Sweet Potato Casserole Recipe

Old recipe books can reveal how our dietary went awry in the 20^th century.  Take the New Delineator Recipes, printed in 1930, for example.  The book includes 24 dinner menus, typically a meat dish served with potatoes and two vegetables.  In 10 of the 24 recipes a salad replaces one of the vegetables.  Twenty of the menus include potatoes; two include sweet potatoes.  One big change from the ‘30s to now is that we eat more salads and a lot less of meat and potatoes.  The potatoes we do eat are more often sweet potatoes, rich in carotene and less glycemic.

Most sweet potato casserole recipes are a sugar disaster.  A healthier sweet potato casserole recipe seemed a simple goal.  I’d simply use the natural sweetness of fruit to reduce the sugar, and substitute pecans for the usual marshmallow topping.  That was two weeks and a dozen batches ago—it wasn’t that easy.  It turns out that when you reduce the sweetness, the flavor become more important.  The beautiful wife confesses to a sweet tooth, so finding a flavor that worked with less sugar required a few experiments.

Traditional flavors for sweet potatoes, according to The Flavor Bible, include pecans, cinnamon, unsalted butter, and maple.  Apples and pineapple, as well as raisins, dates, and cranberries—each a natural way to sweeten—are also noted.  Many recipes include orange juice, but for us the orange juice seemed to turn bitter during cooking and the low sugar content made this noticeable.  We also tried nutmeg (prepared and fresh-grated), and cloves with similar results—a bitter aftertaste. 

So here’s our best effort—it’s the lowest sugar casserole we’ve seen but the natural fruit and flavors give it a great taste.  It goes well with some leftover ham, chicken, or salmon, plus a green salad.

Skip’s Sweet Potato Casserole  (Serves 5-6)

Ingredients:

3-4 medium-large sweet potatoes (about 2½ lb.)

3 apples, green or whatever

8 oz. crushed pineapple, canned or fresh

¼ C butter (1/2 cube), softened

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp maple extract

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¼ C butter (1/2 cube), softened

¼ C sugar, turbinado or dark brown

1 to 1½ C pecans, roughly chopped

Directions:

1. Fill a pot ½ full of hot water (enough to cover sweet potatoes and apples) and bring to a boil.  While water is heating wash, peel, and quarter the sweet potatoes and apples.   Put the sweet potatoes into the boiling water first and add the apples 10-12 minutes later.  Total cooking time is around 20 minutes; the apples and sweet potatoes should be soft enough to mash, but not mushy.
2. While the pot is boiling, prepare the sauce and the topping.  For the sauce, combine softened butter, eggs, and seasonings.  For the topping, cream the butter and sugar, then stir in the pecans.   This is a good time to turn on the oven, 350 F.   (Note: I prefer turbinado, a form of raw sugar, to the store-bought brown sugar because the latter is often just white sugar with a little molasses sprayed on, but either is acceptable.  Maple syrup likely works but it’s a little pricey.)
3. When the sweet potatoes and apples are ready, drain and mash with a potato masher, adding the pineapple.  (Note:  We tried this with both canned crushed pineapple, and with a pineapple we had sliced and saved in the fridge.  Pineapple is a good source of natural sweetness, especially if fully ripe, or brown.  If it’s a little green, you can bring out the sweetness by cooking it a few minutes in a frying pan until slightly browned.)
4. Stir in the sauce.  Pour mixture into a 2 qt. casserole.  Sprinkle with pecan topping.  Bake about 20 minutes until pecans are browned. 

Time:  With a little experience, allow 30 minutes to prepare this dish, excluding the oven time.  You can prepare the salad and supervise the table setting while it bakes.

The Joy of Fasting

The quick answer:  Though we eat to live, fasting can improve our health as well as the quality of of our lives.

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Scripture

Of the three oracles that inform this blog, one is Scripture.  The other two are Science, and Tradition.  I like the idea of teaming Scripture—discredited in many a laboratory—with Science to create a more profound answer.  In the last post the Genesis account of the Creation led to an intriguing question:  Are the 92 elements of which the earth was formed all essential to health?   Our knowledge of Science is too incomplete to give an answer yet in Genesis 3:19 we’re told “. . . for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”  I’m led to believe the 92 elements, as found in the soil that grows our food, each play a necessary role.  The very idea inspires reverence for the Creation—and for food in its natural form.

While we turn to Scripture, we avoid religious jargon.  Our hope is people of every belief will feel welcome, and comfortable enough to share their nutrition experience.  That said, we’d like to discuss a religious practice common to many faiths:  fasting.

Fasting

In the Mormon faith, fasting is done monthly.  Typically this means skipping two meals (the money saved is given to a special fund for the poor).  This is done for spiritual, rather than health, reasons but fasting does have health benefits.

