Happy Human Blog

This recipe is for a delightful soup that is both light and satisfying. The recipe below is for 4 servings. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Peanut Oil - 2 tablespoons
Minced Red Onion - 1 cup
Garlic clove, minced - 2 cloves
Vegetable Stock - 4.5 cups
Lentils (brown) - 1 cup
Carrots, peeled and chopped - 2 cups
Salt - 2 teaspoons
Pepper - a dash
Cilantro (fresh, chopped) - 1/4 cup
Plain Lowfat or Greek yogurt - 2 tablespoons

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan

2. Saute the chopped onion in the oil until the onions are soft

3. Add the garlic and stir for 2 minutes

4. Add the stock, lentils, carrots, salt and pepper

5. Bring to a simmer and let cook for 30 minutes or until lentils are tender

6. Stir in the cilantro and the yogurt (this is a critical last step - don’t leave it out!)

7. Serve and enjoy

Recipes Eating Healthy, Recipes

If you’re looking for an easy and cost effective way to eat healthy, there is an emerging service you are going to love: local organic produce delivered to your door. Here’s how it works:

1) You find a local delivery service and sign up for weekly deliveries. Prices vary based on the size box you choose.
2) The service partners with local farmers to fill your box with ripe, seasonal fruit and vegetables.
3) On your given delivery day, your box will be dropped off at your front door, usually in the early AM. You wake up and open your door to an exciting array of fresh, local, and usually organic food. (Some services allow you to customize your box to your preferences.)
4) Start cooking! You’ll find that your box of goodies provides great inspiration for meal planning.

Aside from the excitement of opening your front door once a week to discover a box of  assorted fresh produce, this service has other great benefits:

• It connect you with local (and usually organic and/or sustainable) farmers thus supporting the local community.
• It shortens your personal food supply chain resulting in fresher, higher quality foods for you and your family.
• It encourages you to eat a diverse diet as you will be receiving those fruits and vegetables that are in season, which is great for your health.
• It expands your cooking repertoire as you look up recipes that can incorporate all the new fruits and vegetables  (my husband and I discovered a great recipe for fried green tomatoes after receiving 5 delicious looking green tomatoes in our box one week).

Here is a list of local delivery services by state that I have compiled. I will continue to update the list as I hear of new services. Please send me additions, or add them in the comments below.

Arizona
Boxed Greens (Phoenix)

California
Farm Fresh to You
Planet Organics (Bay Area)
Spud! (San Francisco, LA)
Love Delivery (LA)

Connecticut
Farmers Market (Greenwich, Stamford)

District of Columbia
Green Grocer

Florida
Orlando Organics (Orlando)
Harvest Cycle (Sarasota)

Illinois
New Leaf (Chicago)
Angelic Organics (Chicago)

Maryland
Green Grocer

Massachusetts
Boston Organics (Greater Boston Area)

New York
Urban Organics (Tri-State Area)
Organic Direct New York, New Jersey

North Carolina
Absolute Organics (Charlotte)
Papa Spuds (Raleigh/Durham)

Oregan
Organics To You (Portland)
Spud! (Portland)

South Carolina
Gary’s Organics (Charleston)

Texas
Greenling (Austin)

Virginia
Green Grocer

Washington
Spud! (Seattle)

Healthy living, Organic Eating Healthy, Healthy living, produce

Even before I became really interested in delicious and healthy food and finding the perfect mesh of flavor, I had one go-to dish that was perfect every time. I use the word dish to describe this salad because for me it is exactly that. An entire meal with no accompaniments needed. Since I got married I have learned that perhaps my perfect salad is not a meal in itself for everyone (my husband usually adds chicken or tuna as a side) but I am sharing it here nevertheless and you can choose whether you want to serve it as a main or as a side. Read more…

Recipes Eating Healthy, Meal planning, Recipes

I don’t know about you but every time I reach for a paper napkin to wipe my hands while eating my meals, I get an unsettling twinge thinking of the trees that were cut down to manufacture these napkins. Growing up my family always used cloth napkins at dinner time and they worked just fine. They clean your hands, you throw them in the washer and you use them again. Unless you are eating barbecue marinated ribs with your bare hands, cloth napkins are great substitutes for regular napkins. They are guilt-free and cheaper. Let’s do the math. Read more…

Green Living Green Living

A few weeks ago I was searching iTunes for some relaxation meditations and I came across guided meditations and affirmations by Stin. Stin’s project - aka mythoughtcoach.com - is a place to go to find meditations and affirmations to suit your every mood or need. Stin herself is a nationally-certified fitness and meditation expert with a very soothing voice that you will hear when you download her podcasts. Many of her podcasts are free but it you want access to them all you have to sign up for a monthly subscriptions that will run you $6.95 a month or $57 for the whole year.

