Walnuts

Walnuts are healthy for Brain.

I am going to share some ways of eating walnuts.

If you have a sweet tooth, caramelize walnuts.

Take a cupful of walnuts and one tblsf agave syrup and one Tblsf brown sugar and bake it in oven for about 5 to 10 minutes.

Enjoy

Green spinach dressing

Ingredients

6 oz of baby spinach

1/4 cup non fat yogurt

1 small 5 oz can of water chestnuts

1 tblsf lemon juice

1 small shallot

1/2 tsf of salt

1/2 tsf of ground black pepper

1 tsf of tahini

Add water for desired consistency

Pea nutty salad dressing

Ingredients

1/4 cup smooth peanut butter

1/3 cup orange juice

3 tablespoonful of Nama shoyu soy sauce

1 tblsf rice vinegar

2 tsf brown sugar

Soy sauce has plenty of salt so no added salt but garlic clove minced and grated ginger are good additions.

Process this in vitamix or food processor and it is ready.

You can make it thinner or liquidy by adding water.

Homemade Dressings for salads/ vegetables

Pomegranate dressing

Ingredients are

 Unsweetened pomegranate juice

1 tblsf brown sugar

1 tsf freshly grated orange zest

1/8 tsf chipotle chili

Pinch of ground cloves

1/8 tsf sea salt

1/8 tsf black pepper

One small garlic clove

One small shallot

1 tblsf red wine vinegar

Purée the above in a blender.

Olive oil can be addedto the vinaigrette

Korean remedy for coughs and colds

I would like to share this easy vegetarian recipe that I read from Vegetarian times.

It uses Asian pears,pinenuts.

It is called honey poached Asian pears.

Take four cups of water and start boiling it.Add 3/4 cup honey and 1 cup of pomegranate juice.let it cool.You can add grated ginger and lemon peel and few peppercorns to the water.

Peel the pears and drop them in the liquid and start warming the water with the juice and other ingredients. Let the pears stay cooking on the liquid for another 30 minutes.

Then transfer pears to another dish and boil the remaining liquid till it is syrupy.

Pour the syrup over the pears. Dress it with pinenuts.

Spaghetti squash

I was inspired to cook spaghetti squash this weekend after watching Mark Bittman,a food writer,journalist explaining the Editor of Atlantic magazine how to cook spaghetti squash.It was joint experience today in our kitchen as my husband showed his willingness to help.

He made several cuts on the very thick outside skin so I could cook in the microwave.

After cooking it 6 minutes each side,total of 12 minutes, the squash was ready.I first scooped out the seeds and it was easy to scoop out the spaghetti squash.

I tried both ways,eating with butter,salt and pepper and also,butter and brown sugar and topping with nuts.Ihad to give an Indian touch to this vegetable.

I sautéed some garlic and onions and tomatoes in olive oil and added salt black pepper,cumin powder

and added the sautéed tomatoes,garlic and onion mixture and sprinkled with cayenne pepper.

That was delicious,said my husband,low calorie natural spaghetti.

Fiber

For several years I had been telling my patients to buy OTC Metamucil.

Now ,let us look at the ingredients.

The beautiful looking yellow box of Metamucil has,

Psyllium husk

Maltodextrin

Citric acid

Natural and artificial orange flavor

Aspartame

Yellow dye,no.6

Versus Flax meal there is no dye,and ingredients are only flax  seeds

Vision improvement with foods

Vision problems and prevention through diet

Kale is the king of vegetables and while I was making the call of the Kale smoothie,I was researching on USDA site for nutrition content and found out that KALE and COLLARD Greens have the highest amount of Zeaxanthin and Lutein.

Not only these vegetables were beneficial for Macular degeneration,they also help in reduction of Glaucoma.

The other foods are black currants,goji berries with nuts and seeds.

To preserve the retinal epithelium, we need anthocyanins which can be obtained from blueberries,blackberries,purple cabbage,purple potatoes,purple carrots

Detox smoothie

To me ,Kale is the king of vegetables and I want to create all kinds of recipes to use Kale.

I was studying on demulcents,which is a substance that coats,covers,soothes,and Apple pectin is one of them.

Coming back to the recipe,

1 cup of water

1 apple

4 to 5 strawberries,

One cup of wased Kale

1/2 lime or lemon

I prefer to use frozen strawberries,so I don't have to use ice.

Blend and enjoy

Alternately,

Look for my call of the kale smoothie that has water,kale,green grapes,lemon,and banana,and avocado.

Now, the question is can you use other citrus for pectin?

We can use 1 cup kale, one orange/ grapefruit peeled,banana,water.

This would make another detox smoothie.

STARTING NEWYEAR WiTH DETOX

We all indulged in food and or drinks one way or the other during the holidays.

It is time to go back to some healthy beginnings.

I am going to share today a healthy easy detox drink that has 3 or 4 ingredients maximum.

They are ,

Water

Lemons/ limes

Ginger( fresh)

Apple cider vinegar(ACV)

Manuka honey15+( potional)

Boil 4 cups of water.when it has become lukewarm,squeeze lemon or lime juice of one lemon/ lime.

Take a 2" piece of ginger and shred it in the water or crush it and add to water after you have scraped the skin off as you would do on a potato.

Add 1 tsf of ACV per cup of water.as I had 4 cups of water,I added 4 tsf of ACV.

If you like it sweet,you can add Manuka honey which is very therapeutic,may be za tsf or two.

Sip on this tea or water that you just prepared.

ENJOY

Look out for my favorite DeTox foods next  poster.

Soup for new year

Hi Friends,

I was back home after a break and come home to college station to find my kitchen garden with beaming,blooming Broccoli.

One of the plants had the 4 petal beautiful flowers but the Broccoli on others were just ready to eat.

I had come across a recipe Broccoli avocado soup.

An easy version will be steam the broccoli after washing it good and blend it in food processor or vitamix with 1/2 avocado, salt and black pepper and 2 tsf of olive oil.

Garnish with pieces of avocado.

Add lemon juice to taste.