On with your Valentine meal for February!
Spinach Mushroom Lasagna Spinach, mushrooms and onions drenched in a creamy low-fat non-dairy sauce, layered between brown rice noodles and strips of egg plant with a home made marinara sauce. This recipe is a bit labor intense but well worth the effort for that special occasion with you and your sweetheart or the entire family.
Greek Salad w/Tofu Feta
This salad is fresh and light and is the perfect companion to the Spinach Mushroom Lasagna. The Tofu Feta with all it's seasonings mixed with crisp romaine lettuce red onion, cucumber tomato and Kalamata Olives makes this salad taste like a true Greek salad.
Thick and Hearty Vegetable SoupThis soup is loaded with a ton of vegetables including broccoli and cauliflower which are the mighty cruciferous vegetables that are loaded with anti-cancer compounds. If we want maximum protection from cancer and other diseases, we need to include these into our diet every day and this is a great way to do it! This makes a huge pot so you can feed a large crowd or store it in freezer safe containers for a ready made lunch or dinner.
Decadent Chocolate Ice CreamValentines Day and chocolate goes hand in hand. And this chocolate ice cream is rich, creamy smooth and so delicious! I love ice cream and it was the last dairy product to go after I moved to a plant based diet in 1991. Once I discovered how to make ice cream with nuts and dates, I haven't had a desire to eat the dairy based ice cream since. The only thing missing from this decadent dessert is the guilt, the bloat, and the weight gain....not to mention the hours of exercise it takes to work off a bowl of the dairy based variety. No thank you to all of those!
And there you have it! Health for Life Valentine meal for February.
Class dates are Wednesday February 2, Tuesday February 8, and Wednesday February 16. Class begins at 6:00 pm.
Hope to see you in class!
April
Check out this interview from one of my favorite professors of plant based nutrition, T. Collin Campbell, PhD (author of The China Study) in an interview that was published in the New York Times wellness blog.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/nutrition-advice-from-the-china-study/?utm_source=Master+List&utm_campaign=bbbcc6dd9a-Newsletter_January_2011_tracking&utm_medium=email#more-42139
I made this soup last night for dinner and it was wonderful! It comes from Mary McDougall at http://www.drmcdougall.com/. I made a few changes as noted. Enjoy!
Hearty Garbanzo Soup
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp minced fresh garlic
4 cups vegetable broth (I used the broth from my cooked garbanzo beans)
1 pound sliced cremini mushrooms
1 1/2 cups shredded green cabbage
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground coriander
2 15 oz cans garbanzo beans (I used 3 cups of home cooked - so much better!!)
2 Tbsp tahini
1 large roasted red bell pepper, sliced into strips (I used raw, chopped)
1-2 tsp chili-garlic sauce
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup each: chopped fresh cilantro, dill, and chives (I did not have dill or chives)
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
dash of sea salt
(I used a little Real Salt. I'm finding that using bean broth in soups makes a very flavorful stock!)
Place the onion and garlic in a large soup pot with about 1 tbsp of the vegetable broth. Cook stirring frequently until onion softens and turns translucent. Add the remaining vegetable broth and bring to a simmer. Add the mushrooms, cabbage, cumin and coriander. Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, pour 1 can of the garbanzos with its juice into a blender jar. Add the tahini and process until smooth. Drain and rinse the other can of beans. Add the processed beans and the whole beans to the soup pot, as well as the roasted red pepper and the chili-garlic sauce. Slowly bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 45 minutes. Add the fresh herbs and lemon juice and simmer for an additional 15 minutes. Season with a bit of sea salt before serving, if desired.
Hint: Bottled roasted red peppers work well in this dish. You should have about 3/4 cup.
As a good friend of Dr. Campbell, he and his son just wrote the foreword for my soon-to-be-published book...also by BenBella Books as was The China Study.
ReplyDeleteIn visiting with Dr. Campbell in Ithaca last month, I described how we provided some "visuals" in our book, such as how important every bite is to one of the body's primary jobs of nurturing and replacing all of our 100 trillion cells. I did the math and it works out to be that for every bite you put in your mouth, you are providing ALL of the fuel and nutrients for your body to regenerate 100 million cells.
Every bite counts and your body can do a much better job if you give it the natural food for our species. We seem to be the only species that hasn't figured that out. Ironic, since we deem ourselves the most intelligent of all the world's millions of species.
Look for our new book in the fall: HealthyPEOPLE - HealthyPLANET, you can see the preview online at hp2book.com Writing from a lovely snowstorm on the coast of eastern CT, be well and safe, J. Morris Hicks.