Some of the freebies that I enjoy are her Guided Meditation for Healing your Body and Anti-insomnia Music to match your brain waves.  The Appreciate Your Body Meditation brings you to new levels of appreciating your body by having you visualize thanking your heart for beating, thanking your lungs for breathing, thanking your liver for, uh,  livering?…you get the idea…

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Healthy living Alternative health, Meditation, Tips for happy living

Cancer Mothly reported today on new reseach that shows that a compund of curcumin (found in turmeric) and omega-3 fatty acids inhibits the growth of pancretic cancer cells in rats. Both curcumin and omega-3 seperately have been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties with cancer-fighting properties. Combining the two substances have a cumultive effect that is greater than the sum of its parts. No side effects were noted from the treatment, and human clinical trials are in the works. Good news for a Monday!

Your Health Alternative health, Healthy living, spice

On my recent visit to a Farmer’s Market I picked up a spice recipe card from World Cuisine Institute.

Each spice recipe card contains a recipe for a delicious dish from some world cuisine - Indian, Mexican, Moroccan - with filled spice pouches with the pre-measured spices needed to make the recipe. All you have to do is pick up the main ingredients, follow the recipe and you have a tasty and exotic meal with no mess and no fuss. We tried the Chicken Curry and loved it. We especially loved all the wonderful spices that were used in the recipe - cumin, turmeric, coriander and chile powder all mix to create a delightful masala sauce. Give it a try and let is know how your dish turns out!

Cooking Tips, Recipes Meal planning, Recipes, spice

In honor of Inauguration Day we’ve compiled a list of our presidents’ favorite foods.  We generally like to write about healthy foods, but for this post we’re overlooking that theme (cheeseburger pizza? really?) in order to satisfy your curiosity about the leaders of our great nation, and their favorite consumables. Enjoy!

Barack Obama
Chili, protein bars, vegetables, milk chocolate, almonds, pistachios. Dislikes: mayo, asparagus, soft drinks, salt and vinegar chips

George W. Bush
Tex Mex, beef tenderloin, cheeseburger pizza, pralines and cream ice-cream, diet soda. Dislikes: greens

Bill Clinton
Burgers, onion rings, steak, chicken enchiladas, bananas, apples, McDonald’s Egg McMuffins, cream pies. Read more…

Fun Food Facts Favorite Foods, Obama

This past week my husband, suffering from a winter cold, made a delicious fresh batch of chicken soup. Chicken soup is a traditional go-to in our household during the cold and flu season and it got me thinking: is there any scientific evidence to support the notion that chicken soup has healing powers? Here’s what I found out:

Nutritious

If you make it right, chicken soup contains loads of good for you ingredients: carrots, onions, greens that are all high in cold-fighting vitamins and minerals. Immune -boosting spices that are added to the soup up the ante even more - garlic, pepper, fennel and ginger all have anti-oxidant and immune-boosting properties. Check out this spicy immune-boosting recipe from RecipeZaar.

Anti-Inflammatory

The University of Nebraska conducted a study that showed chicken soup has anti-inflammatory properties  - the soup  mobilizes the neutrophils ( inflammatory cells) making you feel a little less stuffy.

Read more…

Cooking Tips, Healthy living Alternative health, Healthy living, spice, Superfoods

Winter is upon us and with it the less than happy routine of waking up in darkness even with that little trick of daylight savings times. I am not a morning person at the best of times so winter mornings pose a real challenge. Those of us who are not morning people fall into the “can’t get out of bed” category for any one of a multitude of reasons: not enough hours of sleep, non-restful sleep or just plain genetics. For me it’s all about the light. On morning that are bright and sunny I wake up before my alarm clock and have no trouble getting out of bed. Not so on dark and dreary days. Enter my new fool-proof sunshine device: The BioBrite Dawn Simulator

Read more…

Healthy living Add new tag, Alternative health, Healthy living, Tips for happy living