Filed Under: Kitchen Humor
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Brown spots on biscuits
Patrizia asks… I made your buttermilk biscuits, they are fantastic. I would like to kow why the outside of the biscuits have little brown dots. I cut the butter into the flour and I put the mixture in the kicthen robot to knead.Also I would like to know how to re-heat the biscuits once I freeze them (I cut them in half), do I have to thaw them out or put them in the oven frozen and at what temperature. Thank you !
My response… I sometimes get spots on my biscuits too but it doesn’t affect the taste. I suspect it may be from over-working the dough so you could try just kneading it gently by hand 8 or 10 turns and not using the robot. The less that biscuit dough is handled, the better. You can reheat frozen biscuits by wrapping them in foil and place in a preheated 300 F degree oven for about 20 minutes. (I sometimes remove the foil at the end and leave them on the rack for a couple more minutes to crisp up the top and bottom)
Red Beans & Brown Rice
The best thing about this simple meal is that every single ingredients has health benefits. Brown rice has fiber and lots of minerals including selenium, which has been shown to protect against cancer. Beans also have soluble fiber to lower cholesterol as well as calcium for bones. And don’t get me started about all the antioxidants in colored peppers! So here is an easy vegetarian recipe that’s super healthy. It’s high in protein and fiber and oh yes… flavor!
By the way, high fiber meals keep you feeling full longer and that helps with weight loss. This is a recipe you can easily make your own with more jalapeno pepper for added heat, toss in your favorite extra spices, or use a different kind of bean. I really like red beans in this dish but I can never find canned red beans at the grocery store. Whole Foods carries one by Westbrae that I prefer so if you can find it, I think you’ll like the meaty texture of these beans.
But a close second would be red kidney beans and even black beans would work. By the way, black beans are the highest in antioxidants of all beans. Basically you can’t go wrong with any kind of canned beans in this heart-healthy, easy recipe.
Let’s talk about rice for a minute. Brown rice has more nutrients and fiber than white rice but if you’re short on time, you can make this dish with converted rice (I like Uncle Ben’s). You won’t get as much fiber but you’ll still get protein, iron, and folate from converted rice and all the benefits (including fiber) of the beans and peppers. Both brown and white rice are gluten free.
Next meatless Monday, try this simple vegetarian one-pan meal. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Greek Walnut Cake
There’s no butter in this moist and sweet walnut cake. The Greeks call it karithopita and what makes it so moist is that you soak it in a spicy syrup made with cinnamon, lemon peel, and cloves. Just poke a few holes around the top of the cake and pour over a warm, sweet syrup. A lot of Greek desserts use a syrup – baklava is a great example.
I always feel better when I can bake something sweet for dessert without butter. This cake uses oil and since it’s a Greek cake, I use heart-healthy olive oil. Both olive oil and walnuts are considered heart-healthy. Any time I bake with nuts, I always toast them first and I suggest doing it for this cake, especially because there are a LOT of walnuts in the recipe and toasted walnuts always make a cake or cookies taste better.
My stepmother is Greek so I have grown to love Greek food (and her, too). She is the one who told me to poke holes in the cake before pouring on the syrup since not all recipes use holes but it really helps soak the cake beautifully. My Greek walnut cake can be served warm or cold. Make it for your next party. Opa! Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Let Us Out!
Homemade Chicken Soup
It doesn’t take much skill to make delicious homemade chicken soup… just a little patience. The best chicken soup starts with the best homemade stock so I am sharing my recipe for easy chicken soup and stock, which is all the same to me. And wait ’til you see how easy it is. There’s really not much to do.
You just put everything into the biggest soup pot you have and cook it. The best flavor comes from chicken parts with a lot of bones, which is why I use backs & necks and wings. Ideally, I get a package of each since there is more meat on the wings. So forget making soup with chicken breasts – you won’t be happy.
Aromatic vegetables are a must and those include onions, carrots, celery, and I like to add a parsnip too. You can put them in whole or chop them up. The main thing is time. I cook mine for three hours and it never fails. After three hours of cooking, there’s not much left of the vegetables so I always discard them. And I pick the meat off the bones and store that separately.
So this recipe is technically a chicken stock and I always make it the night before because once it’s refrigerated, 100% of the fat will rise and solidify on the top for easy removal. It’s saturated fat and we don’t need that. In fact your soup will keep even longer in the fridge if you keep the fat layer on the top, kind of like an airtight lid.
The next day, my stock is ready to use in all of my cooking and just perfect as a soup. Once the fat layer is discarded if I want chicken noodle soup, I chop some fresh carrots and cook them with the noodles in the stock. I also use the stock to make other soups like vegetable soup, bean soup, chili, and I also drink it as a healing broth. Chicken soup does have healing compounds if you have a cold or flu so this is the perfect time to try my healthy homemade chicken soup recipe.
Sure it’s three hours, but so were the Golden Globes last night — you could have watched it AND made soup. That’s how to multi-task! Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
My cooking videos: over a million views!
My cooking videos have just logged over a million views! It happened this morning and I’m super excited. I know there are a lot of cooking channels on Youtube so I never expected that many people to watch mine. But the number of views has been steadily increasing and based on the comments, they are watching all over the world. So thank you to everyone who is watching and especially for letting me know when they try one of my healthy recipes. I’m not selling anything so the only reward I need is to know that I’m making a difference.
