My Health Journey

I always liked feta cheese with slices of cucumber, so was surprised when a friend of mine served it with avocados instead. I loved it, and that flavor has since grown on me. Quick and easy breakfast meal. Feta cheese and avocado, with arugula and dried (Moroccan) black olives.

My mother's recipe, and a favorite of my daughter. Needs no baking. The idea is to arrange layers of tea biscuits (known as petit beurre , which can be found in Middle Eastern grocery stores, among others), with alternate layers of custard and chocolate pudding in between. Instead of custard, which is hard to find nowadays, I substitute any kind of pudding I like. Layer cake with chocolate, tapioca, and custard. Shown below is my latest with layers of Kozy Shack chocolate and tapioca puddings, and a powder pudding mix that I combine with milk over heat, like custard. I skipped the eggs on the last one, to give it more of a custard consistency that hardens when cooled. Depending on the shape of your baking tray, you may need to cut out parts of some of the biscuits. I used a 9"x9" tray. I also recommend putting the chocolate pudding at the bottom since it's thicker and will hold the consistency better. Once the layers are arranged, cover the tray with foi...

These pizzettas are easy and quick to prepare, and are a sure hit with my daughter. For a crust, you can use slices of any kind of bread you have.  For a cheese, hard cheeses that melt nicely are preferred, like Gruyere. I personally like yellow Balkan cheeses like Kashkeval (Bulgarian) and Kefalograveira (Greek), which you can obtain from Middle Eastern and Balkan grocery stores. For toppings, mushrooms, bell peppers, pitted and halved kalamata olives, and grape tomatoes go well. You can add coarsely chopped garlic if you wish. Bake at 400-425 F for about 10-12 min, until the cheese starts to brown. Top with baby arugula if you like. Pizzettas with Kashkeval cheese on whole wheat sourdough, topped with bell peppers, mushrooms, kalamata olives, garlic, and baby arugula. Hint: If using mushrooms, don't chop them too small and don't bake for too long, or their water will seep out and make the bread soggy.

Last weekend, in between a 5-mile run and a 5-mile hike on consecutive days, I needed a high-carb meal to keep me going. I didn't have much food at home and didn't want to shop on the weekend, so concocted this healthy outtake on Canadian food: my vegan poutine. Healthy Vegan Canadian Poutine I found some potatoes, onions, and carrots.  Instead of deep-frying anything, I opted to drizzle the ingredients with olive oil (after first rubbing the potato slices with salt, black pepper, and paprika), then bake-fry. Baked 25 min. at 425F, then arranged and topped with fresh baby arugula and baby spinach.

Feta cheese and (pita) bread, served alongside olives, pickles, and whatever raw veggies are available, makes a common breakfast in the Eastern Mediterranean. Rather than the traditional sandwich, or mezza (small dishes), this morning I combined my veggies (cucumber, tomatoes, avocado, and arugula) and chunks of feta into a salad, dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, served alongside a bit of bread and feta. This helps my wheat allergy by reducing the ratio of bread in my meal. Eastern Mediterranean Breakfast Salad

One of my inventions, fusing Middle Eastern flavors with an East Asian vegan staple. Simple to prepare, simple to clean up after, filling, and protein-packed. Tofu Kebab served with rice and avocado. I use the extra-firm tofu when I can.  Before I cube it, I squeeze it for a few minutes between two large plates, using a saucepan as a weight, then draining the water. This reduces the sogginess and helps it remain intact.  I use whatever non-root vegetables are available.  Bell peppers, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, and onions all go well. For a dressing, I can go Middle Eastern with olive oil and lemon juice (and salt and pepper), or East Asian with soy sauce and sesame oil. The skewers can be grilled like vegetables on an outdoor grill. If using the oven, I usually set it to bake at 425F for 10 min, while turning it often, to dry out the tofu even more. Then I set it to Broil at 535F for another 10 min, rotating frequently.   ...

As a vegetarian, I don't frequent Cuban restaurants much because of limited food choices. So I decided to make my own Vegan Cuban dish. Black beans and green lentils with brown rice and sauteed plantains. I stuck to simple ingredients. Lightly sauteed the plantains with nothing else added but olive oil. Make sure to let the plantains ripen long enough (until its skin yellowed and darkened) before using. I seasoned the black beans with cumin and Korean hot peppers and a squeeze of lime. The lentils and rice only had salt. Simple, but a delicious and protein-packed meal. Idea for leftovers: I stir-fried the beans with cumin and paprika, adding baby spinach for a minute, then topping with baby arugula to give it a fresh taste.

