The Flavor of Friendship

At church on Sunday my friend, Katherine, handed me two jars of homemade sugar free jelly. She has pear trees that produced abundantly this year. Among other things, she made pear jelly. Then she branched out into pear/plum jelly, pear/pineapple jelly and at my suggestion pear/pomegranate jelly.

It was because of me that she branched out to sugar free jelly. This brings up the point of healthy and what does that mean. I believe sugar free is healthy, but I am also OK with sugar substitutes which others might view as unhealthy. Many people think honey is a healthy sweetener. I have to agree that it tastes great, it is God's original natural sweetener, and those bees are so clever to be able to make it. But I avoid it because it spikes blood sugar almost like table sugar and causes cravings for more sweets.

The jelly that Katherine gave me on Sunday was a masterpiece: Pear/Pomegranate/Merlot/pecan. Can it get better than that? I spread it on toast without butter and eat it like it was a piece of pie. Friendship is sweet and it tastes good.

Katherine's Sugar-free Pomegranate Jelly Recipe

I peel and cut small pieces of the pears off the core and put them into water with Fruit Fresh in it. After they soak, so they do not get dark in color, I remove them from the water and put them in the mini food processor and grind them til they look like applesauce.

I use:
2 C of ground pears.I add 2 cups of pomegranate juice
I put them in a deep sided pan and bring to a boil. I stir in 1 package of sugar free Sure Jel and bring back to a boil and boil at least 2 minutes.

Add 4 C of sugar substitute all at once and stir in. Bring back to a boil and boil 3 minutes.

Then I pout into hot jars and screw on hot lids and place in a hot water bath.
(Hot water over the top of the jar) and bring to a boil, boil for 5 minutes or more.

Set them out of the water on a rack and cool, make sure they seal.
This will make 4C and maybe a little more so 2 pints or 4 1/2 pint jars.

Same recipe for all whether it is pear, pear pineapple, pear/persimmon or pear with anything else...

Sure Jel has good advice in the package. The sugar free does not talk about pears but the regular Sure Jel does and I have found anything that applies to peaches applies to pears.


.

Grocery Shopping

I shop for groceries in Lawton, Oklahoma. The best prices are at WalMart and today I got two good deals: Butterball turkey for 50 cents a pound and sweet potatoes for 25 cents a pound.

The only other grocery store is Country Mart. In a city with a population of approximately 93,000 people, I can't find whole wheat phylo dough or chestnuts, even though both recipes say they are "available at your local grocery store." They haven't been to Lawton.

Though these ingredients are unavailable in Lawton, rest assured that LARD is readily available.

Can anyone tell me why a person would buy a big tub of lard?

My 86-year-old mother-in-law told me a story about when she was a girl. Whenever her father butchered a pig, they would grind some of the meat into sausage and stuff it into crock pots then top the meat with melted fat. Later, when they wanted to cook some sausage, they'd reach through the fat and pull out the sausage. Gross? Lard might have been useful back in the day. But now, why?

.

What Not to Eat

It's church dinner day.
Let's walk through the line and talk about healthy choices.

Bacon is delicious but the fat clogs arteries and leads to heart disease. Beans are naturally heart healthy. You can learn to love them without bacon.



Chicken and fish are two healthy sources of protein. But bread and deep fat fry them and they lose their healthy status. Try grilling or baking or other cooking methods that don't add fat and calories.











Go easy on the sugar. Everything doesn't have to be sweet. Cut sugar out of your diet and you will begin to taste the natural sweetness in fruit and vegetables.




Choosing whole grain over processed white flour pasta is always a good choice. Processed flour has much of its nutrients stripped away and it turns quickly to sugar once eaten. This causes you to feel less satisfied and wanting to eat more and more.




Choose sweet potatoes over white potatoes for the same reason. Plus sweet potatoes are loaded with extra health benefits.




When it comes to desserts, I have to just say no. I am a surgarholic. I can not have one cookie or one small piece of pie. As soon as the sugar touches my taste buds and enters my blood stream, I am too weak to resist the second cookie and the third and the fourth...It is much easier for me resist the first one.

