Tomato Salsa with Cucumber "Chips"

From: Food and Wine

Get ready for Super Bowl weekend with a delicious healthy take on the traditional chips-and-salsa combo that is nearly fat-fee and refreshing.
Serves 6

Ingredients:

1 1/4 pounds tomatoes, finely chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped sweet onion
1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro
1 small jalapeño, seeded and minced
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 large seedless cucumber, sliced 1/4 inch thick


Directions:

In a bowl, toss the tomatoes with the onion, cilantro, jalapeño and lime juice and season with salt and pepper. Serve the salsa with the cucumber chips for dipping.

Red Cabbage with Apples and Cloves

This sweet tasting cabbage dish tastes more like dessert than a side-dish.
From: Sarah Brown’s World Vegetarian Cookbook
 
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:
1lb red cabbage
1 TBSP vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 sweet apples, peeled and finely chopped
3-4 cloves, ground with a mortar & pestle
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon sugar
2 TBSP cider vinegar
salt

Directions

1. Shred the cabbage.
2. In a large pot, heat the oil over low-medium heat and fry the onion until just soft.
3. Increase the heat and add the cabbage and apples. Mix well. Then add the remaining ingredients.
4. Cover the pan and simmer mixture for 35 – 40 minutes, until the cabbage is really soft.
5. Serve hot & ENJOY!

Food Trends I'm Excited About

I admit that I like this time of year. No, not because of the holidays. Nor am I a skier. It’s because I love seeing the food trend predictions. Many of the predictions I’ve seen coming a mile away. Others come at me from left field – I’m thinking “Where the heck did they get that idea?”
Many food trends drive me crazy. But that’s a rant that I’ll save for another day.
Today I wanted to share some of the 2015 food trends that I’m loving. I encourage you to jump aboard these bandwagons!

Fermented Foods

Scientists are discovering more and more roles that our gut bacteria play in our health. No longer just helping in digestion, we’re now seeing that they may play a role in depression, obesity, auto-immune diseases, and many more health conditions.
One way to promote a healthy gut microbiome is to eat fermented foods. While this is a trend for 2015, it’s hardly new. Most cultures around the world traditionally include fermented foods – examples include yogurt, kimchee, kefir, sauerkraut, kombucha, etc.

Sprouted Seeds, Legumes, Nuts and Grains

In the years that I’ve provided nutrition advice, I’ve noticed that many people believe that they’re eating lots of variety. However, that morning cereal and toast, wrap at lunch, and pasta dinner are all just refined wheat in different shapes. So, I love this trend because it should open your eyes and get you trying different grains/carbs.
Also, many people who complain about gas from eating legumes (i.e. beans and lentils) find that sprouting them first makes them more easily digestible (less musical).

Move Over Protein – Veggies are the Star

Protein has long been the star of the plate. Most chefs start with the protein and then create the rest of the meal around it. No more. Big time, famous chefs are using vegetables as the star of the meal – building the rest of the elements around them. For over a decade I’ve been recommending making half your plate veggies. It’s fantastic to see restaurants considering vegetables as more than a just a garnish.

Pickled Veggies

Hey, I’m a fan of any trend that makes it cool to eat vegetables. Pickled? Sure, why not – if it gets you eating more veggies, I’m happy. Do a quick pickle of some in-season veggies to make an appy or potluck dish that will impress your most foodie focused friends.

Cabbage, Brussels Sprouts, Cauliflower

Did I mention that I’m a fan of any trend that makes it cool to eat veggies?! After the success of kale, it’s Brassica cousins are now becoming popular. Thankfully, being in the spotlight, we’re seeing many new recipes that provide alternatives to boiling these until they’re a sulfurous mush. Previously I shared about this trend being the cause of me overcoming my dislike of cauliflower. Below I’m sharing a cabbage dish that I’ve served at many a dinner party and no-one has ever complained that I made them eat cabbage (and they’re a vocal bunch).

Healthier Kids Meals

This trend makes me want to shout Halleluiah! It’s been a pet peeve of mine that even in restaurants with healthy main menus, the kids menu was an unhealthy and uninspired list of mac and cheese, chicken strips, and hotdog. No longer! Restaurants are clueing in that parents want their kids to eat healthfully and will be loyal customers if they provide a menu with tasty, healthy choices. My fingers are crossed that more restaurants wake up to this reality.

The Easy (and Effective) Way to Improve Your Eating – Even if You’ve Already Fallen Off Your New Years Resolutions

If you’re like many people, you launched into 2015 with a vision of an amazing new you – fit, clean eater, daily meditator. But then the daily reality of life happens. We’re only 9 days into the year and perhaps you’ve already fallen off your lofty goals. If so, you’re not alone.

Big lifestyle overhauls make great headlines (and entertaining reality TV). But they don’t work for most of us to make long-term change.

The secret to being successful at making healthy eating a reality for you (and your family too) is making small, continuous changes.

Small, continuous changes that accumulate into a truly lasting healthy lifestyle.

As the saying goes:

 “Slow and steady wins the race.”   - Aesop

By taking things one step at a time, you create the opportunity to practice each step until it becomes habit. And, once something’s habit, it’s easy. In addition, you build momentum to carry you onwards to more successful change.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Bring out your calendar, daytimer, planner, whatever you use.  Write your big goal on each week. Yes, write it again and again. Even if you’re using an electronic calendar, I recommend typing it in each week instead of using a copy & paste mode. The act of repeating it helps solidify it in your mind.
2. Break your big goal into small, weekly steps that will take you towards achieving your goal. Write down what 1 step you’ll take each week, from now until the last week of December.
3. Take action!

