Exercise: An Important part of Healthy Families

So far I’ve talked a lot about healthy eating habits for families. I’ve posted recipes, healthy substitutions, and other basic healthy and provident living ideas. For a while I’ve been wanting to post about exercise because I think it’s essential for an optimally healthy family. Adequate exercise, scheduled and impromptu is very important for all members of a family. In our family, here are some ways that we include exercise into our daily activities:

Walking – I love to go on walks with the kids. It helps the kids to want to go even more when we have a goal – like the library, the park or other errands we need to run. Sometimes, I’ll take “the long way” on purpose to extend my walk. It saves on gas too! We also like to walk together as a family. We often go on walks with the kids at night. We love to bundle the kids up in the winter and go on walks at night. The quiet, peaceful evenings are so relaxing, but invigorating at the same time.

Active Play – Children need to have exercise. Young children naturally love running, skipping, jumping – anything that is active. We can develop their love for exercise early by promoting active play. When the whole family is involved in active play it turns into a lot of fun.

Working together – Families can get a lot of exercise by working together in the home or yard. We like to work out in our yard and garden. My husband puts the smaller children on his back and mows the lawn or shovels the snow. This allows him to spend time with them, build his endurance (with the added weight) and teach them how to work all at the same time!

Scheduled Exercise - I have an especially hard time getting enough exercise in the winter months. When I find that I'm not getting enough exercise, usually it's because I haven't scheduled a time for it to happen. I enjoy doing aerobics. With little kids, I can't take a class very easily so I often do the pre-recorded classes on TV or DVDs. If I'm feeling brave, I'll let them do it with me, otherwise I'll do it after they've gone to bed or are taking naps. I really like the shows produced by BYU: Total Body Workout - especially the aerobic ones. But if you like yoga, they also have those. You can find the streaming at http://www.byu.tv/.

If your New Year's resolutions involve exercising or getting in shape, I hope this has given you some ideas. Whatever you choose to do, try to stay with it, even if it's just for a consistent short amount of time a few times a week. It's better to start out slow so you don't get burnt out and end up dismissing your goals. I wish you luck on your goals!

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The Power of Food and the 80/20 Principle

I had a wonderful weekend! We've been at a family reunion and as part of it, we had a class given by my uncle Chef Brad. He is a very talented, excellent chef and the nicest person you'll ever meet. He had about 30 of us in the room (his nieces and nephews and their spouses). It was given in a small little house where my grandma and grandpa used to live. He's converted the house into a kitchen and it's a delightful place. He taught us a lot, but here are two main things that I learned:

* Food is powerful! Food has the power to created memories and bond families together. Brad was the chef for the reunion and we ate the best food! He's very talented at adding whole grains into delicious food so that it's not only delicious, but contains nutrition also. He told us that spending hours and hours in the kitchen preparing food for us and then cleaning up afterward was worth it for him because he knew how important the good food was to bind the family together. And it did! Eating healthy, tasty food together is often the mechanism for creating meaningful family memories. We are very grateful to him for all of his hard work. He is awesome!

* The 80/20 Principle. Brad's 80/20 principle is basically this: obviously adding some healthy food into our diets is better than none. If it takes 20% unhealthy food to get the 80% healthy food down, than that's a good place to start. He said that when he began to make whole grain cereal for his family for breakfast instead of their normal unhealthy cold cereal he let his kids put in as much sugar as they wanted into the cereal. At first it took a lot of sugar for them to be happy with it. But over time, the kids cut back and didn't need to put in a lot of sugar. The health benefits they got from the whole grain cereal (even with the sugar) far surpassed what they got from processed cold cereal (which often contains a lot of sugar anyway). His point was that we shouldn't swing all the way to the other side of the health pendulum all at once. Rather we should make steps toward better health. And if we need to include 20% unhealthy food stuff (sugar, fat, salt, etc) to get down the healthy grains and vegetables, than that's a good place to start. It's better than buying processed foods which are much worse for us. He has also extended this principle into the bigger picture - when we eat healthily all week, we can afford to splurge a little in our diets for something unhealthy once a week. When we have eaten healthily all month, we can go out to eat a few times. When we have eaten healthily all year, we don't need to feel guilty over eating a bit less healthy during the holidays.

