Every meal I have starts with a salad. And this is a typical salad that I make every day, full of health-building antioxidants. It’s probably part of the reason I simply never get sick. I have not had a cold or flu in over half a century. Anyone can make a salad, I thought, but I’m sharing a photo of my typical salad to motivate more people to include salads with every meal. It doesn’t have to be this one but eat those vegetables if you want a long and healthy life.
People always ask me why I never get sick. How do I get such glowing skin? Am I really seventy years old? It’s because I cook every day and the meal always includes a salad and at least one cooked vegetable. Certain vegetables, like spinach or carrots, have more health benefits when cooked so have both raw and cooked veggies every day.
Romaine lettuce is considered the healthiest choice for salads with more nutrients than iceberg, but I sometimes use red leaf or butter lettuce. I always add some cabbage for its many health benefits and colored peppers. A mix of colors will provide the biggest variety of antioxidants so if I use red tomatoes, I use yellow or orange peppers. If I use yellow tomatoes, then red peppers. Red onions add a nice kick but that’s not why I add them. Onions and garlic a loaded with immune-boosting elements. Garbanzo beans add fiber and calcium but I sometimes use red kidney beans.
If I haven’t convinced you yet, just look at why I make this particular salad the most – and these are only some of the health benefits since there are too many to mention:
Romaine Lettuce contains lutein for protect against vision loss, fiber, vitamins A, C, K, and folic acid.
Green Cabbage can protect against cancer & heart disease and boost your immune system.
Bell Peppers have more vitamin C than oranges and they support eye and lung health. Red peppers have more vitamins A and C than green.
Tomatoes can protect against heart disease as well as breast and prostate cancer.
Garbanzo beans are full of protein, fiber, magnesium, potassium, and iron.
Red onions help strengthen collagen, support bone health, prevents cell damage, and supports a strong immune system.
Oh… one more thing: No bottled dressing! Just look at the ingredients. Olive oil is the best and only choice for a healthy salad. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
There’s always something to snack on over the weekend in this house. Sometimes it’s my skinless chicken drumsticks but today it’s my Italian sub pinwheel sandwiches. Today I skipped the cheese and made them with sliced roasted turkey breast, nitrate-free ham, and light salami. The salami is what give them an Italian sub flavor. So here’s what’s inside my lavash bread…. mayo, mustard, Italian seasoning, diced peperoncinis, turkey, ham, salami, and lots of lettuce.
I rolled them up, wrapped them tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerated them for about 3-4 hours. Then I sliced them, covered the plate tightly with plastic wrap, and now they are in the fridge, ready for the weekend. Some people add cream cheese or other different meats so you can make them your own. It’s the perfect TV snack if you’re watching the Olympics this weekend. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Blueberries are on sale so it’s the perfect time to make my blueberry coffee cake. I have simplified my recipe so it’s pretty easy and if you like baking without butter, I’m your girl. This lovely and delicious cake has no butter, not even in the streusel topping. It’s an easy buttermilk cake and I use a heaping cup of blueberries. The streusel is crispy from the toasted pecans. You can use walnuts but I think pecans, especially when they are toasted first, are much more fragrant.
My streusel can be made with softened butter or a trans fat-free spread, but it’s perfect the way I make it, just using oil. I used to make this easy cake in a 9-inch pan but I like using the 8-inch round pan because the cake is taller. Inspect your blueberries and remove any bad ones and make sure they are not wet when adding to the batter. I toss the berries with a little flour before adding so they don’t sink to the bottom.
This blueberry coffee cake, like all coffee cakes, is best served warm. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Any cookies that are crispy, have lots of fiber, no butter, and taste great are my kind of cookies. It’s this kind of cookie that I always have around the house so there’s always something sweet available. I make almost all my cookies with extra light olive oil but you can use any vegetable oil.
Sweets will always be part of my diet so I try to make them as healthy as I can. And crispy cookies like this keep well. I put them in a zip top plastic bag and keep them refrigerated for weeks and they are still great. They’re big, too. This recipe makes a dozen big 4 to 5-inch cookies. Have one for a healthy, high fiber dessert or as a snack with a glass of milk. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Not all chicken meatballs are soft but these are. The secret is to cook them right in the sauce. Ground chicken breast is very lean and healthy but since it contains so little fat, it’s easy for chicken meatballs to become dry. But when they’re cooked in the sauce, they are beautifully soft and even more flavorful from absorbing the sauce.
Using fresh bread crumbs also helps with their beautifully soft texture. Fresh crumbs are made by using fresh bread, in this case whole wheat bread, and running it through a food processor. Since I always bake my own simple whole wheat bread, that’s what I use for the crumbs so it’s important to use a soft whole wheat bread for these fresh crumbs. Click here for my recipe and video on making bread crumbs.
You can put this meal, with sauce, together in about 1/2 an hour if you use myQuick & Easy Spaghetti Sauce. In fact, you can follow myQuick & Easy Spaghetti & Meatballs recipe and just swap the beef meatballs with my chicken recipe. Both of these sauce recipes are exactly the same. If you don’t want to use sauce and would prefer to pan-fry or oven-bake these chicken meatballs, you can do that. They won’t be quite as soft, and not as pretty, but they still taste really good.
