Pat Eby; a Food Writer Skinnies Up

Just Right, A Little Pudgy, Overweight or Obese?

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably concerned about your weight. You’re not alone. In the United States, 33.9-percent adults over the age of 20 are obese. That's one in three. Overweight adults make up an additional 34.4-percent of us. Children aren’t exempt. Ten percent of children aged two to five, 19.6-percent of six to eleven year olds, and 18.1-percent of teens are obese, as cited in FatStats from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pretty scary statistics.    

Perhaps you’ve decided to ditch excess pounds, or your doctor may have suggested you should lose weight. Where do you rank on the fit-to-fat scale? Here’s how to find out.

Get to know your BMI, or body mass index. The National Institutes of Health released new guidelines for what’s normal, overweight or obese in 1998 based on the Body Mass Index. The BMI describes your weight-to-height ratio to accurately gauge the percentage of fat to muscle in your body. Normal weight people have a BMI under 24.9. If your BMI is 24 to 29.9, you’re overweight. A BMI of 30 or above indicates obesity. 

Here’s the formula for calculating your BMI. You’ll need to get your accurate height and weight. Your weight x 740, divided by (height x height in inches) gives you your BMI.

Mine was nearly 40 when I made significant changes to my diet June 16, 2011. By mid-January, 2012, I’d lost 48 pounds and whittled my BMI down to 32. Still obese, but I’m headed in the right direction.  

My decision to diet, exercise and lose weight wasn’t considered and researched, so I learned on the fly as I cut back sugars, refined flour, fats and meat. I switched to whole grains and fat-free dairy. Beans are a staple of my diet now.

Even though I think about food most days because of my job, I wasn’t up to speed on healthy eating, or on fat measurement tools like BMI. It’s a good way to track your progress.

So, get out the calculator and figure your BMI. Easier still, go online to these sites and the on-site calculator will figure your BMI in a trice. Poke around each site for more tools, online food diaries and success stories.

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) BMI calculator

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) online BMI calculator

My Fitness Pal online BMI Calculator

 

Yogurt Cheese, a Fat Free Cream-y Spread

It's so cold this weekend, I pulled out the snowman for this photo of yogurt cheese . Brrrr.

Non-fat cream cheese just doesn’t cut it for me. Neither does non-fat mayonnaise. I’ve replaced mayo with creamy no-fat dressings for apple and potato salads. I use hummus on sandwiches in place of mayo. No-fat cottage cheese and fat-free yogurt suit me fine, but the cream cheese is a non-starter at my table. I miss a schmeer on my bagels.

My friend Terry, who scrupulously eats fat-free every day, explained that fat-free versions of familiar foods are different than full-fat foods. He doesn’t expect the same tastes, textures or mouth feel of non-fat cheeses, dressings and mayo. ‘Embrace the otherness of fat-free cream cheese,’ I repeated to myself,  but I couldn’t get past the slick feel and bland taste.

To sustain my bagel-and-a-schmeer habit, I made fat-free yogurt cheese. Tart, thick and creamy, it’s easy to make, easy to love and easy on the waistline. It’s more than just a topping for bagels, however.

Serve it middle-Eastern style with warm pita wedges, cracked olives, a squeeze of lemon juice and a light drizzle of olive oil. Blend a bit of honey, marmalade or preserves in for a sweet toast topper. Spread two thin slices of pumpernickel bread with yogurt cheese, add a chiffonade of fresh basil, thin slices of cukes, red bell pepper, carrots and celery for a delicious veggie sandwich. Stir in fresh or dried herbs for a savory cheese. For more ideas, slide on over to this pdf on the Dannon yogurt site. Yummy ideas.

