Nutrition and Healthy Cooking: Part 1

I taught a class at church last night on nutrition and healthy cooking, so I thought I'd post the stuff on here for you all to read too. Here is part 1...

Adding vegetable purees to foods to increase nutrients:

This idea comes from a cookbook called Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. Some of her recipes I really like and some I'm not too fond of, but I do love her ideas to sneak extra nutrients into our kids' food as well as into our own. You can't eat too many vegetables!

Hot Chocolate: Mix up hot cocoa as your normally would, but add 1/2 cup sweet potato puree for every cup and a half of cocoa. It makes it so creamy!

Sweet Potato or Pumpkin Pancakes: Quick mix: 1 cup complete pancake mix, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup canned pumpkin or sweet potato puree, 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Mix and make pancakes as normal.

Green scrambled eggs: Blend your eggs in a blender with a handful of fresh spinach. Add a little water and salt and pepper to taste. Cook in a skillet and serve with ham! ;)

White scrambled eggs: Make scrambled eggs as normal, but add 1/2 cup cauliflower puree.

Sloppy Joes: Add 1/2 cup pureed beans (white, red, or pinto) and 1/2 cup butternut squash, cauliflower, or carrot puree to your regular sloppy joe mix. Works great with extra lean ground beef and a can of manwich. You can also add these same beans and veggies to taco meat!

Potato Salad, Chicken Salad, or Tuna Salad: Substitute cauliflower puree for 1/2 to 3/4 of the mayo in the recipe. Be sure to add diced celery or bok choy too!

Oatmeal: Throw in some diced or pureed dates, chopped apples, sweet potato puree or pumpkin puree when your oatmeal is cooking. Add cinnamon and a little maple syrup or brown sugar too! If you’ve never tried steel cut oats--give them a try. Rolled oats are smashed to death, but steel cut oats are the true whole grain. Higher in protein and fiber and better for you!

Macaroni and Cheese: Make a box of mac and cheese as directed, but instead of adding butter and milk, add 1 cup of butternut squash puree, cauliflower puree, or carrot puree. My favorite is 1/2 cup of squash + 1/2 cup of cauliflower, but my girls like the carrot better. You may need to add a little milk if its too thick.

Chocolate Chip Cookies: Okay, chocolate chip cookies aren’t healthy, but if you are going to make them, why not increase the nutrients?! Add 1 can rinsed and drained garbanzo beans (chickpeas) to your chocolate chip cookie dough when you add in the chocolate chips. They blend in to the cookie and no one but you will know they are in there!!

Smoothies: Always add a handful of veggies to your smoothie! I like spinach the best. You can also try kale or even carrots. Throw in some fruit juice concentrate (I like orange juice or cranberry the best), a bunch of frozen fruit, and water. Blend until smooth. Add more juice concentrate if it needs to be sweeter, or more water if it’s too thick. Costco sells a lovely bag of mixed frozen fruit that included peaches, strawberries, pineapple, honeydew melon, and blueberries. YUM! You can also add plain nonfat yogurt to your smoothie to make it nice and creamy. Throw in a banana or some pitted dates to sweeten it even more.

How to: I usually steam the vegetable and then puree it in the blender. You do usually need to add some water in order to get a smooth puree. Then I weigh 4 oz portions of the puree into zip-lock snack bags. (If you don’t have a kitchen scale, just measure 1/2 cup into each bag.) Then I label the bags with the date and contents and put several of them in a quart sized freezer bag. I lay the freezer bags flat on top of each other in the freezer. Once frozen I move them to the top shelf where they are most convenient for me to see what I have and grab what I need. Purees that I have used include: cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, carrot, butternut squash, pumpkin, yams, navy beans, garbanzo beans, and dates. I intend to try beets, zucchini, and yellow squash as well.