I experimented with both pan-frying and oven-baking and here’s how you would do that. To pan-fry, heat a little olive oil in a large pan and cook the meatballs for about 10 minutes, gently turning to brown all sides. They won’t be meatballs any more… more more like meat triangles. To oven-bake, place the meatballs on a greased baking sheet and bake in a preheated 400° F oven for about 20 minutes. The meatballs are done when the inside reaches 165° F. As I said, they won’t be as pretty as the sauce version and here is the proof:
Pan-fried Oven-baked
I told you they weren’t pretty!! Of the two options, the pan-fried meatballs tasted better, probably because they were browned. So now you have options, but I highly recommend cooking these chicken breast meatballs in sauce for the best result. – Jenny Jones
I couldn’t decide what kind of cookies to make today. I often make my giant breakfast cookies but I wanted something different. I like my crispy oat cookies too but I wanted something with even more fiber. So I made a hybrid of both cookies and LOVED them. They are super crispy and as with most of my cookies, they have no butter and no white flour. I followed my recipe for Crispy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies with these changes:
~reduced oats to 1 cup
~added 1/2 cup All-Bran Original Cereal
~used one egg instead of two egg whites
~doubled the vanilla
~added about five chopped mission figs
~added about 3 Tablespoons shredded, sweetened coconut
I baked them at 350° F for 16 minutes and they were perfect. Crispy. Not too sweet. Easy recipe. I like these healthy cookies so much they are now a new recipe here on my site. Click herefor the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Sunday breakfast usually means there’s time to make something special. Today I made English muffins and as soon as I tasted them I remembered why I never buy them at the store. They’re delicious! You don’t need an oven to make these because they cook on a griddle or large pan. This first photo above is how they look just before cooking. And below is how they look after about 15 minutes on the grill, seven minutes per side…
My recipe is simple. You make a yeast dough, let it rest for 10 minutes, then roll and cut out six circles. You dust them with cornmeal and once they rise in a warm spot, you cook them on a griddle – no oven. I preheat the griddle and just rub it with a stick of butter. They cook for seven minutes per side and now you have your own homemade English muffins, ready to split in half and toast. And yes, there are lots of nooks and crannies!
If you’ve never tasted homemade English muffins, I will say they taste nothing like the ones in the package. They’re a hundred, million, zillion times better! Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
This is the best time to make pickles because cucumbers are in season. I make my 3-hour bread & butter pickles with either Kirby cucumbers (the pickling bumpy kind) or Persian cucumbers (seedless with a smoother skin) and today I found some beautiful fresh Persian cucumbers that were fresh and crisp and bright green.
So no matter what kind of cuces you use, these three-hour pickles could not be any easier. They really are ready to eat in three hours! All you need is the cucumbers, some sliced onion, white vinegar and three spices besides sugar and salt. Sometimes I slice the cuces thinly, other times a little thicker and they are always crisp and tangy.
I’m making them for the Memorial Day weekend to have with my fall-off-the-bone ribs and potato salad… or with a salmon sandwich.. or just as a snack right out of the jar. I love these pickles!
Click here for the recipe, and Happy Memorial Day to everyone. – Jenny Jones
You only need four ingredients to make this easy chicken recipe. Well, four plus the chicken. For anyone just learning to cook or simply short on time, this oven-baked chicken is quick, easy and healthy. I make a basting sauce of fresh lemon juice and garlic with olive oil and herbs. The chicken bakes in the oven, you baste it a couple of times, and it’s ready in 30 minutes. And get this: I line my baking pan with foil so there’s no cleanup!
For my herbs, I use a prepared formula of Italian dried herbs that includes basil, rosemary, thyme & oregano but you can use your own favorite mix. Or just use one herb that you like. Once the chicken is cooked, you let it rest for 5-10 minutes, then slice it and pour all the juices left in the pan over the chicken, making sure you get all the bits of garlic too. The combination of garlic, herbs, and lemon goes perfectly with chicken. Click herefor the recipe. – Jenny Jones
It’s Sunday and that’s my day for making cinnamon rolls. I always make them entirely without butter and they always turn out beautifully. I use a trans fat-free spread for the filling and I don’t miss the butter one bit. This time, to keep the edges from over-browning, I used a cake strip and it kept the edges nice and soft, just like the middle.
I can see why it’s one of my most popular recipes. It’s easy and healthier than most other recipes that use sticks of butter. The only problem I have now is… How do I keep from eating all of it by tomorrow?! Click herefor the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Every meal I have starts with a salad. And this is a typical salad that I make every day, full of health-building antioxidants. It’s probably part of the reason I simply never get sick. I have not had a cold or flu in over half a century. Anyone can make a salad, I thought, but I’m sharing a photo of my typical salad to motivate more people to include salads with every meal. It doesn’t have to be this one but eat those vegetables if you want a long and healthy life.