The N. Y. Times ran an article last year, “Regular Fasting May Boost Heart Health.”  The article cited a study that found regular fasting among Mormons was associated with a 58% reduction in heart disease.   Other lifestyle factors may contribute, but no medicine, to my knowledge, yields such a benefit. 

The same doctors then took blood samples from people undergoing a 24-hour fast.  Among other benefits, there was a surge of human growth hormone after fasting—a 20-fold increase for men, 13 times for women.  Human growth hormone is released during starvation to promote burning of fat and protect muscle and other lean tissue.  Want to reduce your fat level?  Ask your doctor of fasting is right for you.  Because excess fat is such a problem in our society, I’m surprised this benefit isn’t more discussed.

A recent study by the National Institute on Aging found that weekly fasting protected the brain from the effects of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other diseases.  The study suggested two days of minimal calories each week, followed by five days of normal eating.  However you do it, there seems to be a benefit to fasting.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman

Dr. Fuhrman writes regularly on nutrition and preventative health.  Fasting is recommended in his book, Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor’s Program for Conquering Disease.  I discussed his book in this post.  Dr. Fuhrman recommends that your doctor supervise fasts longer than three days, you should know.  Fuhrman found so many health benefits to fasting that I decided to try a three day fast.  Here is what I learned:

• Much of my eating, mainly snacking, is driven by boredom rather than hunger.  If you want to improve your health, replace snacking with . . ., well, a moment of jump-roping or a Sudoku puzzle.
• After the first day, I wasn’t really hungry.  Hunger diminishes as the fast progresses. 
• Your mental focus improves during fasting—as the physical appetites diminish, you get a better view of what’s important.  Fuhrman notes that people giving up addictions, like smoking, do better if they fast. 

Please comment:  Share your experience with fasting.

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

Vitamins from Food

The quick answer:  as illustrated above, whole foods are the best source of vitamins, but you have to think out of the box to get to that conclusion.

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Thinking Out Of The Box

It’s a grim subject, but I had to smile at the ad that led with, “Think out of the box.”  I’ll get back to the cause of my smile in a moment, but if you read this blog, you’re definitely an out-of-the-box thinker.  In fact, over breakfast I was recounting a N. Y. Times article as the beautiful wife patiently listened.  I was intrigued by the title: “A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity.” 

An applied mathematician reported on his analysis of our national weight gain and type 2 diabetes problem.  From 1975 to 2005 the average American gained 20 lbs. and weight-related diabetes soared.  The math guy blames this on excess food supply.    

Being an out of the box thinker, I advise the beautiful wife, “He’s got it wrong.  It’s not about the amount of food—it’s about the nature of the food.  We’re eating nutrient-depleted, mildly-addictive factory food rather than natural food.  Natural food fills you up; factory food stimulates appetite."

The beautiful wife sighs, then smiles, but says nothing.  I know what she’s thinking:  Is it really possible all these high-paid experts are wrong and my very own husband—absent-minded, rumpled, and writing for free—has it right? 

Raising six kids was a piece of cake; this is her real burden:  She’s a believing person but has chosen to spend her life with a guy who questions everything.  Take vitamin and supplement pills for example.  Actually, don’t take them, unless prescribed by a doctor who has studied nutrition.

That’s my out-of-the-box position and the subject of this post.  Which leads us back to the opening line and the ad that made me smile.  The think out-of-the-box ad was promoting a service for the end result of what we've discussed so far . . . cremation. 

Dust to Dust

If you took a chemistry class, it’s likely the periodic table of the elements was posted on the wall.   The table was a clever idea.  The earth is made up of just 92 natural elements and the table organizes them into 18 families.  As a struggling student, I spent a lot of time staring at this chart.  It came back to me the other day and I asked two questions:  Does food contain all 92 elements?  Do all the 92 elements have a role in our health?  These are simple questions but the answer could be profound.

Take oxygen:  It’s the most abundant element on earth as well as in our bodies—the average body has about 95 pounds in various forms.  Gold, understandably is less common—you’ve got around .00002 lbs of gold inside your body.  It’s as rare in the body as on earth, but is essential to joint health, transmission of electrical signals, and perhaps fertility.  Male semen contains trace amounts of gold.  Decorum demands I resist the impulse to make a joke.  It’s hard.

Of the minerals, calcium and phosphorous are most abundant in the body.  We hear a lot about eating too much sodium but more important is the balance of sodium to potassium in our food.  Basically, factory food has too much sodium—because salt is the cheapest flavor—but natural food has a healthy ratio. 

Think about the elements in vitamins: Vitamin B-12, aptly named cobalamine, contains cobalt, so this mineral has a critical health function.  Vitamin B-12 is found only in animal products so this is a problem for vegans.  Because the body contains a several-year reserve, deficiency is not immediate but it’s hard to diagnose so is a real threat to health.

