Homemade ramen soup Photo courtesy
MalaysianKitchenNYC.com.

Packaged ramen soups are popular with some people because they’re inexpensive yet tasty.

And salty. There’s much more much salt in packaged ramen soups than is good for you. One label we checked had 1434mg of sodium which is 60% of your Daily Value of salt; and if you eat the whole package (two servings), you’ve exceeded your Daily Value.*

So here’s an easy solution: Make your own ramen soup. It’s easy, and you can make as large a batch as you like. It’s also a great catch-all for leftover pasta, meats and veggies. Just follow this recipe template:

Choose Your Base

Buy beef, chicken or vegetable broth or stock, preferably low sodium. If you like to make your own stock, by all means, use it. If you find yourself with pork bones, make pork stock.

Taste your stock; if it needs a bit more salt, use low sodium soy sauce.

You can select any pasta width or shape, from slender angel hair to flat fettuccine to round spaghetti or spaghettini. There’s no reason why you can’t use very wide pasta, like papparadelle, or nonwheat pasta such as rice noodles or cellophane noodles. (See our Pasta Glossary for the different types of pasta).

Even though ramen is a noodle soup, if you’re carb counting, you can leave out the pasta altogether and add more veggies.

Choose Your Protein

Protein is one of the standard ramen toppings, but we like to break it out from the vegetable toppings.

As mentioned earlier, ramen soup is a great way to use leftovers: cooked ground meat; fish or seafood including sliced fish cake (kamaboko, a type of surimi, Japanese processed seafood that includes imitation crab leg); sliced beef, lamb or pork; a soft- or hard-cooked egg or tofu.

Customize the recipe to your preferences (every recipe!). There’s no reason that you can’t use a combination of proteins.

Choose Your Toppings

You’re the cook and the consumer, so add whatever toppings appeal to you. Consider bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, bell pepper, cabbage, corn, mushrooms, pickled ginger or plums, seaweed or spinach and thin-sliced scallions.

Choose Your Seasonings

We feel strongly about adding fresh herbs to every dish. For Asian soups, we particularly like basil and lemongrass, but don’t leave out the parsley that’s hanging out in the produce drawer.

If you like heat, add thin-sliced of your favorite chile. For more depth of flavor in the broth, add a spoonful of miso paste.

Add Some Color

We also like a touch of color to every dish. While it isn’t traditional, try a garnish of finely-diced red bell pepper or hot red chile.
 
WHAT EXACTLY IS RAMEN?

Ramen is a Japanese noodle dish made with Chinese-style wheat noodles (as opposed to rice noodles), served in a meat- or fish-based broth. It’s a meal in a bowl, often enjoyed for lunch.

Toppings vary widely based on local preferences. Every region in Japan has its own variation of ramen, from the tonkotsu (pork bone broth) ramen of Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost prefecture, to the miso ramen of Hokkaido at the opposite end of the archipelago.

Ramen is of Chinese origin, but there is debate over the etymology of the word. One of several theories is that ramen is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word lamian, meaning “hand-pulled noodles.”

*Daily Value nutrient targets, set by the government, vary by age, gender and calorie intake. For adults under 50, the Daily Value for sodium is 2300 mg/day. As long as we’re on the topic, other DVs to watch include cholesterol, 300 mg/day; fiber, 25 g/day for women, 38 g/day for men; saturated fat, 10% of total calorie intake. It is worth noting that for sodium, cholesterol and saturated fat, eating less than the DV is beneficial; for fiber, eating more is beneficial.

A colorful and yummy beet dip. Photo
courtesy Dole.com.

We love beets in every form: baked, Harvard, pickled, beet ravioli, steamed beats, soup (borscht is Russian beet soup), in gourmet appetizer recipes, in green salads, with goat cheese and endive…even beet ice cream (substitute beets in a strawberry ice cream recipe) and beet cake (food trivia: the original—and best—red velvet cake recipes got their red hue from beets, not food color).

You can even enjoy beet juice in cocktails: a beet Martini or this beet Mojito, for example.

Now, here’s another way to enjoy beets: as a dip with crudités or a bread spread. The recipe is courtesy Dole Foods.

It’s a beautiful color for Easter or any other festive occasion.

Ingredients

1. PULSE beets in bowl or food processor wuth scallion and spinach, until finely chopped.

2. ADD cream cheese, lemon juice and salt, and process until well-blended, leaving some texture in dip. Transfer to bowl and stir in chives.

3. SERVE as a dip with crudités or as a spread on toasted french bread.

Why clay? It represents the mortar that Israelites used while enslaved as builders by the Egyptians.

