Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients

2 1/2 pounds  sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2-inch pieces

1/4 cup milk (can use non-dairy milk such as soy or almond) 

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon  pepper

1 1/2 pounds ground turkey, or grassfed ground beef

2 medium carrots, finely diced

2 ribs celery, finely diced

1 small onion, finely diced

2 tablespoons  all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons  tomato paste

2 cups  reduced-sodium beef broth

1 10 ounce package frozen peas

1 tablespoon  chopped fresh thyme

1 tablespoon  chopped fresh rosemary

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Add potatoes to a large lidded pot and cover with 1 inch of cold water. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to a simmer and cook, covered, 10 minutes or until fork-tender. Drain and return to pot. Add milk, 2 tbsp of the butter, 1/2 tsp of the salt and 1/4 tsp of the pepper. Mash until smooth. Cover and set aside.

2. Meanwhile, add remaining 1 tbsp butter to a large saute pan over medium heat. Stir in ground turkey or beef, breaking apart with a spoon, as well as carrots, celery and onion. Cook 15 minutes until vegetables are softened. Stir in flour; cook 1 minute. Stir in tomato paste, beef broth and peas. Bring to a simmer and cook 3 minutes, until liquid is slightly thickened and peas are thawed. Stir in remaining 1/2 tsp of the salt, remaining 1/4 tsp of the pepper, the thyme and rosemary.

3. Transfer meat-and-vegetable mixture to a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking dish. Spread sweet potatoes over mixture, leaving a 1-inch border around the edge. Swirl top with back of a spoon, if desired. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until shepherd's pie is bubbling.

Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients

7 sweet peppers (red, orange and yellow)

1 cup  Bob's Red Mill whole grain quinoa

1 tablespoon  olive oil

1 cup  diced sweet onion

1 teaspoon  ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon  cinnamon

1 cup  dried figs, roughly chopped

1/2 cup  unsalted cashews, roughly chopped

3/4 teaspoon  salt

1/4 tablespoon  pepper

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Seed and dice 1 of the cooked peppers. Slice remaining 6 peppers from stem to bottom; seed.

2. In a medium lidded pot, bring 2 cups water to a boil. Stir in quinoa; return to a boil. Cover, reduce to medium-low and cook 10 minutes. (If using another brand of quinoa, cook 2/3 time shown on package.) Drain; set aside.

3. Return pot to stove; place over medium heat. Add olive oil. Stir in the 1 diced pepper and onion. Cook 5 minutes. Mix in cumin and cinnamon; cook 1 more minute. Stir in figs, cashews, quinoa, salt and pepper. Fill pepper halves with quinoa mixture and place cut-side up in a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 30 minutes or until peppers are tender.

Tip

Quinoa is high in magnesium, which is known to reduce headaches and regulate blood sugar.

Peanut Turkey Noodles

Ingredients
8 ounce (1/2 box) whole wheat/grain linguine
8 ounces snow peas, trimmed and halved lengthwise
1 cup shredded carrots 
9 ounces fully cooked carved turkey breast
3 scallions, trimmed and sliced
1 7 ounce jar Thai peanut sauce
1 tablespoon white vinegar

Directions
1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to boiling. Add linguine and cook 9 minutes. Stir in snow peas and carrots and cook another minute. Drain and rinse under cold running water until cool to the touch.
2. Transfer linguine mixture to a large bowl. Add turkey and scallions. Pour the peanut sauce over the top, then add vinegar to peanut sauce jar. Screw cap back on and shake jar. Pour contents over linguine mixture, toss to coat completely with sauce and serve.

Collard Greens

On their own, collard greens have a mild, smokey taste, but they also take on other flavors beautifully. Give their versatility, it's no surprise they're featured in dishes globally. 


How To Select & Store
Choose nice green leaves with no blemishes. Look for leaves that aren't wilted, then you know they're fresh. To store, simply place collard greens in a zip-lock bag and refrigerate. Collards should keep well for up to five days.