Which brings me back to the original questions, asking whether food contains all 92 elements and whether all 92 are important to our health.  Basically this is an incredibly complex question that Science, despite billions spent on research, has just begun to explore and will not answer in our lifetimes.  It’s unknowable—but this doesn’t restrain your humble author.

Here’s an answer with a scriptural underpinning:  My belief in the Creation story, symbolically presented in Genesis, tells me all 92 elements have a purpose and are all important to our health in the proportions delivered by Nature, as in whole foods. 

Natural Vitamins

In last week’s post we advised eating orange fruits and vegetables daily and told how vitamin A is formed in the body from over 50 different carotenoids found in food.  Though not yet proven, it’s possible that each of these carotenoids plays a needed function in the body.  They may play multiple functions as the body processes them through the various stages.  It’s complicated. 

Still, knowing as little as we do, unless your doctor prescribes otherwise, the safest course is to get our vitamins from the natural ingredients, the pre-forms found in food, rather than from factory-made synthetic forms sold in pills.  It’s that simple.  Unless you have a unique medical condition, the best source of vitamins, and minerals, is to eat a variety of natural foods. 

For more, check last year’s post on this subject:  Best Source of Vitamins?  Or read the N. Y. Times article, “The News Keeps Getting Worse for Vitamins.”  In the next post we’ll take a different look, reviewing the essential micronutrients.  Essential means you have to eat them; your body can’t produce the nutrient.  Examples are the 13 vitamins, the 9 essential protein amino acids, and the omega-3 and omega-6 fats.

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

An Apology

There’s a pattern to our three weekly posts:  first a Healthy Change, then a supporting recipe, followed by a weekly dinner menu.  Recipe writing has been a blast.  It’s hard but it’s been a wonderful introduction to a better food culture. 

Because this week's Healthy Change is to eat orange fruits and vegetables, my plan was to write a healthy menu for sweet potatoes.  Sweet potatoes—a great nutrition bargain—are usually drenched in sugar and marshmallows.  So I wanted to write a menu for a a low-sugar casserole, or a sweet potato soup.

But there’s a complication.  We’ve come to picturesque Midway, high in the Wasatch Mountains to marry off our last single child.  It’s a happy day but I haven’t been able to devote the time needed to develop a recipe.  So this post is an apology and a promise for the future.

I would like to offer a couple of possibilities:  The N.Y. Times had a casserole recipe, Sweet Potato, Carrot and Dried Fruit Casserole, that sounded delish but I haven’t tried it.  Won’t someone give it a try and report back?

Likewise, I saw two delicious sweet potato soup recipes:   Sweet Potato-Peanut Bisque and Curried Carrot, Sweet Potato, Ginger Soup.  I can’t bless them because we’ve haven’t tried them but they sound as tasty as they are healthy.

Midway Memories

We’re the guardians of a Victorian farmhouse that has been the home of the beautiful wife’s family for over a century.  Though I’m an outsider, I love this small village because it still resonates of how farm people once lived.  A century ago four siblings build homes on a corner and together they had 44 children.  Imagine 44 first cousins growing up within a stone’s throw of each other.  As a result, much of the town is some kind of relative to the beautiful wife.  Can I tell you about a few?

Two of those 44 cousins, aunts to the beautiful wife, became schoolteachers but never had the blessing of marriage and family.  As schoolteachers they lived lives sanctified by service to the children of others; they were angels.  In college we came to this home for Sunday dinners a time or two.  The aunts were marvelous cooks and at dinner one of them would stand behind my place at the table, trying to anticipate what would make my dinner experience even more enjoyable.  You had to love their solicitude but it did give me a confused image of what marriage might be like.  How could such gracious treatment ever be forgotten?  It’s part of the reason we’ve dedicated our time and means to preserving the old home.

A saintly uncle lived through the back lot.  Once on a visit he came to me as I was loading the car to leave.  His arms were filled with packages of meat from his freezer.  “Here,” he offered, “can’t you use these?”  As struggling college students meat was a rare indulgence so his gift meant a lot.  Another time he gave a gallon of his homemade apple cider.  It was the best ever.  This was behavior typical of farmers—giving something of what they had raised to visitors.  But it was done in such a kindly way that I have ever since wanted to be like him. 

The beautiful wife has a cousin some might think a little grumpy.  He’s a hard man, not someone who would get pushed around.  He once gave me his assessment of California:  “I wouldn’t give my backyard for the whole state,” he declaimed.  This caused me, on a walk, to peek over the fence to see his backyard.

This past year, after a long marriage, his wife passed away of breast cancer.  She was buried in the old cemetery on a hill overlooking the town.  What does this man—who on certain days can be hard and grumpy—do with his evenings now?  In his grief, he takes his guitar to the cemetery, sits on a bench, and sings songs to his departed wife. 

