The Living Well Report

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This was a spontaneous cake effort on Jason’s part one morning when we had some over-ripe pears to use somehow, and a craving for something sweet. With an apple cake recipe, we substituted the sliced fresh pear, added some peanut butter chips for total craziness, and loaded up on the icing once it was out of the oven. Experimentation pays off - it was moist, delish, and fun to make!

If any of you are familiar with fast food dollar menus, this burger will be familiar to you. We have attempted to re-create one of our favorite $1 burgers, which consists of burger with barbecue sauce, cheddar cheese, and an onion ring on top. When you have got a gas grill, top-quality angus beef, aged cheddar, awesome barbecue sauce, organic onion rings, and whole wheat burger buns, you are going to turn out a burger that no fast food chain could ever dream of making! Do yourself a favor and make one of these burgers once or twice over the summer, and don’t forget the lemonade!

And their love child is totally edible. As with the pie battle royale, my sister and her boyfriend showed off their cooking talents with a new dessert bar. The bottom layer is basically a chewy oatmeal cookie. Over that is a thick layer of sweet pumpkin, and a bit of oatmeal streusel is sprinkled on top. These gooey bars were even better the next day!

When it comes to pie contests the real winners are the eaters. And in this case between homemade graham cracker pie with real pudding vs. boxed pudding, the vote was unanimous: homemade pudding rocks out! Alas, I can’t share exactly what was in the winning pie because it was made by my lovely sister and her charming boyfriend. But what I can tell you is that the crust had loads of cinnamon in it, which puts graham cracker pie over the top for me. The fresh strawberries added a nice summery flavor as well. Treat your family and friends to some fresh pie soon!

Though they are a little time consuming, nothing beats waking up to warm delicious cinnamon buns! Of course if you are the one making them, you can’t very well wake up to them, but you could surprise someone very dear to you. And that someone very dear to you would be most appreciative (if they’re not something is seriously wrong with them). There is an assortment of cinnamon bun recipes on www.allrecipes.com, so check some out and choose one that looks good to you!

Spur of the moment breakfasts can be fun, but sometimes you never know what you’ll end up with. Not so for this breakfast we whipped up last weekend. Using a general recipe for sausage gravy (flour, milk, leftover sausage grease, a little butter, salt & pepper), and a biscuit recipe from a Betty Crocker cookbook, this hearty breakfast treat was devoured before it had time to cool! It’s so easy to fall into a meal-time rut, eating basically the same meals over and over. Why not switch it up and try something new this morning?

April has been good to us here in Maine this year and the first barbecue of the spring/summer has not only already happened, but it was a great success! Hotdogs, rolls warmed on the grill, and potatoes baked on the coals was a tasty way to kick off the grilling season. Looking forward to trying some new grilling recipes this summer and completely indulging (or at least a little)…

The original recipe calls for spinach instead of broccoli, which I made the first time and I have to say that I prefer the spinach. But desperate times call for desperate substitutes and the broccoli came to the rescue with flying colors! With the cheeses and seasonings you may not even realize you’re eating broccoli (which is exactly what it wants you to think)! This chicken dish is quite good though, and pairs very well with whole wheat pasta, marinara sauce, garlic bread and fresh salad. Also keeps well for leftovers.

I have always wanted to make Eggplant Parmesan and am so glad I finally did! It is more work than a normal dinner around our place, more prep work really, but it’s totally worth it. I started out using this recipe from allrecipes.com, but ammended it as I went along using tips from other users on the site. I bought only one eggplant and it made plenty plus leftovers for four people. Starting with the washed/dried eggplant, I cut 1/4 inch slices then sprinkled all slices front and back with kosher salt, and let them sweat for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, I rinsed the slices and dried them throroughly with a paper towel. I then had three dishes ready with flour, then beaten egg, and finally breadcrumbs with which I also mixed in garlic powder, italian seasonings and salt/pepper. Have a cookie sheet sprayed with nonstick spray (or extra virgin olive oil) ready, and then dip each piece of eggplant into flour, then egg, then breadcrumb mix and place on the cookie sheet. Bake at 450 degrees for 7 minutes and then flip and bake another 5 to 7 minutes. Serve over pasta with pasta sauce, fresh mozzerella and a dusting of parmesan cheese - so good! (The original recipe calls for baking the eggplant in a sort of casserole style with sauce/cheese, but I chose my way to keep the crispness of the eggplant, which would have gotten a bit soggy otherwise. But if you prefer this other method, by all means, try it out and enjoy!)