Prep Tips
Collard greens can be sandy, so to clean, submerge them in water to loose any grit, then wash and dry. For raw preparations including salads and slaws, you'll  want to use smaller, tender collard leaves, and cut them into thin ribbons. Larger, more fibrous leaves are best roasted, sautéed oar braised; slice off woody stems and cut or tear into bite-size pieces before cooking.

Try This
For a vegetarian version of traditional Southern collard greens, sauté collards and garlic in olive oil, and simmer in vegetable broth; to make it a meal, add sautéed onions, carrots and celery and finish with a can of white beans.

Carbs: Dr. Neal Bernard responds

I went vegetarian recently, and although I feel good and am losing weight, I'm worried because I seem to be eating so many carbs. Is that bad? 

 

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President & author of Power Foods for the Brain, Dr. Neal D. Bernard, M.D., answers: 

Not at all. In fact, those carbs are a big part of the reason you're losing weight. Despite the bad rap that carbs have somehow acquired, a gram of carbohydrate has only four calories. Compare that with a gram of fat, which has almost nine. In other words, carbs are relatively low in calories. That' a one reason the majority of people in Japan and other Asian countries where they eat lots of rice and noodles have customarily been thin. But people in these countries have been gaining weight since the 1980's, when meaty Western eating habits started to replaced their rice-based diets. 

So, if carbs are actually low in calories, how did bread, pasta, potatoes and other carb-rich foods get their reputation for being fattening? We'll think about how they're often served: mashed potatoes are drowned in butter or gravy, spaghetti is doused with meat sauce. What we fattening are the greasy toppings, not the carb-rich foods themselves, which are actually innocent bystanders. 

Some people have suggested that carbs ought to be fattening because of the glucose they contain. When a carbohydrate molecule breaks apart in your digestive tract, glucose enters your bloodstream; glucose stimulates the release of insulin, which escorts glucose into the body's cells. The theory is that this insulin release promotes weight gain. What the theory's proponents are forgetting is that insulin release is triggered by proteins too. Just as insulin helps glucose enter cells, it does the same for the amino acids that are the building blocks of protein. So it turns out that beef, cheese, etc. trigger as much or more insulin secretion as many high-carb foods. 

What's more, carbohydrates are a pretty big group. Carbohydrates are in everything from table sugar, candy, and doughnuts to whole-grain pasta, fresh blueberries and heirloom beans. You'll want to pick the healthiest representatives of the group, such as whole grains, beans, fresh fruit, and veggies. They are better choices than highly processed snack foods where healthful fiber is taken out and fatty ingredients are added. 






Courtesy of Vegetarian Times, Jan/Feb 2014

Holiday Truffles

This is one of our favorite holiday goodie recipes... Holiday Truffles! 

No added sugar
No high fructose corn syrup
No butter
No artificial anything
Just the pure sweet goodness of pitted dates combined with cocoa and vanilla!  

Don't knock 'em until you try them... they're a HUGE hit with anyone who has ever tasted them! 

They are equally as yummy if you omit the coconut, or substitute walnuts for the pecans. 

Tools You’ll Need:

•        Food processor
•        Measuring cups
•        Measuring spoons

Ingredients:

•        1 cup of pecans
•        1 ½ cup of medjol dates (pitted)
•        ¼ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
•        4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
•        1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•        1/8 teaspoon sea salt

Instructions:

1. Plug in your food processor and place all ingredients in it.
2. Grab a small handful of dough and roll it into a ball (each truffle of mine was about 1″ x 1”)
3. Repeat step 2 until your entire dough is gone.
4. Eat up or, if you want to save them for later, place truffles on a plate and refrigerate.

* Makes 20 truffles

* Nutritional Information (per truffle): 106 calories; 6g fat; 15g carbohydrates; 2g protein.

RECIPE & PHOTO COURTESY OF AMAZING! PALEO

Starting today, I vow to be healthy.

