Tag Archives: low carb

I finally mastered the art of making Quinoa!

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Friends, learning to make that perfect Quinoa has been a long process for me. My husband is the chef. That’s just the way things are. But I have certain responsibilities in the kitchen, simply because I have to feed my children usually before he gets home. So making Quinoa has fallen square on my shoulders. Since that is the type of food that is made in larger quantities, Orlando usually uses “my” cooked Quinoa for his recipes. And its always something. Its too bland, or  too mushy, or too hard…I just hadn’t quite tweaked it. Until now!!!! I finally figured out what I had been doing wrong!!!!!!! YAY!!!!

Here is the issue…certain quinoa boxes will tell you to add 2 cups of water per cup of quinoa, others will tell you 1 1/2. Some Quinoa recipes recommend rinsing the quinoa and others don’t. I read about it and feel that you should rinse your Quinoa because it contains Saponin – and that creates a bitter taste. When you rinse it you remove that thin layer of Saponin that it has.

But if you add 2 cups of water after rinsing the Quinoa…now you’ve got yourself some mushy quinoa!!! Too much or too little water creates a huge problem for those little grains and of course, I have fallen victim to both scenarios! Until now!

So here is my perfected Quinoa recipe. 

  • 2 cups of Quinoa
  • Rinse quinoa in water and drain the water as best as you can
  • then add about 1 cup of water or chicken broth (I like broth better) per cup of Quinoa.  When I say about 1 cup its because I put in a generous cup – more than 1 cup but less than 1 1/2. But somewhere in that range.
  • Add whatever you want – carrots, zucchini, peas, garlic cloves, cinnamon stick, raisins, broccoli …any veggie you want.
  • Bring to a boil
  • Put a tight lid on and bring to a simmer for 15 minutes – and DO NOT OPEN THAT LID AGAIN!!!!! Let it cook!!!!! When it beeps, you will have a fluffy Quinoa. AT LAST!

My husband made the Fried Quinoa with kimchee recipe the other day at home and actually told me that the Quinoa was cooked perfectly! But I didn’t make enough so he asked me to make 1 more cup… I was scared my success was a one time wonder but sure enough the second batch came out as good as the first! The recipe came out so spectacular that we may actually post a take 2 round of this recipe because Orlando tried it for the first time on video with you all and now he has really perfected it. So keep your eyes peeled!

NOTE:  I couldn’t end this post without elaborating a little bit more on adding veggies to your Quinoa. It is not necessary to do so, however, I strongly believe you should never pass up the opportunity to pile on veggies to your meals.  Especially, if you are a beginner eating vegetables, or just aren’t so crazy about them…. chopping them up into little pieces and adding them to things like Quinoa makes them an insignificant part of the meal from a taste perspective…but all their fiber and nutrients and minerals are making a significant impact in your body. So, be bold. Add vegetables any where you can. Your eggs, your pizza, your quinoa….aim to have at least 1 vegetable with every meal. You won’t regret it, and you may even start liking them if you don’t already!!!!!!!!!!!! Never stop PILING ON THE GREENS!

Spicy Quinoa Kimchi Fried Rice

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healthy alternative to fried rice

healthy alternative to fried rice

What we used:

  • 3 cups Quinoa
  • 2 cups frozen vegetables (stir fry mix) chopped
  • 1 fried egg per serving
  • 1 tbsp ginger
  • 2 tbsp garlic
  • 3/4 of a bottle of kimchi
  • (reserve some of the liquid from the kimchi)
  • 1/2 onion
  • Sauce – 2tbsp liquid aminos, 1 tbsp honey, 1 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar, dash of red pepper flake – mix well (add to taste, we probably used 1/4 of what we made)

I’m reading a new fascinating book “The Body Ecology Diet” and I’ve discovered the benefits of cultured vegetables. Cultured vegetables are vegetables that are left to “ferment” in an air tight container for several days allowing healthy bacteria to form. During this fermentation period, the friendly bacteria reproduces and converts sugars and starches to lactic acid.

They become rich in lactobacilli (what we know as “probiotics”) and enzyme, vitamins A, B, and C and turn into an alkaline-forming food. In English, this basically means it is a food for health and longevity!!!!!

Among the benefits listed for cultured vegetables are:

  • Help re-establish a healthy inner ecosystem.
  • Great for weight loss
  • Improve digestion
  • Help eliminate sugar cravings!!!!!
  • Help cleanse your system
  • Great for your skin.