Carrot, celery, bell pepper, and tomato sauce, with beets, served on ancient grain penne. Recently, I cooked a Chinese stir fry with carrots, celery, mushrooms, and grilled tofu. I loved the flavor combination and wanted to do it again, but was tired of rice and stir fries, so decided to make it into a pasta sauce. I had bell peppers instead of mushrooms, which probably works better with the tomatoes I also wanted to add.   I grilled the tofu separately, as before. For the sauce, I used the wok to stir fry the garlic, onion, and beets, then added the carrots, celery, and peppers in that order, a few minutes apart. I added the tomatoes last, enough to steam. The flavor worked well, with the celery blending well into the tomato sauce, and the tofu not changing the flavor much.

The key to coming up with dishes like these is to not be afraid to experiment and substitute.  Use whatever ingredients available, as long as the flavors go together.  It takes trial and error, but if you cook often, you'll get the hang of it. Eggplant and enoki mushroom with carrots and bulb onion. Puffy tofu with Shanghai cabbage and bean sprouts, over rice. Puffy tofu and eggplant over soba noodles. Preparation for Xian noodles and cabbage One of my favs: Xi'an noodles and cabbage in hot oil. A recipe from the ancient capital of China.  Preparation for a silken tofu salad.  Since I'm allergic to soybean and sesame (the main traditional garnish), I add a lot of vegetables to reduce the amount of allergens I'm eating. Silken tofu salad, with soy sauce and sesame oil, plus whatever veggies you want to add.

The following meals I made recently mostly use ingredients from my local farm CSA . Pasta with butternut squash and kale, with side of roast veggies and yams.  Tabbouleh Salad with parsley, bulgur, tomato, and leek. Pasta with chickpeas, roast carrots, kohlrabi, and onions. Stir fry with tofu, carrots, kale, and avocado, over brown rice. Spaghetti with roast farm veggies (carrots, kohlrabi, and beets). Wedge salad with red cabbage, carrots, leek, kohlrabi, baby broccoli, and watermelon radish, with yogurt/lemon dressing.

Almost Vegan Thanksgiving Dinner Menu Butternut Squash with Shiitake Mushrooms and Sage Mashed Yams and Beets (with milk and butter optional), dressed with Maple Syrup Braised Brussels Sprouts with Paprika (butter optional) Boiled Red, White, and Blue Baby Potatoes Cabbage Salad with Lemon Dressing Roast Leeks, Tomatoes, Carrots, and Garlic Ingredients Two-and-half hours later Ingredients The first eight ingredients are from my local  farm CSA , all seasonal and organic. Brussels Sprouts Yams Butternut Squash Carrots Beets Cabbage Garlic Leeks Baby Potatoes Shiitake Mushrooms Tomato Lemon Grated Kashkeval Cheese (optional) Butter and Milk (optional) Salt, Pepper, and Paprika Fresh Sage Olive Oil Maple Syrup

Butternut Squash Soup Ingredients: 1           Butternut squash 2-4         Peppers (Mix sweet and hot peppers. Jalapenos are good, but for a milder flavor, I used a red poblano pepper, with 2 banana peppers to give the flavor of Jalapenos) ½             Onion 1              Lime 1 can      Coconut Milk 2 cups     Apple Cider 2-3          Bay Leaves                Salt, Pepper, Turmeric, Soy Sauce, Olive Oil, Butter. For garnish:Scallions and Cilantro (Chopped) 1.       Preheat oven to 400 ° F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. 2.       Cut Butternut Squash in half. Scoop seeds out with a s...

In Eating Healthy: CSA What? I talked about the Farm program to which I subscribe for fresh produce. Here, I illustrate how the program works with this week's plentiful harvest. Upon visiting the farm, I ended up getting over 11 lb. of tomatoes, lots of several kinds of peppers, a spaghetti squash, kale, and eggplant, and more. Had to decide how to split all that food across the week, especially that tomatoes are perishable. Decided to make a sauce out of the 4 lb. of plum tomatoes and store it in mason jars. The remaining tomatoes, I designated for salsas and salads. That would use up some of the peppers. This week's harvest of CSA tomatoes: Blonde salsa from CSA veggies (made three of these):   Tomato Pasta Sauce with Veggies:   Roasted veggie wheat-free sandwich, using the eggplant, sweet roasting peppers, poblano pepper, and a summer squash left over from last week's harvest:   Finally, I made both a kale pesto and a roasted tomato and vegg...

Tofu Kebab, one of my culinary creations After starting exercise with weights, I worried about the adequacy of my nutrition. I am a lifelong vegetarian, and though I have lived healthy for decades on a vegetarian diet, I wasn't sure I was getting enough protein to build muscles. I got a few books on vegetarian nutrition. One was too technical and tedious, another a marketing ploy for nutritional products. Ultimately, however, one book really changed my life. No Meat Athlete by Matt Frazier was a curious but interesting and most practically useful guide. Half the book was about down to earth vegetarian nutritional advice, the other half about running. This is the book that got me started running, at age 41. I learned that my biggest concern with a vegetarian diet was not protein, but the dependence on processed food. I followed the book's advice and switched my diet nearly completely to whole foods, while eliminating much junk food. I ended up cooking more myse...