I have avoided writing this blog post for several weeks now. It would've been too painful to write before this, as it requires me to open up myself into a very vulnerable position, but it needs to be said... God asked me to share. 

Starting today, I vow to be healthy. 

This may come as a shock to many of you. But you are healthy. Aren't you? 

Well, yes. I know how to be healthy. I know what I should and shouldn't eat. I am educated in nutrition. I have spent countless hours researching, learning, writing essays, reviewing health publications and pouring every ounce of myself into nutrition and health textbooks. I have lived, breathed, prayed and petitioned for the health of His people for over two years. When you are called into a ministry area, it becomes your identity... your life is dedicated to serving in the specific area in which the Lord has asked you to minister. 

And serve to the fullest extent is just what I was doing, until five months ago. On July 1st 2013 we lost another baby too soon; our seventh miscarriage when I was just over 11-weeks along. 

The pain is still raw; the wound still tender to the touch. 

Our other losses have all healed; formed their scars. 

But this one... this one is still in the process of scabbing over, and it hurts. It stings when I pick at it. So for the past five months I have left it alone, hoping it would heal quickly on its own - by scabbing over, then scarring, just like all the others. 

This one is different. It hasn't healed as quickly as the others. It only began the process of healing just two short weeks ago... on the day I finally set aside myself and came before Him - admitting my pain, my sorrow & my exhaustion. Admitting I cannot do it without Him. 

For months I had been fooling myself, causing myself to believe that I had already set me aside... But, I was lying. It's the only way I knew how to keep free of the pain - the pain of loss, the pain of jealousy, the pain that comes with healing sometimes because in order to heal, we need to open ourselves up and allow Him to work is us. And, that can be painful. 

So for the past five months, I had never truly opened up, and that wound was never really exposed. I had never let it get the air it so desperately needed. Instead, I just kept wrapping it in a light bandage and then wondering why it was taking so long to scab over. 

I don't even remember what our pastor preached on that Sunday morning two weeks ago. All I know is that God was speaking to me - He was asking me to take the bandage completely off, to approach Him at His altar, and allow Him to start treating my wound so He could heal it. And for through that entire Sunday morning service, I kept telling Him, "yeah, okay..." because maybe He would stop asking to treat my wound.

But, standing at the altar for prayer that morning were the exact two women in my life that needed to pray with, and for, me. Two strong, faith-filled women who I admire, who I have been vulnerable with, who love and support me, and who have walked alongside me during previous losses. The two women that God knew needed to be standing there in order for me to even consider asking for prayer. And so, I approached them... I told them I had been so exhausted since the loss in July; they already knew my story. And the Holy Spirit knew exactly what needed to be prayed over me that morning. 

The release of stress, the peace that overcame me, the start of healing that occurred that morning; it was incredible. It was overwhelmingly powerful and freeing and felt like a warm soothing, healing balm all over my body. 

Now I write this post, five months to the day after we lost Amara Grace. And my wound is just now starting to lightly scab over. 

I know because I can write this post while only a few tears stream down my face. 

I know, because even through those tears I can still find peace in writing this, knowing it will bring comfort to someone else and in doing so, it will glorify Him. 

Today, our pastor spoke about glorifying God... 

how everything is created to glorify God, 

but how we only glorify Him when we fulfill His purposes. 

Well, my purpose is to be healthy - physically, emotionally & spiritually - so that I can help, encourage and teach others as they achieve health. My purpose - our family's call into ministry - all keeps coming back to our fifth miscarriage: Asher Nicholas. Read his story here. 

And because I can only glorify God by fulfilling His purposes, 

I vow to lay aside myself, 

to find strength and peace only in Him, 

to allow Him to treat & heal my wounds, 

and to continuing serving Him how He has asked me to... 

by being whole and healthy, in Christ.

How has He asked you to serve Him? 

Will you vow to fulfill His purposes to bring Him glory?