Mimi Goodies – Cooking healthy

Ready to make some pies?
Editor’s note: We will publish Linda Coco’s blog about her adventures baking 50 classic pies over the next year. This is her introductory column and she’ll jump in with the first pie recipe next week. Tune into her blog on the Internet at http://goldengirl50.blogspot.com/

Read more on Highlands Today

Serve Up Some Louisiana-Style Home Cooking
New Orleans Native Chef Shows How to Make Classic Crabmeat, Shrimp and Sausage Dishes

Read more on CBS News

Chef gives school cooks some food for thought
Dunedin canteen staff gathered fresh ideas for healthy, child-tempting food at a cooking demonstration by Dunedin chef and food writer Judith Cullen yesterday. read more

Read more on Otago Daily Times

Organic pet food is fast gaining popularity. The sale of organic pet food is increasing at a rate, which is three times greater than human organic food sale. People are getting aware that like humans, pets too need healthy and holistic food. Organic food means the food that is manufactured without the use of chemical substances like the preservatives, antibiotics, pesticides and hormones. Organic food is the healthier form of food, which contains 18 organic nutrients that are certified. Organic pet food has a positive impact on the health and the emotional well being of the pet resulting in increase in its longetivity.

The organic pet food helps in improving the skin conditions and allergies of your pet. This is because the organic food is manufactured using high quality grains and sources that are high in protein. Organic food also helps in increasing the immune system of your pet keeping away health problems like the skin infections. In addition, since the organic food is free of chemical substances, your pet is not affected by the health problems due to these chemicals.

The organic pet food is also low on fat and therefore, organic food does not create weight problems in your pet. It is studied that cats and dogs with greater weights are more likely to suffer from back problems, organic failure and hip dysphasia. Since, the organic food contains high nutrition per ounce of food your pet does not tend to over eat and gets satisfied with small amount of food does maintaining his body weight.

The organic pet food is conveniently available for dogs and cats. Though the organic food is expensive as compared to the non-organic pet food, they provide higher benefits to the pets. Organic dog treats are also available for the dogs, which are hypoallergenic and also free of wheat gluten. The advantage of organic pet food is that the organic food is easy for the pet to digest, as there are no chemicals added, which results in the absorption of all the healthy nutrients present in the food.

To cut down on the cost one can even make organic pet food at home. While preparing the organic food at home it is very essential to choose only the fresh ingredients including the poultry products like the beef, turkey, and chicken. It is advisable to use vegetables like the carrots as it contains beta-carotene, which is very useful for the pet.  It is also recommended that the meat be thoroughly cooked and blended together with the help of a food processor. The vegetables and the meat must be mixed and cooked together with the use of brown rice for the binding purpose. Thus, your organic homemade food is ready to be served to your pet.

The organic food made at home needs to be stored in an airtight container and should not be stored more than four to five days. Serving of the home made organic food should be done as earlier, practiced with the ordinary food. For example, if your dog is in a habit of eating one cup of dry food a day then the organic food must be served in the similar quantities. The home made organic pet food can be prepared once a week.

Our society’s growing consciousness about the impact of our actions on the planet’s health and well-being is being felt in the kitchen. Increasingly, the trend in recipes and cooking revolves around finding ingredients that are produced locally. Home cooks are recognizing that fruit and vegetables grown in other states and other countries gobble up energy to package and transport them to market. This leaves a big carbon footprint – a consequence that a growing number of families wish to avoid.

As a result, shoppers are seeking out fresh food and produce that is locally grown. For some, this means regularly visiting farmers markets; for others, it means inquiring about the source of fresh food at the grocery store. For more details kindly visit us at www.camping-outdoors-recipes.com. Many others have the desire to take steps toward finding recipes and cooking with fresh produce and other ingredients, but aren’t sure where to begin.

Thank goodness for the Internet! For those ready to take the first steps, there is an abundance of information available on the Web. Armed with this information, shoppers can learn how to buy fresh produce, discover the types of produce that are in season, read articles about fresh food, and find recipes to prepare everything from delectable fresh fish, seafood, and meat dishes to delicious vegetable courses and dessert treats.