Now… what should I make next???
Spinach-Walnut Pesto
Start your pasta water first because this spinach-walnut pesto will be ready long before your spaghetti is cooked. It takes about five minutes to make this super healthy topping for pasta or almost anything else like a chicken breast, fish fillet, or one of my favorites… a chicken pesto sandwich. Traditional pesto uses all basil and pine nuts but by switching some of the basil out with fresh baby spinach and using walnuts instead of pine nuts, this becomes a much healthier sauce.
Spinach can protect you from cancer, heart disease, stroke, macular degeneration and cataracts. It’s also called “brain food” because it may slow the aging of your brain. And both olive oil and walnuts provide heart-healthy fats to protect your heart. Even the garlic is good for your circulation and blood pressure. There. That should be enough reasons to try this simple, quick and easy, super-healthy pesto.
It only takes five minutes because I use pre-washed spinach – a whole bag of it! My food processor holds eleven cups and it’s chock full when I put all the ingredients in but it does process down nicely. If yours seems too full, you can start with half the spinach at first, then add the rest of it after the oil. And use more or less of anything: more garlic, less spinach, it won’t matter. Just taste it at the end for salt… and enjoy. Click here for the recipe.
Easy Beef Stew
When you see how easy it is to make my beef stew, it might become a regular Sunday thing in your house. In this video I show the simple steps to make a delicious healthy beef stew with meat that falls apart with a touch and potatoes full of flavor.
I use the leanest meat possible and brown the heck out of it. That’s important, so making old-fashioned beef stew is not for the impatient but it’s oh so worth doing it right. My recipe never fails and it’s proof that you don’t need meat with a lot of marbling to make tender, delicious stew. I just use packaged stew meat, which is cheaper, I cut off any fat I can see, and it comes out perfect every time.
This easy beef stew is one of my most popular recipes – try it once and you’ll see why. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
How To Boost Your Immune System
It’s flu season and there is a lot you can do to keep from getting sick. Here are some of the foods that are known to boost your immune system. I haven’t had a cold or flu in decades, probably because I eat every one of these things regularly, except mushrooms. They’re just so…squishy… but I’m working on it. I’ve been chopping them up really tiny and it does eliminate the squish factor. No excuses!
1. Oily fish: Oily fish—including salmon, tuna, and mackerel—are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, compounds that help reduce harmful inflammation in the body. Chronic inflammation prevents your immune system from working properly, and can contribute to colds and flu as well as more serious diseases.
2. Garlic: These pungent cloves do more than just flavor your food. Garlic also contains allicin, a sulfuric compound that produces potent antioxidants when it decomposes.
3. Yogurt & Kefir: We usually think of bacteria as a bad thing, but some of these microorganisms are essential for good health. Eating probiotic foods, such as yogurt and kefir, is a good way to replenish beneficial strains of bacteria, which promote digestive health and help prevent stomach ailments. There are over 10 trillion bacteria living in our gastrointestinal tract, so you want to make sure the good ones outnumber the bad ones.
4. Tea: Everyone knows a steaming hot cup of tea can help break up chest congestion and soothe a sore throat, but the benefits may run deeper. All tea—black, green, or white—contains a group of antioxidants known as catechins, which may have flu-fighting properties.
5. Red Peppers: Like citrus fruits, red peppers are high in vitamin C. In fact, one red pepper has 150 milligrams of the nutrient—that’s twice the recommended daily allowance for women. (A large orange, by comparison, only has about 100 milligrams.)
6. Mushrooms: White button, Portobello, shiitake, and Maitake are just a few of the varieties you’ll find in your grocery store. Fortunately, just about all mushrooms contain some form of immune-boosting antioxidants, along with potassium, B vitamins, and fiber.
7. Leafy Greens: The darker the greens, the higher the nutrient content. So when you’re shoring up your defenses for cold and flu season, choose arugula and kale over iceberg lettuce. Bitter greens like arugula may even help relieve chest congestion, sniffles, and coughs.
8. Dark Chocolate: Ounce for ounce, pure cocoa contains more of the disease-fighting antioxidants known as polyphenols than most berries—and it’s loaded with zinc, to boot. Too often, however, the nutritional benefits of cocoa are overshadowed by the sugar and saturated fat found in chocolate bars and other treats. To reap the immunity-boosting benefits without the unhealthy extras, stick with bite-sized portions—about one quarter-ounce per day—of dark chocolate with a cocoa content of 70% or higher.
9. Carrots & Sweet Potatoes: Orange fruits and vegetables are rich in beta-carotene. When we eat these foods, our bodies convert this organic compound into vitamin A, which is essential for maintaining a strong immune system. Vitamin A is especially important for areas that go haywire when we catch a cold: It keeps the mucous membranes that line our nose and throat—one of the body’s first lines of defense—healthy and functioning properly.
10. Lean Protein: We think we need protein to build muscle, and we do—but actually, we need it to build antibodies and fight infection in the body, as well. Chicken, turkey, and pork are all good sources of protein, but you can also get plenty from meatless sources such as beans, nuts, and dairy. Lean protein is also important because the immune molecules are made of protein.