water, enough to fill Crock-Pot 2 inches from the top
Spices
3 T. garlic powder
3 T. ground cumin
1 T. curry
1/2 t. black pepper
1 T. red pepper flakes
4 T. dried basil
MARCH 2020
Blueberry Oat Bran Muffin
Several aspects of this recipe are important. The bran is oat, not wheat. Oat fiber lowers cholesterol. The whole wheat flour is pastry flour that is milled such that the gluten binds together a little better and is good for making the muffins come easily out of the muffin pan. If you have had unpleasant experiences trying to make a good-tasting and healthy muffin in the past, this recipe is quick, has a pleasant texture, and it does not stick to the pan, in spite of no fat in the recipe. Try it.
Recipe:
Mix:
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour 1 cup oat bran
1 cup Fiber One breakfast cereal 6 egg whites
1 T. plus 1 t. low-sodium baking powder
1/2 package nonfat dry milk (1 package makes 1 qt.)
1 cup water
1/2 delicious apple, finely chopped and added to 1 cup of water, microwave on HIGH for 5 minutes, and finely mash with a fork
5 packages Sweet & Low or Equal
2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen, thawed out
Add dough to muffin pan.
Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees in a preheated oven. Makes 1 dozen muffins.
March 2020
Food Preparation: Try New Foods
I vividly recall the first hot lunch served by my small town school cafeteria. It was 1954. I was in the third grade. As a farm boy in Nebraska, with parents raised during the depression also on the farm, the mentality at mealtime was to eat what was served. With 7 mouths to feed, quantity was more important than quality. We thought almost everything tasted fine, but no one ever considered telling my mother, the cook, “This doesn’t taste good.” My mother fixed what my father would eat. Simply put, we ate a lot of the same food. No one went hungry, but there was little variety. I don’t even remember what was packed in the school lunch box (a red Hopalong Cassidy box) for the first 3 years, but I will never forget the trauma of that first hot lunch meal as a third grader. The menu:
Carrot sticks—fine.
Applesauce—great.
Mashed potatoes—I loved mashed potatoes. We had them at home almost every night for supper, but here in the new lunchroom, they poured on melted butter and almost drowned the potatoes. I really loved potatoes, but chicken gravy was what I really liked best on them. Potatoes—okay.
Milk—I milked cows at home every morning and night; thus I knew a little bit about what can sometimes get in the milk pail, and I for sure did not like warm milk. This milk was ice cold, and as time went by, I grew to really like it. Milk—okay.
Sloppy joes—I loved white buns; I also loved greasy hamburger! But salt and pepper were the only spices I had every really tasted, and tomatoes are fresh-sliced on bacon sandwiches or canned, and then used in whole milk, homemade tomato soup. I had never heard of or tasted tomato sauce. Stress for this farm boy. It was on my plate. I had to eat it. Cold-sweating and flushed-face from nervousness at the same time, nausea, and wanting to vomit all took place. (I eventually grew to love sloppy joes. I had learned to eat a new food.)
Eating: An Enjoyable Activity
Avoid the heavy discussion about whether you eat to live or you live to eat. This is the twenty-first century. We do now have some good science concerning the nutrient value of the different foods available. We see that food is a powerful substance. Very literally it can kill us (a high-fat eating style), make and keep us very healthy (high-complex-carbohydrate eating style), and most importantly it can control how we feel (high-complex-carbohydrate eating style). The physical body needs certain nutrients. Food nourishes the physical body.
At the same time, eating is also an enjoyable activity. Everybody has many personal stories to illustrate how the consumption of food (the food itself, growing the food, preparing food, the people, the place, the situation, etc.) nourishes the soul.
Change Is Nourishing: Try Something New!
People who study eating styles and behaviors in an attempt to learn how to counsel others in this very important health and quality of life area continually search for ideas to share with others about how to get practical. People desire ideas about how to really become successful in nourishing the total person: body, mind, and spirit. Parents want to know how to do this for both themselves and their children.
Open Your Mind to Change
First, it is a given that we all have a long history connected to food and eating. It may not be sloppy joes and butter-soaked mashed potatoes, but whatever it is, it can be changed. Remember that eating is a learned behavior. Just be open to ‘trying” something new. The recommendation? I have 1 very simple recommendation for you to consider:
Once each month from January until December, prepare a meal using as a main ingredient a food that you have never tried before. Avoid, if possible, just fixing an old favorite with a new twist. (There are already 100 different pasta salad recipes, right?)
Check newspaper recipes.
Check a vegetarian cookbook.
Check an ethnic cookbook.
Ask a friend, neighbor, or coworker from another culture to make a suggestion.
Go to a natural-foods store or the natural-foods section of your grocery and look at what is on the shelves or in the food bins.
Results?
This will be fun. You will be “forced” to get creative. The new tastes and textures will be exciting. You will probably start creating your own recipes. You may quit your job and write your own cookbook. Jay Leno will probably have you on late-night TV to promote your new book. Your vocabulary will contain words such as posole, buckwheat grouts, crowder peas, tabouli, turmeric, coriander and cilantro, blue corn meal, polenta, collards, pesto, raita, triticale, spelt flour, etc. How about hominy? This past fall, a person taking a class I was teaching came to class all excited because he was preparing a Crock-Pot soup recipe at home that day with hominy. It was to be his first-ever taste of hominy. Report: The next day he told how much he enjoyed this new food. Try the following recipes. Most are simple soup recipes, and they contain an ingredient that may be new for you.
CROCK-POT RECIPES
(For All Recipes, Cook on LOW All Day)
Whole Green Chilies and Hominy
Recipe:
1 can yellow hominy, rinsed to remove salt
1 can red or black beans, rinsed to remove salt
2 cans whole (not chopped) green chilies, rinse and cut each chili into 3 large pieces
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
1 can 15-oz. no-salt stewed tomatoes
1 can 15-oz. no-salt tomato sauce
water, enough to fill Crock-Pot 2 inches from the top
Spices
1 T. garlic powder
2 T. cumin, ground
1/4 t. white pepper