I apologize there is no recipe or menu this week but as you probably know, it’s a lot of work to get ready for a marriage.  And if I could give one thing to our daughter and her new husband, it would be this:  That their marriage be blessed with that special grace found in small towns.

Vitamin A

The quick answer:  At a basic level nutrition reform is quite simple:  Eat less sugar, lots less, and eat more vegetables, lots more.  It's that simple.  And be sure to eat something orange.

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A Brief History of the Vitamin Business

This year marks a historic moment in nutrition:  The term “vitamin” was coined exactly 100 years ago.  The discovery of the 13 known vitamins between 1910 and 1941 was the most exciting nutrition event of the time.   A longer look at our romance with vitamins reveals the difficulty our society has with nutrition:

1. Thoughtful physicians make a connection between disease and dietary deficiency.  The first instance was beriberi.   The advent of polished white rice led to beriberi (caused by B-1 or thiamine deficiency) among the upper class in Asia.  Before this British had linked scurvy to the poor diet of their sailors.
2. Scientists then discovers the exact dietary deficiencies:  Vitamin C for scurvy, B-1 for beriberi, vitamin D for rickets, vitamin A for poor vision, and vitamin B-3 for pellagra (a disease that ravaged the poor people of the South).  Later certain birth defects are linked to insufficient folic acid (the preform of vitamin B-3).
3. Laboratory researchers, in the hope of better treating these diseases, develop synthetic forms of the vitamins naturally found in whole foods.  This reflects a blind faith that man can reinvent Nature.
4. Businessmen package the synthetic versions of natural vitamins in pill form that doctors can prescribe for the treatment of disease.
5. To grow their business, these pills are offered to the general population without prescription or doctor guidance in the false belief they’ll promote good health. 

Bottom line:  In the Industrial Revolution we were good at making money from scientific discoveries such as vitamins, but we were slow to learn an important lesson—if you desire to be healthy, the best source is still Mother Nature.

Carotenoids and Vitamin A

The retina of your eyes requires vitamin A (or retinal) to function.  The body makes vitamin A from the many carotenoids in a healthy diet.  Of the carotenoids, beta-carotene—the orange pigment in carrots—plays a key role but others may also be important.   The role of carotenoids in eye health was discussed in this post.

There are hundred of different carotenoids in a healthy diet and though we don’t understand all they do, we know they act as antioxidants.  We discussed the critical role of antioxidants in the posts titled Staying Alive and Aging with Grace. 

Vitamin A enhances the immune system and aids reproductive health as well.  It’s also preventative of infections, including the respiratory and diarrheal infections common to children.  Worldwide, vitamin A deficiency takes a terrible toll in child mortality and blindness.  Carotenoids are protective of heart disease and certain cancers.

Such deficiency is uncommon in the U.S. but there is chronic insufficiency.  Because we eat so few vegetables, carotenoids constitute one of the major dietary insufficiencies for Americans.  One goal of this blog is to remedy carotenoid insufficiency by eating more vegetables.  We earlier addressed this with the post, In Defense of Veggies.  

The Simple Truth

At a basic level nutrition reform is quite simple:  Eat less sugar, lots less, and eat more vegetables, lots more.  It's that simple.

Vegetables perform many functions but they're our primary source of carotenoids.  Authorities recommend 4-5 daily servings.  Americans, if you don’t count French fries, average about 1 serving daily.  This is such a big problem it’s the subject of 8 of our 52 Healthy Changes.   You’ll notice much less attention to fruit—also important but so much easier to include in the diet.  When you plan your vegetables, think about colors.

Eating red:  Lycopene, an important carotenoid, gives tomatoes and other red fruits and vegetables their color.  There is evidence that lycopene is protective of certain cancers, including prostate cancer.  Cooked tomatoes are our richest source of lycopene and last week’s recipe Real Spaghetti Sauce gave a recipe. Our menu goal is one serving of tomato sauce per week.

Eating green:  Last year in the post titled Seeing Green, we introduced green carotenoids like lutein and zeaxanthin and discussed their role in reducing the risk of cataracts and macular degeneration.   We also looked at their importance in the post The Joy Of Salads and suggested a green salad most days.

Eating orange:  This week we look at how to include the orange carotenoids in your diet.  Foods rich in the orange carotenoids:

• Carrots
• Sweet potatoes
• Any yellow or orange quash
• Oranges (the beautiful wife puts OJ on her breakfast compote)
• Apricots
• Mangoes
• Papaya

A good way to do this is to eat an orange fruit and vegetable each day.  Keep this rule in mind when writing your weekly menu and shopping list.  If healthy food isn't in the house, it can't be eaten.

 Please comment:  What is your favorite orange vegetable.  Have a recipe you want to share?

