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.
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Deviled Eggs with Crunchy Veggies
Probably my favorite thing to do with leftover eggs…. I especially love to serve them on a special egg-shaped plate with 12 indentations, one for each deviled egg.
Something Fishy
A short and sweet post this week. It’s holiday time, and I’m on vacation.
Still, as my ever-observant sister pointed out this morning, there’s something very fishy about products labeled as buttery, chocolaty, creamy, and so on. Those words are a way to make something seem like else, something it really is not. Real food doesn’t end in a “y.”
Except for celery.
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Veggie Frittata To Go
Here’s my slightly embellished version of a lovely recipe from Lauren at Eat Drink and Be Hopeful. Enjoy your spring eggs, and do your best to get ones with deep yellow-orange yolks that sit up high on the egg whites like little sentries perched up high! You can be assured that the deeper the yellow-orange color, the more nutritious the eggs and the happier the chickens who laid them.
Girl Scouts and Keebler Cookies
I was a Girl Scout. I went to camp. I wore a sash covered with badges. I sold cookies. But I am no longer 12 years old. In one memorable scene from the movie The Addams Family, young Wednesday Addams asks the uniformed adolescent ringing the bell on her front door if the cookies she is selling are made with real Girl Scouts. Well, Wednesday, I would say that yes, in a way they are. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Cinnamon-Chocolate Walnuts
This nutritious and delicious dessert comes to YHIOYP courtesy of Wendy Bazilian @eatmovebe and at wendybazilian.com, author of The SuperFoods Rx Diet. She calls this a super-easy recipe that you can adapt to your own tastes. It’s a simple recipe, with nuts and chocolate to nourish and satisfy your heart, mind, and taste buds! If you’re planning on a special dessert for a special dinner, this one is a great choice.
Extending Your Health Span
I heard a great concept this week: the “health span.” It’s not exactly your lifespan, but rather the length of time you live in good health. So if you live to be 85, but spend the last 10 years of your life in declining health, then your lifespan may have been 85, but your health span was 75. Now let’s apply this concept to populations instead of individuals, because that’s where you see how we can make a real difference. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Springtime Pea Soup
Whenever I enter the home of my friend Deena there is always something remarkable burbling on the stove. She says that she adapted this soup from the Barefoot Contessa, but I think it’s equally likely that Ms. Contessa gets her best ideas from Deena.
The Healthiest Way to Eat
An important article called “Can We Say What Diet is Best for Health?,” by David Katz and Stephanie Meller from Yale’s School of Public Health, was published in the scientific literature this week, and James Hamblin wrote a story about it for the Atlantic. He titled it “Science Compared Every Diet, and the Winner is Real Food.” You know, I would have edited out the word “Real” and called it simply “Food.” Then I would have reviewed for the reader the differences between Food and manufactured calories. Continue reading