Recipes for healthy eating

[JOhn]

Ok guys & gals I need a little help with some recipes. As a few of you know I had a serious heart attack a few years back with one of the major contributing factors being High cholesterol. In an effort to stick around a few extra years I've been trying to eat a lot better and have been doing so/so at it. Problem is I'm a single dad raising 3 kids who are hard to please, food wise.

13 y/o daughter loves her steaks and desserts
10 y/o son will pretty much eat anything that doesn't bite him first.
5 y/o son is very picky eater, but loves his fruits and PB&J sandwiches.

I also have a very limited budget, as mom don't pay support, so I need stuff that pretty inexpensive and is good as leftovers or recipes that can be sized for 1-4 people. I prefer simple recipes to make, but I am an excellent cook so not afraid of tough complicated cooking. But really the expense is my biggest concerns, along with stuff that the kids will like.

I tend to make a lot of Chicken, and try to cut back on the fried foods & red meat, but frankly I've run out of ideas. We also eat a lot of Rice and such.

So please trow me some good recipes with some variety & help me out here. Lots of rep & gratitude for good stuff.

[BucEyedPea]

Save all your veggie cuttings and left over scraps by putting in the freezer in a container. Include bones and meats. When you have enough put in a stock pot, add a touch of vinegar to leech calcium from any bones, add seasonings to your tastes, cover with broth bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours. In the last hour add brown rice or orzo pasta and Himalaya salt to taste. It's a great soup and easy to make. No effort at all.

[mlyonsd]

Souper Chicken

Serve with some kind of salad, fresh fruit is good

2 C brown rice, raw
4 C chicken bouillion....cicken broth can be substituted if you're lazy
1 C mushrooms, whole or sliced
6 chicken breast halves, skinned/boneless
1 pkg dry onion soup

In a large non-stick casserole pan, combine rice, chicken boullion, and mushrooms.

Place chicken breasts on top of the previous mixture and sprinkle the onion soup over the top.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 1 1/2 hours.

Serves 6.

* sometimes I add other frozen mixed vegetables. Cauliflower is also good in this dish. The onion soup flavors the chicken very well.

Calories per serving about 384

[RockChalk]

http://www.eatbetteramerica.com

[rambleonthruthefog]

baked or panfried fish is an easy one. i like to marinate some tilapia in lemon juice for bout an hour. bread it in some flour with a little cayan pepper to taste. put enough olive oil in the pan to cover the bottom. cook on both sides over medium heat for bout 3 min. the sauce is a one part sour cream 1 part guacamole. its damn good.

[BigOlChiefsfan]

Blanche sugar-snap peas in boiling water (or the microwave) and toss with a little bit of sesame oil. Add a few sliced mushrooms and toss to soak up any remaining sesame oil. Finger food for kids and I bet they'll like it (put out a towel to wipe sesame-oiled fingers, or make them use forks, whatever). Snap peas too expensive? Grow your own, blanche and freeze them in half-lb ziplock batches. Grow snow-peas too. I usually plant mine starting the last part of feb and more small batches on thru March.

grow your own

Oatmeal. Old fashioned or steel cut. Every day. Add a pinch of fresh-ground flax-seed (grind in an old whirlybird coffee grinder - the stuff goes rancid pretty quick after it's ground, so I just grind a little every few days). This will drop your cholesterol in about a month. Feed the kids oatmeal every day, get 'em off boxed cereal asap. Put a smiley face on their bowl w/raisins or honey. I don't care if cold cereal is 'easy' and 'cheap', it's not cheap if it batters their pancreas every day until it gives out. A huge percentage of this country is diabetic/pre-diabetic. I blame cold cereal and white bread.

Soak a bag of beans overnight and cook them or (unsoaked) split peas every week, flavor with a little bit of ham or bacon for the last half-hour, but add about 4 tablespoons of olive oil to the beanpot. When the beans are done I add an onion or two that I cooked in olive oil with curry powder, a few serrano chiles, ginger, mustard seeds and cumin seed, lots of garlic. IF this is too spicy for the kids, just spice up your share. The curry and spices will also help w/your cholesterol. And I love this stuff.

Eat sardines and kippered herring for lunch once or twice a week. Eat more salmon (canned salmon patties are cheap, note that canned salmon is on sale for lent right now. Stock up) Make beef and barley soup, find a recipe online that you like. Cook a lot of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, turnips. The brassica family has a plethora of 'protective' ingredients, really ought to eat some of these every day. More sweet potatoes - don't need to fill them with marshmallows, just bake or roast them, cut open and serve hot sprinkled with cinnamon and a pat of butter. They're sweet enough as is for me, but if you need a little honey or real maple syrup...ok. Real sweeteners like honey and maple syrup cost more? Just up front. That forces you to use less. Trust me, cheap sweeteners are not so cheap in the long run. See diabetes info, above.

