Can we talk about beans? I’ve heard it said that a great many cultures tell a story that highlights the magical properties of beans. In English-speaking nations, for example, the story is Jack and the Beanstalk. Beans made Jack strong enough to become a giant killer!
Author Archives: Dr. Sukol
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Strawberry-Pecan Spinach Salad
The quintessential springtime salad! Can you just imagine this recipe’s tiny sweet strawberries bursting in your mouth? Soft, gently flavorful leaves of spinach, fresh from the ground? With a bit of bite from the onion and some satisfying give from the pecans? Thank you, lowfatveganchef.com, for the original version of this recipe.
Paying Attention to What You Eat
Today’s talk centers around paying attention. If you discover that you’ve eaten a whole bowl of popcorn or a big bag of chips without even noticing, then you are definitely not paying attention. Let’s talk about some of the reasons this happens.
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Spring Peas with Walnuts and Dates
A celebration of spring! If you can’t decide whether to get the snap peas or the snow peas, or maybe those beautiful little spring peas, here’s a recipe that will let you use all three. From foodnetwork.com.
Grandma Rosie’s Lunches
Grandma Rosie had a saying: “Never cheat your stomach.” My father still quotes her regularly. He especially enjoys reminiscing about the meals that had him racing home from school every day at lunchtime. My dad didn’t get a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. There was no breakfast cereal in my grandmother’s kitchen. Here, instead, are a few inspired examples of my grandmother’s own creative cooking style.
The spinach-potato knish my dad ate last weekend got him started reminiscing about Grandma’s “spinach and potatoes.” She mashed lightly cooked greens into her potatoes, and my mother reports that Grandma made sure to include the cooking liquid for extra flavor. She never made “plain” mashed potatoes. My dad rolls his eyes as he describes this.
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Chicken Cacciatore
If, like many of our friends this week, you’re getting ready for a huge onslaught of guests to celebrate a commencement of one sort or another, think about putting a recipe like this in your slow cooker. The very process of slow cooking blends and brings out flavors, caramelizes and smoothes the natural sweetness in ingredients like tomatoes, and generally turns what was previously a very nice recipe into something entirely more subtle and sublime. Try this chicken cacciatore, in honor of Ann’s graduation.
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Spinach Pesto Pasta
Here’s a special pasta dish with a gorgeous rainbow of colors. The original recipe comes from vegweb.com. Continue reading
Diabetes on the Rise in Kids
This blog should have a category called “It’s worse than you think” or “I’m really not exaggerating,” or maybe just “More scary news.”
We turn to this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), one of the preeminent journals of my profession. According to a study of 3 million kids and teens in 7 states across the U.S., Type 2 diabetes increased 30 percent between 2001 and 2008. Here’s what I want to say about this:
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Tropical Smoothie
Every time you find a little bit of overripe fruit on your counter, peel it and put the fruit into a container in your freezer. Once you’ve collected enough to make this recipe, dance a little jig and say a “hail merry” because it’s HailMerry.com who came up with the original version of this recipe! Continue reading
Scoop at the Coop, Spring 2014
After a brutal winter with long weeks of short days, and single-digit temperatures, the hens are once again out and about, chowing down on the grass and sucking up all the worms. They’re racing across the lawn and along the edge of the woods, enjoying the freedom to spread their wings and wiggle their tail feathers with abandon.
The girls are laying eggs again after months of little or no activity, and these eggs are spectacular. The yolks sit tall and proud above the clear, compact whites, and they are so deep yellow that probably no one would challenge you if you chose to call them orange. That gorgeous orange-yellow color comes from all the polyphenols and beta-carotene (a precursor of Vitamin A) in the grass that they are eating with relish. I think they really missed the bugs, worms, and grass. Laying mash can get very boring, the equivalent, in my mind, of living on oatmeal or shredded wheat for months at a time.