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Spinach Pizza Crust - Green but tasty!

I tried out a spinach pizza crust recipe for our traditional Friday-night Pizza last night. It was delicious! It does make the pizza crust green, so if you have picky eaters, just tell them it's alien pizza or something to make it fun for them to want to eat. This would be a good one for St. Patty's day! Our four-year-old didn't even notice and I think he's about as picky as they come. I did mostly veggie toppings (thin-sliced tomatoes, olives, green peppers, sliced green onions) on last night's and it was yum! (The section with no toppings was for the picky four-year-old). For the recipe, I used my regular pizza dough recipe and added 1/2 pkg of thawed frozen spinach (you could add more ) with the water. You could also try adding chard instead of spinach.

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Successful Bread Making

I want to share my latest bread-making success story. I posted my bread recipe earlier and some tips and tools I use:

• Bread-Making Tips and Tools
• Whole Wheat Bread Recipe

I made that whole-wheat bread yesterday and it turned out absolutely perfect. I took time to get just the right amount of flour in (not too much, not too little) and that makes all the difference. Here's some pictures:

Dough just after I put it in the pans. The clock says 5:28 (I didn't do that on purpose, but it worked out nicely that it was in the picture):
Dough after raising exactly 30 minutes (I didn't do that on purpose either): Dough after cooking exactly 30 min (that was on purpose):Sliced bread (noticed how few crumbs are on the cutting board - this bread stuck together just right!):Finally, here is a movie that demonstrates the texture of this bread. Bosch mixers are awesome! It makes all the difference in the world!

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I'm Dreaming of Spring...

This might seem like just one more thing to do right now, but if you have extra time, it's not too early to think about & plan next year's garden. If you wait, sometimes the seeds you want will be back-ordered and take longer to ship to you. You'll want to have the seeds on hand if you plan on starting them indoors & transplanting (this is important for some vegetables in areas with short growing seasons). And besides, seeds and other garden items make great gifts! In the middle of the winter, I love to dream and plan for spring!

I ordered this and last year's seeds from Stokes and we've been happy with their products. We used to just buy them at a department or local garden store, but you get a lot better varieties when you order directly from the seed companies. Here's what I ordered new this year:

Sugar Snax 54 (Carrot/Nantes x Imperator)
Chippawa (Corn/SE Bicolor)
Primo (Muskmelon/cantaloupe)
Walla Walla (Onion/Spanish)
Oregon Giant (Snow pea)
Chocolate Bell (Pepper/sweet bell colors)
Longstanding Bloomsdale (Spinach)
Atlas (Squash/butternut)
Celebrity VFNT (Tomato/bush)
Big Beef VFNT (Tomato/staking)
Paycheck Squash (Squash/Green Summer)

Depending on where you live, some of these may or may not work for your climate. These varieties were recommended to me by an expert gardener in our area. If you don't know what to order for your area, go ask a gardener who's been there a while. They are the best sources!

You can also use seeds left over from last year. Here are some of last year's seeds that we plan on using again:

Early Girl (Tomato)
Crenshaw (Muskmelon/cantaloupe)
Buttercrunch (Lettuce)
Oakleaf (Lettuce)
Summertime Head (Lettuce)
Vegetable Spaghetti (Squash/Winter)
Sunshine (Squash/Winter)
Large White Ribbed (Swish Chard)
Boston Pickling (Cucumber/Pickling)
Beefsteak (Tomato)
Bush Blue Lake (Green Beans/Bush)
Roma (Tomato)
Serrano Chili (Pepper)
Sweet Banana (Pepper)
Keystone Giant (Pepper)
Yolo Wonder (Pepper)
Muncher (Cucumber/Burpless)
Jalapeno (Pepper)
Jack-O-Lantern (Pumpkin)
Table Ace (Acorn Squash/Winter)
Green Hubbard (Squash/Winter)
Sunray (Squash/Yellow Summer)

Having a vegetable garden is one of the best ways that we've found to have plenty of fresh veggies on hand continuously. It gives you and added incentive to invent new ways to add healthy food to your meals.

