Sneaking Vegetables into Everyday Foods

Half a chocolate Bundt cake 2

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It is hard to make sure that you children are getting a truly nutritional diet. While there are some kids that would prefer fruit over candy and vegetable over chips, there is also the other group who simply say “I don’t like that.” The good news is that you can add fruits and veggies to your meals without the kids ever having a clue!

  • Next time you prepare an Italian dish with a marinara sauce, pour the can of sauce into the blender prior to putting in a sauce pot. Throw in steamed chopped broccoli, butternut squash and other vegetables that you find you kids don’t like to eat. Blend, blend, blend. Continue cooking the meals as you normally would and the kids won’t even notice your “secret” ingredients.
  • Chocolate cake is a terrific way to add fruits and vegetables to a diet. Instead of adding oil, butter, water and milk, simply use shredded zucchini, apples and carrots along with the juice that runs into the bowl as you shred. If the mixture still seems a bit thick, pour in a bit of applesauce. Bake and then drizzle with a bit of melted milk chocolate. Your kids will rave!
  • Mashed potatoes are another food that you can add special touches to. Steam some cauliflower and mash it in to the taters. The flavor and consistency will not even have a noticeable change. You can do the same with carrots and sweet potatoes for a colorful addition to your meal.
  • Make smoothies as a special treat. Use frozen bananas as you “ice cream” base. Add frozen orange juice concentrate along with fresh or frozen berries of any kind and drink up!

Once you see that your children will eat the veggies in this form, you will begin to recognize other foods that you can add pureed produce to without your family balking at the thought.

Filed Under: Cooking Tips, Processed Foods Tagged With: , ,

Good Food on Vacation

This is actually Tom's Restaurant, NYC. Famous...

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Finding a restaurant while on vacation is never difficult. The difficult part is finding a restaurant where the food is worth the money that you are paying, particularly if the cash stash is getting low. Most vacation hot spots offer guides to dining and entertainment. Next time you’re on vacation, skip these suggestions and simply ask the locals where they go. Swing in to a grocery store and ask the cashier where she takes her family on a night out.

The best restaurant meals come from eateries where the food is purchased locally and fresh. Think of it this way; if you were in Maine on your next vacation, would you visit a seafood chain restaurant to eat lobster, or would you hunt down the diner that purchases fresh catches as they come in?

Consider the area of the country you are visiting and narrow down your restaurant choices by what is available locally. So, what foods are some of our fifty states famous for?

  • If you are visiting Wisconsin, any type of cheese-based meal is going to be a good bet.
  • Traveling through Iowa? Beef is the way to go.
  • Don’t forget the peach pie on your next trip to Georgia.
  • Nebraska produces some of the biggest ears of corn you can get.
  • Apples are Washington’s favorite fruit.
  • Check out the chicken in Tennessee.
  • If you’re in Vermont, hit the pancake house because the syrup doesn’t get much sweeter.

Remember that vacationing is all about the experience. Why eat something that you can have every day back home when there is new and appetizing fare to be had? Try something new to add to your vaca-adventure. You always remember more about an experience when your senses are engaged. What better way to do that, than with great food.

Finding good food on vacation can be done without spending a ton of money. Ask around to find the best places to go—local favorites minus the tourist prices!

Filed Under: Food, General Tagged With: , ,

Grocery Shopping for the Easily Frustrated

Example of an American grocery store aisle.

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For many people, grocery shopping is a tedious task. You have to take into consideration which foods everyone likes or dislikes, how much time you’ll have to cook meals, and of course, the cost of ingredients. Wow, rather makes you want to order take-out just thinking about it… Make your meal planning—and, in turn, your grocery shopping—easier with a few of these tips:

  • Write out a list of meals that everyone in the house likes. Try to come up with at least forty. Time-consuming? Yes, but it will make future meal planning much easier!
  • Once you have your list made, look for common ingredients that are used in the meals. This is your list of pantry foods—in other words, foods that you will want to keep on hand. Stock up on any dried and canned goods on your list that you can expect to use up in the next six months. Frozen goods can often be stored at least three months (sometimes longer).
  • To save money, make bulk purchases if you know your family will consume the items before they go bad. Most wholesale clubs have a membership fee, but this can quickly pay for itself, particularly if you have a large family. If your family is smaller, consider sharing the membership cost with a friend or neighbor.
  • When you have stocked up on pantry items, your weekly grocery shopping dwindles down to a quick trip for produce and dairy products, leaving you plenty of time to cook meals or even relax for a little while!
  • Be sure to keep a notepad in the kitchen. When an item runs low, it should be noted on the list so you can pick it up during your weekly “quick trip” to the grocer.
  • Another way to spend less time in the grocery store is to grow some of your own fruits and veggies. This is  a fun activity that gets the whole family involved!
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Vegetarian Surprise

Diane Nolan’s daughter Katie came home for Thanksgiving with five loads of dirty laundry and the news that she was now an ovolactate (egg and dairy) vegetarian. Diane told Katie to do her own laundry, and then started to change her menu plans for the holidays. As a busy working woman and mother of active children, Diane appreciates the convenience, quality, and economy of canned vegetables. And she certainly made good use of canned vegetables for this cooking challenge.

