Healthy Sweet Potatoes and Porkchops

For those of you looking for a healthy, easy and cost effective dinner, here it is. You will be amazed at how good it takes with so few ingredients. For those of you veggie's, the potatoes are a good side anyway!

Makes 4 hefty servings

Sweet Potatoes:

• Preheat the oven 400 F.
• Peel and cut 3 sweet potatoes into even sized chunks. Place in buttered dished, add 1/4 cup vegetable stock, cover with aluminum foil and bake for 40 min.
• While hot, remove aluminum foil and using a fork to mash potatoes. Add a dash of nutmeg, salt and white pepper. Sprinkle with diced walnuts and raisins.

Pork Chops:

• Blend together 2 tbls canola oil, 2 tbls white vinegar, 1/4 cup of unsweetened apple sauce, 1 clove of garlic, salt and pepper. Marinate 4 medium thickness pork chops for 1 - 2 hours.
  
• Heat 2 tbls of oil in pan. Dip both sides of each porkchop in bread crumbs. Cook until crispy on either side.

Bring hard cookies back to life

While reading my November/December ReadyMade Magazine, I was excited to find the following tip:

"If you've made cookies that end up being hard as rocks, just stick them in a resealable plastic bag with a slice of bread. Let it sit overnight. The next day, your now super-soft cookies will have soaked up all the moisture from the bread, fooling everyone into thinking you're a cookie-baking genius."

I am definitely trying this out the next time I make cookies since this always inevitably happens to me.

Spiced Rum Cider

 

There are plenty of recipes out there for spiced cider, but this one has been the most successful. We served it at our "pre-thanksgiving thanksgiving" party and someone actually named it as what she was thankful for this year! Not to mention that we ran out of the spiced cider, which is probably the best endorsement you can get for a drink.

Our version is based on this Emeril Lagasse recipe. If you ask us (please, don't email us; it's a figure of speech), Lagasse uses way too much sugar. Cider is sweet enough, and you want to be able to taste the rum. Below is our edit of his recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 apple, studded with whole cloves (it should look like the Hellraiser of apples)

• 1 orange, thinly sliced
• 1 gallon apple cider (don't be fooled by recipes that call for less, you'll need this much)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons allspice
• Plenty of grated nutmeg
• Sailer Jerry spiced rum (We got this suggestion from Lukas, and it's the perfect rum for the recipe.)
• Cinnamon sticks for garnish

Directions
In a pot, combine the studded apple and other ingredients, except for the rum. Slowly bring to a simmer over low heat. Simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat. Ladle into mugs and garnish each with a cinnamon stick. Let the drinker choose their own amount of rum (it's the giving season, after all).

A Dash of Health - Frozen Veggies

Hi Guys! This will be the first of a few posts I am planning on publishing focusing on Healthy Eating. For the last 3 months I have embarked on a new eating and exercise regimen that has shaved 30lbs off my frame. Over those months I picked up a few tips and tricks on how lower calories, fat and sodium without sacrificing flavor while making each dish better for you with a "Dash of Health". Each post in this series will provide you with quick and easy tip/trick to make cooking and eating healthier!

Chapter 1 - Frozen Veggies

I am the biggest fan of frozen veggies! For years I have had a bag or two on hand just incase I needed to make a side dish in a flash. Since I have been trying to eat healthier I find myself adding them to every dish I cook and go through a bag or four of them weekly. They are the quickest and easiest way to get your 5 a day without breaking the bank. Most frozen veggies range from $1-$2 a bag and are packed with a pound of the veggie. You can get 5-7 bags of veggies for $10 while those same veggies bought fresh would be $20-$40!

The trick with buying, storing and using your frozen veggies is to try and maintain a nice mix of of your favorite combination of veggies in a gallon size Ziploc bag. Doing this will not only save you the time taking each bag out of the freezer to cook with, but will also make sure you have a variety of veggies on hand to add to your favorite dish. If you have an extra 1/2 or 1/3 measuring cup laying around I suggest keeping it in the bag so you can easily dish out your 2/3 to 1 cups of veggies (typical serving size). A few dishes I find myself using the veggies for are: Omelets, Soups, Couscous, Rice, Pasta, Sauces, Mac & Cheese, and Casseroles. What is great about having them mixed and ready is that adding a few scoops of veggies will make your dishes healthier and will also give your food a greater depth of flavor.

What I currently have in my veggie bag:

1/2 bag Onions

1/2 bag Diced Red & Green Peppers

1/2 bag Chopped Broccoli (anything larger cooks unevenly)

1/2 bag Chopped Spinach

1/2 bag Chopped Zucchini

Check out my Healthy Alternative recipes for ideas of how you can add more veggies to your diet.

The next A Dash of Health post will be on bread.