Our garden recipes - up first, beets!

My mother-in-law makes what must surely be among the world's best borschts, so I wasn't entirely surprised when my husband suggested we add beets to our garden plot this year. I was on board, but the boys took a little more convincing. They know that anything we grow in our garden is going to end up on their plates, so it was with what can only be described as modest enthusiasm that they agreed to help me plant them.

I get that beets aren't everyone's favourite vegetable. But they are one of mine. I love their earthy taste when they are roasted, their tart bite when they are pickled, the way they pair with orange, honey, dill, blue cheese or lemon. And you can't beat the beautiful colours of the roots, vibrant reds and golden oranges, and their deep green leaves.  They are worth growing simply for their lush beauty as you pull them from the soil.

Now as I do my cancer prevention research, I learn wonderful things about beets, both the roots and the greens. They are packed with folate which helps build strong bones.  They are a good source of potassium, an important mineral for heart function which may also decrease one's risk for stroke and osteoporosis. They contain magnesium, a mineral vital for maintaining bone health, and are loaded with the powerful antioxidant beta-carotene. They also contain betacyanin, a phytochemical that may have anti-cancer properties.

So if I haven't convinced you to give them anther try by now, you are one tough cookie. Maybe some recipes will soften you up?

1. First up, a great selection of recipes at Canadian Living. How about Beet and Orange Salad, Beet Risotto with Rapini, Beet, Apple and Spinach Salad, Honey Lemon Beets, or Sesame Wilted Beet Greens?
2. Golden and Crimson Beet Salad with Oranges, Fennel and Feta from Epicurious.
3. Grated Beet Salad with Blue Cheese from the kitchn at Apartment Therapy.
4. Beet Greens from Simply Recipes. A touch of bacon, some garlic, a pinch of red pepper flakes and a splash of cider vinegar make this a worthy side dish for your next roast chicken or poached salmon.
5. Finally, Eating Well's best beet recipes which includes Roasted Beet Crostini, Borscht, Beet Carpaccio, Salmon and Roasted Vegetable Salad, and Roasted Halibut with Pickled Beets.

Convinced you yet? I will just ask you what I ask the boys - promise me you'll just try them. You never know!

Chickpeas!

Most of us are happy to indulge in garlicky hummus and pita chips when they are offered at a cocktail party. But when was the last time you included them in your evening meal? If you are thinking about including more vegetables and cutting back on red meat in your diet, chickpeas, or garbanzo beans, are a great part of your new plant-based diet. They are full of fiber, protein and healthful nutrients. And, they are surprisingly flexible, finding a happy home in dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Even sweets!

Case in point:

1. Tunisian chickpea breakfast soup from Martha Rose Shulman, one of my favourite cookbook authors.
2. Italian breakfast chickpeas from Vegetable Matter.
3. Garbanzo-oat waffles from Mr. Breakfast. It calls for garbanzo flour. Click here to find out how to make your own if you can't find it in your grocery store.
4. Jane Mendel's Chickpea soup with crisp croutons from The Wednesday Chef.
5. Smashed chickpea salad from Smitten Kitchen.
6. Gordon Ramsey's flatbread, feta and chickpea salad. Includes a video. 
7. Chickpeas with baby spinach from the New York Times.
8. A great selection of chickpea recipes from Canadian Living. Like kale and chickpea soup and cheesy mac and chickpeas.
9. From Jamie Oliver, summer chickpea salad and something a little more timely, chickpea and potato curry.
10. Braised cod with chickpeas from Leslie Beck.
11. Chickpea ragout from the wonderful Jacques Pépin.
12. Chickpea cookies also from Leslie Beck. 
13. Chickpea blondies from Have Cake, Will Travel.
14. Chocolate chickpea spread from Bitter Sweet .

Sorry, one more note. I love hummus. And have been known to make a pretty good one. If I can pass along some hints, I have successfully made rockin' yummy hummus with very little added fat. Although I traditionally use canned chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, lime juice, garlic, salt and sometimes a touch of cumin and red pepper flakes, I have on occasion cut way back on the olive oil and tahini and instead loosened up the chickpea puree with water, low fat plain yogurt or vegetable stock! As long as I have a good quantity of lime juice and garlic, it's an easy way to make a yummy spread or dip without all the extra fat.