 

Yogurt Cheese

Yield: ½ cup yogurt cheese

1 cup fat-free yogurt, regular or Greek style (see note)

pinch of kosher salt, (optional) 

• Line a sieve or strainer with a large coffee filter or two layers of cheesecloth. Place inside a deep bowl.
• Stir salt into the yogurt and spoon mixture into the lined strainer. Make sure there’s an inch of so of space between the bottom of the strainer and the catch bowl. Cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate.
• After an hour or two, remove strainer and collect or discard the whey in the bottom of the catch bowl. You can add the whey to smoothies or use in cooking. Cover with wrap and refrigerate overnight, 10 to twelve12 hours.
• Peel off the filter or cheesecloth and shape the cheese into a ball or log. Pour off the whey. Refrigerate both whey and cheese. The cheese keeps well for a week.

Note: Use yogurt without preservatives or gelatin. You can make larger quantities of cheese using more yogurt. Because more whey collects, you may need to hang the cheese to drip. Check out this post at ‘A Couple Cooks.’  See what other good, healthy things this couple cooks up while you're visiting. I also enjoyed Mark Bittman's simple and straightforward method in the New York Times.

 

 

 

One Cup of Tea

 

It’s late. Dinner’s been over for hours. You’ve had a healthy snack, but your mouth still longs for something. Here’s a thought. Try a cup of tea. Not only do you get no calories with lots of flavor, brewing a nice cup of tea requires process and ritual.

Don’t rush this through the microwave. Fill a tea kettle and put it on to boil. Find a favorite mug or cup and saucer. Choose a tea. Pack loose teas in a tea ball, or in a handy T-Sac. A nice mug of tea can short-circuit the urge to engage in mindless eating.

To make things easy, keep a selection of tea packets in a pretty glass dish or clear canister on the kitchen counter. Boxes of tea out of sight in a cabinet won’t give a visual cue to think teas as often. Loose teas should be kept in airtight, solid canisters to preserve freshness, but you may want to fill a small glass container with loose teas. It’s that now-you-see-it clue again. Make sure the cover fits tight.

Flavors abound in today’s tea market. Caffeinated, de-caffeinated or herbal, the choice is yours. You don’t need to live in a city big enough for a tea shop to get good teas, either. Most supermarkets carry a respectable selection. The internet offers endless choices, but if you’re lucky enough to have a tea shop in your town, plan a visit. Be warned. The selection can be dizzying.

In St. Louis, visit the Traveling Tea shop in historic Benton Park. Pick up a box of 100 T-sacs, a unique tea bag you fill with loose tea. Of course, teas and T-Sacs can be purchased online, too. Try Stash teas from Classical Coffee, an online coffee and tea vendor, based in St. Louis. Search out the tea shops in your hometown for a little field trip to see, smell and taste the teas.

Another  advantage of tea-sipping is that it slows me down enough to engage in creative distractions, another alternative to thoughtless food consumption. Here’s my list. Listen to a favorite cd, pull out the bead box and make a pair of earrings, put together a jigsaw puzzle, read an amusing book, like a mystery. 

To drink in the world of teas through mystery books, pick up the Tea Shop Mysteries by Laura Childs. Sleuth Theodosia Browning, owner of the Indigo Tea Shop in historic Charleston, South Carolina, serves up teas, scones and cakes. Along the way she uncovers murderers, fiendish plots and mayhem a-plenty. If you’re the sort who likes to read books in order, start with Death by Darjeeling, the first in the tea shop series. The author includes tea history, trivia and lots of recipes in each book.

If you’re a committed coffee drinker, read Sandy Murphy’s post for King’s River Life pairing coffees with mystery books. Be warned, one of her selections focuses on a chocolatier turned sleuth, so chocolate’s mentioned. Be strong. 

Note:  the lead illustration for this post, by Ann Paidrick, was created using Adobe Illustrator, a vector drawing program. View more examples of her vector-generated photo realistic images and illustrations here.

 

Re-Visiting Boston Brown Bread: Kitchen Therapy in a Crockpot

 

I'm posting Boston Brown Bread to my skinny-up blog from my original blog about living the good life without breaking the bank. Since I wrote this, the valiant Lady Chablis met an ignoble end, victim of  a teenaged driver and a rainy day.  RIP, you good car. July, 2011.

