Effortless Eating

Glorious One-Pot Meals on KVOR radio

Elizabeth — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:36:02 +0000

On September 15th, I’ll be heading south to Colorado Springs to offer a program called “Healthy and Easy Cooking to Manage MS.” This weekend, the food editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette, Teresa Farney, interviewed me on KVOR radio about the upcoming talk and cooking demonstration – listen to the 7-minute interview here.

If you are interested in joining us at the event, contact the Colorado Springs, Colorado, office of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society at 1-719-634-298. You can also call 1-800-FIGHT-MS or go to cureMSColorado.org to register.

Due to space limitations, this program is limited to those struggling with MS and those who care for them. Hope to see you there!

Using a Convection Oven for Glorious One-Pot Meals

Elizabeth — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:18:30 +0000

Reader question: What adjustments should be made for a convection oven? Do I adjust the time or the temperature? My copy of the cookbook should arrive today – I heard you on Martha Stewart Radio. I am looking forward to making wonderful meals this weekend. – Janelle F., Montgomery, Alabama

Great question, Janelle! To answer it well, we first need to understand how convection ovens work. In a convection oven, several fans circulate the air as it is heated. The effect is to make the baking or roasting of uncovered foods, like cookies, roasts, cakes, etc. happen more quickly. Convection ovens routinely drop the desired temperature by 15 degrees F to compensate for the increased exposure of the food to the heat so that the food doesn’t become overdone.

Glorious One-Pot Meals remain lidded the entire time they are in the oven; as such, they do not get any additional benefit from the circulating hot air. Moreover, they do not cook properly at 435° F; For Glorious One-Pot Meal success, your oven must be at 450° F before placing the loaded and covered pot inside.

Many ovens offer the choice between convection and conventional settings. I always choose conventional when possible as it uses less energy. If using a convection oven, however, just be sure to compensate for the automatic temperature drop. Your best bet is to place a stand-alone oven thermometer in the oven to ensure you have the correct temp before inserting your Dutch oven.

Thanks for listening to the interview and happy cooking!

Elizabeth

Glorious One-Pot Meals on Martha Stewart Living Radio

Elizabeth — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:14:11 +0000

Last week I had a delightful chat with Betsy Keratnick of “Everyday Food” on Martha Stewart Living radio, a Sirius Satellite Radio station. We talked about everything from planning ahead for meals to last-minute cooking with frozen chicken (my specialty!). Don’t worry if you missed it because you can listen to the entire 22 minutes right here!

Enjoy!

Cholesterol is Your Friend, Not Your Enemy

Elizabeth — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:04:09 +0000

I know, I know; it’s heresy to say that cholesterol might actually be good for you. That cholesterol might be something you really want to have running around in your bloodstream.

Heavens to mercy, save us all! Did she mean to say that cholesterol is good?

Sigh.

I got into this discussion on a recent family vacation after seeing an uncle’s grotesquely swollen hands. They would almost seem cartoonish, if they weren’t so painful or disabling for him. As a handyman, he can no longer wield a tool in these mishapen hands. My heart went out to him.

As it happens, he can directly connect the swelling in his hands to switching to a new cholesterol-lowering drug a few months ago. His doctor had the nurse return his call regarding the concern, and she told him to halve the dose. Several weeks later the swelling was worse than ever, yet when I urged him to stop taking the drug, he was too scared that his cholesterol levels would rise in the two weeks until his next scheduled appointment.

Not taking your cholesterol-lowering drug for two weeks won’t kill you, I tried to assure him, but living with chronic inflammation can cause serious long-term damage. Besides, it’s affecting your livelihood and your daily life. Not to mention that it’s something that you don’t need in the first place.

Luckily, Dr. Joseph Mercola has published a full explanation of this stance today in the Huffington Post, and he did a much better job than I could have with a well-researched and heavily-footnoted piece. Here’s a short excerpt, but I encourage you to read the article in its entirety at the Huffington Post.

In the United States, the idea that cholesterol is evil is very much ingrained in most people’s minds. But this is a very harmful myth that needs to be put to rest right now.

“First and foremost,” Dr. Rosedale points out, “cholesterol is a vital component of every cell membrane on Earth. In other words, there is no life on Earth that can live without cholesterol.

That will automatically tell you that, in and of itself, it cannot be evil. In fact, it is one of our best friends.

We would not be here without it. No wonder lowering cholesterol too much increases one’s risk of dying. Cholesterol is also a precursor to all of the steroid hormones. You cannot make estrogen, testosterone, cortisone and a host of other vital hormones without cholesterol.”

