Lentil Artichoke Stew

As a Food for Life instructor, I get to teach people how to make a lot of delicious recipes, including this Lentil Artichoke Stew from the Cancer Project. This recipe is hearty and perfect for the cold winter ahead of us! If you want to learn how to make this stew in class, please sign up online for one of my classes.

This recipe is also found in The Cancer Survivor's Guide by Dr. Barnard and Jennifer Reilly, RD.

Lentil Artichoke Stew

Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:

1/4 cup vegetable broth

1 onion, chopped

2 large garlic cloves, minced

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 cup dry (uncooked) red lentils (3 cups cooked)

1 bay leaf

2 cups water

Juice of 1 lemon

2 24-oz can chopped tomatoes (preferably fire-roasted), undrained, or 6 cups freshly chopped tomatoes plus 1 cup tomato juice

1 1/2 cups quartered artichoke hearts (1 9-oz frozen package or 1 15-oz can, packed in water)

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)

1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1/4 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

Directions:

1. Heat the broth in a large soup pot. Add the onion. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes, until translucent. 
2. Add the garlic, cumin, and coriander. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
3. Add the water, lentils, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil.
4. Lower the heat and add the tomatoes and their liquid, artichoke hearts, lemon juice, and optional red pepper flakes. Simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the lentils are tender. Remove and discard the bay leaf. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Stored in a covered container in the refrigerator, leftovers will keep for up to 3 days.

Note: If red lentils are unavailable, green lentils can be substituted. However, because green lentils will not cook properly in acidic foods, such as tomatoes and lemon juice, you will need to cook them in water or vegetable broth until tender prior to adding them to the stew.

Nutritional Info (per serving):

176 calories

1 g fat

0.1 g saturated fat

4.9% calories from fat

0 mg cholesterol

11.7 g protein

34.3 g carbohydrate

7.5 g sugar

10 g fiber

560 mg sodium

123 mg calcium

6.3 mg iron

28.6 mg vitamin C

238 mcg beta-carotene

1.8 mg vitamin E

What's hiding in your spices?

Last night I was making dinner when I had one of the most disturbing experiences I've ever had in the kitchen. I pulled out my Hungarian Sweet Paprika, poured it into a teaspoon and almost had a heart attack when I saw the spices crawling around on the spoon. YUCK!

Upon further inspection and some research, I found that grain beetles are quite common in not only grains, but also in dried spices. It turns out that they are a good indicator that your spice could be moldy and old and needs to be thrown out anyway. I methodically went through each of my spices to make sure I didn't have any others and found them in my chipotle chili pepper, which I recently purchased and was almost gone, so that too instantly went into the trash. I even went as far as dumping out entire containers of Old Bay to make sure they are completely clear of anything gross and was happy that I had no additional issues.

How can you prevent these gross little bugs? It turns out that some people recommend keeping red spices in the fridge/freezer, just like your grains. I already keep most of my grains and various flours in the freezer, but I had never heard of keeping red spices there too. From now on, if you are at my house and looking for a red spice, you can bet it will be in the fridge! I also learned that you can avoid the beetles with air tight containers and making sure the area is kept clean. There is still a chance that you can bring an infested product into your house, so make sure to check all your grains, flours, and spices before you use them!

Farmers Market Find - Concord Grapes

At the farmers market last week, I found big juicy concord grapes. I have never tried them before but was drawn to them because they looked so big and picture perfect. The farmer allowed me to try a grape and I couldn't believe how much it tasted like grape juice! So, that makes at least two things I learned this summer at the farmers market…

1. Raspberry candies taste like black raspberries - I didn't know there was a raspberry out there that actually tastes like a candy, but I found them at the market this summer
2. Grape juice and jelly tastes just like concord grapes - I didn't know there were grapes out there that taste as sweet as the juice!

Anyway, I had to buy the grapes after my discovery! Even though they are extremely delicious, the skin is tough and chewy and they have a lot of seeds, so cooking them seemed like the natural thing to do.

I found a recipe online for grape jam that only requires grapes and sugar and thought that is the perfect recipe for me! I followed her directions exactly, except for the amount of grapes and sugar. I only had 1 lb of grapes and used about ¾ cup of sugar total. The jam came out amazing! Here is the fantastic step-by-step guide that I followed: http://chefinyou.com/2011/10/concord-grapes-jam/

Here is a pic of me squeezing the grapes. It is amazing how the insides are all white… and how they came right out of the skins. I think it is because the skins are so thick.