Moreover, home cooks are discovering that cooking with locally grown fresh foods opens the door to a world of cuisines – literally. Today’s recipes and cooking trends put a global twist on fresh ingredients. If you’re in the mood for Asian food, for example, you don’t have to dine out. Instead, you can use the Web to research Asian food culture and find recipes that are easy to make at home. Likewise, resources for French food, German food, Italian food, and Mexican food are only a few mouse clicks away.

Vegetarians and those who are health-conscious are truly embracing these recipes and cooking trends. In the past several years, natural and organic foods have been finding their way onto grocery store shelves, and stores that specialize in fresh and natural foods are now a staple in virtually every city. Whether you adhere to a raw food diet or are simply trying to cut back on butter or sugar, you can more easily find the foods that you need.

At its best, cooking is an adventure. It’s fun to experiment with different herbs and spices, and to prepare your favorite foods in a new way. Combining local, fresh foods with global recipes and cooking techniques is a great way to keep your cuisine interesting and tasty.

No one would argue that eating only locally grown foods can be a challenge. You can also login to www.apples-recipes.com. After all, it would be difficult to find fresh fish and seafood if you live in the desert, or unearth a source for locally churned butter if you live in a fishing village. Just keep in mind that perfection needn’t be the goal; even incremental changes in the way we think and shop will help the planet. And, with the plethora of information about recipes and cooking that is available on the Web, putting a global twist on local ingredients can put the adventure back in dining!

There may be many reasons why you choose to research cooking in this tradition. You may be Jewish and looking for authentic recipes for yourself and your family,or perhaps your are hoping to find new and exciting recipes to prepare for this important time in the Jewish calendar. Some of you may have a genuine interest in cultural festivals. Whatever you motivation, the purpose of the following information is to reveal a few of the basic Hannukah cooking traditions and to inspire you to try a few of these great recipes for yourself. Like most important religious feasts family traditions play an important part of the celebration and Hannukah is no exception.

One element that is essential to Hannukah cooking is oil. Oil has traditional and symbolic relevance to this festival. The following are a few simple dishes you might like to try and are in keeping with the traditions of Hannukah as oil is used in their preparation. There are wonderful and extremely popular potato pancakes called Latkes, which are traditionally deep fried in oil. Also a traditional dish using oil is breaded lamb chops which are fried in much the same way as chicken is cooked in the US.

There are many other delicacies that are more like party food and are fun to eat. You might like to add these to your celebratory table. The following are all deep fried:
zuchini, mozarella, ricotta balls and onion rings are just some of the delicious treats that are enjoyed over the period of this festival to celebrate the season of light.

Continuing on the theme of deep fried food and cooking with oil there are an array of sweets to tempt your palate. During this celebration it is a good idea to put your waistline worries to one side and indulge in a few sweet snacks such as apple fitters and raspberry doughnuts! There are so many more desserts to choose from but you may like to try something really special like blintzes. There is a wealth of information and recipes for these and many more dishes that can be found on the internet at no cost to yourself.

If all of the above sounds justs a little to calorific and you prefer a more health conscious option you have plenty to choose from. The holiday season whatever your religion or culture is sometimes detrimental to your weight, so if you want something a little less fattening you might like to consider a healthy salad of Israeli origin, or even roasted or oven cooked vegetables such as eggplant and peppers.

Continuing with the theme of traditional Hannukah cooking you should also try three other popular favorites, such as vegetable kugel, brisket and loukoumades. These dishes
are widely prepared and enjoyed during Hannukah and therefore the recipes for them can be found easily in bookstores or libraries that have a cookery section devoted to this kind of cooking and information about Jewish traditions and customs.