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

Real Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

 A Wedding Recipe

The beautiful wife and I have driven to the picturesque town of Midway, located high in the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains.  We’re the caretakers of a century-old Victorian farmhouse that was the home of her Swiss ancestors.  This trip has a special purpose, the marriage of our last child, a daughter. 

Because she had spent 18 months in Italy as a young woman, this seemed a good time for a recipe with a traditional tomato sauce.  And because the exercise of the week is stretching, I somehow thought of spaghetti.  (When you were a kid, didn't you stretch your spaghetti by sucking it into your mouth while your mom or dad frowned at your manners?)  So the recipe this week is for tomato basil spaghetti sauce.  (Because we’re away from home, we’ll have to add the picture later—sorry.)

To Make or To Buy?

We made a make-or-buy decision to buy pasta and make the sauce—here's our logic:  Following the Healthy Changes, we wanted spaghetti that was whole grain—now available in most stores.   The sauce should include vegetables in addition to tomatoes, with more natural fiber than added sugar.  Ideally, it should be cheaper, tastier, and healthier than the stuff sold in the store. 

I got a surprise at the store—you could buy a 24 oz, 6-serving jar of the generic brand, on sale, for just $1.69.  In fact there was a price dichotomy—value brands sold at $2-$4 dollars while premium brands sold for $9-$11.  Basically, the cheaper sauce uses tomato puree and soybean oil, sweetened with sugar.  The premium brand used whole tomatoes, onions and carrots, EVOO, and no added sugar.  That’s the basic rule of Food Inc:  The cheapest flavor is usually sugar.

So the first conclusion was my sauce wouldn’t be cheaper.  If I were at a point in my life where money was desperately short, I would buy the generic brand of spaghetti sauce.   If there were more money than I knew what to do with, I’d buy the premium brand.  But if I wanted the best taste and healthiness with sensible use of money, I should make my own sauce, time permitting.

Recipe Tips

This is what I learned about spaghetti sauce recipes:

1. Good sauce takes time—allow several hours for cooking.  In fact, a crock-pot or slow cooker is as good as a Dutch oven or cast iron pot. Some recipes call for as little as 30 minutes cooking time, but it's not the same. 
2. Because it takes time, make more than you need.  Save some in the refrigerator for another day and put the rest in the freezer.  There are lots of uses for homemade tomato sauce.
3. Spaghetti with sauce is an example of slow food made fast:  Make the sauce ahead of time, cook the pasta in 15 minutes (5 to boil the water, 10 to cook the pasta), toss a salad while the pasta cooks, and you've got a 20-minute dinner.
4. I didn't understand this before, but tomato sauce is a way to get vegetables into the family diet.  Besides tomatoes and onions, traditional recipes include carrots, celery, bell pepper, eggplant, and, of course, garlic.  You can even hide squash, or whatever's going bad, in the sauce. 
5. Be careful of those old containers of dried basil or oregano—they develop a bitter taste with time and ruined my first batch.  I’m cautious to buy fresh herbs as they go bad before you use them up, but this time I bought fresh basil and put the extra in the freezer (sealed bag) for later. 
6. Invest in some hard Parmesan cheese so you can grate it fresh.  If you're feeling flush buy Parmesan Reggiano, which is only made in certain regions of Italy and must be cured for a year.  ($22/lb at the local grocery, ouch.)

A Better Sauce

To focus on the sauce, we did our sampling without pasta, Parmesan cheese, or meat.  My first batch didn’t please the beautiful wife—she preferred the store brand.  It got crazier:  I bought a value brand and a premium brand and she liked the cheap stuff (with 2-3 tsp added sugar per ½ cup serving) best.  Did I mention she has a sweet tooth?  

Our homemade sauce also had an off taste that we traced to the aged oregano plus some metallic taste from the tomato cans.  That’s a benefit the factory sauces have—they use glass bottles so there’s no “can” taste. 

I went back to work, trying to come up with a sauce so good it masked the “can” taste, didn't need a lot of sugar, and avoided spices so old they’ve turned bitter.  One aid was to build on the taste of eggplant.  Here’s what we came up with—the beautiful wife judged it delicious.  I didn’t put my name on this sauce as it follows traditional practices.  This recipe makes enough for 6-8 servings with 1 lb. of spaghetti.  Double the recipe if you want to freeze some.

