Marinate 1 lb of bay scallops in the juice of 2 lemons while you begin.
6 cloves fresh garlic chopped and sauteed in
2 tblsp olive oil

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What’s the difference between stock and broth?  Stock is an ingredient and broth is a finished product.  You make a flavorful stock to use as a base for soups and other recipes.  Many times, I simply use a box of Swanson broth.  See recipe:  Continue reading →

I knew that the acids in apple cider vinegar improve digestion and deter the growth of disease-causing bacteria in the digestive tract. The minerals potassium, sodium, calcium, and magnesium bind to the acids and neutralize them when the digestive tract needs to be more alkaline. But there are a lot of things I did not know about it. When I researched it for myself, I wanted to share it with you, too. Continue reading →

Crispy eggplant oven fried

Last night’s dinner was oven fried eggplant wrapped in a pita with hummus, tahina sauce.  Into the toaster oven for 10 minutes wrapped loosely in foil. Add lettuce, tomato and mediterranean pickles before eating.  I had to make this blog post so I could find the recipe again.

I love oven fried eggplant because i like it crispy without the oil.  Preheat a 425 degree oven, cut eggplant into 1/2″ rounds, dip in Eggbeaters, coat with seasoned panko or Italian breadcrumbs.  Place on a Pam-sprayed, foil-lined metal cookie sheet, leaving at least a pencil width space between them to let the sides crisp. Spray the tops with more Pam. 15-25 minutes on a lower rack in the oven, they’re done when they’re as golden as you like. I’m a 25 minute gal myself.  

Eggplant is really good this way. It puts like a fried chicken kinda crust on it, and the eggplant doesn’t get mooshy. This would also make a good sandwich on a sub roll with sauteed bell peppers and onions.  The eggplant takes on a meaty-ish texture when done like this.  If you don’t care about low fat, brush the eggplant rounds with olive oil as they bake.

I’ve also added 1 tsp each crushed coriander seeds and fennel seeds to the panko/ breadcrumbs and it is delicious.  Buy the mediterranean pickles at Walmart or Publix in the kosher section.

Read Horizons Magazine online

A Three Sisters Garden

The Three Sisters all work together. Critters will find it harder to invade your garden by interplanting your corn, beans and squash. The corn stalk serves as a pole for the beans, the beans help to add the nitrogen to the soil that the corn needs, and the squash provides a ground cover of shade that helps the soil retain moisture.

What is a Three Sisters Garden?  It is an ancient method of gardening using an intercropping system which grows corn, beans, and squash crops simultaneously in the same growing area that is typically a rounded mound of soil, often called a hill. Continue reading →

I love the prepackaged smoked turkey drumsticks I buy at WalMart and I found how to cook them fall-off-the-bone-tender. (See recipe below for light and lowfat collard greens with smoked turkey legs.)  First I Googled how to heat the Eddy’s smoked turkey drumsticks and got a lot of wrong answers.  Most said simply heat them up in the oven or microwave — that leaves them very, very tough.  I experimented to find how to heat them so they are tender. I found the juiciest way to cook them so they fall right off the bone. This applies also for the Frick’s Smoked Turkey Drums and Alexander & Hornung Smoked Turkey Legs.  I cooked them in the oven for years, but I now prefer cooking them on the stove — see directions below for both methods.    Continue reading →

I’ve had a relaxing, yet busy and productive week.  Last Friday, after I closed on my mortgage refinance, I got a few days off to enjoy the 4th of July weekend and recuperate from the month long fiasco of daily copying of financial documents before I had to begin working on the August issue of Horizons Magazine. I didn’t know until the very day of closing whether I would close at all or not, so when I did, it was a big pressure off me.  I took a few days off to decompress and ended up sleeping a lot.  I also didn’t feel like cooking much and so I made my favorite garlic parsley hummus and some babaganoush and ate it all weekend with pita triangles. When I’m feeling stressed, it relaxes me to cook and I love creating healthy and low fat versions of my favorite foods.  I used to think of hummus and pita as a snack, but now I realize it’s a meal in itself.  I enjoy food so much more since I changed to a healthier diet.  Simpler foods satisfy me and I eat a lot less of them. Continue reading →

I just posted some of my delicious, low fat vegetarian fake meats and substitutes I like at the Goddess Grub website. Here’s what I wrote:

GODDESS GRUB TIP: While I mostly eat and prefer natural, unprocessed foods, there are times I crave a burger or meatballs or a hot dog.  Many of them are made from TVP, or texturized vegetable protein.  MMM, sounds yummy, huh?  The flavoring comes from the spices and other ingredients.  The TVP supplies protein, nutrients and the meaty texture we Westerners (Americans) have all grown up on. Continue reading →

Yesterday I made this really good salad.  I didn’t want to have any meat, but I wanted substance, since the salad would be my entire dinner.  So I opened a package of chopped romaine and chopped it even further, then I added some sliced red onion and chopped black olives, tomato and capers.  Then I chopped a giant Golden Yukon potato and cooked it in a nonstick frypan until the pieces were almost crisp.  Halfway through, I added a bunch of drained, cooked garbanzo beans and kept tossing them all together.   At the same time, I sauteed a sliced onion in another pan until it carmelized and that went on top of the potatoes.  If you cook the onion with the potato, the potato will steam instead of saute, and I wanted to trick myself into thinking the potato pieces were meat, so I kept them crisp. Then just dump the potatoes on top of the salad, then the onions on top of the potatoes, then mix with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Hi, some of you could care less about this and others have asked me for it, so that’s why you are getting it.  I got great news last night.  I’m incredibly healthy!  In February of this year, I changed my eating habits to dramatically reduce fats and processed foods.  Sixty days ago, I got tested with the Pharmanex® BioPhotonic Scanner.  The scanner is the only non-invasive device that claims to measure carotenoid levels in human tissue at the skin surface using optical signals. Carotenoids are members of the antioxidant family. Continue reading →