With all the other activities that are planned for Hannukah you will find that if you are well organized you will have more time to enjoy the festivities. This means advance preparation by you and try to involve other members of the family in the quest to prepare all these wonderful recipes. The key to achieving a relaxed approach to Hannukah as regards cooking is to keep everything as uncomplicated as you can, and in doing so all your dishes will be served promptly and you will be able to enjoy the celebration instead of being tied to the kitchen. As you can see most of the dishes enjoyed during Hannukah are fairly easy to make leaving you with more time to enjoy the occasion with friends and family.

If you haven’t already done so, source your recipes and hopefully cooking for Hannukah will be a pleasurable and rewarding experience.

Cooking for toddlers and growing children presents some unique challenges along the way. While you want to provide them with those ever so important nutrients, it is often difficult to get them to eat those foods that are best for their growing bodies. We are all probably well aware of the food pyramid and the number of servings our children need of healthy grains, proteins, fruits, vegetables, and calcium products. Getting them to eat these nourishing products is another matter all together unfortunately.
The good news when cooking for children is that you do not necessarily need to incorporate all the important nutrients into dinner food. The truth of the matter is that raw cucumbers, which are thinly sliced and sprinkled with salt, make a much healthier snack than potato chips and many little ones, for more details visit to www.chicken-wing-cookbook.com love this for a snack. You get a vegetable in their system and they are getting a treat at snack time. The same holds true for melon and cantaloupes. These make excellent snacks and are a much-needed fruit in these important diets for little ones.

When it comes to cooking for little ones, however man, woman, and child cannot live on macaroni and cheese alone. It’s been tried and tested and failed miserably. Try mixing things up whenever you can while keeping meals kid friendly. It is important that you try to introduce whole grains, proteins, for more details visit to www.chef-123.com and vegetables whenever possible at meal times around your home. The good news is that there are many prepackaged convenience foods that are introducing whole grains like never before in order to meet the growing demand of consumers for healthier meals that can be prepared with little fan fare or fuss.

Cooking healthier meals for kids is now easier than ever before. Fresh fruits and vegetables are best whenever possible. However, if you cannot manage fresh, you should avoid canned (fruits especially as they are often swimming in sugary sweetness) whenever possible. Frozen is far preferable to canned when it comes to both fruit and vegetables, as there are often fewer additives.

If you need some great meal ideas that are kid friendly and easy on the budget, you can often find recipes readily available online. You can meet your child’s calcium and dairy product needs by adding milk as the drink of choice for meals or a slice of cheese melted over their favorite vegetable. Ice cream, yogurt, and pudding also make excellent calcium rich treats, in moderation of course.

Encourage your children to try new things rather than cooking the same few meals over and over again that you know they are likely to eat. This prevents two things from happening. First of all, it helps you not to get bored when cooking for your children. Second, it allows your children to try new flavors and textures and form opinions about them. By trying new things they will learn not only about the things they dislike but also the foods they really enjoy.

You should also keep in mind that your children are people too when cooking for them. Just as you have foods you like and dislike they also will develop tastes over time. Those tastes may also change in time as well. It’s frustrating, I know, to spend time and money preparing a meal only to have your child push the plate away and refuse to even try the meal. For this, I recommend enlisting their help in the kitchen. Children are much more likely to eat the things they had a hand in preparing as a matter of accomplishment and pride. Its psychological warfare I know but all is fair in war and dinnertime.

Perhaps the greatest gift you can give yourself (much greater than the help in the kitchen) by ‘forcing’ your little ones to help prepare dinner is that they will learn to better appreciate your culinary efforts and eat peacefully rather than sullenly. This tactic has met with great success in my household when cooking for little ones. I hope you will enjoy the same degree of success as well.

