Dice and freeze for a grab-and-go
snack. Photo courtesy Watermelon.org.
Here’s a healthy and refreshing grab-and-go summer snack:
Cut melon and stone fruits (peaches, plums, nectarines) into small chunks. Add berries and grapes and freeze in snack- size plastic bags.
When you need a grab-and-go snack, grab a bag of frozen fruit. By the time you get into the car, the fruit will be ready to eat. And it’s just as good when it’s still semi-frozen.
If you’re time-strapped, you can buy cut frozen fruit and add it directly to the snack bags. But if you can, take advantage of the fresh summer fruit bounty.
As we were writing the previous post, it occurred to us that most people don’t know the difference between pickled beets and Harvard beets.
The quick answer: Pickled beets are made with a pickling technique and served chilled or at room temperature. Harvard beets are coated in a warm sauce. The beets are pre-cooked for both preparations.
Pickled beets are made with sugar, vinegar and pickling spices, and are served chilled. Herbs such as fresh dill and/or parsley can be added after pickling; spices such as cinnamon or allspice can be added to the pickling brine. Sliced onion is often added (and in our opinion, is essential!). Garlic lovers add cloves of garlic; the onion and garlic pickle along with the beets.
Harvard beets use sugar plus vinegar or lemon juice, but cornstarch or butter is then added to create a thick sauce. The mixture is heated and reduced into a sweet-and-sour sauce called a gastrique (gas-TREEK). Some recipes substitute wine, cider or other alcohol for the vinegar or lemon juice—or add them in addition to the acid. Spices can be used to further flavor the sauce.
Pickled beets are a delicious side. Photo by Cyhel | IST.
Gastrique is a classic French sauce that is typically enhanced with fruit and served with meat, poultry or seafood. A gastrique is similar to the Italian sauce agrodolce, which means sour-sweet.
By the way, the story about how Harvard beets got their name is a bit murky. One legend says the dish was devised by a hungry Harvard student. According to the Good Housekeeping Great American Classics Cookbook, the recipe may have developed at the Harwood Tavern in England in the 17th century. A Russian emigre customer moved to Boston in 1846, opened a restaurant named Harwood and served the beets; his accent made the name sound like “Harvard.” A variation called Yale Beets evolved, substituting orange juice for the vinegar and orange zest for the onion.
Pickled baby beets stuffed with goat cheese
are a delicious appetizer. Photo
courtesy Aunt Nellie’s.
If you love beets—and have the recipes to prove it—Aunt Nellie’s invites you to enter its “Say Yes! To Beets” recipe contest. You might win the $2,500 top prize.
Recipe categories include:
Beverages/Smoothies: cocktails, juice blends and smoothies
Everyday Quick: easy, everyday dishes for any occasion
Special: special occasion and holiday favorites
Submit your recipes to auntnellies@mpfood.com before 11:59 EST on August 13th. Visit SenecaFoods.com for more information.
Aunt Nellie’s makes sliced beets, Harvard beets, sliced and whole pickled beets and pickled beets and onions. Yum!
It’s easy to enjoy the beets right out of the jar or onto a plate—but it’s much more enjoyable to win a cash prize for a recipe.
If your food plan includes low-calorie salads, remember that a regular salad dressing can zero-out the calorie savings. Each little tablespoon can be 100 calories or more (and the next time you dress your salad, count how many tablespoons you use).
There are countless low-calorie salad dressings out there: the good, the O.K., and the we-don’t-want-another-taste. If you don’t like spending money on bottle after bottle trying to find the ones you like, turn your search into a “salad dressing tasting party.”
Invite friends over for a salad lunch or dinner and taste ten or more different diet dressings at once. You can ask for recommendations up-front. You’ll discover favorite new low-calorie salad dressings, and get your friends together for a healthy good time.
You can assign everyone to bring a different interesting “salad bar” item, or ask everyone to bring an undressed salad—and have a vote to award prizes to the best.
Don’t pour hundreds of calories of dressing
on a healthy salad. Photo by Kelly Cline | IST.
Our current favorite low-calorie salad dressing is Walden Farms Calorie Free Thousand Island Dressing (certified kosher by OU). But it’s the only flavor in the line that we like—after spending more than $4.00 a bottle to try all the others. For a quick diet dinner, we grab a bag of Dole cole slaw mix, some Perdue Short Cuts roast chicken…and then shake on all the zero-calorie dressing we want.
Who can resist a nonfat strawberry-banana
smoothie? Photo courtesy RedMango.com.
How many different smoothies can you drink?
If you’re at a Red Mango, you’ve got 22 options! (And they’re certified kosher, too, by Star-K.)
America loves its smoothies, but the “healthy” yogurt shakes sold by many producers are often laden with sugar or high fructose corn syrup (read the label, or check online). Determined to offer healthier smoothies, Red Mango has relaunched its line with four styles:
Fruit & Yogurt Smoothies, healthy snacks or meal replacements made from fresh fruit and probiotic frozen yogurt
Power Smoothies with added nutrition—flax seed, protein, minerals and vitamins
Fresh Fruit & Tea Infused Smoothies, made with whole-leaf tea for an extra hit of antioxidants
Iced Tea Chillers, lighter blends of tea and frozen yogurt that are an icy-cold, refreshing way to cool down in the heat
Unlike some other smoothies, Red Mango drinks are all natural and made with fresh fruit instead of frozen fruit. All are made with natural nonfat yogurt (avoid smoothies made with fat-laden ice cream and sugar-laden sorbet) and probiotics that have been proven effective in tests (the live bacteria actually make it into the stomach instead of perishing along the way—learn more about the benefits of probiotics). Extra sweeting comes from natural, non-caloric stevia, not sugar or HFCS.We’re working our way through the menu. All of them are good (have you ever met a smoothie you didn’t like?), although everyone will have his or her favorites. One standout was the Vanilla Black Tea from the Iced Tea Chillers series, reminiscent of Thai Iced Tea—but far less caloric and with beneficial probiotics.
If there’s no Red Mango near you, have your mayor send the company the key to the city. Find the nearest location at RedMangoUSA.com.