This Boston Brown Bread recipe has very little fat, not much sugar and fifty percent whole grain flours. I keep some in my freezer for snacks and for a sweet breakfast bread . You make it in your crockpot. How fun is that?

Cold temperatures, snowy streets, an old much-loved car that won’t start – it’s winter in St. Louis. The Lady Chablis, my silvery big-shouldered drag queen of a car, is in the shop for a recurring starting mystery that’s left me stranded and the good mechanics at my garage puzzled. While Chablis gets the once-over, I’m indulging in kitchen therapy. Talking therapy with a mental health professionals work fine, but for everyday anxiety abatement, doing something you love works as well. I'm making Boston bread in my crockpot.

Yes, you can bake bread and cakes in the crockpot with the zoomy gold 1970s wonder accessory, the Rival Bread ‘n Cake Bake Pan. I learned this a few years back when I interviewed home cook and expert ukelele player Margie Maclin for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Her cheesy corckpot nut bread  was so tasty I had to find this long-gone pan and try it myself. 

Call me lucky, I found my large pan on ebay and the smaller, tall number on craigslist. They come up quite often on ebay. I’ve only found one at a thrift store. Sweet Fortuna. I sold it on ebay for a nice profit.

In my five-quart crockpot, Boston brown bread steams to lush perfection in just under 2 ½ hours  I substitute sorghum for the molasses in the original recipe. Molasses is cane sugar, but sorghum is tastier whole food, high in antioxidants.  Sandhill Farms right here in Missouri produces a fabulous sorghum, sold in the fall at Whole Foods.

 

I’ve included the recipe in this post. Regular or golden raisins will do, but only regular dark raisins give the bread the deep mahogany color. Walnuts or pecans work equally well, imparting a good, sweet flavor. Sometimes I mix half a cup of sunflower seeds with half a cup of chopped walnuts and that’s pretty tasty, too.

While my brown bread steamed and baked, my favorite mechanic called. Chablis is once again road-worthy. They replaced the battery I bought just a few months ago. Thank the goddess for warranties. I may be looking at a new alternator in the next few months, but I still believe in maintaining and driving older cars.

The bread I just baked is cooling. I’ll cut it in quarters and freeze three for later. Today, I’ll enjoy  a piece sliced thin with unsalted sweet cream butter. Alternately, I’m loving a mix of 4 ounces of cream cheese mixed with 4 tablespoons of Greek-style yogurt and a teaspoon of freshly grated orange zest. The result is a tart spread just right to offset the bread's sweetness. Four ounces of cream cheese or yogurt cheese  mixed with 2 tablespoons red raspberry preserves  yields a sweeter spread. Orange marmalade, apricot or blackberry preserves work as well. Kitchen therapy rules. Try it. 

Crock-Pot Boston Brown Bread

1 tablespoon shortening plus flour for preparing the cake pan

1 cup flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup yellow cornmeal

½ cup whole wheat flour

½ cup sorghum (you can substitute dark molasses)

1 ½ cups buttermilk

1 cup chopped nuts

1 cup raisins*

1 cup water to place in the ceramic crock pot liner to steam the bread

1. Generously grease and flour the bottom and the sides of the Bread ‘n Cake Bake Pan. Set aside. This step is extremely important to allow the brown bread to release.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl. Whisk to blend the ingredients.
3. Whisk in the cornmeal and the whole wheat flour to thoroughly blend.
4. In a separate bowl, add the sorghum to the buttermilk and stir to mix the two together. This takes some time and you will need to scrape down the mixing spoon during the process.
5. Add the buttermilk mix to the reserved flour mixture and stir to blend. Don’t overbeat. The ingredients just need to be blended.
6. Add the raisins and the nuts. Mix until just blended.
7. Add 1 cup of water to the crock pot.
8. Pour the brown bread batter into the greased and floured Bread ‘n Cake Bake Pan. Place the lid on the pan and twist to lock. This is how you lift it into the crock pot. Cover all with the crock pot lid, then turn the crock pot to high.
9. Bake for 2 ½ to 4 hours. Don’t test before 2 ½ hours so you don’t lose too much heat. Test for doneness with a toothpick. When the toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, the bread is done.
10. Remove the pan from the crock pot to a wire rack. Remove the lid. Allow the pan to sit for 3 to 5 minutes, then invert the bread onto another wire rack. Cool completely before slicing.