“Dear Lord, we thank you for this food, and we ask you to bless it — especially tonight because Daddy cooked it. Amen.”
All right, so perhaps I’m not quite as good of a cook as my wife. You have to understand, though, back in the old days, when I was single, there really wasn’t much of a demand for me to do any cooking.
My main foods at that time were cereal, peanut butter, pizza, and burritos. Not all together, of course — well maybe in certain combinations — but generally I ate them separately.
Now, suddenly, I’m married with four kids and…
Well, I guess that didn’t exactly happen suddenly, but…
Anyway, my wife and I both work, but since I work at home I’m often the one that does the cooking.
I had to do some learning in the beginning. I remember my wife used to come into the kitchen while I was cooking and say, “Smells like you scorched the food.”
About the first ten times this happened, I just sort of ignored her. Eventually, however, I got curious.
“What do you mean by ’scorching’?” I asked.
“Scorching is when the food on the bottom of the pan sticks and burns to an inedible crisp,” she answered coldly. It seemed to me she was implying that it was a bad thing, too.
“It makes the whole pot full taste burned,” she continued with a look of disgust on her face. To which I replied, “What? You can prevent that?”
After that, I started taking a few lessons from her on how to cook. She taught me about stirring the food while it’s in the pot, not cooking everything on high, greasing pans before putting food in them, blowing the foam off of the pot when the macaroni starts boiling over, and other advanced techniques. Eventually, I started getting pretty good at a few things so I decided to try something a little more complicated.
I tried making bread.
Now, I’m really good at making biscuits. In fact, they are one of my specialties, but they’re not quite as complicated as making bread.
First, there was this whole idea of “kneading” the bread. My wife came up to me just after I’d broken my second wooden spoon while trying to stir more flour into an already thick lump of dough.
“No, no, no!” she cried, obviously distressed over the death of the spoon. “You are supposed to KNEAD the bread!”
“Of course I NEED the bread!” I replied. “Why do you think I’m making it?”
However, it’s the whole idea of letting it “raise” that has proven to be the most difficult for me to master. You wouldn’t think it would be all that hard. I mean, all that is required is to simply let the dough sit around by itself for a while. And in fact, that’s really not the problem. It’s the coming back on time later that I find so challenging.
The last time I tried to make bread I set it aside to let it raise, just like I was supposed to do, and went about my business.
Some time later, I just happened to be walking through the kitchen when I noticed this giant balloon sitting in a bread pan with a towel thrown over the top of it.
“What have the kids done now?” I thought to myself as I lifted the towel. “Oh yeah! I’m making bread today,” I concluded.
I hadn’t noticed that the recipe was called “Balloon Bread”, but apparently that’s what it was. So, I threw it in the oven and proceeded to cook it. A giant loaf of bread for all my hungry kids to feed on for a few days sounded good to me.
Some time later, I just happened to be walking through the kitchen past the oven when I thought to myself, “Why is it so hot over here? What have the kids been messing with now?”
Amazingly, it wasn’t burned, too badly anyway. You see, once in a while I just happen to come along at roughly the right time. In the end, though, I wasn’t all that impressed with the Balloon Bread recipe. To be honest, it tasted more like sour air than bread. I don’t really remember pumping it full of carbon dioxide myself, but I’d swear that was what was in there. Hmmm, carbonated bread. What will they think of next?
One day, however, I decided to put forth a tremendous effort into my bread making. I worked hard, set timers so I’d remember what I was doing, and everything. Plus, I scrapped the Carbonated Balloon Bread recipe, and went with one from another cook book.

Have you considered having lasagna on a camping trip? Before you leave on your trip, combine mozzarella cheese, eggs and cottage cheese. Put the mixture in an airtight container and store in a chilled cooler. This will prevent the cheeses and eggs from going bad as you travel. If you want meat in your lasagna, cook fully and also place in a container to be put in the cooler.When you are ready to cook the meal, make sure the dutch oven is completely cleaned and dry. Layer the noodles, meat and cheese/egg mixture until the oven is nearly full. For more details www.thanks-giving-recipes.com .Add the spaghetti sauce over the top and put the remaining cheese mixture on the very top. Place the dutch oven lid on tightly and put over hot coals. Place additional hot coals on top of the oven to cook from the top simultaneously. Check the lasagna from time to time and after 45 minutes the meal should be ready to serve. Consider adding chopped peppers and onions to the cooked meat for more flavor.