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Holiday Granola

Here's a good recipe for the holiday season when you need to have healthy snack alternatives available.

Next time I make it, I'll cut the sugar and fat and give you an updated, more healthy recipe. I've never made granola this way before and when trying a new recipe for the first time, I try to stick as close to the original as I can. The next time I make it, I start cutting out and substituting so that I can compare it to the original. Does anyone have a Low Fat/Low sugar granola recipe with simple ingredients that tastes good?

Granola
Makes about 2 qts.

6 C. rolled oats
½ C. brown sugar
1 C. coconut
1/3 C. sesame seeds
¼ C. sunflower seeds
½ C. raisins (or other dried fruit - I used dried cranberries)
1 C. nuts, chopped (I used peanuts)

Mix all ingredients except raisins. Stir in and coat thoroughly with:
½ C. oil
2 tsp. vanilla
1/3 C. honey

Spread on cookie sheet and bake at 350 F for 25 min. Add raisins or other dried fruit and bake 5 more min.

For Gluten Free, make sure your oats are gluten free or use other gluten-free grain flakes. You can also flake your own grains with a grain flaker like the one below (Bosch also makes one that attaches to the mixer).

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Yummy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

This is my sister-in-law's recipe - she gave this to me for my birthday/Christmas present and named them after me. :) I made them this morning and they are delicious! Here is a picture she took of the muffins she made. I overfilled mine so they didn't look quite as good, but they tasted delicious!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

3 C. White Wheat Flour
1 1/4 C. White Sugar
2 tsp. Baking Powder
2 tsp. Baking Soda
1 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp. Nutmeg
2 Eggs
1 (15 ounce) Can Solid Pack Pumpkin (or 2 C. Pureed Pumpkin)
1/2 C. Unsweetened Applesauce
1/4 C. Oil
1 C. Chocolate Chips (or Walnuts, which are a great substitute!)
1 1/2 C. Warm Water

Mix together dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately. Then combine wet and dry ingredients. Mix enough to incorporate the wet and dry ingredients. Do not over mix. Handle as little as possible once the wet and dry ingredients are combined. Then add Chocolate Chips or Walnuts to the mixture. Coat 12 average size muffin cups with nonstick cooking spray (With my muffin tins it made about 18 muffins). Fill till heaping with muffin batter. Bake at 350 degrees F for 22-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Don't open the oven door, except near the end of the cooking time to check for doneness, or stomp around the kitchen because the muffins can easily flunk. Let the muffins cool for 5 minutes before removing from the tins. Then let cool on a wire rack.

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Healthy Holiday Snacks and Treats

The wonderful holiday season is in full swing! There are parties with snacks and treats and more treats looming all around us. So much of our culture revolves around food that it's easy to get caught up in the holidays and gorge ourselves on unhealthy food. This post is dedicated to ideas for healthy holiday snacks and treats that we can use instead. Here are some ideas:

1. Fruit! Fruit is delicious and contains many healthful benefits as well. Vitamins and minerals are found in fresh fruits that help us ward off colds and other ailments that are prevalent during the cold months. Our family favorites during the holidays include: Pears, Oranges, Apples, Bananas, Tangerines and more. There's nothing like a fresh, juicy, sweet pear for curbing a sweet tooth. Ripe pears are about as good as "treats" get. Many people get impatient and eat pears before they are ripe. Often grocery stores sell them green, hard and unripe. If you wait a week or two the payoff is well worth it! As they ripen, pears become a taste of heaven!