For example, say your big goal is to stop eating fast food (currently you eat it every weekday for lunch). Here’s how to break it down into weekly steps:

• Week 1: Sign up for Green Earth Organics’ weekly bin (because you’ve got to have healthy foods on-hand to substitute for all that fast food)
• Week 2: Pack 1 piece of fruit for lunch each weekday. Eat this along with your fast food lunch.
• Week 3: Pack 1 piece of fruit and one serving of veggies. Eat these instead of making your fast food lunch a “combo”.
• Week 4: Buy a container so that you can start to pack your lunch – fun, functional, cheap, luxurious – there’s no shortage of options. Pick one that is totally “you”. 
• Week 5: Cook one large recipe on the weekend (lunch or dinner). Store one serving of the leftovers in the fridge. Bring it for lunch on Monday. 
• Week 6: Cook dinner one weeknight. Make enough that you save one serving of the leftovers in the fridge. Bring it for lunch the next day.

You can see how each of these steps is small enough that it’s do-able. Yet, combined together, they really add up.

Roasted Cauliflower with Cumin and Ginger

It’s also a great recipe on rushed nights – it takes less than 30 minutes (with very little prep).

This is a very flexible recipe. Love ginger? Add more. Find the cumin too strong? Use less.  Note that this dish doesn't taste nearly as good as leftovers, so only make as much cauliflower as you think you’ll eat that night.

Ingredients
1 head cauliflower
2 TBSP olive oil
1 tsp cumin
2 TBSP ginger

Steps
1 Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
2 Wash and finely chop cauliflower. The more finely you chop your cauliflower, the faster it will roast. I recommend 0.5 cm slices (yes, it’s small!).
3 Very finely chop the ginger. I like to use a sharp vegetable peeler instead of chopping.
4 In a metal roasting pan, combine all ingredients, tossing to combine well.
5 Roast for approximately 20 minutes, taking the pan out to stir the cauliflower twice. The length of cooking time will vary depending on how small you sliced the cauliflower. Look for it to have a lot of dark brown spots (but not burnt). This will create a sweet, roasted flavour. If you take it out too early it will be pale, limp, and flavourless.
6 ENJOY!

White Bean Dip Recipe

Makes 12 Servings

Ingredients

1 can (14 oz, 17.6 oz) cannellini beans, canned, drained
1 bulb garlic, raw
1/4 cup (2 oz) olive oil

1/4 cup (2 fl oz) lemon juice, fresh

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Remove the outermost skin of the garlic bulb (the loose stuff). Cut off the very top of the bulb so the tip of each clove is exposed. Rub the entire bulb with some olive oil. Wrap in tin foil, shiny-side inwards. Place on a cookie sheet or in a casserole dish.
3. Roast in the oven for approximately 45 minutes, or until the bulb gives off the distinct roasted garlic (not raw garlic) aroma and the cloves are squishy.
4. Allow to cool.
5. Drain and rinse the beans (rinsing removes some of the “magical” part of the beans). Place them in a medium-size bowl.
6. To the beans, add half the olive oil, half the lemon juice, and half of the cloves of garlic. Using a hand-held blender, blend the mixture until it’s smooth. Adding more olive oil, lemon juice and garlic to taste and to get the texture to the desired smoothness.
7. ENJOY with tortilla chips, crackers, apple slices, and raw veggies like carrots, celery and bell pepper strips.
Note: You can roast the garlic days in advance.

How to Use After School Snacks to Get Picky Eaters To Try New Foods

If you’re like the parents of picky eaters who’ve I’ve helped for the last 6 years, you’re constantly on the look out for ways to get your kids to eat more (healthy) foods. After school snacks are a great (and often overlooked) opportunity to contribute to kids’ nutrition.

Here’s why after school snacks are such a great time to get kids to eat more foods, how to do it, and some snack ideas.

Why it Works:

Many kids have big appetites at after school snack time. Appetite is a great motivator for kids to try new foods.
Have you ever tried getting a child to eat a new food when they aren’t hungry? It’s a lesson in futility.
Take advantage of this natural window of opportunity and use after school snacks to offer your child new foods.

How to Do It:

Step #1: Plan snacks that include foods from 2 or more food groups. Often we think of snacks as a time for junk food. Or, as a time for a single food – e.g. an apple. But kids have big nutrient needs and small tummies. They need healthy foods more than just at 3 meals per day.

Step #2: Consider meals and snacks to be equal opportunities to eat. A mistake that many parents make is to give their child healthy foods at meals and favourite foods at snacks. This stacks the odds against kids eating well at meals. Instead, frequently, give your child a snack that includes either a new food or a food that your child has seen many times but hasn’t tried yet.

Step #3: Think outside the snack aisle. When looking for snack ideas, it seems natural to look in the snack aisle of the grocery store. But this aisle is mostly filled with highly processed, junky foods. Instead, look for easy to eat versions of meal foods. Focus on providing foods from the food groups where your child isn’t meeting the recommendations. To see the recommendations, check out Canada’s Food Guide  http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/index-eng.php

Snack Ideas:

Edamame and an orange (2 food groups)
White Bean Dip* with a variety of raw veggies such as snow peas, carrots, and zucchini (2 food groups)
Yogurt with pomegranate and hemp hearts (3 food groups)
Sliced banana on top of whole grain crackers/rice cakes/corn cakes spread with peanut butter, nut-butter, or non-nut butter. (3 food groups)