Tuesday, May 15, 2012

What To Do With Left Over Soup Recipe

Harmony Oaks, my former Bed & Breakfast in the Columbia, South Carolina countryside presented many opportunities to get creative in the kitchen.  I was fifty miles from the nearest health food store and ten miles from the Piggly Wiggly.  Its produce section was nothing less than dreadful.  While I had a frozen organic food service and grew as much of my own produce as I could in our circular organic garden, often times I just had to get creative and come up with simple ways to re-purpose leftovers.

Now living in the harried metropolis of Los Angeles, I have different considerations . . . time and traffic.  We Angeleno's plan everything we do according to those two factors.  Sometimes I can't just leave the house to go to the market.  It could take thirty minutes to go one mile during certain times of the day.  So, I look in the refrigerator and see what I can put together that's simple, delicious and healthy.

I made my Chicken Curried Sweet Potato soup (recipe is available on another post of this blog) the other day.  There was enough for about two servings.  I also had a bunch of fresh veggies that I had to eat up as soon as I could.  So, I used coconut oil to saute up some fresh snow peas and kale.  Then, I simply added a serving of the soup stirred and cooked it down for a few minutes.

It's best to flash saute the veggies so you don't over cook them when you add the soup and cook it down. You can also add more chicken or nuts or what ever you have on hand that just needs to be eaten.

This works best with creamy soups like butternut squash, pumpkin, potato, tomato, asparagus and the like.  If you use a broth based soup, you may want to thicken it a little with cornstarch or puree it before you dump it in with the veggies.

I ate this all on its own.  You could serve it over rice or quinoa or just add those grains into the mix.  There are so many possibilities.  Just get creative and come up with what ever works for you.

For more information on living a Delicious and Healthy life, see www.DeliciousAndHealthy.com or email Dr. Meg for a grocery tour, food allergy coaching, private chef work, or deeper holistic psychotherapy sessions at meg@deliciousandhealthy.com

 

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

A Simple Refreshing Recipe

Those of us with food allergies often cook for ourselves.  This way, we can get what we want, know how it's prepared and just what ingredients went into it.  No one will be more careful with your food preparation than you will be.  With this in mind, I am constantly thinking of ways to make simple, delicious recipes that don't take much time so you can get to the good part . . .eating!

I made up a very simple fruit salad that was pretty tasty, satisfying AND, of course, healthy too!

Spicy Sweet Tropical Fruit Salad

Chopped fresh pineapple
Fresh cut mango
Fresh papaya
Shredded coconut
Crushed red pepper to taste

Use what ever portions you want of the above fruits or just use pineapple alone (it tastes so good on its own in this salad).  At Trader Joe's, they have pre-cut tropical fruit available in the refrigerator section.  Just chop, toss, add coconut and crushed red pepper (also available at TJ's).

The spicy sweetness of this salad is great.  It starts off sweet and finishes with delicious lingering spiciness.  It's great on its own or as a side dish for a summer barbecue (coming right up!).

This salad contains the digestive enzyme bromelain (found in pineapple), papain (found in papaya), healthy fat found in coconut and blood circulation support from the crushed red pepper.

For more information on living a healthy life, go to www.DeliciousAndHealthy.com