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Amazing Methods To Make Recipes More Nourishing

September 19, 2009 by Fiona Wyresdle  
Filed under Weight Loss

While most diet Gurus like Robert Atkins agree that refined sugar is not good for you and can be downright harmful. Other pundits say that it is not as bad as many nay-sayers’ proclaim. One thing that is for sure with healthy cooking is you can be sure that you control what goes into any treats you are making. You don’t have to buy commercial cakes and cookies which contain empty calories; you might make your own.

Sugar basically provides empty calories but there are ways of replacing this sweetener with other more nutritional products. Healthy home cooking and baking enables you to make good use of great recipes. Your family will be so delighted with your efforts, they won’t even notice if you slip in a few extra vitamins and minerals.

When my kids were small, they detested eating veggies, but one technique I could get these essential foods down the hatch was by grating them and adding them to ground beef. So meat loaf, bolognaise sauce, and any other recipe for ground beef was rich with grated carrot or grated vegetables of any of the pumpkin type.

Ad grated carrot of pumpkin to your baking, it works well with cakes and there is nothing quite as delicious as carrot cake or muffins. Pumpkin works in a similar way and it is great in breads. It is a sweet vegetable, so it also sweetens your cooking. Add extras such as mixed seeds, including pumpkin and sunflower.

Sugar is not a simple substance to indict or acquit, and anti-sugar “ranters” abound on every shelf in the “Health Food” section of the book stores. Nevertheless by the same token, other experts agree that the only thing sugar is truly bad for is tooth decay. Really this is the sole consistently documented material available to indict sugar.

You can still cook and bake and use sugar, but by making your own, rather than buying commercial cookies and cakes, you control how much sugar is used. Like all things, sugars in moderation are not all bad.

No matter how people in the past have decried how bad alcohol is for you, for the past 20 years European researches have been looking into the health Benefits of drinking red wine. People in Europe live longer and suffer from less dread diseases than Americans. It has been found that the Resevratrol contained in red wine is the key to this. So now that we know this, we are told to drink red wine in moderation to stay healthy and live longer. Grape juice and Resevratrol supplements don’t do nearly as much good as the combination of alcohol and this substance.

Healthy cooking and good health is achieved and maintained through good common sense. Understanding a little about the calories and nutrients in food is pretty important. But one good rule of thumb, is “if grandma wouldn’t recognize it, don’t eat it, it won’t be good for you”.

If you’re looking for some homemade recipes you might want to look at best recipe for lemonade and old fashioned eggnog recipe.

Quick and Healthy Desserts

March 31, 2009 by Kristen Thorpe  
Filed under Diet

Let’s face it, when you’ve had a busy day, you want to be able to come home and unwind. Maybe enjoy some white wine and cheese, or maybe a delicious chocolate dessert. While we certainly deserve our treats, some of these can add unwanted pounds. For dessert-lovers, the trick to keeping trim is to create your own unique recipes. Here a just a couple of simple ideas that you might enjoy.

Now remember, whether you’re cooking a meal or baking a dessert, take the time to make it fun – be creative and don’t make it too difficult. It can be as easy as taking a store-bought mix and adding some special ingredients of your own. Be sure to substitute the healthiest ingredients you can so the dessert is delicious but less fattening.

Here’s a fun cookie recipe to try that starts with a box of double chocolate cake mix. With a few minor adjustments you can easily create pancake cookies, and they will even be low fat too. All it takes is combining your mix with one half cup of soymilk, 2 caps of vegetable oil and a little water. Mix until the consistency is like cookie dough, then spoon on a pan and bake in the oven for about 10 minutes. If the cookies become too puffy during baking, just take a spatula or fork and flatten them to look more like pancakes. Once they’re done, remove and cool on a cooling rack.

Once cooled, you can top them off with some fresh blueberries or chopped strawberries for a perfectly delicious treat. The texture of the cookie should be very soft which is a yummy combination with fresh fruit. Pour yourself a warm cocoa or a glass of milk and enjoy. This is a great treat for the whole family with much less fat than most cookies.

You can also take a batch of your favorite granola and combine them with some of you favorite mixed berries. You’ll want to first heat the berries in an oven for a few minutes so they are soft and warm. Meanwhile, combine the granola with a small amount of soymilk and microwave the mixture for a minute or so. Take your warm fruit and place it on top of the granola, stir and enjoy. This is a nice special dessert to enjoy with a warm soothing tea.

While these recipes are not complicated or overly artistic, they are simply delicious and will help you to stay on a healthy path even when you are indulging. The key to satisfaction in dessert isn’t in the richness, but in the taste. The more you train your taste buds to enjoy fresh and delicate flavors, the more you will appreciate the beauty of a healthy and time savvy dessert.

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