Healthy Cooking Recipes: Clean Eating Edition: Quinoa Recipes, Superfoods and Smoothies
brown. Remove from oven and allow it to cool slightly.
While the crust is in the oven, make your filling. Add the blueberries, sugar, cornstarch, blueberries and a little water (about 2 tbsp) to a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring often to dissolve the sugar and corn starch. Boil for 1 – 2 minutes and remove from heat.
You can now make your streusel topping as well. In a large bowl, mix together the rolled oats, flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it reaches the consistency of coarse bread crumbs.
Spread the blueberry filling evenly over the crust once it has cooled. Top with the streusel and return to the oven for 35 – 40 minutes, or until the streusel is lightly browned. Remove from the oven and place the pan on a wire rack to cool to room temperature before slicing and serving.
Blueberry, Chocolate and Walnut Parfait
Number of servings: 4
Ingredients:
½ cup blueberries (fresh or frozen and thawed)
2 cups plain Greek yogurt
2 tbsp miniature dark chocolate chips
½ cup granola
chopped walnuts
Preparation:
Place 1 tbsp of blueberries at the bottom of 4 parfait glasses, followed by ¼ cup Greek yogurt. The next layer is 1 tsp chocolate chips, 1 tsp granola and a few walnut pieces. Repeat the process to form a second layer. Serve immediately or chill in the refrigerator until you’re ready to serve.
Dark Chocolate Cake
Number of servings: 8
Ingredients:
1¾ cups pastry flour (use whole wheat pastry flour if you have it)
1 ½ cups dark chocolate (either dark chocolate chips or bars broken into small pieces)
¾ cup milk (soy milk or almond milk may be substituted if desired)
½ cup apple juice or apple cider
½ cup maple syrup
¼ cup canola oil
2 ½ tbsp flax seeds
1 tbsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
Preparation:
Start by preheating your oven to 350 F. Oil a 9” cake pan. In a large mixing bowl, combine the pastry flour, salt and baking powder; mix well and set aside. Grind the flax seeds in a blender or coffee grinder until they’re powdered. Add the oil, apple juice or cider, vanilla extract and maple syrup to the blender and blend until thoroughly combined.
In a saucepan, heat the milk (or soy or almond milk) and chocolate over low heat for about 4 minutes or until the chocolate is melted. Add the chocolate mixture and the flax seed mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well until a smooth batter is formed.
Pour your batter into the cake pan and bake for 40 – 45 minutes; you’ll be able to tell the cake is done when a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool for at least half an hour before removing from the pan. Serve either plain or frosted, if desired.
Superfoods Cookbook Conclusion
Eating healthy doesn’t have to mean not eating food that tastes good – or even giving up the foods that you like! There are almost limitless ways to work in the superfoods which are the stars of the recipes in this book into your diet. No matter what your dietary preferences happen to be (unless you’ve been eating nothing but heavily processed foods of course and even then, the recipes here have hopefully shown you a better and tastier way to eat), you can eat a diet rich in superfoods and reap their nutritional benefits.
The fact is that many of the healthiest foods also happen to be absolutely delicious. If there is a secret to making eating healthy as delicious as the recipes here show that it really can be, it’s this: use high quality, healthy ingredients and allow their flavors to shine through. Even if you never thought that you liked, say, kale, you may find yourself a fan once you’ve tried it in many of these recipes.
Try cooking your way through this superfoods cookbook and you’ll soon discover a whole new way of eating – one which gives you a stronger immune system, better health and generally helps you to feel (and maybe even look) younger and healthier than you have in a long time, or perhaps ever. Feel free to use these recipes as a source of inspiration for your own culinary experiments as well. You may find that you can find many new ways to enjoy superfoods at your table and start getting the nutrition that your body needs not from nutritional supplements, but from where you should be naturally: from your diet.
What Is Quinoa?
About the Grain
Its scientific name is Chenopodium quinoa, and it has recently gained popularity as a grain of high nutritional value.
Quinoa is an annual plant which is a type of weed related to the goosefoot family. It is also closely related to the family of plants that includes spinach, table beet, and sugar beets and is susceptible to the same issues as these crops while growing. Unlike grassy grain plants, the quinoa has broadleaf and is not a legume but has a similar structure to buckwheat.
It is a remarkably efficient plant to harvest and just one pound of seeds is enough to harvest a whole acre of the crop. This was able to sustain an Andean family of ten for a whole year.
Quinoa History
The origins of Quinoa date back over 3,000 to the ancient Incan civilizations of South America. The indigenous tribes in the Andes area of Peru, Colombia, Chile, and Bolivia used it as a staple grain in their diet.
It is one of the few grains that is able to survive the high altitudes of the region and the harshness of the Andes climate. This area is subject to intense sun, drought, and occasional frost as well. All of these conditions the hearty grain was able to withstand for thousands of years. Its strength was admired by the Ancient Incans who called it “mother grain” and treated its harvest with religious reverence.
During the 16th century Spanish invaders came to the Andes region and forbid the growing of quinoa which was seen as “Indian food”. They favored the assimilation of the “savage” natives into their culture and so corn and potatoes took quinoa’s place. However, the grain endured and grew in the wild so that we could enjoy it today.
The modern popularity of quinoa can be traced back to the 1970’s when Oscar Ichazo, a Bolivian spiritual teacher, encouraged students to eat the grain as an aid to meditation. This began its rise in popularity in the Western World where even the United Nations has declared it a “super food.”
Health Benefits
Studies in recent history have shown that the phytonutrients in quinoa has anti inflammatory properties. The combination of properties has been shown to reduce conditions such as obesity in lab animals when fed on a regular basis as a preventative measure. These anti inflammatory phytonutrients include; Arabians, hydroxybenzoic acids, hydroxycinnamic, flavanoids, saponins, omega-3 fatty acid, and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) it is higher in healthy fats than other cereal grains and is shown to help reduce cholesterol.
Nutritionally, a ⅓ cup of cooked quinoa contains 160 calories, 2.5 grams of fat and 6 grams of protein.
Quinoa