Real Spaghetti Sauce  (Serves 6-8)

Ingredients:

• 2 T olive oil, plus 1 T butter
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, grated
• 1 celery stalk, finely chopped
• ½ bell pepper (orange or red is best), chopped
• 3 slices eggplant (or zucchini squash), peeled and chopped
• 4 med. garlic cloves (or 2 tsp garlic puree)
• 1-28 oz can diced tomatoes (or whole tomatoes, mashed)
• 2-6 oz can tomato paste
• 2 tomatoes, chopped (best if from your garden)
• 1 C chicken stock (2 C if fresh tomatoes are not used)
• 1 T fresh basil, chopped, or 1 tsp dried (but not old) basil
• Optional: ½ tsp dried oregano (but not old, taste it for bitterness)
• 1 bay leaf
• ¼-½ tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp salt, or to taste
• ½ tsp pepper, or to taste
• 2 tsp sugar (just enough to offset acidic tartness of tomatoes)
• 1 lb. whole-wheat spaghetti

Directions:

1. Wash and prepare vegetables.
2. To a hot cooking pot, or frying pan, add olive oil, butter, onions and carrots.  After 5 min. add bell pepper, eggplant and garlic.
3. If using frying pan, transfer vegetables to cooking pot when onions are translucent.  To the pot, add canned tomatoes, tomato paste, fresh tomatoes, and stock.  Also add basil, optional oregano, lay leaf, red pepper flakes, sugar, salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil then turn heat down and simmer two hours or more; a shorter cooking time will work if you’re in a squeeze, but time brings out the flavor and blends the vegetables.  Add liquid if the sauce gets too thick; if too thin, remove lid from pot to hasten evaporation.
4. Cook the spaghetti al dente, grate some Parmesan cheese, and serve with tossed salad and bread.

Often the guys prefer meat with their spaghetti, either sausage or meatballs.  I’ll look for a good source for a follow-up post.  Anybody have a good meatball recipe?

Stretching

Wengen, Switzerland; photograph courtesy of Andrew Bossi

The quick answer:  A muscular lifestyle, including regular stretching, ensures a healthy body.
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A Village Too Beautiful

Did I mention the beautiful wife is half-Swiss?  She is, which may explain how she avoids fights yet never surrenders.  A while back we thought it would be good to visit picturesque Wengen, birthplace of her great-grandmother.  The village, perched above an alpine valley and reached by cog train, is more beautiful than words can describe.  If you haven’t been there, put Wengen on your bucket list.

Despite the Alpine beauty, what I remember most about Wengen is the fitness of the people.  It’s a walking town—there are no cars.  Everyone walks; the walking paths are either climbing or descending.  People of all ages are fit and trim with muscular legs.  I don’t recall seeing anyone overweight and they had wonderful pastries.  A culture where people eat sensibly and live vigorous, muscular lives is a wonder to behold.  Which brings us to the subject of this week—exercise, with emphasis on stretching. 

Exercise

Exercise is the subject of four Healthy Changes—that’s how important it is.  The post referred to below called for 30 minutes of exercise most days of the week—a minimum of 2 hours.  A prior post, Not Quite Jack LaLanne, shared our family experience with exercise.  This week’s post will discuss stretching exercise.  Later this year we’ll discuss weight lifting, and then aerobic exercise.

To be healthy you must eat well, but you must also use your muscles.  Strong muscles build strong bones—they work together.  Note the cross-section picture showing muscle and bones for a 74-year old triathlete, equivalent to the bones of a 40-year old.  Note also the thin bones of the 74-year old sedentary person.  (In the picture, starting from the skin, fat is white, muscle is gray, and bone is black.)  This post also lists some of the life-extending benefits of exercise.

Flexibility and Aging

Have you observed how you become increasingly less flexible as you age?  Maintaining flexibility—through stretching—is one way to slow down the aging clock.  One study, reported in this N. Y. Times article, revealed a connection between the suppleness of your body and the flexibility of your arteries, including the coronary arteries critical to heart health.  Flexibility, like the touching of toes, is a marker for artery health. 

Here’s are common stretching benefits:

1. Increases flexibility
2. Improves circulation
3. Improves balance and coordination
4. Reduces lower back pain risk
5. Can improve heart health
6. Reduces the tension of stress
7. Improves energy

How to Stretch

The beautiful wife, depending on her stress level, can get painful muscle spasms in her back.  Stretching seems to help and we’ve had the intention for some time to add this to our exercise regime.  Time went by and we never got into a regular routine, though we bought books and yoga DVDs.  A few days ago, with a wedding coming up, we decided to get serious and made time in the morning after her walk, but before breakfast.  It seems to be helping so we’ve made a commitment to continue, daily at first, then 3 times per week.  Stay tuned; we’ll report back later in the year.

Women are better at stretching than men—I think it starts in the head.  Yoga is a favorite method, but there are other ways to stretch.  You don’t need to buy anything to get started—you can find resources on the Internet.  Go to YouTube and search under exercise.  You can even enter the part of your body you want to focus on.  Be cautious—an injury can delay your progress.  If you have concerns, check with your doctor.

Healthy Change

Please comment: Share your experience with stretching exercise.  How often do you do it, what do you do, and what's the benefit.