I put the skins aside, as directed, so that I could put them back into the jelly when cooking. I was nervous when I put the skins back into the pot that they would be too thick, but they weren't at all. In fact, they cooked down quite nicely.

Once it was all done, I poured it into a glass jar and put it in the fridge. Well… after I ate some straight off the spoon! :)

Look at the amazing purple color of the jam. If concord grapes are still in season this week, I know what I'll be buying at the farmers market! 

To be or not to be Gluten-Free

This week the FDA released the first standards on what manufacturers can label as gluten-free. You might be shocked to know that prior to this, manufacturers were left up to their own judgement about what is gluten-free, of course they are also allowed to call things "all natural" without standards, so maybe this didn't surprise you. However, if you are one of the 3 million Americans with Celiac, this should be a welcome change.

What is gluten anyway? Gluten is a protein found in foods processed from wheat and related grains, such as rye and barley. Gluten is found in many products including bread, cereal, beer, soy sauce, flavored chips, and many many others. 

How do you know if you have Celiac? How do you know if you should be gluten-free? 

• First of all - being gluten-free is not a diet strategy. Removing processed products from your diet is a good change to make, but gluten has protein and nutrients that are good for you. Often gluten-free products have quite a few processed ingredients that you might not want to eat either. According to nutritionfacts.org, there was a study conducted last year that suggested that being on a gluten-free diet was actually bad for your good bacteria in your gut, so a gluten-free diet is not for everyone. 
• If you have noticeable symptoms such as the classic features of Celiac: diarrhea, weight loss, and malnutrition, or latent symptoms such as isolated nutrient deficiencies but no gastrointestinal symptoms, then you should see your doctor and get tested. 
• If your doctor rules out Celiac, but you suspect you might have a sensitivity, try an elimination diet. This means remove all gluten from your diet for a period of at least 2 weeks and see how you feel. Reintroduce gluten at the end of your 2 week period and again assess how you feel. If you have a sensitivity, you should have a noticeable difference when you start eating it again. Based on how you feel, you can make the decision as to whether to continue eating it or not.
• Be aware that gluten is found in many, many products. There are plenty of gluten-free alternatives, but if you suspect you have a sensitivity, do your research on what removing it from your diet means and what foods are affected.
• If you try the elimination diet and don't see a difference between when you eat gluten and when you don't, good news! You probably don't have a sensitivity and can continue eating gluten (preferably in the form of whole grains).

If you need assistance with the elimination diet or have more questions, please don't hesitate to contact me at jessi.toye@toyeconsulting.com.

I'm baaaack!

I've been away for a little while... although I've still been cooking and creating fabulous recipes, a few things got in the way of actually blogging:

1. I got married! 
2. We went on a long honeymoon to Hawaii! 
3. We bought a new house and moved!
4. I got certified as a Food for Life Instructor for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)!

So, needless to say, I had a few things going on that got in the way of my blogging. Well, no longer! We are back in the swing of things and I have some great stuff cooking. I thought for my first blog back I would post one of the Food for Life recipes that I'll be making next week at my free Power of Your Plate nutrition and cooking seminar in Ashburn, VA. (Register here)

While on our honeymoon, we stayed at a fabulous hotel that made me a green smoothie every morning... It was so flavorful from the fresh produce that I couldn't take a picture fast enough before I finished it!

This recipe is particularly great for starting your day in the right way with plenty of fruits and veggies and kids really enjoy it too. Let them add the spinach into the blender and they will be excited to try the green monster! 

How many ways can you say sugar?

Did you know that sugar could be hiding in what you are eating right now? Oh, it might not be listed as "sugar", but it is most certainly in anything you are eating if it is packaged or processed. Even if you are diligent about reading the ingredients on packages, sugar can be hiding under aliases!

I realized that it was important to write a blog about this when I was working with a client who had a simple yogurt. Many people think yogurt is a healthy food, but what you don't realize is that it might have a lot of sugar hiding in it. This particular yogurt was a store brand of vanilla with graham crackers in it. It doesn't sound particularly healthy or particularly bad, it sounds like an ok addition to a healthy diet... at first.

