Summer Chicken Salad

This is another recipe I adapted from a restaurant. If you are boiling the chicken adding the celery, onion and carrots gets you chicken soup that you can serve before the salad or at another meal. Don't put too much mayo or it is watery. You don't need it with the pineapple. I serve this with raw veggies, black olives and bread or crackers, gluten free or regular. Yum!

4 Chicken breasts with bone (or buy precooked)
2 stalks celery sliced
1 onion, quartered
2 carrots sliced
salt and pepper to taste
water to cover.

2 stalks chopped celery
2 green onions, sliced
1 small can crushed unsweetened pineapple, drained
1/2 cup mayo (low fat is good) or to taste
1/2 tsp. salt or to taste
1/2 cup toasted almonds

Boil the chicken in water with the veggies, salt and pepper until tender, about 45-60 minutes. Let chicken cool and then remove from bone and chop into bite size pieces. Add the rest of the ingredients and toss to coat. Refrigerate.

Millie's Apple Chicken Salad

This is a quick, nutritious and delicious salad recipe that I copied from a local restaurant. It makes a good meal or sidedish.

Lettuce/greens of choice, torn
1-2 stalks celery, sliced
1 green onion sliced
1 apple, quartered and sliced thinly
chicken breast in thin strips (either deli or home cooked)
1-2 slices swiss cheese, in thin strips
yellow raisins
your favorite sweetish dressing such as poppy seed, celery seed, raspberry vinaigrette (see below)

Mix the ingredients together in the proportions and amount you need. Toss with a small mount of dressing.

Quick Berry Vinaigrette

In a blender, puree 1 tbls. chopped onion, 1/4 cup vinegar, 2-3 berries of choice. 1/2 - 1 tsp. sugar or stevia. While the blender is running, drizzle in 1/2 cup oil (canola or light olive oil) until blended.

Simple, creative meals

Eating does not have to involve elaborate preparations. Sometimes the simplest things are the tastiest. It takes just a little creativity to discover new foods that may become part of your recipe collection for a long, long time. Get out of your recipe and eating rut and go crazy!

Grilled cheese, for example, may be pretty boring. But, if you look for new bread options--gluten free or not, different cheeses and a few surprise ingredients, you have a delicious, easy, new food. Try raisin bread with gjetost cheese. Try a whole grain english muffin (or a gf option) with fresh mozzarella and tomato. How about pita or Chebe (GF) sandwich buns with horseradish cheddar and carmelized onions? Go crazy. Add pickles, artichoke hearts, roasted peppers, ham, apple or pear slices, pistachios, peanut butter, cream cheese, chocolate, dried cherries.....the point is to play with food. Don't take it so seriously.

Peanut butter sandwiches are also good but get really boring after a while. Do you feel a little guilty eating PB sandwiches for dinner? Not putting any effort into it? Again, try something new. Peanut butter on a different type of bread (GF or regular whole grain if possible) with low fat cream cheese and raisins is delicious. Try other types of nut butters and add some surprising ingredients. Adding fruits or vegetable to the sandwich makes it a balanced and healthy meal. Serve it with any fruit or vegetable you have on hand--cooked or raw--and you have a tasty meal.

And don't forget presentation. If you have the time and inclination, serve that grilled cheese on your good china with your drink in a crystal glass. Light some candles and turn down the lights. Even if you are eating alone! Eat picnic style, even in the winter. Roast chicken saugsage on sticks in the fireplace. Have fun.

Stuffed Cabbage

This recipe for stuffed cabbage is one that my mother learned from her mother and I learned from her. It really is quite simple and really good. I find it therapeutic to roll the cabbage. I am posting this in honor of my Aunt Emilie whose funeral was yesterday. Her son brought an arrangement of cabbage and flower in her roasting pan to the funeral home and altar in honor of the "gwumpke queen." Spelling is probably way off but you get the point! I serve this with the traditional Polish cucumber salad--sliced cucumber with sour cream or mayo (low fat is fine), salt, pepper and dill.