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Menu for Week #17

I was working on a recipe for macaroni and cheese this week so that dominated my cooking.  We did make two pots of soup, double our goal.  We had two hambones in the freezer and wanted to reduce that by one.  This didn’t save space because we froze 2 quarts of the soup for later.   Sweet potato were on the original menu but we found early artichokes on sale so we’ll have the tubers next week.   

Last week's menu:

Monday

• Lemon chicken orzo soup (a similar recipe here)  The beautiful wife suggested this soup; it was good. 
• Salad

Tuesday

• Skip’s Macaroni and Cheese (recipe here)
• Salad
• Dessert:  ice cream with strawberries

Wednesday 

• Skip’s Macaroni and Cheese (yes again, working on the recipe)
• Salad
• Dessert:  pulled my oatmeal-chocolate chip and walnut cookies from the freezer and enjoyed the with a little vanilla ice cream

Thursday

• Steamed artichoke (on sale at Sprouts, couldn't resist)
• Beth’s Vegetarian Enchiladas (leftovers)

Friday

• Split Pea Soup with Hambone, recipe here (needed to use the leftover hambone in the freezer)
• Salad

Please comment:  What seasonal favorite are you excited to have on your menu this week? 

Skip's Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

A Commoner’s Dish

It’s true we’re blessed to live by the sea but our humble hovel, it should be known, is in the low-rent district I refer to as Tortilla Flats.  The people who live right by the ocean are more special—this recipe isn’t for them, I don’t think they eat macaroni and cheese for dinner. 

This morning the beautiful wife, returned from her walk with big news:  “The queen of Norway is a guest at that house on the bluff”.  It’s wise, I’ve learned, to double-check the things you hear but still, Queen Sonja of Norway is a sort of Cinderella.  I looked her up and saw she didn’t come from a royal family—she was a commoner.  The prince and heir-to-the-throne fell crazy in love with Sonja and threatened to abdicate if he couldn’t marry his way-too-common true love.  Don't know if a glass slipper was involved but he got his way.

Well, I told the beautiful wife, considering that Queen Sonja grew up a commoner, I bet she likes macaroni and cheese.  I’m going to take a casserole dish of my recipe right down for their dinner. 

Healthy Macaroni and Cheese

It’s a shocking display of hubris but I do put my name on traditional recipes, as you know.  It makes me laugh, but I only do it if my recipe is healthier than the original version.  Here’s how I healthed-up (a new word) this traditional recipe:

1. Whole grain pasta
2. Whole grain bread in the topping (meets the fiber>sugar rule)
3. Whole milk rather than the reduced fat products so popular in recent years.
4. Added a vegetable—yellow squash below, but cauliflower or whatever’s in the ‘fridge will do nicely.  (Use beets and make it pink for your daughter’s birthday.)

I also used cheese you’re likely to have in your home—good old Tillamook, preferably sharp or extra sharp.  Monterey Jack or Colby cheeses are also good, and affordable.  French Gruyere, Parmigiano-Reggiano, or Pecorino Romano are extra-special but unless you’re a cheese snob (nothing wrong with that and healthier than oenology) you likely avoid these pricier products that don’t even come in the 2-1/2 pound brick.

Skip’s Macaroni ‘n Cheese

Making a white sauce is the only skill you need for this recipe, but if this isn’t an expertise you’ve learned yet, it’s a good time to start.  This recipe serves 4; but it’s easy to double as macaroni usually comes in a 1 lb. box.

This is what I call an algorithm recipe because can be varied to suit whatever’s in your pantry. You can use any pasta, whatever cheese you prefer, and almost any vegetable.  Ham is an option for a change of flavor but a few slices of cooked bacon work also.  Enjoy.

Ingredients:

• ½ lb. whole-wheat macaroni, cooked per package instruction
• 1-2 C yellow squash (butternut or banana squash), grated
• 2+2 T butter
• 2 T flour
• 2 C milk, heated
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp freshly ground pepper
• ½ tsp dry mustard powder
• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes (or cayenne)
• 1 T minced onion
• 2 C grated sharp or extra-sharp Tillamok cheese (4-8 oz, depending how much you squish the cheese after grating).   Feel free to include those odd cheeses that collect in the refrigerator; Swiss Gruyere or Monterey Jack are often used.
• Optional: ¾ C chopped ham (4 oz slice)
• 2 slices whole-wheat bread, toasted and crumbed
• 2 T butter
• ½ C finely grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Boil water and cook macaroni per package instructions.  Drain and set aside.  Add yellow squash or other vegetable to the hot macaroni to pre-cook.
2. During step #1:  Measure and warm milk; grate squash and cheese.  Prepare breadcrumbs by chopping or pulsing bread in food processor to about 1/8” size (or use Panko crumbs), then toss in 2 T heated butter.
3. Make sauce by cooking 2 T butter in warm pan until foaming subsides.  Add flour and cook, 1-2 minutes, stirring steadily, until flour turns a tan color.  Turn up heat and whisk in milk stirring steadily until milk comes to a boil and thickens.  (This step takes up to 10 minutes but it’s a good time to consider the dinner table conversation topic.  Pre-heating the milk saves time.  For a creamier dish add ½ C more milk.)
4. Reduce heat and add salt, pepper, mustard, onion and red pepper flakes (or cayenne).  Add cheese, stirring until melted.  Stir in squash, macaroni, and optional ham.
5. Transfer to 9” x 9” baking pan or 2 qt baking dish.  Cover with Parmesan then the buttered breadcrumbs.  Bake at 350 F, 20-30 min. until topping browns.  Serve warm.  (Serves 4)

