatoes.
Rigatoni with swordfish, eggplant and tomatoes.

Swordfish is a relatively healthy fish when it comes to the type of fat it contains, but eating large amounts of it could cause other problems since it’s a fish that can contain high levels of mercury (sorry, every food seems to have its ups and downs healthwise doesn’t it).

The recipe is fairly simple to make.

Step 1: Fry the Eggplant
Step 2: Infuse Oil With Garlic
Step 3: Add Swordfish and Cook
Step 4: Add Tomatoes, Wine, and Herbs
Step 5: Add Eggplant, Then Finish

For all the details, simply click here to go to the site where I found this recipe.

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