Sally Fallon, the president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, and Mary Enig, Ph.D, an expert in lipid biochemistry, have gone so far as to call high cholesterol “an invented disease, a ‘problem’ that emerged when health professionals learned how to measure cholesterol levels in the blood.”[iii]

Natural remedies for bug bites and insect stings

Elizabeth — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:15:02 +0000

My 5-year old daughter enjoyed an outdoor symphony performance on the grass the other night and came home with several enormous itchy welts on her ankles. Luckily, I know several remedies to help ease the itching and calm the inflammation that I feel safe using on such a sensitive little one.

1. First, I gave her some homeopathic Apis Mellifica underneath her tongue. This is the same homeopathic remedy I suggested using when a friend was stung by a bee recently. I recommended she take a dose immediately, then a second thirty minutes later, and if needed for discomfort, a third two hours after that. My daughter’s fierce mosquito or spider bites required one pastille of Apis that night and a second the next morning before breakfast.

2. For topical relief, I rubbed in some homopathic Florasone, a remedy helpful for skin irritations in general. If I could have located it in my house, I would have applied some homeopathic SssstingStop gel, but the Florasone worked quite well, as it usually does.

3. For bee stings and spider bites, it’s helpful to place a drying masque over the area to draw out the poison. Mud works great and is easily available, as does tooth paste (not gel). A clay facial masque will do the trick, too.

4. Finally, disolving about 2 cups of Epsom Salts into a warm bath for a soak will help reduce swelling and relieve itching.

Clif C Bar – A whole foods energy bar

Elizabeth — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:35:03 +0000

An unexpected bonus of hosting the Land of Nutrition at this year’s Walk MS events was discovering a new product from Clif Bar Energy bars: The Clif C Bar.

The Clif C Bar is a different sort of portable food sporting a double layer of fruit and nuts and made from a handful of recognizable ingredients – basically fruit, nuts and sea salt. The bars are lightly baked and then sprinkled with nuts and a hint of sea salt to make the flavors dance.

Let me repeat my criteria for choosing a healthy granola/power/energy-type bar:

1. I want all ingredients to recognizably come from nature. The less processed these are, the better. I want to be able to pronounce and identify everything listed.

2. The fewer ingredients, the better. Don’t junk up my snack bars with a lot of extra stuff. Don’t add MSG or gluten fillers to my granola bars. Don’t add protein where it doesn’t occur naturally. And, please, don’t give me “artificial flavors,” because synthetic flavors are a huge turn-off to my taste buds.

These C-Bars are bursting with flavor– real flavors, not “natural or artificial flavors” concocted in a laboratory tube. They’re not so dense that they sit heavily in your stomach like so many other power bars.

Here’s an example of the ingredients in the apple Clif C-bar: Organic Dates, Almonds, Organic Apples, Macadamia Nuts, Organic Apple Juice Concentrate, Organic Lemon Juice Concentrate, Organic Cinnamon, Sea Salt (Real Salt®), Natural Vitamin E (Antioxidant).

Mmmmm… look at all of those yummy real foods!

Best of all, perhaps, is how friendly the C-Bars are to those with food allergies and/or food sensitivities. You won’t find any wheat, gluten, corn, eggs, dairy, etc., etc., etc. in these beauties.

My only problem with these bars is that they are soft and can get smooshed beyond recognition when tossed into a crowded purse during an outing. Then you basically have to lick the bar off of the wrapper to eat it, not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it can get sticky.

Be sure to try all the flavors of Clif C-Bars: apple, blueberry, rasperry, cherry pomegranate (our favorite!). Thanks to Alex over at Clif Bars for the free samples he gave out at the MS Walks!

Shady Strategies from the Toxic Chemical Lobby

Elizabeth — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:47:16 +0000

The Safer Chemicals Healthy Families consumer advocacy group “leaked” this graphic video galvanize public support for Congressional action to make sure the products we reach for, sleep on, and eat from every day aren’t loaded with toxic chemicals.

The characters you meet in this quick video are cartoons, but the plot is ripped straight from the headlines. It’s appalling to realize how the Toxic Chemicals Lobby twists and distorts information to keep their profits rolling in at the expense of our collective health.

Whole Foods Raises Organic Skin Care Bar

Elizabeth — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:05:22 +0000

I love it when a company goes out of its way to right deceptive practices, especially when profits up against consumer health.

Whole Foods Marketplace Inc. announced that it is raising the bar on organic skin care products, meaning that it will only carry items claiming to be organic that are actually organic and contain organic ingredients.

Back in January, I posted about so-called organic cheater brands and how deceptive labeling is allowed on skin care products because they are not regulated. Thanks to the watchdog group the Organic Consumers Association for bringing this to our attention.