 

*I like to toss the raisins with a tablespoon of flour, then separate them with my fingers to coat with the flour so they don’t clump in the batter.

 Here's what these great pans look like, in case you see one at a thrift store  or estate sale. Or check ebay. Baking in the crockpot is fun and therapeutic. 

 

Mississippi Mug Pie. A Chocolate Sensation. A Winter’s Day Treat

When I stand at the top of my back porch steps in winter, I can see the mighty Mississippi River through the bare branches of trees. Spring through fall, a leafy canopy hides the view, but in bleakest winter, the wide ribbon of river gleams gunmetal grey on sunny mornings.

Cold mornings are made for hot chocolate. Diets, not so much. I like to make hot chocolate the old-fashioned way, with real milk, natural cocoa powder, Chinese cassia cinnamon, and double strength Madagascar vanilla. I imagine whisking hot cocoa as the auntie did in Laura Esquival’s novel Like Water For Chocolate, folding in memories, but the calories don’t work for my weight loss program.

I’m grateful for the instant 25-calorie cocoas, like Swiss Miss Sensible Sweets and Nestle’s Fat-Free Diet Cocoa. I’m doubly grateful to Hungry Girl, for popularizing mug cakes, particularly the Mississippi Mug Cake, since the Big Muddy is so near my back door step.

For the uninitiated, mug cakes make one serving of cakey goodness, in two or three minutes, in the microwave, usually in a mug. No leftovers to tempt the weak-willed dieter. Hungry Girl posts multiple recipes at her site, but the Mississippi Mug Pie called to me the strongest.

What works for me is to snack in the 100 to 125 calorie range. It helps me gauge my calories and snack sensibly. MMP weighs in at 223 calories, which is pretty decent for something so decadent, but I wondered if I made two servings from the recipe, would the cake still work?

The kind of detective work I like. First, I made the cake in a mug following the recipe exactly. Delicious. The next day, I divided the batter between two ramekins, following the directions to nuke, add more pudding and nuke again. Also delicious, and well within my calorie range for snacks, even with a squirt of fat-free Reddi-Whip and a plump raspberry. The cake tastes great hot or cold.

How to make it:

Here’s a link to the recipe at the Hungry Girl site. I changed it by mixing the chocolate cake mix, hot chocolate mix, egg substitute and water in a small bowl. I added the chocolate chips and one-third of the pudding. I then divided the batter between two pyrex ramekins.

My older microwave cooked both ramekins in one minute. A newer, more powerful microwave may do the job in less time. I removed both ramekins, divided the remaining pudding between the two and microwaved them both at the same time for an additional minute. I ate one. Perfect. Delicious. Chocolate heaven. Warm and gooey. 110 calories. Thank you, Hungry Girl. And the second one? Even after refrigerating the cake, my friend Sandy, who saved me from eating a second cake in one day, said it was delicious.

Half-sized mug cakes in Pyrex ramekins, before I squirted them with fat-free Reddi-Whip. 

Half the calories, all the great chocolate taste. 

 

 

 

 

Baked Apples. So Simple. So Good for You.

Two weeks past the holidays, fifteen days since resolutions rattled in your brain, and you’re probably looking for a great-tasting dessert that’s low in calories and high on taste. If it’s packed with nutrition, even better. Try baked apples.

