Mix all of this with a heavy wooden spoon or silicone spatula. Put the baking soda on the top and be sure to drizzle the vinegar directly on it.
Slow Food—Healthy Food
My original goal here was to create a new recipe daily, or several times a week - cook, photograph and post each one. I've been doing this since April 2011 and. . .as of today. . .I now have over 1,800 original recipes and informational posts! I'm thinking a couple cookbooks will be down the road a bit! I love making fresh, healthy food, so new techniques and great ingredients are really important to me . . . Find, and Follow Your Passions ! . ! BE BOLD — BE CREATIVE — HAPPY COOKING ! . ! Lin
Orange Lentil - Flax Seed Rolls (gluten-free)
Beef Soup-Stew
I wasn't going to blog this, so there are no ingredient pictures. It turned out pretty well though, and I may want to make it again. . .with new tweaks of course. . .so I'm doing this after the fact, on the last bowl.
2# well trimmed, seasoned Montreal Griller beef steaks
Mine were frozen, so I thawed them late in the evening, trimmed off the fat then cut them in small pieces. I marinated them in equal amounts -about 2/3c each- of single source EVOO and a good, aged Balsamic vinegar. Season with garlic salt, and a pepper based garlic and herb seasoning. Make sure the marinade covers all surfaces of the meat. Cover the bowl or pot, and refrigerate overnight.
This morning I started by sautéing the seasoned meat in the marinade, along with a couple big garlic cloves - smashed and chopped, stirring occasionally until it all sizzles and snaps. Measure out 1-2 quarts of fresh cold water and add a little just before the meat browns completely, to keep it from sticking to the pot. Repeat this sautéing and deglazing a couple times. When this process is done right, it'll bring the flavors out of the meat so further seasoning is usually minimal. Next add the following rough cut vegetables in the order they're listed.
Once the vegetables have been added, bring everything to a low simmer, cover and cook 30-40 minutes, until the carrots and beans are the way you like them. This made about 6 quarts. . .Lin
Spicy-Healthy Vegetable Soup (gluten & dairy free)
Recently it was Chicken Bone Broth Day for me 😁
Chilled out on my deck overnight, fat scraped off the top, it was begging to be made into something healthy. Made with only skin, bones, bay leaves, 1/3c white vinegar and water, so it would be dog safe for my Oliver as well. This morning I got a call from someone close to me, who is sicker than sick! Alrighty-Then! Healthy soup it is. Sorry Oliver...next time 😉
The chicken was used in a previous soup, and a 3-meat pasta creation a couple days ago. I didn't have any other meat thawed, so other than the chicken bone broth, this ended up vegetable only. Lighter for someone really sick, so it's actually better this way.
Sprinkle the vegetables with seasonings, to taste. I used about 1t ground turmeric, a good shake of ground cayenne pepper, 1-2t of a salt and pepper based garlic and herb seasoning.
Heat the big pot, containing 2-3 quarts of bone broth, to a low boil. Stir in 5oz. thin rice noodles and simmer a few minutes. Add the pot of vegetables to the noodles and broth, stir gently to combine, simmer another minute or two and serve. Mmmm, this made about 6 quarts total, for me, and lots to share. . .
Beefy-Beany Crunchy Vegetable Chili
Add about a quart of water, 2-3T low sodium beef Better Than Bouillon and 3 bay leaves and 28oz. petite diced tomatoes and juice. Simmer on low heat for a half hour.
Olive, Oat- Muffin-Bites - Gluten-Free
1c corn flour
2T raw sugar
1t baking soda
1t baking powder
1t ground cumin
1t smoky chili powder
2T ground chia-flax seeds
1-2T Everything Bagel Seasoning⅔c chopped pecans or walnuts
⅔c sour cream
⅔c warm water
1 can of corn-drained
⅓c EVOO
1T white vinegar
8 finely chopped jumbo garlic-jalapeno olives
Quick Whole Grain Bread
Tuna-Egg Salad - A Healthy Refresh
Lit'l Smokies, Corn, Beans and Crunchy Vegetables
I'm recovering from a big abdominal surgery and using up the ingredients I have here, before attempting grocery shopping - which I'm very excited to do again! All Foodies love to grocery shop!
Chop the vegetables. Sauté the celery in a 2-1/2 quart pot, in 2-3T good quality, single source EVOO. Cook and stir this a few minutes before adding the bell pepper, onion and Yukon Gold potatoes. Stir everything to coat with the oil, reduce the heat, cover and let simmer 5 minutes.