Diane decided to leave their traditional dinner menu alone and just add a vegetarian dish using canned beans. She adjusted one dish – Grandma’s scalloped corn made with canned cream corn, onion, saltines and milk – and made a small dish for Katie without the bacon topping. Diane’s husband Paul and sons Matt and Mike, devoted carnivores, could have all the bacon.

Katie added stuffed pablano peppers made with canned black beans, corn, tomato sauce, and rice topped with cheese to their special meal. The men of the family liked the peppers so much; they requested them for dinner later in the week.

The next day, Diane changed family favorite four-cheese lasagna by simply omitting the meat. Canned tomatoes, consistently in high quality, made the sauce as good as ever and no one complained about the change.

Katie made heuevos rancheros for Sunday brunch – even making her own low fat refried beans using canned pinto beans and canned diced tomatoes for the base of her homemade salsa. And when Katie made a pinto bean casserole using canned pinto beans, whole corn, diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, even her Dad admitted there might be something to this vegetarian cuisine.

Filed Under: Caloric Intake, Processed Foods Tagged With: , ,

The Casserole Queen

Louise and John Hanson traded in their five-bedroom house for a RV with what Louise calls the “smallest kitchen in the world”. She still turns out amazing meals using her recipe file and a well maintained pantry of canned foods.

Their 26-foot RV has a small gas oven and very small gas refrigerator with a freezer big enough for four ice cube trays. Louise does have a pullout style pantry, containing a variety of canned vegetables.

Louise learned to cook while living in married student housing at the University of Minnesota. She was dubbed the “Casserole Queen” forty years ago and has never abdicated.

Instead, she has expanded her cooking repertoire to include Cuban, Mexican and Italian dishes, and canned vegetables are part of almost every dish she prepares. For their RV park’s Christmas potluck dinner, Louise made Arroz Morro, a Cuban dish using canned black beans and tomato sauce with rice, cumin, garlic, broth oregano, and apple cider vinegar. Their Mid-Western friends were very impressed.

John has just been diagnosed with Diabetes II and has been advised to include a variety of beans in his diet because beans are digested slowly and help stabilize blood glucose levels. Canned beans, chilis, tomatoes, and corn are the basis of many of their new favorite recipes. John still doesn’t know that several of his favorite bean dishes are really vegetarian – and he doesn’t miss meat at all.

Louise uses canned vegetables because they don’t require special storage conditions, the quality is consistent, and they are available throughout the year. Her adventurous spirit needn’t wait for any growing season!

Filed Under: Caloric Intake, Processed Foods Tagged With: , ,

Home Uses for Commercial Refrigeration

For large families, it is important to have plenty of food. With the higher demands of food needs, most large families find that they do not have enough storage, or they do not have the proper storage, in order to maintain foods that need refrigeration. This can be a dilemma for many, and result in shopping trips more than once a week. For many, commercial refrigeration would be a good solution. This would allow larger families to make bulk purchases of refrigerated goods and provide an attractive and functional way to store the foods.

Many find purchasing food in bulk results in lower prices on food. Also, purchasing larger quantities eliminates repeated trips to the supermarket. There are some strategies for buying food in bulk so that families can save money, be afforded the best types of foods, and also get the most amount of product. Large families tend to need this option, and therefore find that any way to make the process easier is beneficial. For instance, purchasing two gallons of milk rather than one can be the difference of $2.00 dollar savings, as well as the saving for eliminating gas and time from another outing.

Another way to help families maintain proper food supplies is by freezing foods so they are available for use later on. If a family finds that they are freezing a lot of food such as sauces, vegetables, or meats, they may find that a separate freezer may fit their needs. This will help to ensure that the items that need freezing that have been purchased in bulk will have an extension of time for use later on when the family is ready. This can be a great benefit for many as they find sales or deals and choose to stock up.

Filed Under: Caloric Intake, Processed Foods Tagged With: , ,

Canned Vegetables

vegetables

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Eat your vegetables! Like it or not, Mom was right. The United States Department of Agriculture now recommends adults eat nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day for optimum health.

You may assume fresh vegetables are most nutritious, but unless you pick your own, it can take over two weeks for vegetables to get from the field to the supermarket. And during that time, many nutrients can be lost. As a matter of fact, up to 50% of the least stable nutrients can be lost during transit.

Canned vegetables are a great option for most families. Vegetables are canned immediately from the field so few nutrients are lost. Vegetables don’t become woody and tasteless, either. Most important, quick canning preserves the vitamins and nutrients like phytochemicals that protect you from heart disease and cancer.

Canned vegetables are easy to use, can be combined with other ingredients in tasty casseroles for quick dinners and can please even the pickiest eater. Because canning makes the contents stable, you can purchase canned vegetables when they are on sale and store them for long periods.