The Body Ecology has some basic recipes for making your own cultured vegetables, and if you make them in batches and eat it everyday, it is a much cheaper alternative than taking probiotic supplements. We plan to make them at home, but haven’t gotten around to it yet…so I went to Whole Foods looking for some ready-made cultured vegetables that I could try in the meantime.

What I found was Kimchi. Its a Korean condiment -basically fermented cabbage and other vegetables, with a mix of salt, vinegar and other spices. It was the only cultured vegetable food I found in the store. I bought it, brought it home and a little scared, tried it! I actually liked it and since I bought have used it in my scrambled eggs in the morning, in my salads for lunch, and in the quinoa fried rice Orlando made.

I posted this video of Orlando making the quinoa mainly because it was his first time making it. I thought it would be great for you to see how he creates his meals. He’s always trying new things and changing his mind and sometimes the meal isn’t working out and he figures out how to save it! I think its pretty cool to see his process…and at the end he always comes through.

So for now, Kimchi is a big star in our home but stay tuned….we will be making our own cultured vegetables very soon!!!!!

 

Simple, Fast and Delicious Healthy Dinner Recipe

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Once a week, usually on Mondays, but this week yesterday, Orlando calls me on his way home from work and says, I feel like eating something quick and easy tonight with little mess. This is music to my ears, because as lucky I am that Orlando cooks…the mess he leaves in the kitchen is no joke!!!!! So we have developed this simple staple that is just so easy to make and absolutely divine!

A nice piece of fish of your choosing
cauliflower mash
asparagus and leeks sauteed

VOILA!

This is really no different than a classic American meal of chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans or something like that. And for those of you who do not eat seafood, you can replace the fish with chicken of course…

But as boring as it may sound or look, the dish has flavors that blow me away and leave me completely satisfied. And let’s quickly touch up on the health benefits of the dish:

Our dish consisted of 3 non starchy vegetables and 1 lean protein with lots of omega 3 fatty acids. The seasonings used were kosher salt (less sodium than table salt and equivalent to sea salt), pepper, marsala wine (very little used and heat evaporates most of the sugar it contains), organic unsalted butter (much healthier than margarine or any fake butter), coconut oil (good source of fat), and lemon to drizzle on top of the fish (lemon is helpful for digestion and cleansing your body).

It is so healthy and satisfying that I just had to share it! Now, for the preparation:

Yesterday Orlando opted for HOGFISH. We love to buy our fish from a little market across the street called Captain’s Tavern. They sell wonderful fresh fish and the quality is spectacular. Caveat...I have never found wild salmon there so for the days we choose wild salmon we buy at Publix or Whole Foods depending on the better deal!

Orlando seasons it with a little salt and pepper and sazon completo and grills it on our handy little griddle. The griddle is great because he puts all the fish on there at the same time and they cook in about 7-8 minutes.

He used our basic cauliflower mash recipe – although he did do a variation this time that I thought I should share. Instead of adding milk which he normally does, he decided to use the water that the cauliflower was boiled in. The taste and texture still came out delicious but it is a much healthier alternative because you are eliminating milk and adding all the nutrients from the cauliflower that escaped into the water. I encourage you to try this variation!

And with the veggies he chopped them up and sautéed them in a pan over a little coconut oil seasoned with salt, pepper for about 8 minutes and a medium high temperature. When the bottom starts crusting he likes to deglaze the pan with a little marsala wine for 3 more minutes.

And of course as an added benefit…. since he made the fish on the griddle, he made over a pound of it and extra cauliflower mash so the kids will have a delicious dinner tonight!!!! As usual, since the veggies are the star in our meals, there was nothing left of those so I’ll have to whip up some green veggies for the kids!!!

Afraid my veggies will go bad Soup- a pleasant surprise.

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Talking to my cousin Stephanie the other day, she told me about some crazy concoction she invented the other day for fear that all the veggies she bought from Whole Foods would go bad. I was then reading an interesting book “The Body Ecology Diet” and it discusses the many benefits of soups and suggests getting creative with veggies that are about to spoil. What struck me the most was that the book suggests that making soup is fool-proof, meaning you don’t have to know how to cook to pull it off. Since everyone knows I can’t cook for the life of me, I had to try this.

