Kitchen: Slight Changes to Our Eating Habits

I hate the concept of diets...with a passion.  One cannot live well on a "diet".  A person will feel deprived when on a "diet".  While "dieters" can be successful in their mission to "shape up" and "lose weight", unless (and until) they are satisfied both nutritionally and emotionally with their food choices, they are likely to backslide.   

Just say the word "DIET" and suddenly I am dreaming of chocolate cake and decadent gelato!  My mission, then, is to exchange my current food choices with better choices.  If I am equally satisfied with better choices, then I will still feel like I am just eating...not dieting.

I embrace the crowd that encourages  a healthy lifestyle change to a drastic diet. I don't want to diet--I want to be able to LIVE ON what I enjoy eating.  It makes no sense to me to eat only one or two food groups.  For those who cut out fruits, they miss out on a lot of antioxidants.  Eliminate or drastically reduce your intake of fats and you  lose feeling satiated.  Fats trigger that "full" feeling.  Need to speed digestion so foods won't lay heavy on your stomach?--well, let's just say that is what desserts were made for.  I hope everyone finally believes that one must have fats in their daily intake...A, D, K are fat soluble vitamins. 

The Private Selection Organic Black Beans (found at Fry's Foods) is one of the changes I have made.  
Fry's Food 
They do cost more than a regular can of beans. [I think I paid $1.19 a can on sale the last time I bought some.)   I don't know how much power it takes to actually cook dried beans, but in a true comparison, dried beans are more than the initial purchase price...especially if you add the TIME it takes to cook them.  I've even had problems trying to get dried beans to cook properly.  It is hard to find organic dried beans to cook, as well.  The point is that these canned beans taste good, are full of  nutrients, and I don't need a special dictionary to figure out the list of ingredients.  So, how did I get this good choice into my balking husband's stomach?   I just finessed it in.  [I didn't start out with tofu burgers and almond cheese.]  Translation--I paired it with something he likes, that he is not ready to give up--Smoked Sausage (Beef).  No, that is not a perfect choice; but I was able to slip TWO better choices in by using the sausage since I also used  
Lundberg's Black Japonica Rice   

as part of the recipe.  Prior to the debut of this recipe, whenever Beef Smoked Sausage was served in our house it was served either with Kraft Mac and Cheese out of the box, adding extra cheese, OR with fried potatoes and fried cabbage.  

Adding cooked onions, celery, and carrots to the black beans and Japonica rice not only furthered my goal of exchange/replacement, but it makes a quick, tasty, more filling dish to which the amount of sausage used can be reduced.  When you have time, (weekends?) you can prepare a large pot of onions, celery, and carrots.  Divide what you have cooked into packages and freeze.  This mixture known as mirepoix, is quite useful as a base for many recipes. I will add that my husband still insists on some grated cheese on top, but we are making progress.  A little hot sauce on top works well, too. There are so many more benefits from this recipe, compared to how it was originally served .  We really do like this, and it is, now, in the rotation of regular meals.  And, if once in a while my husband should ask for sausage "the old way", I am not going to have a fit...I'll just try to balance that with another meal later in the week.  (So far I have only prepared it the old way once...without him asking for it, just so it doesn't appear that I am taking away all his favorites.)

• less salt
• more fiber
• more antioxidants
• less fat
• no useless white flour

Color, color, color--that is where the antioxidants are found.  Colored rices (colors occurring naturally--reds, blacks, and purples) have anthocyanins in them.  These are said to be helpful in the fight against atherosclerosis, as well as, many other health issues.  This rice takes about an hour to cook, but can be cooked ahead and refrigerated or frozen 'til needed.  If you have your rice and mirepoix already cooked, throwing this together takes only about 15 minutes.  For added flavor, fry the sausage first prior to mixing it with the beans and rice.  (Place the sausage on paper towel and express some of the excess fats, too.)


Expanding our horizons to trying new foods is not always met with such success, but the successes are worth the effort.  Black beans and Japonica rice--better choices that we WILL eat, in our everyday day choices of foods to live on; not diet.

Good luck on making your changes...I will be posting more about other products that we are adding or exchanging.  Stay tuned for further updates!

Kitchen: CREAMY RICE PUDDING

Creamy Rice Pudding

Lundberg Black Japonica Rice becomes an unusual looking Creamy Rice Pudding*

I wanted to make some rice pudding for my husband the other day and I decided to try making it with Lundberg Black Japonica Rice…that looks black when you begin, but is more reddish when cooked. It’s a blend of black and mahogany rice. Gluten Free!
Place one cup uncooked rice in heavy pan with 2 ½ cups water.  Cook according to package instructions…although I added extra water…my package called for 2 cups water, but I wanted well-saturated rice for this recipe.  Cook about 50 minutes, but check it at 40 minutes, until you get used to cooking this rice.  When the majority of the water is absorbed, turn off the heat, and set aside while combining the other ingredients, allowing for any other moisture to be absorbed into the rice.

• Cooked rice

• 4 cups 2% milk (any type of milk you wish to use is fine)

• 4 beaten egg yolks (you can freeze the whites for use later in cakes or omelets)

• 1 cup loosely packed brown sugar (or scant cup of turbinado sugar)

• 3/8 cup cornstarch

• Dried fruits and nuts: your choice: raisins, blueberries, cranberries, almonds, walnuts, cherries, currants…etc.

• ½ -1 tsp Cinnamon

• ¼-½ tsp Allspice

• Dash of ground cloves

• ¼ tsp grated nutmeg

• 1 tsp vanilla (optional--it’s just fine without it)

• 1/8 tsp salt (optional)

• 2 TB butter (optional--but I like it that way)

Combine the dry ingredients and thoroughly whisk together in the top of the double boiler*.  Combine the milk and beaten egg yolks; mix thoroughly.  Combine the liquid ingredients with the dry ingredients making sure to mix completely. 
Add the pre-cooked rice and any dried fruit and nuts and stir with wooden spoon.  Place pan over  hot water and stir constantly with wooden spoon.   The yolks and cornstarch will turn this into a creamy mass.  (If you used dark rice, it may look like chocolate.)
Serve warm or chilled…it stays creamy even in the fridge.  This makes quite a few healthy sized servings, so you may want to cut this in half--unless you want to eat some for breakfast the next day!!  I haven’t tried it yet, but I've been thinking I'd try maple sugar or agave syrup to sweeten.  I’ve pondered using coconut cream instead of milk, but I haven’t tried that yet either!
For families that might not like rice, or don’t like to try new things…introducing red or black rice in the form of a creamy pudding might go over pretty well.
Healthy eating!!
* If you don’t own a double boiler, you can easily use two pans that fit together  without too large a gap.  (You don’t want the heat to escape and you don’t want to get burned from steam that arises.)  My double boiler is too small for the recipe, so I just use two pans…never had any problems doing that.




*The pudding is served in circa 1952 Steuben air twist stem cocktail glass.