MacIntosh, Cortland, Rome, Winesap and Jonathon apples make my top five list for baked apples. These mellow apples roast to a custard-y consistency in under an hour. The cooking times vary by size and variety. An over-baked apple will split, and while it’s still plenty good, I like the looks of a whole baked apple better.

Bake extras for snacks and to add to recipes. I’ll cut up half a baked apple and add it to my morning oatmeal. Sometimes, I scoop the baked apple from its skin, add a quarter-cup of whole cranberry sauce and a little apple juice and cook up a cranberry apple sauce. Cut them up in a yogurt parfait.

Most often, I bake mine with Grade-B maple syrup, vanilla and raisins, but I like them with brown sugar and dried cranberries, too. Here’s a simple recipe. The apples in this bake are Cortlands. The flavor’s lovely, the fragrance when they bake divine, and the leftovers taste great, however you serve them.

To calculate the calories in each apple, I used the new Super-Tracker from the USDA website, Food-a-Pedia. This site just launched the first of January, and it’s a wonderful tool for planning meals, keeping a food diary, and calculating the calories in a recipe. More on this later, in a post about food diaries.

Baked Apples

Yield: 4 servings

4 medium apples

2 Tablespoons raisins

2 Tablespoons Grade B maple syrup

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon/sugar mix

• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F; 325 for glass pans.
• Using a vegetable peeler, pare a collar around the top of the apple. Core, but don’t go through the blossom end. Try using a paring knife to make the first cut, then use an espresso spoon or a melon baller to scoop out the core. This step takes a little practice.
• Lightly coat the bottom of the baking pan with non-stick butter-flavored cooking spray. Place the apples in the pan and divide the raisins evenly, placing them in the core.
• Mix the maple syrup and the vanilla together. Pour into the cored apples, dividing evenly.
• Place in the oven. Set the timer for 35 minutes. Check the apples when the timer goes off. Bake in 5 minute increments, checking consistently, until the apples soften Remove from oven to a cooling rack. Spoon pan juices over the apple collars. Sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar mix. Serve immediately or cool and serve later. Refrigerate baked apples when they’ve cooled. 

Calories per apple: 137 (from Super-Tracker Food-a-Pedia)

 

 

 

Lightened Up Lentil Soup; A Fork in the Road

It’s snowed this week  in St. Louis for the first time this winter. Two inches of snow and black ice forced commuters on highways and roads to a standstill during rush hour. While I sat in my car, headed to my part-time job, crushing grip on the wheel, eyes peeled for sliding cars, I got pretty stressed.

Dinner, I thought, will be a familiar comfort; warm and steamy lentil soup. My grandmother made lentil soup heavy on the kielbasa, fragrant with onions, carrots and celery, thick and rich.

I’ve lightened my cooking, eschewing meat most meals, increasing vegetables in my diet and limiting or eliminating fats. The lower-calorie lentil soup I make today packs plenty of flavor in a brothy soup with more vegetables and no fat. A winning combination for me.

The recipe comes from legendary Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme’s 1993 cookbook, A Fork in the Road. Regular old brown lentils, in the hands of this master chef Paul Prudhomme, make an unexpectedly sweet and spicy soup, worthy of dinner guests.

In the introductory Notes from the Test Kitchen, Prudhomme writes, “I was really having a hard time getting a complete, “round” taste without using butter or oil. Without a “round” taste, I’m not happy or satisfied with a dish. It has to be complete, filling my mouth with all kinds of flavors – sweet, salty, spicy.” Prudhomme arrives at a fully round flavor with this soup, relying on spices, tamari and buttery apple juice to build tastes.

Start to finish, the soup cooks in under an hour. Unlike dried beans, lentils don’t need pre-soaking. The soup clocks in at 106 calories per cup, too.

Used copies of this fine cookbook are available on Amazon. The reviewers rightly point out this may not be a book for a beginning cook, or a once-in-a-while cook because Prudhomme details complex spice mixes for nearly every dish. Prudhomme’s attention to each ingredient and technique, however, is what makes the recipes in this book taste so good.