In case nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day sounds a bit daunting to you, a serving is only half a cup. That means two and half to three cups of vegetables and one and half to two cups of fruits a day.

You know when you purchase canned vegetables that you are getting a healthy, tasty, and consistent product. Canning makes vegetables available and affordable year around.

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Are You a Carnivore?

Ever hear someone refer to themselves as a carnivore? Chances are they probably are not. Often people misclassify themselves as a carnivore to indicate that they are not vegetarians and thus include meat and other animal products in their diet. However, the strictest definition of the word carnivore is that which consumes rarely anything but meat.

This is not to say that some people would not fit into the classification of facultative carnivores but in reality, the human race is more aptly considered to be omnivore. Interestingly, this is the case more due to the choices that people have made rather than the manner in which our physical makeup would dictate. There are numerous indications that the human body is more intended as an herbivore which would make us solely a plant-eater.

First of all, a human’s mouth is more designed for plant eating. We do not have the larger mouth, teeth type and spacing nor jaw type that true carnivores have. Humans have carbohydrate digesting enzymes in our saliva which carnivores do not. Our facial muscles structure is different, our jaw action is different, and how much we chew is different.

Secondly, our intestinal track is far different than that of a carnivore. Carnivores have a short track so that meat which is prone to rotting can be eliminated quickly. Humans have an intestinal track that is far longer. Even the stomach is different. Carnivores have a large, single-chambered stomach that facilitates eating a larger meal but less often; humans in comparison have a smaller stomach requiring daily consumption.

Add this to these facts that our stomach acidity, kidneys and liver are all that of an herbivore, not a carnivore, and one can readily see that our physical makeup is much more that of an herbivore. These facts are why some are opting for vegan or vegetarian diets even without the humanitarian reasons.

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Our Daily Bread

Breads and Bread rolls at a bakery

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“If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.” ~Robert Browning, English poet

“Acorns were good until bread was found.” ~Francis Bacon

These are only two of the thousands of quotes regarding bread. The word bread is found 361 times in the King James Version of the Bible. People all over the world are in love with bread. However, bread is not the same all over the world. There are plenty of variations to our daily bread. Some of the favorites around the world are finding their way into artisan bread bakeries and now the American consumer is getting to enjoy new and exciting breads.

Focaccia is one example that is now quite popular. It is Italian bread that is believed to have originated in ancient Rome. This olive oil bread is most often seasoned with rosemary and sea salt but many variations are also made.

Soda Bread became popular first in Ireland and is often referred to as Irish Soda Bread for this reason. The bread consists of only the following ingredients – flour, baking soda, buttermilk and salt. It uses the baking soda for leavening instead of yeast.

Naan is an Indian tandoor-baked bread that is mostly found in northern India but also in Central Asia and the Middle East. It is usually made with yeast, but there is a baking powder variation that is sometimes made. This bread is often eaten by stuffing it with a variety of ingredients and spices.

Mexico has its tortilla, England its Yorkshire pudding, Brazil has Pão de Queijo (cheese buns), and the Mediterranean its pita. There are flat breads, puffed breads, stuffed breads, steamed breads, fried breads, biscuits, sweet and savory breads. It would be impossible to count all the varieties but it might be fun to try to have as many different kinds as possible!

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Take a Bite Out of Raleigh’s Renowned Restaurants

The South has a reputation for amazing food. While classic Southern cooking is some of the finest in the country, the South’s ability to produce excellent food doesn’t stop with a bowl of mouthwatering Jambalaya. In the last decade a bevy of world class restaurants have opened their doors, ushering patrons in and inviting them to enjoy “New Southern” cuisine: fine food prepared with fresh-picked, fresh harvested, and freshly hewn ingredients from their own backyard.

Raleigh, North Carolina is one of those fabulous southern cities loved by natives and locals alike, with a selection of restaurants and eateries that would keep the most distinguished foodie happy. Whether you’ve spent the day scouring the sights of Raleigh as a visitor, or looking at Raleigh apartments for a more permanent stay, take the rest of the evening to enjoy the fabulous local food.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started, but you’ll most likely find a food gem or two of your own.

  • Piedmont. Housed in what was once a warehouse, Piedmont is dedicated to local produce, seafood, and meat, respecting the land and encouraging the sustainability of local food producers. This dedication and use of diverse local food is evident in the contemporary and pleasingly rustic American cuisine, singled out by Food & Wine magazine.
  • Second Empire. Recipient of the prestigious AAA Four Diamond Award, Second Empire Restaurant and Tavern is as renowned for its fine dining as it is for its location in the gorgeous historic Dodd-Hinsdale House. You can enjoy a seasonal three course meal or lighter fare in the Tavern.
  • The Pit Authentic BBQ. Sometimes all you want to do is pig out, and there’s nowhere better than The Pit. Fabulous authentic North Carolina barbecue is rounded out by hearty pumpkin skillet cornbread, fried catfish, and carrot cake with molasses cream cheese icing and bourbon ice cream.
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