Church Dinner Tomorrow

First Sunday of the month means church pot luck dinner (lunch). With a church full of old fashioned country cooks, your taste buds say, "We're in heaven." Your arteries say, "We're feeling clogged." And you blood says, "Whoa! I'm spiking!"

The ladies cook the yeasty white dinner rolls in the church kitchen. The heavenly aroma fills every corner and makes your mouth water. There are usually more dessert choices than anything else. Almost everything has sugar in it: the salads, the vegetables, the sauces, the salad dressings, the fruit dip... No wonder diabetes abounds.

I try to bring something healthy (no sugar, no animal fat, no processed flour, little to no salt) which means I often take most of my food home. Oh well, I keep trying.

Tomorrow I am going to make chicken and stuffing. Not the best time for that since so many people just had their favorite version at Thanksgiving and will probably have it again at Christmas. I live in cornbread stuffing country, something I never heard of before moving to Oklahoma. I was raised on wheat bread stuffing spiced with sage. And my parents were from Kansas, just north of Oklahoma.

My stuffing has no bread in it. The replacement ingredients are a mixture of whole grain brown rice, whole grain wheat, and a little bit of steel cut oatmeal, which I cooked together today. I meant to add quinoa too, but I forgot. Maybe next time.

I'll add 1/2 cup chopped celery, 1/2 cup chopped onion, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, sage and nutmeg then let it sit overnight in the refrigerator.

In the morning I may add some chicken broth, depends on what it looks like, then put it in a casserole dish topped with cooked chicken and let it warm up and bake in a very slow oven while I'm at church. I live two doors down from my church so it's an easy walk to go home and turn up the heat if needs be and be ready to walk back to church for the dinner at 12:30 p.m.

.

Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients:

~ 1 15 oz. can of pumpkin puree (only ingredient - pumpkin)
~ 2 small sweet white onions, cooked and diced (left over from last night's dinner)
~ 2 medium sweet potatoes, cooked and diced (also left over from last night's dinner) You could puree them if you want your soup smooth.
~ginger, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon to taste
~ 2 cups chicken broth (from last night's dinner, fat removed)

Place all ingredients in a small crock pot. Add canned chicken broth if needed to fill crock pot near to the top. Stir to mix. Cook on low for 5 hours or longer.

Salt and pepper to taste, eat and enjoy.

Sweet Potatoes

Some people call the sweet potato a nutritional All-Star, one of the best vegetables you can eat.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest ranked the sweet potato #1 in nutrition of all vegetables.

The sweet potato has a low glycemic index number meaning that it is digested slowly and does not cause a spike in blood sugar. That keeps the cravings for junk food away.

Sweet Potato Nutrition Facts for one medium size sweet potato:

Calories - 130

Fat - .39 g

Protein - 2.15 g

Net carbs - 31.56 g

Dietary fiber - 3.9 g

Calcium - 28.6 mg

Sodium - 16.9 mg

Potassium 265.2 mg

Folate - 18.2 mcg

Vitamin C - 29.51 mg

Vitamin A - 26081.9 IU

source: US Department of Agriculture

Not only nutritious, the sweet potato is also tasty and easy to cook. I like to microwave a sweet potato, cut it in half, smoosh the sides, add and dollop of olive oil margarine, sprinkle cinnamon on top and eat. Sweet & delicious.

Have you ever had sweet potato fries. Yummo! Bake them in the oven instead of frying for a healthier treat.

Tomorrow I am going to try making sweet potato soup from what's left of tonight's roast chicken and sweet potatoes dinner. I hope my soup will be as tasty as the Butternut Squash Soup I had at Atlanta Bread.

December, an Introduction

The only complaint my daughter had about Thanksgiving was the lack of healthy food choices. I made a sugarfree cranberry salad and a broccoli feta cheese salad, two of the dishes deemed healthy.

This got me thinking about a holiday dinner table laden with healthy foods where one who chooses not to eat white flour, white potatoes, sugar or ghastly fats can still feel like it’s a special, festive meal. Why not join the ranks of food bloggers and try out recipes that could be served at such a feast? It’s not like Christmas isn’t just around the corner. I’ve talked myself into using December as a month to discuss food, recipes, and healthy eating.

Do you have a healthy recipe that I could try?