1 head of cabbage
1 cup of rice, cooked (makes 2 cups, I use brown for healthier version)
1 pound ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. pepper
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 can tomato sauce

Cook the chopped onion in the olive oil till soft either microwave or stovetop. Mix in ground beef and cooked rice, salt, pepper, garlic powder. Insert a knife around the core of the cabbage then steam in a microwaveable dish with about 1 cup of water till soft enough to roll. Remove the cabbage leaves from the head. Place filling (1/4-1/2 cup depending on size of leaf) on one end. Fold over the end, then the sides then the opposite end to make a package. Place seam down in a roasting pan. Pour tomato sauce over top of rolls and bake about 1 hour in a 350 degree oven. Serve with catsup.

Why does chicken soup taste better sometimes than others?

This may seem elementary to some of you but I have been making chicken soup with water, salt, pepper, chicken parts, celery, carrots, onion and sometimes a little parsely forever. Yet every time I make it it tastes differently. Sometimes it is great, sometimes OK and sometimes pretty bad. I have come to the conclusion that it mostly depends on the chicken! These days I use organic chicken breasts with the bone and skin, removing the skin and bone after it is cooked. This seems to make the best soup. Amish chicken appears to work as well. (If you use a mixture of dark and white meat it tastes even better but snce I am cutting fat, I don't use the dark pieces.) These chickens are not processed and are raised in a way that makes them taste better, hence the better soup. The other "secrets" are using a lot of chicken and vegetables to the amount of water. If you want more chicken soup, add more "stuff," not just more water. I cook the GF noodles, usually the spiral kind, separately and only add them to the bowl when serving. They basically dissolve if you leave them in the liquid. Try using whole grain brown rice or quinoa noodles for added nutrition and fiber. Brown and wild rice make good additions instead of noodles as well. Good homemade chicken soup is one of the foods I call "a love pat for your tummy."

Food is supposed to nourish us.

Do you ever think about why you eat what you do? Is it habit? Do you eat whatever someone else fixes for you, like McDonald's? Is the diet you follow easy and cheap? Maybe you don't think about it, just shovel in whatever is in front of you. Mindless eating like this is killing us. We feel rotten, we are irritable, we are diseased. It isn't just what we ARE eating, but what we are NOT eating. The point of eating, I think, is to nourish our bodies so that we can be healthy, function, be healthy and happy. All too often we just eat to fill up our stomachs or our emotional holes. Learn more about what foods nourish our bodies and begin to replace "bad" foods as much as possible with healthier alternatives. Do this even if it is one food per week. Every time you choose a healthy food, you don't eat something that isn't nourishing your body. Keep choosing healthy whenever you can. Every step helps. Consider whole grains and vegetables. Consider local produce because it is more likely to have retained it's nutrients. Consider organic. Consider non-processed. I say the closer it is to the original farm product, the better it is for you. It may be a bit more expensive to eat this way, but it is cheaper in the long run considering the financial and emotional health care costs you will spend eventually by eating garbage. Eventually, if enough consumers demand healthier alternatives, the cheaper they will become.

Artichoke and Cream Cheese Stuffed Portabellas

This is so yummy. It is an alternative to meat that is healthy and delicious. Portabella mushrooms are a great substitute for beef and is much cheaper. This recipe is also very quick. I served these with steamed broccoli tossed with lemon juice and a fruit salad.

12 oz. cream cheese (can be low fat)
1/4 c sour cream (low or nofat is fine)
2-3 minced garlic cloves
1/2 cup diced artichoke hearts
1 oz. parmesan cheese
1 green onion, thinkly sliced
1/4 cup GF or regular breadcrumbs mixed with 2 tsp. italian seasonings
4 large portabella mushroom caps
4 slices of provolone cheese (can be low fat)

Mix all the ingredients though green onion using a mixer. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Clean mushrooms and remove the stem at the base. Place stem side up on baking sheet. Divide the cheese mixture evenly between the mushrooms and spread to edges. Sprinkle each with 1/4 breadcrumb mixture. Bake 5-10 min. until crumbs are golden. Top with cheese slice and bake 10-15 more minutes until cheese is melted and bubbly. Makes 4 servings.