Upon inspection of the ingredients, we found that there are 4 kinds of sugar in that yogurt! Four! No wonder people like it! The obvious sugar ingredient was labeled "sugar". The 3 other non-obvious sugar ingredients were: evaporated cane juice, honey and maple syrup.

Another common food that hides sugar is bread. Most people would agree that bread should be flour, water, yeast, and sometimes eggs. That's it... it's that simple. Too many times, sugar is added to bread to make it taste better. Due to the publicity of getting enough whole grains in your diet, whole grain bread is in demand. However, it does not taste like white bread (imagine that!). So, what are bread manufacturers doing? They are putting sugar in it to make it tastier. Once again, the ingredients list uses aliases for sugar so that an unassuming customer doesn't realize what they are eating.

Bottom line, what types of words should you look for and try to minimize in your diet? Here are some:

• High Fructose Corn Syrup
• Maple Sugar
• Honey
• Evaporated Cane Juice
• Molasses
• Cane Juice
• Corn Syrup
• Corn Sweetener
• Maltose
• Beet Sugar
• Brown Rice Syrup
• Sorbitol
• Barley Malt
• Fructose
• Fructooliogosaccharides (phew, that's a big one!)
• Sucrose
• Maltose

What happens when you have too much sugar? You gain weight, feel hungry all the time, get irritable easily, etc. In addition, you put yourself at risk for diabetes, heart disease, and a whole host of other ailments. So, next time you are looking for a healthy snack and must resort to something packaged, make sure you are able to spot sugar aliases on the label and make an informed decision.

Stuffed Poblano Chiles

We were shopping at our favorite store the other day (Mom's Organic Market) and were about finished when I realized I forgot something from the produce section. I left my fiancé in the frozen food aisle while I ran back to get it. When I returned to the frozen foods, he was enamored with a frozen meal of stuffed chiles. We investigated the package and decided there were waaaay too many ingredients listed for our comfort level, so we decided to make our own. I ran back to the produce and evaluated the big peppers available for stuffing... I found some delicious looking poblano peppers and thought they would work perfectly!

I decided to stuff the poblanos with vegan pepper jack cheese, corn, onions and cilantro. Then we made a tomato brown rice to accompany the peppers. The meal turned out so good that we can't wait to make it again!

Stuffed Poblanos

Serves: 2

Cooking Time: 30-40 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup of brown rice, soaked for at least 15 minutes and drained

1 can of diced tomatoes with chiles (or fresh tomatoes and chiles if they are in season)

4 poblano peppers, tops cut off and seeds removed

1 small onion, diced

3/4 cup cheese (we used vegan pepper jack)

1 cup of corn (frozen or fresh), thawed if using frozen

2 TB cilantro, chopped

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees
2. Cook brown rice according to package directions or in a rice cooker. Once done, add can of tomatoes and stir to combine.
3. Put poblano peppers and tops on a small sheet pan and into the oven for about 15 minutes or until soft and beginning to brown. Remove from oven and let cool.
4. While rice is cooking and peppers are in the oven, sauté onion in small skillet over medium-high heat for about 15 minutes, or until slightly brown and translucent. If the onion starts to stick, add 1 TB of water at a time.
5. Combine cheese, corn and cilantro in a small bowl. Add cooked onions to the bowl and stir. This is your filling.
6. Once peppers are cool enough to handle, stuff each one with 1/4 of the filling. Carefully lay peppers back onto sheet pan and put back in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, or until filling is gooey and hot.
7. To serve: Put rice mixture onto plate and top with 2 stuffed poblanos. Enjoy!

Veggie Burgers

The weather was so beautiful today... it hit 63 at our house... that we thought we would break from the winter of crock-potting and make something to get us ready for spring and summer of cookouts.

What is great at cookouts? Veggie burgers! We decided to try a recipe from Yoga Journal that I pulled out years ago. I honestly don't know when it was published... When I read magazines, I rip pages out for recipes that I want to try or modify and put them in a big binder for later... I tried to look it up on their website to give you guys a link, but wasn't able to find it.

Anyway, the burger was basically black beans, cilantro, green onions, tomatoes, and spices mushed up. We added in zucchini too. Then we stirred in rolled oats. They cooked up well in the oven and held their shape nicely. I feel like these could be good contenders for going on the grill this summer.