2. Nuts! There are so many different kinds of delicious nuts. The best choices for nuts are those without all the salt and oil and junk on them. After you get used to the flavor of raw nuts, you'll find that the salt and oil is completely unnecessary. Raw nuts contain essential fats that are healthy and have many anti-cancer properties. Many studies show that eating a handful of nuts every day is beneficial to our health. Some of our favorites are walnuts, almonds and of course peanuts. You can buy them shelled or enjoy the fun of shelling them yourself. If you're looking for a snack, raw or low-salted nuts are a good choice!

3. Dehydrated fruit & leathers - another great way to curb a sweet tooth! Some of our favorites include dried apricots & apples, raisins, dates, applesauce leather, peach leather and yogurt leather (That's right! you can dehydrate yogurt and it makes a very tasty treat!)

4. Popcorn - don't waste your money and calories on the microwave varieties which are high in additives, fat and sodium. Make your own using an old fashioned popcorn popper! Then you can limit the amount of butter and salt you add and it really doesn't take that much more time!

5. When doing your holiday baking, try to stay away from white flour as much as possible. Freshly ground whole grains are delicious in cookies, brownies, cakes, muffins, nut breads and more. Your family and guests won't notice and they'll appreciate your effort to include whole grains into treats that they love.

I was short on time and needed to bring a treat to a party a few nights ago. I only had 20 minutes to make it so I went with rice crispy treats. The only healthy thing I had time to do was pop 2 tablespoons of amaranth (a small white grain that is delicious when popped) and add it to the rice crispy recipe. It is white when popped so completely invisible with the white rice crispy treats. No one knew the difference and they turned out really good. Little things like that are examples of how you can add health to very basic recipes.

6. When doing holiday cooking and baking, use other healthy substitutions listed in a previous post. You can cut down on fat and sugar in many recipes without noticing a difference in taste.

I'd love to hear comments - post any ideas you have for healthy, snacks and treats. What healthy snacks do your family eat during the holidays?

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Friday Night: Pizza Night!!

It's Friday again! Yeah! And in our family it's a double YEAH because Friday night is pizza night - our favorite! This is a tradition that my family had in our home growing up. The last few years, I've tried to adopt it as a tradition in our family as well. At first it was hard because all the dough recipes we had made too many pizzas. We have a small family so we would eat pizza leftovers all week. That make it difficult to want to make pizza again the next Friday. But we've done a lot of experimenting. Brandon actually is the discoverer of this dough recipe. I just adapted it to be whole-wheat. This is a VERY Easy, VERY Healthy, VERY Delicious recipe. 

The secret to good pizza is cooking it on a pizza stone. It makes it crispy and delicious. We leave ours in the oven all the time. I know some people who take theirs out when they are not using it because they say that it affects their other cooking. We don't want to break ours by transporting it so we leave it in and it doesn't seem to affect the other cooking we do. If anything it seems to enhance it. As a side note, cookies baked on a pizza stone are also delicious! We transport our pizza in and out of the oven on a large pizza paddle. It's a lot easier to slide on and off the stone with the paddle. Just sprinkle a little corn meal on top of the paddle for an even easier slide!

Here's our dough recipe:

Pizza Crust
Printable Recipe

*Makes 2 large pizzas

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 Cups Water
1 tsp. salt 
1 Tbsp. powdered milk
1 Tbsp. honey or brown sugar
2-1/2 – 3-1/2 Cups Freshly-ground Wheat flour
1/8 Cup Gluten Flour
1 Tbsp. instant yeast 

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 475 - 500 F (This temp will depend on how hot your oven cooks). Heat water in the microwave for 1-1/2 minutes or until hotter than 110 F. Then add water, salt, milk, and sugar in Bosch mixer. Add 1-1/2 Cup wheat flour and gluten flour. Then add the yeast on top. Set mixer at 2nd speed and mix adding more wheat flour until dough barely begins to pull from sides (you may not need all of it). Mix to let gluten work in for about 6 min. Cover dough and let rise for about 15-20 minutes.