According to the statement, starting next June, Whole Foods will require that its suppliers of personal-care products making organic claims meet the same U.S. Department of Agriculture standards as food does. That means products labeled as “organic” must be made with more than 95% organic ingredients. If the label says the product is made with organic ingredients, it actually must contain at least 70% organic ingredients.

While I wish that the USDA would require “organic” to mean 100% organic, I’m quite pleased that Whole Foods will make it easier for me to trust more of the products on its shelves. Right now, quite frankly, I’ve frequently questioned their personal care product selection after carefully reading the labels and wondered if I were in a Walgreens rather than a health food market.

Maybe Whole Foods will become more like Vitamin Cottage, a smaller health food grocer chain that adheres to much stricter organic standards, and where I always feel much more comfortable when selecting new skin care products.

I count this as a win in the war to reclaim the guarantee that the products we eat and use on our bodies are safe.

Too hot to cook? Use a Toaster Oven!

Elizabeth — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:56:26 +0000

Reader question: What do you do during the summer months when it’s too hot to use the oven?

One of my favorite summertime cooking solutions is to use a toaster oven!

Seriously, I have a large toaster oven that fits a 2-quart Dutch oven easily, holds my 3-quart round oven beautifully, and even squeezes in my 3 1/2-quart oval-shaped Dutch oven without hitting any sides.

Europro Toaster Oven

On warm evenings when I would rather not heat up my house, I simply plug the toaster oven into the outdoor socket on my back deck and let the heat stay outside. On rainy days I move it to my covered front porch.

Although I originally purchased this particular toaster oven so that I could prepare Glorious One-Pot Meals when I held cooking classes in locations other than a kitchen, I soon realized that a toaster oven has a number of advantages over a regular oven.

First, as I mentioned, you can pick it up and move it outside so that you don’t have to heat up your house in order to enjoy a meal. In the summer I use my outdoor toaster oven to bake pizzas, home fries, fish,… you name it. As well as Glorious One-Pot Meals, of course!

Second, it takes less energy to heat a smaller space like that inside a toaster oven than it does to heat and maintain the heat in the large space of a typical home oven. So I get to feel a little greener when I use it.

And, third, my toaster oven preheats much more quickly than my regular oven, probably for the same reason as #2 above.

When I picked out my toaster oven, I went to the largest selection of small kitchen appliances I knew of with my trusty 2-quart Dutch oven in hand. I proceeded to open each one and try to slide my pot inside. When I found the one that fit, I knew I had found a new tool for creating easy and delicious meals all year round.

Whenever I’m using the toaster oven to bake rather than toast, I always place an oven thermometer inside to validate the temperature just as I do with my gas oven inside. Just to be sure the temp is where I want it to be.

Glorious One-Pot Meal Recipe: Honey and Spice Pork

Elizabeth — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 04:35:32 +0000

Today I was invited to perform a cooking demonstration on KNBC’s Colorado & Company, one of my favorite shows to visit. I was thrilled to use the opportunity to help promote the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Colorado Chapter and several upcoming efforts to raise funds and awareness for MS.

I selected a recipe from my current cookbook, Honey and Spice Pork, because the combination of cinnamon and honey is thought to reduce inflammation, a primary issue in multiple sclerosis and other auto-immune diseases.

However many health benefits this recipe may offer, this recipe is mostly just a crowd-pleasing meal that offers a multitude of variations (swap out the pork for chicken or salmon… mmmm! or make it vegetarian with seitan (a wheat gluten meat-substitute product found in the refrigerated section of a health food store, near the tofu).

Find the recipe for Honey and Spice Pork below.

Honey and Spice Pork
Serves 2

My kids love the sweet and spicy flavors of this meal. The pork together with the potatoes, carrots, and green beans offers a kid-friendly, well-rounded dinner loaded with nutrients and low in fat. Look for boneless center-cut pork loin, 1/2-inch thick. Or substitute a turkey tenderloin, a salmon fillet, or even chicken for the pork.

1/2 to 3/4 pound pork tenderloin
sea salt and ground black pepper
1/4 cup honey
3 tablespoons Dijon or Cajun/Creole-style mustard
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
6 to 8 small new potatoes, scrubbed
2 carrots, sliced in coins
15 to 20 green beans, trimmed, or 2 cups frozen

- Preheat the oven to 450° F.
- Spray the inside of a cast iron Dutch oven and lid with canola oil.
- Put the pork in the pot and lightly season with salt and pepper.
- In a small bowl, mix together the honey, mustard, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves and pour over the pork.
- Slice the potatoes in half and add to the pot, then scatter the carrots and green beans over the potatoes.
- Cover and bake for 45 minutes, or until 3 minutes after the aroma of a fully cooked meal escapes the oven. Serve immediately.