Category Archives: Fruit

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Wintertime Oatmeal with Apples & Walnuts

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In view of the fact that I’ve been asked once again to repost this recipe, and since it’s autumn (the most glorious autumn I can remember in years), I am reposting this recipe for Apple-Walnut Oatmeal. I’ve adjusted the proportions to make enough for two. 

Looking out the dining room window as I write this, all I can see are dozens of cool, grey-brown branches against a pale blue, sun-lit sky. It’s beautifully stark, and riveting, calling me to the outdoors while the sun is still low in the eastern sky. But before I venture out into this beautiful day, I’m going to make this oatmeal recipe to warm me from the inside out. This recipe has a lot of flavor, with all the right kinds of yummy. You will probably smile while you’re eating it. I know I do.

1 cup rolled oats
1 small apple, peeled, cored, and diced small
3 c. water
pinch of salt
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbsp. flax meal
3/4 tsp. cinnamon, scant
1 tsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp. toasted walnuts, chopped coarsely

In a medium saucepan, heat the oats, apple, water, and salt over medium heat. Heat 5-8 minutes until simmering, lower heat to medium-low, and cook 5 minutes more until the apple softens, stirring often.

Add the vanilla, olive oil, flax meal and cinnamon, and stir well. Pour into a serving bowl, top with nuts, and serve. I’ve also made this recipe with amaranth to replace the oats, and almonds instead of the walnuts. It comes out delicious! Feeds 2-3 very nicely.

Fake Fruit Names for Your Breakfast Cereal

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A while back I wrote a post about the high profit-margin-to-cost of the breakfast cereal business. Today I have more to say on breakfast cereal, not about the manufacturing process or profit margins, but about the pervasive use of fruit-related words in the naming of these products.

If I had just ten seconds to share advice on improving your nutrition, I suspect you already know exactly what I would say: Eat more fruits and vegetables. And I don’t think that would surprise anyone. We all know that fruits and vegetables are nutritional powerhouses, and we also know that everyone should be eating more of them, especially since most of us don’t eat enough produce to begin with.  Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Quintessential Peach Salsa

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Truckloads full of Georgia peaches have been making their way into our neighborhood, and a few weeks ago my husband signed up to receive a box. We were very happy when it finally arrived last week, and we put the box of 42 hard peaches on the counter to await the great a-ripening. We were not disappointed. Continue reading →

The Menu from Bookclub Earlier this Week

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This week we had bookclub at my house. I’ve written about bookclub before, and about the incredibly delicious dishes that people bring to share with one other. There’s never a plan, never been a plan, so once in a great while we have ended up with a couple bottles of Prosecco, salad, and two desserts. On the other hand, you are often likely to find grilled salmon, white bean salad, guacamole, green salad, grapefruit, and roasted olives with lemon rind. Everybody shares something. You just never know.  Continue reading →

Three Kinds of Charoset 2024

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At our upcoming Passover seders to be held on Monday and Tuesday nights this coming week, we will be serving a number of different kinds of charoset (kha-ROE-set). In addition to our traditional apples-and-walnuts charoset that I make each and every year, we’ll be serving two other truly extraordinary charoset recipes. I want to share for a moment that my mom and my Grandma Rosie actually taught me to make charoset in a large wooden chopping bowl (such a special memory), a bowl that continued to hold a place of honor in my parents’ house for many, many years after Grandma Rosie was gone. Things go much faster now with the food processor, though I always process each ingredient separately almost to the desired consistency, and then add them all back together for a big stir with a big fork. Otherwise you are likely to get fruit-nut spread, which is a different recipe entirely.  Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Winter Dinner with Apples & Sauerkraut

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The holidays are over. The days are short. The sun is almost nonexistent. The cloud cover is thick. No one feels much like cooking, and just about everyone feels like they have had enough treats, at least for now. So what’s for dinner? Here’s something perfect for January. It’s a tiny bit sweet, and involves almost no prep, unless you count cutting up one onion, two apples, and a cake of tofu. Most of the actual cooking is accomplished while you go do something else. It’s the ultimate comfort food, but without any grains, which is pretty unusual as comfort foods go. These kinds of recipes fall under the category of post-holiday, recovery, post-celebration, reset meals. It’s not just about going back to work. It’s also about getting back to life.  Continue reading →

Making Your Kitchen Fruit-Friendly

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For the record, I do not want you to think that I have always eaten the way I do now. It has been a process. There have been important milestones and realizations along the way such as, for example, the day I realized that there was absolutely no high-fructose corn syrup in my refrigerator. Or the time I decided that we were going to begin diluting the boxes of marginally nutritious “breakfast cereals” with dried fruit, nuts, seeds (e.g., sesame, pumpkin, sunflower), and rolled (steamed) oats until they contained essentially none of the original agents. 

And then there was the time I realized that we had inadvertently made an important change in the way we unpacked the groceries. This change, though virtually invisible, was to have a significant effect on the way we ate.  Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: A Summer Creamsicle Smoothie

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It’s summertime, and even though the weather this week has been a bit on the cool side, it was boiling hot last week and the week before. So you never know. Anyway, summer calls for something a little different. I recommend that you try blending up this smoothie in your high-speed blender. Then sit back and relax while you drink it nice and slow…

Continue reading →

Can I Eat Fruit?

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On many occasions, patients have asked me whether it’s okay to eat fruit. They’re worried about whether they should eat a food that they know is rich in sugar. Let’s think about this for a minute. Does anyone really believe that fruit is what’s causing the epidemics of diabetes and obesity? You can rest assured that the obesity and diabetes epidemics are not being caused by fruit. I think of fruit as “nature’s candy” and while it’s true that some fruits contain a lot of sugar, it is always accompanied by a large amount of fiber. Continue reading →