To accompany the burger, we made sweet potato and  white potato fries, plus we made a spicy cajun roasted red pepper "catsup" courtesy of the Happy Herbivore. The catsup was roasted red peppers, onions, and seasonings ground up in the blender and then cooked down until it got pretty thick. To make fries, all you have to do is slice them thinly, toss with a little oil and desired seasoning, and bake in the oven until a desired level of doneness. To pump up the flavor a little, we tossed the potatoes in a little cajun seasoning to match the sauce. The final accompaniment was a hard cider from Angry Orchard. We are particularly found of the Apple Ginger and found it matched the burger nicely.

If you are wondering about our little skinny buns... we found these gluten free, vegan Amy's Sandwich Rounds a little while ago in the freezer section and they work well for burgers. In fact, it is really hard to find gluten free buns that are also vegan and these are the best tasting that I've found so far. They do require a little toasting, otherwise they get mushy pretty quick when they touch the toppings, but it is a small price to pay for a bun that tastes pretty decent and has all real ingredients.

Dinner was so good, that I'm looking forward to grilling out in the near future. Unfortunately, the forecast is calling for more wet and cold weather towards the end of this week, so I'll probably be back to using the old crockpot for one last winter hurrah!

Snow in March and Slow-cooker Sweet Potato and Bean Soup

Well, it is March and I am dreaming of Spring, but alas... we are expecting our biggest snowfall of the year today! Fortunately, the snow doesn't seem to be sticking very much, but it is still cold and wet outside, so I am feeling like soup. Usually I reserve the crockpot for when I am going to be in meetings all day and coming home late, but I thought it would be perfect to use today as I try to get a bunch of work done. Plus, I've been crockpot crazy this winter and have used it more than ever before in order to have dinners waiting for me when I get home.

I started by sautéing onions, peppers, and garlic. It's not necessary to sauté before putting everything in the crockpot, but I like the extra caramelized flavor and I have time to do it today, so I caramelized before adding everything into the pot. To the veggies, I added tomatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, ginger, and some seasonings. I set the crockpot to low and waited for the finished product a few hours later.

I decided to add some kale close to the end because 1) I love kale and 2) why not add a little green to this colorful soup?

Check out my March Newsletter

My March Newsletter is now available! Check it out here.

Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup

Yesterday's pea soup was so great, that I wanted more peas today. I knew I was going to be stuck in meetings all day and the weather is still crummy, so I thought I would make use of the crockpot and have a nice hot bowl of soup waiting for me after work. I also have a couple pounds of split peas sitting around that I've been waiting to use.


I looked up a few recipes online, but didn't find anything that made me excited, so I created my own using inspiration from the others. I started by sautéing onions, celery, and carrots. Once they were almost done, I added some kale. Why kale? Well, I love kale and split pea soup does not have a very attractive color, so why not add a little extra green?

While the veggies were sautéing, I rinsed the peas and made sure that no gross ones or rocks were hiding in the batch. I only found one that looked like it didn't belong... I'm not sure if that is a good number or if I should have found more!

Once the veggies were done, I added them to the crockpot with the peas, some herbs, a bay leaf, and about 6 cups of veggie broth. I set it to high while I was getting ready for work and then moved it down to low to sit for the next 6 hours or so.

Quick Pea Soup

It is so chilly and damp outside, that I am very lucky that I can work remotely from home today. I have a ton of work to accomplish, so I wanted a quick lunch that would keep me warm all afternoon. I decided to put my Vitamix to use and make a super-fast pea soup. (and I could write this while my soup was cooking!)

Happy New Year and Savory Pot Pies

Happy New Year everyone! I got a little off track with posting recipes during the holidays, but I'm back! For my first recipe of the year, I have to thank my sister Jenn because she got me an individual pie maker for Christmas.

It is a pretty cool idea... basically you make a filling, put some dough in it, and 8 minutes later you have an individual pie! If you are already sold and want one yourself, visit Williams Sonoma.

Now to my pie. I thought New Year's Eve was the perfect time to try it for a hearty dinner before heading out to celebrate. We wanted a savory pot pie flavor, so I cooked up a bunch of veggies and used frozen prepared pie dough to create our first individual pot pies. They were delicious.

One word of warning, make sure to roll the dough a bit to make it thinner. Ours was way too thick which made the ratio of filling to pie crust not exactly as we would want. Next time, I'll make my own dough which should be easier to keep it thin. Here's the recipe: