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For iPhone I have a new app for my iPad and I know that some of you who want to stay strong and healthy will thank me for telling you about it. The app’s name is Yoga Studio and you can download it from the I-Tunes store. It’s definitely my favorite yoga app. On the app, classes are arranged by preset classes (Studio Classes), and classes you create (My Classes). In the preset area, y
Grilled Lamb with Yogurt Mint Sauce and Cous Cous It’s Ina Garten Friday and I’ve cooked up her recipe for grilled lamb chops with yogurt mint sauce, served with one of my recipes for tabouli. The men in my family loved it! But is lamb healthy for you? About ten years ago, a friend of the family had a heart attack and his doctor put him on a strict diet eliminating salt, sugar, eggs, oil, a
Okonomiyaki a la Española Okonomiyaki a la Española One of my favorite blogs, written by Deb Perelman, is Smitten Kitchen. Her conversation is perky, the food is varied, and her food photos will make you drool! Last week she posted her rendition of okonomiyaki, a Japanese pancake that can be made small or large, and is served with a special mayonnaise sauce. I’ve made something similar to t
Photo Courtesy BCConnections Have you ever wondered how to develop healthy habits? Maybe you’ve thought about changing your eating or exercise habits for the better, but didn’t know if you would stick with a plan. A study from the University College London shows that when a behavior is performed over and over along with a cue, after about 66 days the behavior will become automatic. For example, af
The most popular blog entry on My Healthy Eating Habits is my post about no-knead bread whole wheat bread. I developed a recipe based on Jim Lahey’s technique from his book “My Bread“. Now I’ve come out with a video to make the steps more clear. My sister-in-law Mary is ready to make it—she was just waiting for this video. And I hope it makes you want to go out and bake som
Middle Eastern Vegetable Salad One book that I can recommend to people who like great taste without complications, is Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa how easy is that? Her recipes are familiar, easy to prepare, tasty, and elegantly served. This week for the Ina First Friday blog group I chose her recipe for Middle Eastern Vegetable Salad, which many people by the name of fattoush. Fatt
Make Healthy Food Choices Recently, I got a call from my niece, Heather, who just learned that the overwhelming fatigue she feels, the butterfly mark on her face, the lesions in her mouth, and the rashes on her body are due to Lupus. She feels terrible knowing that she has this disease, but she said, “At least I know what it is now.” From reading medical studies, books by respected and well-known
This is a guest post by Cole Millen. After working so hard to eat right and to exercise, some people may feel anxious about how to keep healthy eating habits on vacation. Vacations are filled with temptations, and those who are not careful risk putting on a few pounds while away. However, being proactive can arm vacationers with the skills they need to avoid extra weight gain. Here are a few skil
Tofu Pumpkin Pie with Yogurt Topping Did you know that April is Soy foods month? I didn’t know this until just recently. The Soy Association of North America (SANA) chose my blog and sent me box of samples so I could try them and let my readers know what I think about soy and soy products; that’s where the tofu pumpkin pie with yogurt topping comes in. You might remember that I do like soy
Hey there. It’s Ina Garten Friday, which means that the members in this blog group will be making and posting one of her recipes, or making a food item that was inspired by one of her dishes. Do you know who she is? Ina is host the Barefoot Contessa on Food Network. You may have seen some of her books at the bookstore or at the library. She goes by the name “the Barefoot Contessa,” after t
Salmon with Pesto Wrapped in Filo Last night a documentary called The River of No Return was on Nature, a PBS presentation. A wolf biologist named Isaac Babcock and his wife Bijornen, took a year trek along the Frank Church-River, in the Idaho Wilderness. As you can imagine, much of the show dealt wolves, but the biologist also spent time filming other species like birds and fish. The mount
Steelhead Trout with Turkey Bacon and Rosemary This week while researching rainbow trout for the 38 Power Foods blog group, I realized that some grocers and fishmongers don’t understand the —what appears to be folklore term— “salmon trout”. They call the pinkish to reddish colored fish by their proper names: rainbow trout, or steelhead trout, whereas, I have always known pinkish-reddish fis
Homemade Yogurt Yogurt is a winning healthy food choice, and it’s one dairy product I eat knowing it’s doing my body good. It’s the topic of this week’s 38 power foods and on my list of foods for healthy eating habits. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in order for a refrigerated product to be called yogurt, it must contain the live active cultures Lactobacill
Secret Ingredient Mushroom Soufflé I’ve been waiting patiently for this week’s edible item to come up in our 38 Power Foods blog group. The simple and unassuming egg is the power pick of the week and I’ll be making something that only the egg can do —the soufflé. From a cook’s perspective, eggs are one of the most versatile foods around. But, they also contain all the essential amino acids, they’r
Roasted Vegetables with Pepitas Have you ever heard of “pepitas”? In Spanish that means –little seeds. I’ve seen them called for in recipes, but I didn’t know until this week that they were referring to pumpkin seeds. This week the 38 Power Foods blog group is discovering that there’s more to this little seed than meets the eye. According to the World’s Healthiest Foods, The World Hea
Cocoa Granola People have found uses for the flax plant for hundreds of thousands of years. The plant fiber has been used to produce linen, twine, and rope. Painters used linseed oil –the oil from flax seed– as a paint-drying agent. This week the 38 Power Foods blog group celebrates flax for its health benefits. The flax seed is a good source of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), which is an essen
Homemade Walnut Butter It has been clear for some time now that walnuts are great for you. All my favorite doctors (Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Dean Ornish, and Dr. Mehmet Oz) recommend eating them daily because they are a good source of omega 3’s, and they help to lower LDL cholesterol (the bad one) and reduce inflammation, while at the same time improving the HDL cholesterol (the good one). And
Turkey Pâté with Mushrooms and Pistachios Hi again. The 38 power foods blog group that I am a part of has been writing and cooking each week about a particular food from 38 Power Foods: 150 Delicious Recipes with the 38 Healthiest Ingredients, put out by the editor’s at Martha Stewart’s Healthy Living Magazine. Pistachios are the st of the foods listed in the book and I’ve been waiti
Sweet Almond Biscotti with Chocolate Chips Sweet Almond Biscotti with Chocolate Chips When it comes to food, what is your ideal smell of something heavenly? For me, other than freshly baked bread, it is toasted almonds—and I’m sure there is a perfume company out there that has already bottled that scent. This week the 38 Power Foods blog group is talking about almonds. There are two varieti
Dear Readers, It’s my honor to announce that ”My Healthy Eating Habits” has been placed on the list of the “Top 100 Food Blogs to Follow in 2013,” a compilation by Couponaudit. If you scroll down, you’ll find my blog listed at #61. You’ll also find some of my favorite blogs here too. Thank you for your continued support! An infographic by the tea
Edamame with Spicy Pepper and Garlic Edamame is the funny sounding food chosen for this week’s 38 Power Foods blog group. I had been calling it “eda-meem” for at least a year before realizing that it’s pronounced more like “Etta Mom-eh” —eh-dah-ma-meh (e-d?-‘mä-ma). This legume is as new to me as it may be to some of you. It has been in the supermarkets for some time now, but somehow it has
Split Pea Soup with Barley and Carrots Welcome back, and Happy New Year! Yeah, I know we are well into the New Year, but this is my first post of this 365 day block. It’s good to be back! This week the members of the 38 Power Foods blog group are cooking up peas, and I’m starting off with a favorite comfort food for many people: split pea soup. Lake Mendocino in Ukiah, California Like other
sugar-plums Quite some years ago, I entered my mother’s kitchen as a chemist would enter a laboratory to mix up a healthy sugar-free concoction that would satisfy my sweet tooth. I gathered a variety of mixed fruits and nuts, put them in the food processor, pressed the on switch and… eureka! I found something so easy, so tasty, and with enough intensity to satisfy my sweet tooth. My
Beans As a child I rarely ate beans. They just weren’t on the menu in my mother’s kitchen—except for taco night when we’d have a side of canned refried beans. My only other introduction to beans, were the sweet canned beans that tend to show up at 4th of July and Labor Day parties. Beans are often the brunt of jokes and caricatures, like in the movie Blazing Saddles when the cowboys pass ga
Quinoa with Brussels Sprouts, Sausage, Almonds, Leeks and Dried Cranberries My first experience with quinoa, the blog group’s power food of the week, was about 8 years back. I had heard about all the marvelous nutritional benefits from quinoa so I made a special trip to the health food store to buy a box and bring it home. I cooked it up by itself, tasted it, but I didn’t like it. I just co
My Daily Oatmeal This week the 38 Power Foods blog group is talking about one of my favorite power foods: oatmeal. I read about the benefits of oatmeal in Dr. Dean Ornish’s book The Spectrum (see *note). In his book, Dr. Ornish promotes oatmeal for a healthy heart. With further study, I found that oatmeal is low in calories, high in mineral content, and it’s a good source of soluble
Maple Cranberry Sauce with Pecans, Orange, and Apple Mmm Thanksgiving—it just wouldn’t be the same without cranberry sauce. When I was little, I couldn’t understand how the adults could eat whole berry sauce. The good sauce was the one that came out of a can and you could slice it, that’s what I thought. Now I wonder how I could have eaten that and liked it..agh! For years I’ve been making
Holiday Stuffed Squash Carnival Squash As the holidays approach, I’m taking time off from the 38 Power Foods blog group, as are the other girls. Even though it is a bit early, I’m finding myself more in the mood for holiday foods. On Thanksgiving Day, I particularly enjoy eating the stuffing and I realized that there are rarely leftovers. This got me to thinking that I wanted it now, withou
Coconut and Brown Rice Pudding Yay, this week my Power Foods blog group is looking at Brown Rice. Several years ago I made changes to my diet for health reasons. I had rheumatoid arthritis and no longer wanted to take strong medicines. I stopped eating white sugar and switched to occasional natural sugars, cut way back on dairy by 90%, reduced meat intake, began eating more vegetables, but
Pork Tenderloin with Pear Chutney Some years ago I saw a very funny independent Spanish film called El filandón, based in part on the short story Las peras de Dios by Antonio Pereira. It was about a family of pear farmers suffering a bad year when there was an over abundant supply of the fruit. Because they could not sell the pears they turned to eating them, rather than having them go to w
Tropical Papaya Chicken Salad If you’ve been following along with me, you know that each week I, and a group of fellow bloggers, write and post about a particular power food from a book called Power Foods: 150 delicious recipes with the 38 healthiest ingredients, published by the editors at Healthy Living, a Martha Stewart publication. And by the way, we devote this week to the papaya. The
Kiwi Fruit Kiwi Bird This week the 38 Power Foods blog group is taking a look at a small, but nutrition dense food. Kiwi fruit has only been in US markets since the early 1970’s. The fruit originated in China, where it is still the national fruit, and missionaries transported it to New Zealand at the beginning of the 20th century. From there the fruit was exported to California and o
Lip Smacking Orange Salad Citrus fruits are the topic of today’s power foods blog group, and I’ve chosen to tribute the orange. There’s good reason to drink to the orange, or drink up the orange juice. One orange has 116.2% daily nutritional value for vitamin C; it’s also a good source of fiber at 12.6% DV. Vitamin C intake helps to lower risk for inflammation by helping to prevent the fre
Blueberry Smoothie Today the Power Foods blog group takes a look at berries. As a food group, berries are great for you. Berries contain anthocyanins, which help to reduce inflammation, and may help to prevent cancer. My favorite berry, the blueberry, provides more antioxidants than many other fruits. Blueberries rank low in on the glycemic index (GI) so they are a good fruit for people with ty
Apricot Health Bars My sister has been asking me for a while now to post a recipe for a tasty snack bar. This week our Power Food blog group begins to examine the benefits of certain fruits that seem to be especially good for our bodies. Apricots are the on the list for three good reasons: they are high in beta-carotenoids, which are good for our eyes, skin, and hair; and they are also high
Spaghetti Squash with Garlic and Olive Oil The initial pleasure that I get from squash comes from looking at their shapes, sizes, colors, and to traveling to farmlands (real or imagined) to see an abundance of yellow and orange-toned field crops ready for the picking. If you’re looking for fiber, winter squash is an excellent source. The starch components in winter squash are what ma
Spaghetti and Turkey Meatballs with San Marzano Tomato Sauce Yesterday, if you asked me what my favorite vegetable was, I might have answered bell pepper, spinach, or corn. Today, as I considered the tomato, the vegetable for this week’s Power Foods blog group, I realized that the tomato has been my favorite vegetable all along. We consume it baked, grilled, roasted, and served in salads, s
Swiss Chard Smoothie My appreciation for Swiss chard began about 20 years ago when I bit into a Swiss chard pie, wow was that good! Since then, I’ve learned to eat it sautéed, in soups, bean stews, and burritos. This leafy green has an earthy, crisp and well-rounded flavor that not only
Sweet Potato Curry O’Henry I often hear the same old question from a dazed shoppers looking at the tubers on display, “Is this a sweet potato or a yam?” There are two reasons why consumers are stumped when buying sweet potatoes. Years ago, African slaves saw the sweet potatoes here and they called them yams because they resembled the hard tubers in Africa, so eventually the sweet pota
Spinach Omelette My grandmother always scolded me when I used the word “kid” instead of the word “child,” and please don’t you leave a comment scolding me either, when I say that I never met a kid who liked to eat spinach. Isn’t that why they came up with the cartoon Popeye, to get little kids to eat spinach? And that trick only worked with relative success. On the other hand, most adults d
Mushroom Ragout with Polenta Look what my friend Andy found hiking last week. As I started to research this week about mushrooms for the 38 Power Foods blog group, I was blown away when I read, “Of all the earth’s natural substances, mushrooms are among the most medicinal.” That shouldn’t have been such a surprise. The Chinese have been using mushrooms for culinary and medicinal purposes f
Kale Salad with Peanut Dressing Do you like kale? I just started eating it last year and I still haven’t developed a taste for it, but I’m working on it! This week the 38 Power Foods blog group is talking about kale. This leafy green vegetable is a member of the Brassica family, just like broccoli, cabbage, collard greens, and Brussels sprouts. The aggregate nutrient density index score (AN
Carrot and Zucchini Latkes Sorry, no more pictures from my vacation in Spain. I’m home now, and I’m sure you don’t want to see photos of my messy house, not after a 22 year-old male was in charge of house keeping. This week the members of 38 Power Foods blog group are cooking up carrots. You might be surprised to learn that carrots come in a variety of colors: white, purple, yellow, white,
Chicken with Potatoes and Romesco Sauce This is paella! It has been a few weeks since I have posted a Mark Bittman Recipe, but this week I am hosting The Food Matters Project so I have to honor to pick the recipe and post it in it’s entirety. It’s a challenge to choose a recipe when you have 500 to select from, but the choice became clear when narrowed down to Spanish cuisine. Since I’m in
Broccoli and Corn Soup This week the Power Foods blog group celebrates broccoli. The editors of the book say, “If broccoli were sold in a drugstore you’d probably need a prescription.” The vegetable is a cruciferous, and belongs to the cabbage family along with Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale, collards, and bok choy. Broccoli is good for detoxifying the body, lowering cholesterol, and it conta
Roasted Bell Pepper with Tuna and Orzo Roman Vessel I had an unforgettable weekend in Barcelona. Besides going to some very interesting restaurants: La Tramboia, Cerveceria Catalana and Farga, we visited the Museo de Historia de la Ciudad de Barcelona and saw the remains of a Roman town under the buildings of the downtown area, by the cathedral. It was truly spectacular! But… let’s get to this we
Beet Salad with Feta and Mint For me, and possibly for you too, summer brings the tasty pleasures of fresh fruit and vegetables and the time to enjoy eating them in the company of friends and family. I have wonderful memories as a child sitting at the dinner table surrounded by my family eating freshly cooked corn on the cob harvested from the backyard garden. Now, as a mother and cook, I e
California Salad with Avocado, Orange, and Walnuts It wasn’t easy getting out of bed today after lots of good fun and tension. Last night (Wednesday) we were biting our nails as we watched the Spanish soccer team play off against Portugal in the European Semi-finals. The game went to the penalties because neither team had been able to score a goal. But, the team pulled it off, sending the P
Mixed Grill with Chimichurri In the Phoenix area of Arizona we don’t enjoy the full experience of the four seasons. For the most part it’s hot, or cold. Fall and Spring are very short, and Summer–looooong! If you’ve ever flown over the city of Phoenix, you might estimate the number homes with pools at about 70%, and you would think that with so many pools in the backyards