Not-My-Grandmother’s Lentil Soup

Adapted from Paul Prudhomme’s Fork in the Road cookbook

Yield: 8 main dish servings; 16 appetizer servings

A different lentil soup. A bit of kick from the peppers. Layers of flavor from the seasonings, the apple juice and the tamari. A great use of parsnips. I like to vary the last two vegetables by the season. 

Seasoning mix:

2 teaspoons sweet paprika

1 ½ teaspoons salt (see note)

1 ½ teaspoon garlic powder

1 ½ teaspoons dry mustard

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried cilantro leaves*

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

½ teaspoon ground white pepper

1 teaspoon cayenne

Soup:

Olive oil cooking spray

2 cups chopped white or yellow onions (not sweet)

2 cups chopped green bell pepper, divided

2 cups chopped celery, divided

2 tablespoons water

3 bay leaves

1 cup apple juice

2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic

2 cups dried lentils

10 cups vegetable stock, divided**

¼ cup tamari***

1 cup medium diced carrots

1 cup medium diced parsnips

1 cup medium diced zucchini (see tester’s note)

1 cup medium diced yellow squash (see tester’s note)

• Combine herbs and spiced for seasoning mix in a small bowl.
• Spray the bottom of a  5-quart stock pot or Dutch oven with cooking spray. Heat. Add 1 cup each of onions, bell pepper and celery, stirring often, over medium high heat. After one minute, add water and cook an additional 5 to 7 minutes.
• Add 2 tablespoons of the seasoning mix, bay leaves and apple juice. Cook until the liquid evaporates, about 10 to 12 minutes.
• Put the remaing onions, bell pepper and celery in the pot next. Add the rest of the seasoning mix, the garlic and the lentils. Stir to combine, then add 6 cups vegetable stock and the tamari.
• Cook uncovered over medium low heat for 18 to 30 minutes. Check the lentils for softening beginning at 18 minutes. Stir often to the bottom of the pot. Add 2 cups stock when the lentils are softened, but not completely cooked. Cook for 10 minutes.
• Add the remaining stock, carrots and parsnips. Cover and cook 10 minutes.
• Add the green and yellow squash, cover and cook 5 minutes. 

*dried cilantro available at spice shops and ethnic markets
**Deborah Madison has a great recipe for quick-cooking vegetable stock.  If you want a thicker soup, add less stock at the end.

***tamari is a very flavorful concentrated soy sauce. Available at Asian markets 

Tester’s notes:

usually omit the salt in the seasoning mix because the tamari is salty and the celery contains sodium also.  

Seasonal vegetables work great in this soup. In summer try corn and tomatoes,  or green beans and new potatoes. In fall, rutabagas and swiss chard, or celery root and sweet potatoes. Adding a handful of spinach at the end of the cooking time is nice, too. 

 

Hungry Girl Comes Home

Hungry Girl, You Understand Why I Need Chocolate, and I Thank You

First, I love the moniker. Straightforward, humorous. Politically a little off on the girl part, but I’ve learned when a woman at any age tackles changes in her diet, her little-girl-self runs wild in her head screaming ‘I can’t live without eating – you fill in the blank, or blanks. Her grown-up girl thinks how much hotter she’ll be with a few less pounds. Even g.u. girls whose fires burn low start lookin’ at lingerie and nightgowns and dream of slinkier selves in inky black dresses.

How do I know this? Girlfriends talk. When it comes to chats about food and dieting, anything’s game, so long as the game bird isn’t drowned in butter and served in cream sauce. Hungry Girl instinctively understands these concepts 

Hungry Girl slipped into my library bag, to the horror of the staid and proper Mayo Clinic cookbook I’d prudently selected. Written by the lithe and lovely Lisa Lillien, Hungry Girl 1-2-3 continues a series of diet cookbooks she’s penned. Hungry Girl Lisa cooks on the Food Network, too 

The cover, all broad, mod sixties graphics with a simple direct tag line –the Easiest, Most Delicious, Guilt-Free Recipes on the Planet -- promises fun before you flip the first page. Lillien’s cooking relies heavily on packaged foods, foil wraps and simple tricks but, gosh, she’s got some slammin’ ideas for easiest-ever lower calorie foods that taste rich and tame cravings.