Cooking with coconut oil

Yesterday my sister asked me what I knew about cooking with coconut oil. She too had heard rumblings about the seeming shift in public perception of this once vilified fat. Today, it popped up again in an article in the New York Times. Time for a closer look.

Previously lumped in with other scary fats like palm oil, coconut oil has been growing in popularity in the past five years. And users are getting support from the research community. Seems scientists are rethinking their original statements about what the fat does in our bodies.

For details on the science, here's an excerpt from the article:

Marisa Moore, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, a nonprofit association of nutritionists, said, “Different types of saturated fats behave differently.” 

The main saturated fat in coconut oil is lauric acid, a medium chain fatty acid. Lauric acid increases levels of good HDL, or high-density lipoprotein, and bad LDL, or low-density lipoprotein, in the blood, but is not thought to negatively affect the overall ratio of the two. 

She went on to say that while it is still uncertain whether coconut oil is actively beneficial the way olive oil is, small amounts probably are not harmful. The new federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that no more than 10 percent of total dietary calories a day come from saturated fat. For a 2,000-calorie diet, that’s about 20 grams. 

Alternative medicine guru Dr. Andrew Weil is still waiting for definitive evidence that it is a good fat to include in your diet, although he does point to its topical benefits in skin care. Conversely, Dr. Oz  has made the switch to coconut oil from butter in his kitchen (allegedly...the link I have included has broken since I added it - check out this link to hear him talk about coconut oil on his show.)

At this point, there still isn't consensus on some of the sexier claims made about it: that it has antibacterial, antimicrobial, antiviral properties. But from the New York Times article, it does look like, if used in moderation, it is a perfectly fine fat to integrate into some of your recipes.

So, why would you want to use it? Vegans like it because it can be used in place of butter in most recipes, so it serves as a great substitute in baking and other "solid fat" applications, like icing. Other cooks like the subtle coconut flavour it brings to dishes, like sauteed greens, roasted sweet potatoes, and popcorn.

They included some interesting recipes with the article:

1. Coconut oil roasted sweet potatoes
2. Coconut oil poundcake with almonds and lime zest
3. Sauteed shrimp with coconut oil, ginger and coriander
4. Chocolate shell ice-cream topping.

And here are a few I rounded up:

1. Jamaican veggie patties from one of my favourite recipe blogs, 101 Cookbooks.
2. Vegan chocolate chip cookies from London Foodie in New York.
3. Vegan cupcakes from All Recipes. Gets great reviews.

Check out vegan cooking blogs and you will find a lot more.
Ultimately, I think I'm going to use this information to relax a little about cooking with coconut milk, like in Thai curries. Whether or not you want to start using coconut oil in your kitchen, I think you all can make up your own minds!

No way - these recipes look too yummy to be healthy

I got my new issue of Eating Well magazine today and I was shocked at the number of recipes I couldn`t wait to try. Wow, how times have changed. Before I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I tended to associate health food magazines with boring articles and brown rice. And kombu, fermented bean pastes and, of course, tofu. And weird goddess drawings. Now, I look at them and am shocked by the plethora of beautiful pictures and interesting recipes...when did they change? Funny what the fear of death does to one's perception. :-)

After half an hour or so of bookmarking recipes, I thought I should share. The common element is simply this - I would try this recipe even if I wasn't eating like my life depended on it. Now, I will warn you, there are many references to brown rice...but if you want to substitute white rice now and then, I won't tell. (But honestly, if you didn't know it was better for you - and if it didn't take so much longer to cook - wouldn't you choose it over white some of the time?)

I'm going to pour myself a glass of wine and try a couple of these out! I might even make some brown rice.

1. Balsamic and parmesan roasted cauliflower
2. Leek, potato and spinach stew (OK this isn't an exciting recipe for everyone, but I have always loved leeks and potatoes together - and this one gets great reviews)
3. Brothy Chinese noodles
4. Elise's sesame noodles
5. Grilled salmon with tomatoes and basil
6. Shrimp saganaki
7. Chicken sausage with potatoes and sauerkraut
8. Thai chicken mango stir-fry
9. Seared steaks with caramelized onions and gorgonzola 
10. Oven sweet potato fries or spicier chile-garlic roasted sweet potatoes
11. Layered mashed potato and mushroom casserole
12. Swirled cheesecake brownies

Reject fastfood and get back in the kitchen with Cookstr

A lot of us are having trouble cooking meals at home these days. Work, kids...ok, this is nuts, you know why you are busy. But the solution to this does not need to be eating fast food.