The next day I made a sandwich with some leftover eggplant crispers, basically laying a couple of the eggplant slices over some sourdough bread with pasta sauce and fresh mozzerella - completely delicious.

I saw a recipe in Real Simple for Quick and Easy Samosas and had to make them. Samosas are an Indian food (read more about them here) with a recipe normally taking quite a long time to prepare; this recipe could not have been more easy to follow or turned out a tastier result. Saving time, you use a store-bought crust, pre-made mashed potatoes (I made my own to cut down on unnecessary additives), frozen peas, chopped onion and spices from your pantry. Our 1 year old daughter could not get enough of this delicious dish and neither could we!

Grilled cheese is one of our family’s top lunches. There are a few ways to shake up the old fave, and this one is simple and totally delicious: add apple slices! Apples and cheese are a great snack on their own and taste, dare I say, even better grilled on lightly buttered bread. Other yummy variations we like are grilled cheese with pesto, grilled cheese and tomato and grilled cheese and bacon. Honestly though, the possibilities are endless; cheese is great!

Sweets in the springtime go hand in hand. So do sweets in the summer, fall and winter, but let’s not linger on that for too long. Since our family loves to have a full cookie jar I began to look for lighter recipes or ways to modify current faves so our scale won’t reflect all the indulging our bellies enjoy. I made these oatmeal chocolate chip cookies using a recipe from Cooking Light magazine which originally called for white chocolate chips and strawberries. My son isn’t a mega-fan of strawberries, so I left those out and substituted semi-sweet chocolate chips for white chocolate ones; they tasted wonderful!

Looking for a new breakfast staple? Cornmeal pancakes are a great variation to traditional pancakes, trading half the amount of flour you normally use for cornmeal. They have a bit of a crunch to them and taste great with Maine maple syrup (or your favorite toppings). Jason had the brilliant idea to add slices of cooked breakfast sausage to these ones. My only response to that: “Pass the syrup!”

As signs of Spring arrive, less time in the kitchen and more time outdoors is desired by many of us. This chicken caesar salad is delicious, and there are a number of ways to save time. We usually bread and bake chicken breast at a convenient time during the day (or you can make it a day or two in advance) so it’s ready for quick salad arrangements. We also make it a practice to cut and bake bread-ends (seasoned with garlic powder and italian seasonings) for homemade croutons, so they are always on-hand as well. Using greens of your choice, load with chicken, croutons, fresh parmesan cheese and creamy caesar. This is one meal you can take out to the picnic table or eat in - either way it keeps you away from the oven on a beautiful day!

Coffee: if you take yours with cream and sugar, a morning pick-me-up can become a trap full of unnecessary fat and calories. That’s why alternative such as half and half are so popular. But many popular half and half products are filled with chemicals and additives.

Luckily, there’s a healthier option thanks to Organic Valley. This half and half tastes very fresh, has less fat and calories than nonorganic competitors, and is not much more expensive, which can sometimes be a deterrent for those who are not used to buying organic or all-natural food products.

As a side note, I am generally a soy milk drinker. The soy creamers on the market, however, are lacking the rich flavor that dairy half and half brings to the table. Try Organic Valley’s half and half with your morning coffee and a good book and you will have a wonderful start on the day!

Many of us love sweets for breakfast, and with this delicious apple cake you can squeeze a little fruit into the mix. With two large apples mixed into a moist cake and creamy icing on top, this cake will disappear quickly!

