Thursday, October 29, 2009

It's Hard to Beat a Beet



Fresh beet greens are so good. I love that you can eat the tops and do something wonderful with the beet. Here is a delicious fall beet salad

Wrap beets in foil and bake about 45 minutes to an hour, depending on thickness of beets.I like this method of cooking beets much better than boiling in water. It keeps the beets moist, and all the flavor in.
When cool, peel off the skins and slice beets into a bowl.
Add:
1/2 cut up red onion
garlic
sea salt and pepper
fresh ground coriander seed, 1 big teaspoon
zest of lemon
Section out a ruby red grapefruit or lemon or both
a squeeze of agave sweetener
juice of lemon or lime

Stir lightly, and will keep for several days in the refrigerator
Serve over a bed of lettuce, and few blue cheese crumbles on top. Fancy and flavorful! The WW points would only be for the cheese, veggies are 0 points.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Milk........Almond is my Choice


When I started in on the my weight loss program, I assumed non-fat milk would be the best kind of milk to drink. It is called non-fat after all. A Non-fat latte' is almost drinkable. I decided to research some of the wide variety of milk choices out there, on the dairy aisle. The results were very surprising:
Approximate Calories Per Cup

whole milk 150 4WW points
2% milk 120 3 WW points
1% milk 100 2 WW points
Nonfat milk 90 points 2 WW points
Soy milk 100 to 140 per cup depending on sweet or not
Oat milk 130
Rice milk 120
Hemp milk 140
Almond milk 35 to 60, this depends if it is sweetened or not.

Needless to say, almond milk is the lowest choice, calories-wise. As it turns out, Almond milk is rich in Vitamin E, contains high levels of unsaturated fat, no saturated fat and no cholesterol. It does not contain lactose. With no saturated fats and the good unsaturated fats, almond milk is great for those of us trying to lose weight. I have been buying it by the carton and pouring it over my cereal. I decided to try making it from scratch and the results were fantastic!!! It is so easy to make and tastes 100 % better homemade. I'd like to share "the recipe".

Buy whole almonds, soak 1 cup of almonds in a bowl of water, about 8 hours. If you have to wait to make the milk, they will hold overnight in refrigerator.
Get out blender, rinse almonds, they will swell to 1 and 1/2 cups.
Take half of the almond and 3 cups of water, blend.
At this point you can add a pinch of sea salt, vanilla, and some agave sweetener.
Next, strain almond milk through cheesecloth, squeeze remaining liquid, discard ground almonds...Do it again for the second batch and Voila, you have made almond milk...it's that easy. Make adjustments in ratios of almonds to water to your taste.
If you'd like to try an almond milk latte', they will make you one at Cafe Demeter, on Nichols Street.
Recently I made milk with cashews, just as good.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Best Bean Salad



My favorite bean salad. I've lost 30 pound so far eating this salad. I keep a bowl of it in the refrigerator. Here's the basic recipe, it one of those flexible ones.

cook up 2 or 3 ears of white corn, while they are cooking
chop 1/2 red onion
1 to 2 red peppers
1 to 3 tomatoes, heritage tomatoes best
handful of cilantro
1,2 or 3 cloves of garlic,depending on what you like
Rinse and drain 2 cans of white northern beans
Season with lots of ground cumin
sea salt and fresh pepper
juice from one lime or 6 key limes
Cut the cooked corn off the cob, and lightly mix it all together.
Great over greens, easy to take for lunch.

For variations, add capers
cooked green beans
use one can of black beans, rinsed

My estimate is 3 WW points, high fiber and protein from the beans.