More on Family Dinner

Beauty From Sweat

The Industrial Revolution is in our rearview mirror now—we’ve moved on to the Information Age.   A lot changed in the Industrial Revolution; much of it was good but some changes need to be reconsidered.  I’m OK with tractors pulling plows instead of humans, or draft animals.  (Though years ago, in the Amish country near the Finger Lakes in upstate New York, I came upon a man plowing behind a magnificent team of four draft horses.  The animals were pulling hard, tossing their heads and manes in the breeze.  There was a beauty to it that I can’t fully explain, but the image remains with me.)

In the last century people fell in love with laborsaving devices before they had thought about the benefits of labor.  There’s a direct link between labor, muscles, strong bones, a healthy body, and natural beauty.  Which leads to the beauty of sweat.

There was more prophetic wisdom than punishment in the Genesis 3:19 admonition to Adam, “In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread . . . .”  The Industrial Revolution offered to free us from the directive to “sweat” for our bread.  Now we must reconsider for a new lesson has emerged:  The labor that causes sweat has its own benefits.     

The rich don’t have to sweat—they can hire someone to do that.  But regular people do.  Which brings to mind the beatitude from the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the poor . . . .”  Have to do your own cooking?  Count your blessings. The work that goes into preparing a meal is the stuff of life.  It’s good for you, but it also blesses and gives importance to the food.  The love you cook into food sets the scene for the family dinner. 

More than she, or he, might realize, the cook in the kitchen is a leader.  Sunday, the beautiful wife told of a meeting where a mother discussed what she had done to improve the family dinner.  Previously dinner had been chaotic and rushed.  Ever had that experience?  The mother, being a prayerful person, decided that in her morning prayers, she would seek inspiration for the dinner table topic.  Before, the dinner conversation reflected the struggles of the day.  Now, purposeful topics were introduced and a new harmony was established.  It was an impressive example of leadership, quietly done. 

Family Dinner for Singletons

It’s uncommon to find a person who lives alone and eats well.  It’s hard to cook a healthy meal for just one person.  I hear this when speaking to groups of single people.  Because more people are living alone—early in their adult life or near the end—it’s a public health issue.  I don’t know an easy answer for this, in fact, that may be the key thing to recognize:  There’s no easy answer.   Eating well is hard, especially if you eat alone.

Judith Jones has been the leading light in food publishing.  She was Julia Child's editor and shaped the modern cookbook.  Jones agreed that cooking was a lot of work but reminded that "the alternative was worse."  After the death of her husband she wrote a book titled The Pleasures of Cooking for One.  Jones, determined that though she often ate alone, she would make the effort to eat well, to enjoy good food.  She opens the book with this paragraph:

After my husband, Evan, died in 1996, I was not sure that I would ever enjoy preparing a meal for myself and eating it alone.  But as I described in “The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food,” I was wrong, and I soon realized that the pleasure that we shared together was something to honor.  I found myself at the end of the day looking forward to cooking, making recipes that work for me, and then sitting down and savoring a good meal.

Ms. Jones’ book is full of elegant recipes for small meals but more than that she shares a discipline about eating well. There's room for improvement.  Below, we invite those who eat alone to share what they've learned.

Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

Mac ‘n Cheese may be America’s favorite comfort food.  Thomas Jefferson enjoyed it and Fannie Farmer, in 1896, included it in her original cookbook.  Kraft, in the way of Food Inc, made a business out of it—they’re reported to sell a million of those blue boxes daily.  It’s cheap, easy to make, and kids don’t tire of it.  Just one problem:  It’s not so healthy. 

So we set out to make a healthier, and tastier, version.  Our goal was to use whole grain pasta, slip in a vegetable, and make it so good you’d be willing to spend an extra 15 minutes cooking.  I think we succeeded—check it out in the next post.

Please comment: 

Eating alone:  During the period when you ate alone, which may be right now, what did you do to enjoy a healthy diet?  Please share your ideas. 

Family dinner:  Please share your success stories with improving family dinner.  This is an important topic, so tell us what worked for you.