Drain and rinse the corn and beans. Add them to the pot, stir then let simmer another 5 minutes to heat everything through. Serve as is or with a crispy green salad and/or corn muffins. This was quick and SO good. Makes about 4-6 servings. . .Lin
Gluten Free, Seedy Lentil Protein 'Bread'
Well this continues to surprise me. The European recipe I used as a guide, used orange split lentils, which I thought I had, but mine were yellow mung bean lentils. I soldiered on, determined to try this interesting recipe. You'll need to use a kitchen scale that gives results in ounces and grams for this one since weights don't translate well to measurements with dry ingredients.
Sweet-Savory-Crunchy Chicken Salad
Lately, I haven't been cooking as much as usual, nor posting the results. This one turned out really great but I didn't weigh or measure every ingredient, so this is more of an idea than an exact recipe, but hey, it's chicken salad! I've rarely met one I didn't like! Give this combination a try.
8oz. roasted chicken meat
1 can (drained) diced water chestnuts
4-6 green onions
2 ribs of celery
3 small dill pickles
5-6 lg. garlic olives
a BIG handful of craisins
a BIG handful of walnuts
mayonnaise - to hold it together
Chop or slice the ingredients and mix everything together in a medium glass bowl. For a Chicken Waldorf variation, omit the olives, pickles and craisins, and substitute a couple of your favorite apples, peeled and diced. . .Lin
Roasted Tomato - Vegetable Soup
I had to slow-roast everything since I could not figure out how to get the oven temperature higher or lower than 350° on this fancy oven where I'm currently staying, here in Arizona.
First scrub everything, then cut it all into big or medium chunks. Toss it all together in a big soup pot with a generous amount of good quality -single source- EVOO, a bit of garlic salt, lots of black pepper and whatever seasoning or herb blend you choose.
Pour that onto a big sheet pan and roast until the carrots cooperate. Cool all this slightly, peel the tomatoes if you can, then put everything into a blender jar.
Pulse until rough-chunky or all the way to baby-food-smooth, whatever your preference for this particular soup happens to be today. Mine here isn't chunky but also not smooth, somewhere -just right- in the middle.
Pour this into that same big pot again. Rinse the pan and blender jar and add this water to the pot. Heat it to a simmer, taste and make any corrections in texture, viscosity and seasonings. More of everything? More water? Chicken soup base? Want it dairy free -?- then serve it now.
I had this with a piece of Cloud Bread and a fresh green side salad. . .Mmmm. Remember. . .it's always soup season. . .Even here in Arizona with the outside temperature at 91° . . 🥰 . . Lin
Chicken, Lettuce and Tomato Skillet
I stood in front of the open 'fridge a while before this recipe came together for me. I'm starting to feel a bit better, I can tell, because my cooking impulse never went away. I guess I'd have to be way sicker for that to happen.
Cut up the chicken and measure out 2c frozen peas. Uncover, stir in the chicken and peas. Increase the temperature until any liquid sizzles, then shut off the heat, Cover and let stand another 10 minutes before serving. . .Lin
Chicken-Rice Vegetable Soup
2-3T Better Than Bouillon, chicken
Add about 2/3 of the remaining water, cubed cabbage and the BTB chicken stock base. Stir, simmer another 5 minutes, then add the rice, cook 15 minutes, stir in the chopped chicken meat, stir, remove from the heat, cover and let stand 10 minutes before serving.
Happy Creating! It's Always Soup Season . . . Lin
Chicken Salad
Chop up the chicken, add celery and onion and a couple tablespoons of pickle relish and enough mayonnaise to hold everything together. This would be great wrapped in a Romaine leaf, on a tortilla or with cloud bread, right out of the oven 🙂 . . .Lin
Cheese Cloud Bread
Preheat your oven to 300° Separate the eggs: egg whites in one bowl and yolks in a bigger bowl.
Beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.
Add the cream cheese and seasonings to the egg yolks and beat until smooth
Fold the beaten egg whites into the yolk mixture. Drop enough to make 3" circles on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet.
Bake 25 minutes, or until the tops turn golden and firm up. Makes 12-15 bread rounds. . .Lin
German Potato Salad Soup
I thawed a package of 6 Quail and also 1 Pheasant to roast over the weekend for a family get together after church this past Sunday. Rather than a fussy sit-down roast poultry dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy, etc. I decided to keep it casual. I made an interesting version of something similar to German Potato Salad and a cucumber, tomato, onion salad to go with the roasted meat. After lunch, I took off all the meat, packaged that, and made a pot of bone broth with the bones and skin.