Sprinkle counter with olive oil. Coat rolling pin in oil. Divide dough into two pieces and roll out each into a large circle (10 - 12” diameter) and place each on parchment paper. Let raise for 5-10 min. Add sauce and cheese and other toppings as desired. Bake on preheated 475 - 500 F pizza stone, for 6-10 min or until crispy and cheese is bubbly. 

*Note: If you're making bread sticks, use the same steps and instead of rolling out the dough on olive oil just form the bread sticks. Brush tops with melted butter, and sprinkle with any topping such as garlic or onion salt, parmesan cheese, sesame or poppy seeds, or seasoned salt. Allow to rise 15-20 minutes (although change in size is not evident). Bake at 400 degrees about 10-15 minutes. They are great dipped or spread with butter as you eat them. Yield: About 24 bread sticks.

Basic Pizza Sauce

Our basic pizza sauce is very easy (sometimes I add blended vegetables to this). 
Simmer Together:
1 8-oz. can tomato sauce
1 tsp. pizza seasoning

This make enough sauce for 1-2 large pizzas.

You can also use alfredo sauce instead of this red sauce and it's also very tasty.

Our favorite toppings include:

• Canadian bacon, sliced pineapple and roasted almonds (My #1 favorite)
• Pepperoni w/ black olives, green peppers
• Chopped tomatoes, green peppers, onions, black olives, other veggies

Here are some similar topics I've blogged about earlier:

• Bread-Making Tips and Tools
• Whole Wheat Bread Recipe

Here are some great tools that we use in making pizza:

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Hawaiian Haystacks w/o Chicken

I was feeling adventurous the other day and tried a new recipe. I wanted to make Hawaiian Haystacks, but I didn't have any chicken. I wondered if I'd miss it. Well, I didn't, and my family didn't either. It turned out great and a great way to eat whole grains and legumes. This is a good recipe for kids because they like the colorful toppings and they can add what they want. It's not mixed like a casserole, which they usually don't care for. This is gluten free if you use something else for the soup and omit the chow mein noodles.

Hawaiian Haystacks
1-1/2 C. Brown Rice, cooked
1-2 C. Black-eyed Peas
1 can cream of chicken soup
½ C. sour cream
Dash of pepper to taste
frozen green peas, defrosted
diced red pepper
crushed pineapple
grated cheddar cheese
coconut
green onions
chow mein noodles

Pressure cook the black-eyed peas (no soaking necessary) 8-10 min on the second red ring. Mix together the black-eyed peas, soup, and sour cream in a pan. Warm thoroughly. Serve soup mixture over rice and top with green peas, red pepper, pineapple as desired.

You could try white beans or another kind of bean instead of the black-eyed peas. I used black-eyed peas because the cook up REALLY fast in the pressure cooker and I was in a hurry!

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USDA Recipe Finder

I discovered a great recipe finder last year - the link was published in the newspaper. It is published by the United States Department of Agriculture. It's helpful because it lists the average cost of each recipe and also the nutritional value. It's a great resource and I've found some good recipes on it!

http://recipefinder.nal.usda.gov/

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Yummy, Healthy Bran Muffins

Here's a great recipe for bran muffins. I make these for breakfast all the time. These are delicious and healthy. Yesterday I served them with peach jam - yum!

Bran Muffins
3 C. unprocessed wheat bran
1 C. boiling water
1 C. brown sugar
½ C. margarine
2-1/2 C. freshly ground wheat flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs, beaten
2 C. buttermilk (or 2 C. Milk with 2 Tbsp. vinegar or lemon juice, let sit for 5 min)

Mix 1 C wheat bran with 1 C. boiling water; stir and let water absorb into bran. In a separate bowl blend sugar and margarine. Measure and combine flour, sugar and salt. Combine the moist bran with beaten eggs, the remaining 2 C. of bran, buttermilk, blended sugar-margarine mixture, and flour, soda and salt mixture. Stir until well blended.

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