Archive for July, 2010
Not All Cholesterol is Bad
Cooking healthy as with waterless cookware helps to avoid excess fat and cholesterol intake. Moderate exercise and steps to lower anxiety also help. However it is important to realize that we need cholesterol in our bodies to function. HDL cholesterol(the good one) actually helps to control the LDL (bad cholesterol) from adhering to arteries, causing atherosclerosis or clogging of the vessels. If HDL is too low, it actually makes one more prone to heart attacks. 75% of the Cholesterol of both types is manufactured by the body in the liver as well as in the cells themselves. 25% comes from diet. There is a strong genetic factor controlling the maintenance and metabolizing of Cholesterol. This means that families over generations can have either a tendency to problems with high cholesterol or have the tendency to be able to control the levels on the other hand.
Eating a balance healthy diet with lean meats (or fish, poultry also), vegetables, fruits, and high grain carbohydrates helps you toward controlling your excess LDL cholesterol, excessive fats, and weight. Cooking with waterless cookware keeps down extra fats and preserves essential vitamins and nutrients in your food.
Albacore in Foil Barbecue
Here’s a great recipe for the Summer. The Albacore and Yellowtail will soon be available in the better Seafood Markets in Southern CA. They will be running up the coast from this month for several to come and we can buy great fresh fish.
The recipe is not on a diet of course and is a splurge, but we need to splurge once in a while. I got this from a fishing buddy years ago and it’s delicious.
Ingredients:
filet of Albacore or Yellowtail with skin on(usually cook a quarter section filet in each aluminum foil pocket)
juice of large lemon
1 TBS soy sauce
fresh pepper to taste (plenty of salt in the soy sauce)
Mayonaise to coat the fish
Cook on charcoal barbecue grill or gas grill on medium heat with soaked wood chips. So preheat the grill. For each filet, pour lemon juice and soy sauce over the fish and coat all sides. Then coat the fish completely with mayonaise and pepper over all. Prepare an aluminum foil boat large enough to fit the filet (can of course cut filets to serving size, if you wish). Then crimp the foil boat and put on the preheated barbecue. Cook for 25-30 minutes or a little longer if you wish. At the half way point open the crimp with your thongs from your barbecue tool set to allow the smoky barbecue flavor to seep in and to evaporate some of the liquid. Remove the aluminum boat from your barbecue grill with your thongs from the barbecue grill accessories and serve. Great with good salad, corn and of course a nice dry white wine or pinot noir or your favorite beer. Enjoy life!
What We Eat Affects How We Feel
I found some neat information on a Cleveland Medical Clinic web site. Eating certain foods triggers several neurotransmitters affecting appetite and mental alertness.
Serotonin: a chemical that is released after eating carbohydrates (healthy starches and quick sugars alike). It enhances calmness, improves mood and lessens depression. They also satisfy cravings. (e.g. South Beach diet suggests after getting to target weight of course, to maybe eat a piece of whole grain bread with butter at a restaurant before the main meal and you are less likely to overeat.)
Dopamine and norepinephrine: are released after eating proteins (red meats, poultry, dairy, legumes). They enhance mental concentration and alertness. These neurotransmitters come from the amino acid Tyrosine.
Waterless cooking with greaseless, miniumal water style of cooking makes preparing your vegetables, healthy carbohydrates and lean healthy meats easier. Using your waterless cookware helps preserve the vitamins, minerals and nutrients and cuts cooking time in half.
Use Stainless Steel Barbecue tools
Is it time to throw out your rusted worn out barbecue tool set? Don’t replace with another cheap chrome plated bbq tool set that will rust out by the end of the season. Remember to buy a good quality stainless steel barbecue tool set, which should last for many years to come if you take care of it. Clean it after each use and don’t let it sit all day in a water soak. If you need to soak the barbecue grill accessories to soften the food residue then do so but for maybe 30 minutes or so. You will have shiny clean barbecue tools that look like new each use. Just a reminder. Enjoy life!
Sesame Chicken Wings
This is a great appetizer or finger food for your gatherings.
Ingredients:
12 Chicken wings
1TBS lightly salted black beans
1TBS water
2 cloves garlic minced or crushed
2 slices fresh ginger minced finely
3 TBS low sodium soy sauce
1 1/2 TBS dry sherry or rice wine
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 TBS sesame seeds
1 green onion chopped finely
Cut and discard the wing tips with a sharp cutlery knife from your cutlery set. In a small bowl crush the beans and add the water and set aside. Heat a medium stainless steel waterless skillet over medium-high heat; add chicken wings, garlic and ginger and lightly brown the chicken. Then add soy sauce and sherry and stir for 30 seconds. Add the soaked black beans and pepper. Cover the Waterless cookware frying pan and reduce heat to medium or low and simmer 8-10 minutes. Uncover and increase heat to medium high, while stirring the wings occassionally and cook until liquid is almost evaporated and wings are glazed with the sauce. Remove from heat and sprinkle wings with the sesame seeds and stir to coat. Garnish with the green onion and serve. Enjoy! (adapted from Better Health Cookbook)
Heat Up the Grill
Summer, oh summer…who doesn’t love the ceaseless sunshine, long days and outdoor fetes? Now’s a great time to start getting the items you need for a successful picnic or outdoor shindig. Usually most people will spend their time getting a grill, but a great grill really isn’t anything special without a set of reliable barbecue grill accessories.
