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
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
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
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.
Why do I love my pot roast? 1) It’s easy to make. 2) It all cooks in one pot. 3) It’s a complete meal. 4) It’s comfort food squared!
Old fashioned pot roast is a crowd pleaser and takes very little work. It’s mostly cooking time. Who doesn’t love meat that’s moist and tender with potatoes full of flavor? Okay, maybe your vegetarian friend. But meals like this pot roast are my favorite Sunday suppers. While it’s simmering in the oven, I have time to make a salad and dessert.
If you make pot roast, here are a few tips: Browning the meat is crucial for developing the best flavor. As for the liquid, I have made it with both beef stock and chicken stock (I usually make my own but I’ve also used unsalted store-bought stock). And the cooking time is very flexible. Feel free to cook it even longer depending on the cut of meat and how tender it’s becoming. Finally, adding salt is not always necessary. It depends on your stock and how much sodium it has, so test it near the end of cooking before adding salt. If you add too much, there’s no way to fix it.
Then there’s the leftovers! You can use the leftover meat in soup, a burrito, shepherd’s pie, nachos, Italian beef sandwiches, or just eat more pot roast! Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
My less-butter, less-sugar Christmas cookies just got even healthier. I decided to try making them with extra-light olive oil and they turned out great. This time I rolled the dough and cut out the holiday shapes but I will say that a cookie press is a great invention! But when you cut them out, it’s a lot more fun decorating. I like my candy canes the best. This recipe is exactly the same as the one already posted but I used extra-light olive oil instead of canola oil.
There’s no reason to use all butter in these holiday cookies. I bake all my cookies with either half the butter or with some recipes, no butter at all. With these healthier sugar cookies, there’s plenty of butter taste and half the saturated fat. I like to bake them until the edges brown just a little. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
I’m sharing one of my prized recipes just in time for Thanksgiving. This is one people will talk about long after it’s gone and they’ll probably ask for the recipe. My lightened pumpkin cheesecake is made using all reduced fat ingredients so it’s a healthier dessert, perfect after you’ve stuffed yourself senseless with turkey. This lighter cheesecake won’t weigh you down and the recipe is fairly simple but you will need a springform pan.
The crust is just graham crackers sprinkled on the bottom so there’s no heavy butter-laden crust. And the secret to this light and airy cake is to beat the egg whites separately and fold them in at the end. I get the best results using Daisy Brand light sour cream and Philadelphia brand 1/3 less fat cream cheese. I tried neufchatel but didn’t like the result, and I would never use Knudsen reduced fat sour cream for anything!
So if you try this amazing holiday dessert, make sure you have all your ingredients at room temperature and leave enough time to let it cool for at least two hours on the counter and then refrigerate for at least two hours as well. This is my Thanksgiving gift to all you cooks who will soon be stuffing turkeys and faces! Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Got 15 minutes? Then you have time to make a quick and easy meal. This black bean quesadilla is my go-to meal when I’m pressed for time and with the holidays coming, I’ll be having lots of quesadillas. Of course, I use my own homemade whole wheat tortillas, which I usually have on hand, but you can use store-bought ones too. Try to find them without saturated fat.
I realize it’s convenient to use pre-shredded cheese but because of the additives it won’t melt as well as using a block of cheese. So take the extra 30 seconds – yes, that’s how long it takes to shred 2 ounces of cheese – and you’ll have a nice “cheesy on the inside, crispy on the outside” quesadilla.
If you like spicy food, you will love the spicy version of my black bean quesadilla. Simply replace the reduced fat jack cheese with reduced fat pepperjack, and use the hot canned diced chiles. Oooh, Mama!
Whichever way you swing, serve it with salsa (pico de gallo is my fave) or guacamole… or both. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
I absolutely love my beet & cabbage borscht. It has a complex flavor but is really easy to make. You basically put all the ingredients in a pot and cook. It’s the best soup I know to restore electrolytes and boost your immune system.
Every time I make this soup, I devour it in no time. I think your body knows when it’s getting something super healthy and yesterday I had two big bowls of it for dinner – nothing else. We Polish people usually add a little dollop of sour cream to our borscht. My dad had his own way of eating it. Instead of adding diced potatoes to the soup, he would make a side of mashed potatoes and put some potatoes in his spoon, then dip it in the soup so every bite had mashed potatoes and delicious borscht. Yummm.
Beets alone are an anti-aging powerhouse. They are said to stabilize blood sugar & cholesterol, support the liver & urinary tract, and help fight heart disease and cancer. The rich variety of other vegetables can protect against prostate, lung and other cancers, heart disease, macular degeneration and memory loss.
Winter’s coming and that’s soup season. Try my beet and cabbage borscht on the next cold night but don’t wear white when you’re making it. Beets turn everything red. Even…. well…. you’ll see the next morning. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Is there anything better to have with a salad than garlic bread? I love it! And since I make my own garlic bread all the time, I keep it simple and fast. What I usually do is preheat the oven (actually, I make mine in a toaster oven), prepare the bread, which takes less than 5 minutes, and I set it aside. Then I make my salad and dinner. When it’s ready for the table, I pop the garlic bread into the oven. Then I warm a plate, line it with a cloth napkin, and bring the fresh warm garlic bread to the table because fresh out of the oven is the best way to have it. And oooh, that smell!
I like to use thick slices of sourdough bread because you get a soft, golden top and nice crispy edges. And any day that I bake a loaf of bread, that’s always a garlic bread day. If you’ve ever had homemade garlic bread on homemade bread, well… I’m pretty sure you had three slices! My easy recipe makes two slices so double it up if you need more. Line your baking sheet with foil and there’s no cleanup.
There are lots of things people add to garlic bread like herbs or fresh parsley but I don’t think it’s needed. Try my version and let me know if you agree. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