Slice-chop the scrubbed vegetables shown: carrots, celery, green pepper and garlic. Sauté these a few minutes in 2-3T butter. Add a couple ladles of bone broth, cover and simmer with seasonings and bay leaves for about 15 minutes until they're all tender. Remove the bay leaves, then mash everything in the pot to a rough-mash stage with a potato masher.
Curried Pollock Chowder
Start by sautéing the lightly seasoned sliced-chopped celery, carrot and onion, in the coconut oil. Cover and reduce the heat to low for 10 minutes. Stir a couple times to prevent sticking.
9-12oz. pollock filets
Cut the fish into bite size pieces and stir into the pot. Cover and simmer 10 minutes. Stir in an additional 16oz. cold water, 1-1/2c craisins or other dried fruit and the coconut milk. Bring back to a quick simmer and serve with oyster crackers or crispy garlic bread. Or, if you'd like, make a recipe of jasmine rice in a separate pot. Stir it into the curry just before serving, or use it as a base to ladle the curry on top. . .Lin
Pesto Pasta
I'll remember this next time I make angel hair pasta and make extra for another bowl of this! If you're not a fan of basil, this brand also makes a really great tomato pesto! Both are sold at Aldi Grocery Stores. . .Lin
Lemon Chicken Noodle Soup
4 stalks celery - 3 carrots - 3/4 lg. onion
14oz. chicken breast meat
5 big cloves of garlic - 1/3 head of green cabbage
Sauté the celery, carrots and onion in good quality extra virgin olive oil. When it starts snapping, add the chicken and be ready with a little water to keep it from sticking to the pot. Cook and stir for 10-15 minutes.
Add the minced garlic, cubed cabbage and continue cooking this way another couple minutes until the garlic scent reaches you.
Add 2 quarts of fresh cold water
3 bay leaves, soup base and seasonings you like
Stir, then simmer - covered another 15 minutes then add:
zest and juice of 1 lemon
2c small frozen peas
Cover and remove from the heat for a little while, to blend the flavors and be sure the pasta is done just right.
This is a good basic soup for summer, eating light or recovering from a virus. . .Lin
A 'Green' Purple Cleanse
It's funny how one thing leads to another. . .
A Facebook friend is having a colonoscopy this morning. This got me thinking how great I've felt after each of mine. Great! Due to the cleansing action of that nasty 'prep' process.
Then one of my favorite Facebook pages, Food Matters, posted a healthy green cleanse to do at the first signs of a virus. These two things, coupled with the fact that on our semi-annual trip to the cities this past Saturday, my daughter steered me down the Asian candy aisle telling me all about her favorites. I protested, "I don't need to get started on THIS stuff. . ." Too late, I already saw some interesting-pretty-shiny packaging that sucked me in. . .
Unlike others, I don't make these things in a juicer. I had one once and hated the idea of all that great, fibrous pulp going to waste. You can compost it, or like me, use it in muffins, but one can only eat so many muffins, ya know!?! So, if you have a juicer, go for it. If not, use your blender!
I loosely followed the ingredients for the juice the mom and her son made on the Food Matters video, omitting one or two and adding several of my own.
1-1/2c frozen blueberries
1 big clove raw garlic
1 big fresh cucumber
3 stalks celery
a couple Swiss chard leaves (no stems)
fresh ginger or some lightly 'candied' ginger
1 lime: zest + fruit with the white pithy part removed
12-16oz. cold, fresh water
Juice -or- blend everything well. This was really good! If you're going more for nutrition than cleansing, you could add a little organic local honey and a banana, but I loved it just the way it is. No added sweetness needed.
This makes 24-30oz. Enough for 2 big servings.
If you plan to down all of this yourself though -disclaimer- I'd stay home alone for a while afterwards. No long car rides, church, business meetings. Just you, alone, close to the bathroom. Because, as someone recently, so delicately phrased it, "it's never just gas" 😉 It can be surprisingly effective. . .quickly. . .Lin
Shawarma Chicken, Vegetables and Pasta
I found a double pack - 2 1# packages - of sliced chicken in an Indian Shawarma sauce at Costco recently. The ingredients are actually very healthy, and it's almost gluten free. Wheat flour was the last ingredient, so for those of us trying to back away from that, it's a good choice.
Sauté the zucchini over medium heat while chopping or slicing:
At the end, cool this a bit then add a 13.5oz. can coconut milk or coconut cream, and 1c honey roasted peanuts.
Serve over cooked, chilled and reheated pasta or rice. Much healthier since this creates a base that's considered resistant starch. . .Lin