A good set will come equipped with everything from a stainless steel spatula to corn holders. And they typically come in a case, so you don’t have to try to wrap them in towels. This summer, do yourself a favor and get an equally great set of tools to go with your great grill!
Embrace charcoal
Just a thought.Barbecued foods are great. Gas barbecue grills are convenient, put propane and gas are not renewable energy sources (I was remined by Time magazine article on grilling). They also impart no flavor. I will use soaked hardwood chips to overcome this and this helps to give rich woodie smoke flavor but… Natural lump charcoal or better yet, dried hardwood burns hot and clean and makes food taste as if it was cooked outdoors over a camp fire.
Of course briquettes loaded with chemicals and lighter fluid can produce 100 times as much carbon monoxide as propane does. They also give food a nasty napalm-like flavor.
When I lived in Mexico for a few years and was running around with Mexican film crews doing a few movies, when I had down time at my house, my landlord would get his half drum converted barbecue grill and take Mesquite hardwood charcoal (really dried Mesquite tree pieces lightly charred) and light them and get them to red coals, put the top grill on, pull out the barbecue grill accessories and cook the carne asada and chorizo(this sausage is naturally made without all sorts of carcinogen preservatives). It was delicious. You can get Mesquite charcoal from some hardware chains, barbecue specialty stores and certainly Mexican food markets. It is wonderful. If you can’t get this then soak Mesquite wood chips and sprinkle them over your hardwood charcoal when is is almost ready to cook. Get out your barbecue, barbecue tools and favorite meats and vegies and cook away. Enjoy!
Pecan buttered fish fillets
This is a great home barbecue meal to cook over your charcoal or gas barbecue grill.
Ingredients:
1 pound or more fresh fillets of sole, hallibut, cod, turbot, red snapper, or fish of your choice 1/2 to 1″ thick with skin attached
3 tbs butter (margerine if you have high cholesterol)
1/3 or so chopped pecans
1/4 tsp salt (better 1/8 tsp)
1/8 tsp pepper or to taste
1 TBS snipped parseley
lemon cut into wedges
In a small stainless steel frying pan from your cookware set, melt butter and stir in the pecans. Cook and stir over medium heat about 3 minutes or until pecans are toasted and butter is dark brown.
Cut large fillets into 4 equal portions and place on a lightly greased cooking grill. Grill over the charcoal or medium heat gas grill, for 6-10 minutes or until fish flakes when tested with your fork from your bbq tools. Remember to turn the fish over halfway through the cooking time with your spatula from your barbecue accessories.
Arrange grilled fish on a serving platter; season with salt and pepper(I tend to do this before cooking and possibly with some crushed garlic cloves). Spoon pecan butter over the top. Sprinkle with parsely and serve with a nice summer salad, grilled vegetables and bread and maybe a nice dry white whine or pinot noir??? Enjoy!
Hypertension and Sensible life choices
Hypertension, or high blood pressure is a common problem for people over 55 and can be a problem even for young adults. Blood pressure less than 120/80 is normal, 140/90 and less is borderline hypertension and can usually be managed by good health choices. However above this, you may need medical prescription help and need to consult carefully with your physician.For that matter if your blood pressure is getting towards 140/90 talk to your doctor about what to do about it. Chronic hypertension (high blood pressure especially 170 and up on systolic pressure) can predispose to heart attacks and also kidney failure.
Try to break bad habits like smoking cigarettes, excessive drinking, and eating high salt foods as well as fatty, and empty calorie foods(candy etc.). Eating foods cooked in waterless cookware with reduced salts can really help you along the way to good health. Drinking alcohol in moderation and eating delicious foods are not evil. Just be sensible and don’t drink excessively, chronically and watch your daily salt intakes, eating healthy with lots of vegetables, fruit, and low fat foods(lean red meats, fish and poultry). An occassional splurge with Continental cuisine, latin dishes can be fine, just watch the overall diet and trim the fat and no extra salt.
Remember to cook with these things in mind when at home. It really helps to use the greaseless, waterless cookware techniques when possible. Again cut back on salt and fats, drink sensibly, Stop smoking cigarettes, and exercise. Rember, if at all possible have regular checkups for monitoring blood pressure and of course cholesterol. Enjoy live but enjoy it sensibly.
Summer Fish Steaks with Cucumber Dill Sauce
This is a great Summer barbecue idea to do on your charcoal or gas grill on a cooking grill.
Ingredients:
4 fresh halibut, salmon, or swordfish steaks, cut 1 inch thick. (1 1/2 to 2 pounds)
1/4 tsp of salt (or 1/8th tsp)
1/8 tsp pepper
2 TBS butter(if cholesterol problems make it margerine)
1/2 cup chopped, seeded cucumber
1 TBS snipped chives
1 1/2 tsp snipped fresh dill(if can’t find then 1/2 tsp dried dillweed)
Lemon wedges
Sprinkle both sides of fish steaks with salt and pepper. lighlty grease the cooking grill. Place fish steaks. on the cooking grill. Grill 10-12 minutes or tille fish flakes when tested with the fork from your barbecue tool set. Turn the fish once, halfway through the grilling time with your spatula from your Barbecue grill accessories.
While fish steaks are grilling, prepare the cucumber-dill sauce. In a small stainless steel saucepan from your cookware set, melt the butter and stir in the cucumberchives and dill. Heat the sauce through.
Arrange fish steaks on a serving platter and drizzle the cucumber-dill sauce over the fish and serve with lemon wedges. I makes 4 servings. Enjoy!