Last year I promised these to my sponsors for the Ride For Heart and Stroke (follow the link and you can sponsor me this year) and bollixed up sending them out. So here they are in all their glory - 5 recipes to help you eat well.
Before any of those, one word of advice: raw almonds. When a friend was diagnosed with somewhat high cholesterol and needed to make dietary adjustments to correct it (it wasn't so high, he was under a doctors care, so should you be, this doesn't replace a doctors advice nor should be taken as such blah blah blah) his doctor recommended eating 10-20 raw, unsalted almonds a day. In large quantities they're too high in fat but in these moderate amounts, quoth the doc, there was evidence to suggest that they lowered bad levels of cholesterol.
CELERIAC AND APPLE SOUP
Celeriac is the root ball of the celery plant, peppery and gorgeous on the taste buds. You'll know it when you see it in the produce section as it's the lobster of the vegetable kingdom - hideous to behold. Shave the skin off and set them aside to make stock with (see below, Stock) and then dice the white interior of a large ball of celery route. Add about 2-3 diced skinned and cored apples to the mix and *just* cover with .5 water, .5 vegetable stock. Or meat stock, if you're in a meaty mood. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat, cooking until the contents are soft. Use a hand blender to puree the entire pot, or potato masher if you don't have a hand blender. Season to taste, going easy on the salt.
ROAST LEMON POTATOES
Potatoes aren't exactly high on the good for you scale so if you're going to have them, they should be awesome. Take two lbs of yellow flesh potatoes, peel and slice them into big wedges. Toss with enough olive oil to make 1tsp of fresh diced oregano stick (about a quarter cup), and add to this about 3-4 tbsp of lemon juice. Too much lemon and your potatoes will taste like a cleaning product, not enough and you won't get the yum. Experiment to find your preferred balance. Bake for 30 min at 230C or until the potatoes are fork tender. Pepper to taste.
BLACK EYED PEAS AND KALE - VEGAN!
Pre-cook a cup of black eyed peas - your rice cooker is perfect for this. Take about a lb of kale, remove the tough stalks and dice or tear into smallish pieces. Steam for about five minutes until the leaves are softer and a brighter green. Splash some olive oil in a large skillet and saute one or two red onions, peeled and diced, until soft. Add the kale and black eyed peas, a splash of additional olive oil, a tsp of crushed chillies and a pinch of salt. Stir fry on medium to low for about five minutes. Transfer to a large serving dish and drizzle with the juice from one lemon and some fresh ground pepper. Toss and serve.
SIMPLE BAKED COD
Get two (or more) nice, thick fillets of cod, de-boned and skinned. You can get these from a fish shop for best quality, but the blue menu boxed frozen things from Loblaws actually aren't bad. Pre-heat oven to 375C. Place in an open baking dish and brush with olive oil, a pinch of salt on each fillet and then *cake* with fresh cracked pepper. Bake for about 15 or 20 min until the fish easily flakes apart. Eat.
STOCK
Most packaged stocks are extremely high in salt, and high sodium intake screws with your system and can lead to really bad news for your heart. Taking charge of your stock is therefore a good idea. As you cook, take the scraps from cutting vegetables and save them in your freezer. We use a plastic ice cream tub for this - when the tub is full, it's time to make stock. Shavings of celeriac, onion skins, ends of carrots - it's all good. You may want to keep a separate container in the freezer for meat/fat scraps. Use a good sized stock pot for all and pick a day when you'll be around the house because you'll want to let this simmer for a few hours.
Veggie stock: throw your veggie scraps in the pot with some fresh diced carrots and tomatoes, fresh celery and parsley. *Just* cover with water. Simmer for 3-5 hrs, strain thoroughly and throw the scrap veg in the composter. Let the stock cool and then package in a glass jar for the fridge, placing the rest in freezer-friendly containers to save for later.
Beef/meat stock: go to your butcher and get some good sized stock bones. Brush these with low-sodium tomato paste or crushed tomatoes and bake at about 250C for 20-30 min. In your pot, you may wish to saute an onion and some garlic clove for an extra smoky yum flavour. Add to this your scrap meat AND scrap veg, some diced carrot and parsley, ground pepper. Cover with water. Simmer for 4-6 hrs, strain very well and compost the scraps, store the remaining cooled stock as above.
Chicken stock: This is the main component in chicken soup, which you have when you're sick so I'm a big fussier with is. Go to your butcher and get a grain fed whole chicken. The meat is not as important as the bone for this, so see if you can get some extra bones. Take a meat cleaver and - carefully but forcefully - hack that poor little sucker into bits. Be careful that in your haste you don't end up with raw chicken stuck to your ceiling, this is bad. You want to hack through the bones to expose the marrow, where much of your flavour comes from. Saute two onions in the bottom of your stock pot with a) olive oil or b) the remains of your last chicken stock, if you still have some. Remove from heat. Place the chicken bits in the pot with diced carrots, celery and parsley. You may want to throw in a clove or four of garlic. Cover with water, simmer for 4-6 hrs. Strain carefully and treat as above.
Special notes: when cooking with bones be very, very, very careful about staining your stock. You may end up transferring the contents more than 4 times to get all the bits out. One stray shard of chicken bone can make the difference between a yummy soup and a very bad occasion. Also, use the best quality bones you can - because your cutting into/using the marrow of the animal, you want an animal that was fed and housed in the best standards you can afford, both for flavour and best quality healthy food. Organic is ideal, free range and hormone free is the next best thing. You may also wish to freeze some stock in an ice cube tray; when making soup or stir fry you have these ready to toss in stock cubes at your finger tips.
Have fun!
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