Recipes!

[Guest KrissyB]

I think we need a recipe forum. I love to cook, and I'm working on eating more healthy, but so much "healthy" food tastes so horrible you can't eat a lot of it. So my goal has become to make really healthy good tasting food. I hope we can all share some of these recipes here and make it easier for others to eat healthy. Here's what I made this morning: http://minimalistbaker.com/brown-sugar-pear-steel-cut-oats/

I replaced the pears with a honey crisp apple and cut the recipe in half. One average sized apple is a little much for just one bowl. I will also cut down on my bowl size next time as I like to eat 6-8 small meals a day instead of the usual 3. For the oats I recommend a non-stick pot instead of a stainless steel one like I usually use, but be careful not to scratch the coating because it can cause cancer. Overall it was really good and the apples made the oats taste really good. I hope you all enjoy!

~Krissy

[VickySGV]

After an hour last week with a Registered Dietitian at my HMO's health center, courtesy of my doctor who is managing my Diabetes I am under orders to do my own cooking for the foreseeable future. I am a confirmed omnivore and am actually under the order to include some meat in my diet. I have tried sauteing apples and pears as the recipes above do, and it turns out well and I can use Splenda instead of the sugar. I am a little leery of anything mentioning a iron element used due to a problem where I retain too much iron in my diet, so good old Quaker Oats would do for me in this recipe. It looks like it was fun to make which is part of the overall process of it being healthy.

[Guest KrissyB]

and I can use Splenda instead of the sugar. I am a little leery of anything mentioning a iron element used due to a problem where I retain too much iron in my diet, so good old Quaker Oats would do for me in this recipe.

I'd be a little worried about using Splenda over actual sugar. I'm not sure how this would effect your diabetes though. Artificial sweeteners have been shown to cause cancer, so take that into consideration. By "mentioning an iron element" do you mean the "steel cut"? If that is what you mean I don't think that would effect you, but if you're worried about it you could use stone ground/ Scottish oats. That's actually what I used.

[VickySGV]

Splenda is one non calorie sweetener that is recommended for Diabetics. I have found I do not like a lot of sweetness any more, which is good, so its a toss up whether I would use it at all. It is a sugar derivative aka sugar alcohol for being one atom off of the real stuff, but made from sugar cane none the less. You have to change your cooking a bit to use it full time, as my Daughter In Law found out one time, but you learn the trick and its fine.

I was being tongue in cheek about the steel cut oats. I do have to watch high iron foods and keep them to a minimum. To show my age and one element of my humor:-- Up until the time time I was in my mid 30's, Raisins that are produced in the Central Valley of California, about 150 miles north of me were touted as a wonderful even superior source of dietary iron. Shortly after I turned 40, the claim about their iron value was reviewed, and they were no where near the iron content they had been years before. Why had this happened?? The soil was still fine, it was the same grape stock and even some vines were over 80 years old!! The answer came from looking at the drying racks the grapes were placed on to dehydrate. The farmers had changed from plain steel screen mesh to stainless steel screens. The raisins had been leaching iron from the drying screens all that time, and thus no longer a superior source of it with the Stain Steel screens!!

[Charlize]

Gee maybe i should use an old iron pot to make my maple syrup.... By the way pure maple syrup has been shown to contain a great deal of minerals as well as being a sours of many anti oxidants.

I cook more syrup than anything else in the spring but only use a bit myself and it's always the last of the season, almost black and more full bodied than sweet.

Hugs,

Charlize