Sarah Rush's blog

1. Add rather than subtract. Add more fruit and vegetables to your meals and start your snacks with fruit: - You will have less room for higher calorie, low nutrient foods and the extra fiber will make you feel full and keep you fuller for longer. Your body will benefit from the extra vitamins and minerals from all the fruits and vegetables. Sugar will be slowly released into your blood stream preventing sugar lows and highs. Keeping your sugar levels steady keeps your brain alert and your mood high. You will not feel like you are having to cut anything out which will help your moral.

A pantry is much like a wardrobe - it can be full of clothes but no outfits, or it can have many hardworking basics that make hundreds of outfits quickly without too much thought or fuss.
If you have a pantry, fridge and/or freezer stocked with a few basics foods you can cook up delicious healthy meals in hurry. You will also find that you save hundreds of dollars a year by not resorting to take outs or meals out because you have nothing to cook. If you think about it, most meals start with a base protein, a starch is added then a few “extra” ingredients which give the dish flavour, identity or name. An good example of this is lemon pepper chicken with rice.

Simple Minestrone soup
This is actually not just a soup, but is a main meal in itself. Low cost, easy to make and full of fibre, vitamins and minerals and all the food groups this ticks all the boxex. The ingredient list is quite long but not difficult to put together.
Ingredients
A few splashes of olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 large onion, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 medium carrots, sliced
½ small can tomato paste
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes and juice.
4 cups chicken or vegetables broth
4 cups water
1 cup shredded cabbage
1 whole zucchini, diced or sliced
1 cup frozen peas
Salt and pepper to taste
½ teaspoon each dried basil and mixed Italian herbs
½ cup chopped frozen or fresh cooked spinach.

A well organised and stocked pantry is not just helpful, but is actually the foundation for you and your family start and stick to a healthy diet. So, if you are thinking about a diet makeover then actually a pantry make over is really the best place to start. Think about how many times have you thought you would make a (healthy) family favourite, only to find that actually you didn’t have all the ingredients. Maybe all to often you find that packages are old and the contents stale? Maybe you pull out a packet and can’t believe 2008 is the best before date? Don’t worry, this happens to the best of us but the better organised our pantry, the less often it happens.

A very nutritious, tasty seasonal soup made with easily found ingredients. It’s cheap too!
Ingredients:-
One small-medium pumpkin cut into halves or quarters
3 medium onions, 3 large carrots and 3 large potatoes
1 Litre of water or vegetable stock.
Spices, herbs and seasoning to taste.
Cooking instructions:-
Roast a small-medium pumpkin cut into halves or quarters (use a large heavy knife – but be careful!) in the oven at 350 degrees for about 60 minutes.
Take out of oven, allow to cool.
In a stock pot (or your largest casserole pan) boil 1 litre of water, add vegetable stock (or chicken stock if you prefer) to taste. Use no-salt stock if you want to produce a low salt soup.

Chicken Cacciatore: - This is one of those “fix and forget” suppers. It is so nice to come home to a wonderful aroma coming from the kitchen and know that a tasty dinner is waiting for you. The name means “hunter style” and requires a few basic ingredients and a slow cooker or casserole dish. Serve with rice and steamed vegetables- green beans or carrots work well.

Ingredients
1 whole chicken cut up, or your choice of breast and skinless thigh pieces (1 per person).
1 tsp salt and 3 tbls flour, mixed in a dish.
3 tablespoons of good quality olive oil.
½ medium onion, quartered.
3 cloves of garlic, sliced.
6 small brown mushrooms, halved.
1 can low sodium chopped tomatoes or 8-10 ripe fresh tomatoes chopped.
1 cup dry white wine (optional)

Salmon tonight, grilled until just cooked and the flavour that is up to you, but some ideas are to marinade in teriyaki sauce with lemon, soy sauce and aniseed or just grill with lemon, olive oil and add black pepper at the table. Choice of side dishes? Up to you but I will be having bean sprouts with oriental vegetables.

Instructions
Before I start to cook the salmon I prepare all the vegetables ready to be cooked - they always take longer to get ready than you think. Then 15 minutes before dinner needs to be served it is time to start grilling the salmon. 5 minutes after the salmon is under the grill I cook the prepared oriental vegetables.
Need a recipe for the oriental veggies?

Pasta night – lets help the environment by making vegetarian pasta – Penne Marinara - pasta topped with a tomato sauce. How to make: - Sauce – sauté an onion, 2 cloves of garlic in table spoon of olive oil until softened and starting to turn transparent. Add 1 tin of chopped tomatoes and ½ a small tin of tomato paste. Add ½ tsp of mixed Italian herbs, oregano and a few fresh basil leaves chopped. Add ground black pepper to taste. I also add crushed red chilli to spice it up but it that depends on your taste. Other good additions are sliced peppers or mushrooms and black olives. Let the sauce simmer for 10 minutes then add a little more tomato paste, cover and turn off the heat. Boil 2 pints of water in a saucepan to cook the pasta.

Recently in the news a great description of cholesterol and strategies to reduce your Cholesterol level by WSOCTV.COM.
Click on the link below

wsoctvc

Let just start with what they are and what they do.
Definition and role: - Antioxidants are substances, vitamins, minerals or phytochemicals, found in food that decrease the adverse affects of “free radicals”. A nice simple comparison - antioxidants are to free radicals what white blood cells are to bacteria – they mop them up and neutralize them.