A kind of apple chutney of sorts, charoset is eaten during the seder with matzoh and fresh-grated horseradish. It is delightful as an accompaniment to roasted meats at any time; we enjoy it year-round on matzoh or toast.

This recipe, which you can whip up in 15 minutes, is courtesy of Bee Raw Honey, a purveyor of artisan honeys. They recommend their orange blossom honey in this recipe; but you can use what you have on hand.

You can enjoy the charoset immediately, but ideally let it rest in the fridge for an hour or longer to allow the flavors to meld. The yield is approximately 4 cups.

CHAROSET RECIPE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. HEAT oven to 350°F. Spread the walnuts on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 8-10 minutes. Toss occasionally and watch carefully; remove the walnuts when they are fragrant. Let cool, then roughly chop.

2. COMBINE the lemon juice, wine, honey, lemon zest, cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon salt.

3. MIX the apples and walnuts with the liquid mixture in a large bowl; toss to combine. Chill until ready to serve.

Among many studies, the largest one, conducted by Harvard University, proved that the more red meat you eat, the greater your risk of dying and of developing heart disease, cancer and diabetes.* And the more animals raised to meet the insatiable appetite for red meat, the more environmental pollution.

Red meat is:

Place a smaller piece of red meat on a larger bed of grains or vegetables. Photo courtesy MalaysianKitchenNYC.com.

 
Want to know more? Read this article.

But there is a compromise, reflected in today’s tip:

Just cut down on your portion size. Limit the portion to three ounces—three slices—and fill out the dish with grains or vegetables.

Any beef dish can be turned into a smaller portion—and by using herbs, spices and other seasonings, the meat can be even more flavorful.

Place a couple of slices of broiled red meat or a large chunk of stewed meat atop barley, beans, brown rice, mashed cauliflower or potatoes, quinoa, a rice or pasta salad, vegetable purée (broccoli, carrots, cauliflower or other favorite) or other base. Another easy way to use less meat is in a veggie-laden stir-fry.

Look for recipes that don’t require large hunks of meat; for example, lettuce wraps or the beef rolls in the photo, which are filled with cucumber matchsticks and mushrooms. There are options in many cuisines, such as the popular Japanese dish, beef negimaki: broiled strips of beef marinated in teriyaki sauce and rolled with sautéed scallions (you can substitute spinach).

Whichever recipes you prefer, smaller portions of red meat are better for you and Planet Earth.

They specifically note that “We estimated that substitutions of one serving per day of other foods (including fish, poultry, nuts, legumes, low-fat dairy, and whole grains) for one serving per day of red meat were associated with a 7 percent to 19 percent lower mortality risk.”

You can have your red meat and eat it too—just eat less of it. That’s no beef.

*A number of studies have evaluated the impact of eating red meat on health and lifespan, but one of the largest and longest was conducted by a research team at Harvard School of Public Health and published in March 2012 in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Data was collected on 83,644 women from the Nurses Health Study and 37,698 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, and the investigators were interested in how much meat each of these adults consumed over a 22-year to 28-year period.
  

With the introduction of Dole Banana Dippers, the company wants Americans to enjoy their meal and their sweet snack (not to mention the potassium and other nutrients in bananas).

For only 120 calories or less per serving, you can savor a packet of plain Dole Banana Dippers or Banana Dippers Dark Chocolate with Almonds, both covered in antioxidant-rich dark chocolate.

(Go for the almonds—see the nutritional information below.)

Frozen bananas substitute for ice cream. Photo courtesy Dole.

They have become a most popular snack at THE NIBBLE.

Bananas are a terrific, heart-healthy food when included in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol. Naturally fat-, cholesterol- and sodium-free, bananas are a good source of potassium, dietary fiber, manganese and vitamins B6 and C.

BANANA NUTRITION

With 110 nutrient-dense calories per serving (126 grams, or one medium-sized banana) bananas are delicious and nutritious. Here are the nutrients in a banana†:

ALMOND NUTRITION

Nuts are a good protein food. Yes, they have fats, but those are largely unsaturated, heart-healthy fats which have been shown to lower LDL cholesterol and the risk of heart disease. Here’s the scoop on the health benefits of nuts. A one-ounce serving of almonds (23 almonds) delivers:

 
The small garnish of almonds on the Dole Banana Dippers has just a fraction of your daily almond allotment. So for your second snack, enjoy 22 of those 23 almonds!

*Methodological Notes: The DOLE Banana Dippers survey was conducted by Wakefield Research among 1,000 nationally representative U.S. women ages 18+, between February 4 and February 7, 2013, using an email invitation and online survey.

†Nutrient data provided by USDA’s National Nutrient Database. Almond information from Almond Board Of California.