I generally avoid foods high in preservatives, gums, gelatins and sweeteners, but sometimes I need a feel-good treat. Hungry Girl to the rescue with single serving microwave cakes, sugar free pudding parfaits and lightened-up versions of fast food faves.

Each recipe includes serving sizes, nutritional analysis and Weight Watchers point values. The book’s light on photos, but you’ll find oodles of foodie shots and recipes in Chew the Right Thing at Lillien’s website. I liked this Live and Let Pie sippable pumpkin shake as a substitute for a pumpkin pie ice cream blizzard. 

Here’s a link to a turkey-artichoke panini , lightened from the original Panera Bread  recipe by 500 calories. We liked it -- the ‘we’ being me and the Woof sisters, Princess and Bitsy. Visit the Hungry Girl website and counteract weak moments with fun foods.

 

 

Black-eyed peas: Luck and Prosperity in the New Year

Can luck and prosperity by guaranteed by eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day? Maybe, but here’s a sure thing; a healthy recipe to start the new year with a low-fat, nutrient dense, high-fiber black-eyed pea salad. Festive, flavorful and colorful, this salad’s earned a year-round place at my table.

Varying the chopped vegetables trips the taste buds and keeps me from getting bored with this good-for-you legume. When my doctor strongly suggested incorporating five servings of beans into my diet, the prescription seemed daunting.

Sure, I like chilis, red beans and rice, ham and beans and refried beans – all calorie dense and loaded with fats. I considered beans a once in a while food, not a diet staple. Beans became one of my healthy eating challenges in June of 2011 when I resolved to live healthier every day.

Seems like a good day to renew that resolution. The results of living healthfully since June include a weight loss of 40 pounds, blood pressure readings low enough to make my doctor smile, more energy and strength than I thought possible and new clothes– well, gently used thrift clothes -- in my closet.

This black-eyed pea salad, made with lusciously plump frozen black-eyed peas, chopped vegetables and whole wheat couscous with a squirt of lemon or a lemon-y light dressing meets the bean challange head-on.

Good health, luck and prosperity to all in the new year.

 

Black-Eyed Pea Chopped Salad with Whole Wheat Couscous

Yield: 8 servings 

2 cups cooked whole wheat couscous

Juice of one lemon, divided

3 tablespoons chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley

3 cups black-eyed peas, steamed and chilled

1/2 cup finely diced red or sweet onion (optional)

1/2 cup finely diced celery

3 cups fresh vegetables of your choice, cut in a small dice (see note)

sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

• Cook couscous according to package directions, fluff and cool. Squeeze half the lemon over the cooled couscous, straining out seeds. Add chopped parsley and incorporate.
• Place cooked peas in a mixing bowl. Add the diced onion, celery and vegetables.
• Using a mico-plane or zest tool, grate the zest from the remaining half-lemon over the vegetables. Squeeze lemon juice over all, using a strainer to catch any seeds. Mix well.
• If desired, add 1/8 cup prepared vinaigrette dressing, season with sea salt and pepper, mix and set aside.
• Make a bed of couscous on the plate. Spread with the cooked vegetables and peas. You can make one large platter or serve individually on salad plates, ½ cup couscous and 1 cup mixed vegetables. Garnish as desired.

Notes:

Dice vegetables just a bit bigger than the black-eyed peas. Mix and match according to seasons. Could include greeen beans, corn, carrots, sweet bell peppers, radishes, yellow or green summer squash, mild to hot banana peppers, kohlrabi, kale, chard, greens, steamed winter squash, mushrooms – your choice 

Make your own vinaigrette, or use a light dressing, such as Ken’s lite olive oil vinaigrette.