Pad Thai is one of the most popular Thai dishes around, and with a box-style mix from the organic aisle and some fresh chicken and vegetables you can make it in less time than it takes the delivery guy to get to your house! We used Annie Chun’s organic Pad Thai, which came with the rice noodles and sauce. To that we added chicken breast, bean sprouts, garlic and topped finished product with green onions. It’s ready quite quickly and tastes great!

If you’re into local food, you can’t get much more local than your own back yard. After some hemming and hawing revolving around the fact that we have no clue what we’re doing, we decided to wing it last week and plant our first ever garden.

We chose a 12 foot by 16 foot spot in the corner of the back yard, shaded but sunny enough during the day. Here’s a rough estimate of what we planted:

• 3 pumpkin
• 12 beefstake tomato
• 6 cucumber
• 3 lettuce
• 12 bell pepper
• 1 rosemary
• 1 basil

We’ll keep updating the 2007 Vegetable Garden topic as the growing season progresses.

If you’re a fan of Raisin Bran cereal, but you’re not a fan of additives like corn syrup when you just want a good bowl of cereal, you have some choices: One, you could write to Kellogg’s (makers of both Raisin Bran and Total Raisin Bran, among others) and express your dissatisfaction, or you could forgo the activism (this works well if you’re hungry) and simply make your own raisin bran without the excess corn syrup and other undesirable ingredients.

Here’s how I made my own raisin bran last Saturday morning:

• I proceeded to my local grocery store, where my first stop was to the scan the cereal aisle in search of a suitable replacement for the bran part of the raisin bran cereal. After several rejections– even the venerable Total contained corn syrup and some other additives I hoped to avoid– I settled on Grape Nuts Flakes. I know: it’s a bit of an unlikely choice, given the original Grape Nuts are personally something I’m not overly excited to try and have consistently avoided for nearly three decades. I think that’s the general consensus of the public as well, though that conclusion is only anecdotal; yet perhaps that could explain why Grape Nuts Flakes have been introduced. This was a risk, as I was choosing the bran base based on ingredients rather than flavor, but I’m happy to report that Grape Nuts Flakes is delicious and worthy, even on its own. Better, it is comprised of relatively tame ingredients, a low sugar count, and of course, whole grains.
• Next, I sought a boxed raisin brand to complete the bran. My fear was that, like many modern food brands which have stood the test of time, Sun-maid raisins would contain additives I wished not to consume. Fortunately I discovered that Sun-maid raisins contain, amazingly, nothing but actual raisins. Hence, I had my raisin and my bran.
• The third and final ingredient I already owned, and here’s where you may debate my choice. To add a bit of additional sweetness, I decided to coat my raisins in sucralose (commonly sold as Splenda brand). You may argue that Splenda’s health effects haven’t been properly studied, and I wouldn’t argue that point. You may also argue that the raisins are sweet as nature intended them; if that’s your preference than simply skip the part where I add additional sweeting to my raisins.
• Now for the mixing: I started by filling a typical cereal bowl with Grape Nuts Flakes.
• Next, I empty 1/2 of a box of raisins into a small bowl. This is on the low side in a typical bowl of cereal- if you like many raisins, add the entire box.
• To the bowl of raisins, I add about 1/2 teaspoon of Splenda (or sugar, if you prefer), then I shake the bowl around until there’s an even coating on the raisins. Be sure to de-clump any raisins at this point. Note: Skip this step if you don’t want to add additional sweetener to your raisins.
• Finally, dump the bowl of raisins into the bowl of Grape Nuts Flakes, stir, and add milk.

When you decide to eat healthier, you don’t need to eschew all your old favorites– simply taking the time to re-create them using choice ingredients can be a great way to cut the junk but keep the comfort food.

Homemade bagels are nothing short of a staple in our house. Beyond their obvious place as a breakfast anchor, they’re also great bookends for a variety of sandwiches. This BLT uses Applegate Farms Sunday bacon, a healthier, delicious alternative to heavily processed bacon. Rounding it out is tomato, romaine lettuce, and of course the fourth requirement in a great BLT: Mayo.