When in doubt, ask yourself 'would my great grandmother recognize this as food?' If it comes in a box with a pouch of flavoring crapola, no, she would not. If you pour it from a box and cover it with milk, no she would not. If she would have known how to peel it and cook it, you're probably safe to eat it. Since my kin lived on pork, beef, fish they caught, eggs, butter, garden produce, milk, beans, cabbage/kraut and oatmeal and usually lived to be in their 90's, this sorta goes against the 'don't eat any fat, don't eat any meat, live on 'healthy whole grains' mantra that a lot of folks repeat. Listening to those folks may well be the reason the whole damned country is fat and has heart disease.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by NewPhin

This, seriously. The website is awesome, and we've had a subscription for years. Really great magazine.

I love. One issue I cooked just about everything in it....all of it was AWESOME!

[Fire Me Boy!]

I had that subscription for a year and hated it. The food was OK to pretty good, but for me the price was way too high for something that seemed to be 80 percent ads. Especially when a little common sense can turn just about any recipe "healthy".

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by Fire Me Boy!

I had that subscription for a year and hated it. The food was OK to pretty good, but for me the price was way too high for something that seemed to be 80 percent ads. Especially when a little common sense can turn just about any recipe "healthy".

Really? Weird. I absolutely love that magazine and the food in it.

[Fire Me Boy!]

Originally Posted by NewPhin

Really? Weird. I absolutely love that magazine and the food in it.

I know. I think I bought it on your recommendation.

[BWillie]

Is this healthy?

Ingredients: Filtered Carbonated Water, Organic Erythritol, Organic Dragonfruit Puree, Organic Lemon Juice Concentrate, Natural Flavor, Monk Fruit Juice Concentrate, Organic Lions Mane mushroom extract, Organic cordyceps mushroom extract, Panasonic Ginseng Root Extract, L-Theanine, Organic Caffeine from Green Tea Extract

[loochy]

Originally Posted by BWillie

Is this healthy?

Ingredients: Filtered Carbonated Water, Organic Erythritol, Organic Dragonfruit Puree, Organic Lemon Juice Concentrate, Natural Flavor, Monk Fruit Juice Concentrate, Organic Lions Mane mushroom extract, Organic cordyceps mushroom extract, Panasonic Ginseng Root Extract, L-Theanine, Organic Caffeine from Green Tea Extract

Looks like some sort of juice concoction with lots of gimmick ingredients. It's not exactly bad or anything, but it looks like some kind of sugary juice energy drink. It's hard to say what is "healthy" and what is "not healthy". It really depends on circumstances and your overall diet as a whole. It's not obviously terrible, like eating a twinkie or takis, but its not like having a plain grilled chicken breast and a plain greens salad either.

If your blood sugar is low and/or you need a quick mental energy boost, then hit it. If your daily caloric budget can afford it, then go for it. I'd steer clear of drinking sugary calories though. Drink water and save the calories for solid food. If you want the, lion's mane, cordyceps, ginseng, theanine, or caffeine, just take the pill or powder for supplements.

[BWillie]

Originally Posted by loochy

Looks like some sort of juice concoction with lots of gimmick ingredients. It's not exactly bad or anything, but it looks like some kind of sugary juice energy drink. It's hard to say what is "healthy" and what is "not healthy". It really depends on circumstances and your overall diet as a whole. It's not obviously terrible, like eating a twinkie or takis, but its not like having a plain grilled chicken breast and a plain greens salad either.

If your blood sugar is low and/or you need a quick mental energy boost, then hit it. If your daily caloric budget can afford it, then go for it. I'd steer clear of drinking sugary calories though. Drink water and save the calories for solid food. If you want the, lion's mane, cordyceps, ginseng, theanine, or caffeine, just take the pill or powder for supplements.

Ok can I drink 21 of these a week instead of 21 Red Bulls will it be significantly more healthy lol

Trying to replace energy drinks

Have been taking Lions Mane, Cordyceps and L Tyrosine in pill form. Seems to help but ain't nothing like Caffeine for me

[scho63]

What ever happened to JOhn?

Pretty good poster.

[loochy]

Originally Posted by BWillie

Ok can I drink 21 of these a week instead of 21 Red Bulls will it be significantly more healthy lol

Trying to replace energy drinks

Have been taking Lions Mane, Cordyceps and L Tyrosine in pill form. Seems to help but ain't nothing like Caffeine for me

Maybe. If it's a full sugar red bull vs that, then yes. The juice will undoubtedly provide more vitamins and nutrients. A sugar free red bull vs the juice might be a toss up depending on your situation. The health of artificial sweeteners is highly debated, but almost all studies point to it being inert. And the carbonation isn't good for your teeth. But would a sugar free red bull be more or less healthy than a full sugar juice drink? Once again it all depends on your situation. Choose accordingly.


On a side note, I think ideally we'd all mostly eat some kind of grilled meat (lean steak, fish, chicken) and a ton of raw green veggies and fruits with maybe the occasional starchy carb (rice or potatoes) and always drink only water. Not that it has anything to do with your drink, Bwillie, but I'm just saying.

[BigOlChiefsfan]

https://www.easypeasyfoodie.com/yellow-split-pea-dhal/

You can add cumin seed and dried chile to suit - I add a 4 oz can or 2 of diced roasted green chile to mine. I usually eat mine as 'soup' but you can serve this over rice or barley and make your $$$ stretch a bit.