So on Sunday, considering we were in this fake hurricane mode and I was stuck at home anyway, I gave it a shot and tried the following:

I started off by chopping up a ton of celery which was already wilting, ginger, garlic and onions and sauteeing them over some coconut oil. Then I poured in organic chicken broth that I had at home, some left over vegetable broth in the fridge that was about to go bad, carrots, cabbage, rainbow chard, squash, zucchini, and cauliflower. Its pretty much everything I had in the fridge, including leftover veggies from a vegetable tray we served at a get together we had. Instead of tossing the leftovers, I put them in the soup! I added about 5 cayenne pepper liquid drops, a little sazon completo, turmeric powder, and celtic sea salt.

I brought the soup to a boil, then simmered for 20 minutes (until the carrots were tender) and voila! I made the very first soup concoction of my own!!!!! I wanted the soup to be spicy because this pregnancy is stuffing up my sinuses, but when I tasted it I realized the cayenne pepper hadn’t spiced it up much, so I added about 5 more drops to my own personal soup and it made it spicier.

The verdict… I was pleasantly surprised!!! Orlando expected garbage and found it to be bland at first but after a few sips, he actually liked it. The next day I tried another variety and wasn’t quite as successful, it was totally bland…but that’s only because i’m learning to play with seasonings and really am an amateur!

Let’s face it, it can’t compare to the meals my husband makes and it can definitely use a lot of work, but the point is I’m proud to say my kids loved it; it was pretty good; and most importantly it was a bowl of health!!!!!

So the next time your veggies are about to spoil, think twice before you toss and try making your own soup at home. And if your kids are not old enough to drink soups yet, you can puree the leftovers and give it to them that way.

Good luck!!!! Please reply and let us know of any inventions you think are worth sharing.

Carb alternatives

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We do not follow Atkins, however, we do believe that you need to eliminate the rices, breads, pastas, crackers of  your daily diet. The problem is not that “Carbohydrates” are bad for you. Carbs provide energy and energy is necessary for life. The problem is that we are living in a society where wheat (gluten) has been altered to the point that it is dangerous for you. The rise of Celiac’s disease and irritable bowel syndrome are highly attributed to these products.  It used to be that the white carbs were the bad ones because they were processed and that continues to be true…however, we are fooled into thinking that whole wheat is  a “healthy” alternative, when the research is now proving otherwise. Unfortunately, even when you shop at the store and read titles like “Multi-Grain” bread or chips, if you follow our principle of READING THE INGREDIENTS, you will find that these products are made primarily of whole wheat. You need to stick to WHOLE GRAINS and it has to be 100% whole grains.

Now, we are Cuban. We eat double and sometimes triple carbs in most meals (white rice, black beans, and yucca is a common example).  It is tough for us to make a meal without “carbs”until this day. What do we do?  We have learned to replace the carbs that we are used to (rice, pasta, potatoes) with vegetables that are satisfying, delicious, and starchy.

Here’s a a general idea…

You want a baked potato= make a sweet potato (no butter or sugar needed) it is sweet and healthy on its own.

You want mashed potatoes= make a cauliflower mashed potato. You won’t know the difference.

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/lowcarbsidedishes/r/cauliflowermash.htm

You craving pasta? Instead of pasta, roast a spaghetti squash, make a simple tomato sauce with ground turkey, and pour it atop the squash. Is it identical? No. But you won’t miss the pasta after a while.

http://tastykitchen.com/blog/2010/02/how-to-bake-spaghetti-squash/  (This is just one website to teach you how to make the spaghetti squash but you can google it and find other informational websites)

Often times rice is the cornerstone of all meals. Rice is easily replicated by whole grains. Don’t fall into the “brown rice” scam. Most brown rice is just white rice with molasses and not a whole lot more nutritious.  Get whole grains like Quinoa, cracked bulgar, and millet.

You can also put raw cauliflower in a food processor and it will turn into “rice-like” portions that you can saute and serve in place of rice. You can actually make a pizza crust out of it.

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/lowcarbsidedishes/r/caulirice.htm

http://www.recipegirl.com/2012/01/16/cauliflower-crust-hawaiian-pizza

PLEASE NOTE: Don’t dream about making this pizza recipe without PARCHMENT PAPER. The crust is too sticky and won’t succeed without parchment paper.

For a great article on the evolution of wheat, please read this article:

http://boingboing.net/2011/10/26/triticum-fever-by-dr-william-davis-author-of-wheat-belly.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+boingboing/iBag+(Boing+Boing)