If you have or had cancer, are caring for someone going through treatment, or just want to have a long healthy life, eating well is an important part of your defence against disease. The key to doing this is creating an environment that allows you to cook healthy meals even on the busiest days. For that you need to keep basic ingredients on hand, staples as well as the extras that you need to make your meals interesting. To figure out what those extras will be, you need to start gathering together recipes.

A lot of us already have a few favourite recipe websites. Epicurious has long been at the top of my list. But I have found a new one - Cookstr. This new site does on the web what I do at the library. Basically, they take cookbooks by both established and up-and-coming chefs and authors and pull out the recipes you would want to try if you were paging through them. The result is a huge supply of recipes from a wide range of cuisines, just a click away.

In celebration of my new find I am going to share the love. Below are what I pulled out doing a quick scan for quick, reasonably healthy recipes. Any of these dishes can be prepared with a reasonably well-stocked fridge and cupboard in less time than it takes to order in or drive-thru. Honestly.

1. Jamie Oliver's Classic Tomato Spaghetti from his Food Revolution cookbook. Fast and yummy. Plus once you get the hang of this technique, the possibilities for tweaking it are almost endless. Jamie offers some suggestions around shrimp, tuna, and peas. You could also add sauteed peppers, mushrooms or zucchini, pesto, olives, smoked salmon or sliced turkey sausage.
2. Another pasta, 'cause pasta is quick! This one is Linguine with Bacon and Onions (i.e. Carbonara) from Lidia Bastianich's cookbook Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen. If you find slab bacon, buy extra and store it, in portions this size, in your freezer. It also works with thick cut bacon from the grocery store. But again, if you freeze it in portions about this size, it is faster than thawing the whole package (and you don't end up with a big chunk of bacon in the fridge that you might be tempted by later in the week!). Make it healthier - use whole wheat pasta. Or, serve a smaller portion with a big side salad or steamed broccoli.
3. Nigella Lawson's Chicken Noodle Soup from Nigella Express. Next time you're shopping, buy some udon noodles to keep in the fridge and you can whip this up in a blink. Thaw the chicken breast in the fridge during the day and customize based on the vegetables you have. Another great Nigella recipe - Curry in a Hurry. The secret is a good stash of frozen vegetables, and canned curry paste and coconut milk. Holy crap - I need to go buy some chicken thighs - I'm making this tonight with my frozen kale! :-)
4. When the weather warms up, try Rick Bayless' Ceviche Salad with Avocado, Cilantro and Green Chile from Mexican Everyday. Use salmon, tuna, snapper or shrimp that you have either picked up at the fish market on the way home (if you are so blessed like we are in my neck of the woods) or thawed in the fridge during the day. It goes together very quickly, way faster than stopping for takeout!
5. Ellie Krieger's Garlic Basil Shrimp from her cookbook So Easy. Make this even easier and keep peeled and deveined shrimp in the freezer ready to thaw quickly in a colander under running water. If you don't have fresh basil, a swirl of pesto will do the trick.
6. As an alternative to McDonalds, Nutricious Nuggets from Mom-a-licious author Domenica Catelli. Not far off how I make mine, with the addition of brewer's yeast. Blend a wee bit of dijon in with a scoop of mayo and a dollop of honey, or stir a bit of garlic into some yogurt with a bit of dill and you have quick dipping sauces. Or, honestly, just squirt a big ol puddle of ketchup on their plates and let them attack.
7. Finally pizza. Normally I would give you a good pizza dough recipe here, but I found a very cool alternative from one of my all-time favourite chefs, Jacques Pepin. His Margherita Pizza from Chez Jacques is made on...tortillas! You could also use other flatbreads - keep a couple of packages of naan or pita in the freezer, or tortillas, and you could have supper on the table in 12 minutes.

Happy cooking!

Bittman`s Food Manifesto for the Future

In the New York Time`s opinion pages today, Mark Bittman has published a call to action on the state of food in the United States. If you care about your own health or that of the planet, please read it. And if you don`t, what the heck is wrong with you?