For a yummy pizza alternative while camping, try stromboli. Purchase pre-made dough and the toppings you will want. Roll the dough out so it almost fills the bottom of the dutch oven. Oil the dough so it will not stick and put the toppings on top. Try adding different meats and vegetables. When you have added everything you want, roll the dough over and pinch the sides to close. Poke holes in the top with a fork or utensil and place the top tightly on the dutch oven. Put over hot coals and place some on top of the oven for even cooking. Cook time is only 15 minutes and the finished stromboli is delicious.

To cater to a sweet tooth on a camping trip, make this wonderful cherry cobbler. Before you put anything in the dutch oven, place tin foil in the bottom to prevent burning. Layer pre-made biscuit dough on top of the foil and use enough to create a sturdy dessert bottom. Pour a can of cherry filling in and add another layer of biscuit dough. Continue alternating the fruit and dough layers until you almost fill the oven. For more details www.camping-outdoors-recipes.com .Be sure to leave a few inches of room so the biscuits have room to expand. Place the top of the dutch oven on and place over hot coals. Add some coals to the top as well since there are several layers of biscuits. Take extra care not to burn the biscuits on the bottom. They are closest to the heat and will cook quickly. Keep checking the cobbler until it is fully cooked. If you have any ice cream in your cooler, this would be a perfect time to use it up!

When it comes to cooking healthy meals for our families, there is always some degree of dissention among the ranks. The good news is that there are recipes that are very healthy but the healthy nature of these recipes is somewhat disguised. What they do not know in these instances truly should not bring harm their way outside of allergies, which should never be ignored.

Healthy cooking is often difficult as most of us do not want to spend time planning and preparing meals that our families refuse to eat. At the same time, we want our families to be healthy so we feel compelled to learn new and improved ways of cooking healthy foods for our family to enjoy and unfortunately in some cases scorn.

With weight and nutrition being known as the culprit in so many health conditions it is impossible to ignore the importance of not only eating healthy ourselves but also of teaching our children the importance of eating healthy. One way to insure that your loved ones are in fact eating healthy is to make sure that you are cooking healthy and nutritious foods for them. This does not mean that you cannot enjoy the occasional calorie splurge or even that you shouldnt. The key to cooking healthy is learning to control portions and understanding the importance of moderation.

For those that are hoping to incorporate healthy cooking habits into their daily routines, there are no more resources available than ever before in order to assist you in those endeavors. You can seek the services of a professional nutritionist, your doctor can offer advice, for more details visit you can find all kinds of books on healthy eating, cooking, and living at your local library, and the Internet is an outstanding source of all kinds of information when it comes to leading a healthier lifestyle all around.

There are many books and magazines that are filled with recipes that encourage healthy cooking and eating habits. If you truly love to cook, for more details visit to then there is no shortage of recipes that you can try out along the way. The really good news is that you can incorporate healthy cooking into your cooking routine whether you are cooking for one or a household of ten.

There are many that will argue that cooking healthy food costs more than cooking the prepackaged foods that pack on the calories and additives. The truth of the matter is that when you compare the costs with the medical bills of the future for failing to do so, they seem rather slight by comparison. Yes, good food costs more money. In many cases, that is a simple fact of life. However, by learning portion control and eating the proper portions you just may discover that you are actually spending less as you adjust to the proper amounts of food you should be consuming in order to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle.

Cooking healthy isnt an overnight change; it is a lifestyle change that should be implemented one step at a time. You do not have to go into your kitchen and through out every little thing that you deem unhealthy only work to not buy more of these items once theyve been used. Make wiser decisions when purchasing fats for food preparation and you will discover that youve made a vitally important step in the process of incorporating healthy cooking and eating habits in your home.

Its those small steps you take towards your goal of cooking healthy foods for your family that will matter far more than any giant leap. Before you know it you will find that you all have more energy and a better sense of overall health than you would have imagined before changing your cooking habits. If that isnt enough to encourage you however, you can always check out the excuse to go shopping for new clothes after you drop a size or two.