Tips For The Kitchen Archives - Page 3 of 4

Homemade Applesauce

Applesauce is a great and healthy snack whether you’re a caregiver, in treatments, or into survivorship. With help from this video, it took me less than an hour to peel, chop, and cook 6 large apples into a batch of delicious homemade applesauce. I used Jonagold apples but you can use different kinds of apples in the same batch or a different apple all together. I even watched a few episodes of Friends while I was at it! 🙂 (anyone else loving the fact that Netflix now has the whole series?)

I peeled, cored, and chopped the 6 apples. Then I placed the apples in a pot with 2 tablespoons of water, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and a sprinkling of cinnamon. I covered the apples and cooked them on medium heat until they cooked down. This took about 30 minutes but I watched them carefully.

What do you think? Have you ever made homemade applesauce before? My grandmother always cooks it with a handful of red hots. It gives the applesauce a little zing, and a great pink color.

10 Recipes For Cooking With Fresh Ginger

One of the first things you learn as a young adult cancer fighter is that an upset stomach can often be helped with some good, old fashioned ginger. Ginger ale, ginger candies, ginger ice cream…the ginger possibilities are endless! While it is not well known why ginger helps ease nausea caused by chemotherapy, we’re here to lend you some fun recipes we found to add ginger to your every meal 🙂 Here at Lacuna Loft, we’ve talked about ginger jam and ginger strawberry ice cream but here are even more fun ginger recipes!

Psst! Know a chemo patient? Think about making one (or another!) of these great ginger recipes and dropping the yummies on their doorstep!

[list type=”like”]
[list_item]stir fried noodles with garlic ginger sauce – Pinch of Yum[/list_item]

[list_item]ginger peach serbet – I Sugar Coat It[/list_item]

[list_item]peach ginger crumble – gather & dine[/list_item]

[list_item]carrot ginger soup – Simply Recipes[/list_item]

[list_item]candied ginger – Food Network (specifically, Alton Brown…love him!)[/list_item]

[list_item]ginger tea – vegetarian times[/list_item]

[list_item]ginger hot chocolate – Minimalist Baker[/list_item]

[list_item]ginger, citrus and black sesame carrots with edamame salad – The First Mess[/list_item]

[list_item]chewy ginger cookies – bon appetit[/list_item]

[list_item]baked gingerbread mini donuts – Pinch of Yum[/list_item]
[/list]

Have you tried any of these ginger recipes before? Do you have any others that have been helpful for you? We’d love to hear about it!

image via from Pinch of Yum

ginger nausea patient survivor young adult cancer

The Fork In The Fight: Butternut Squash Curry Bisque

Andrea and G have a lovely history together. Please enjoy the second post of a three post installment in their new series, The Fork in the Fight. Check out Part 1: Our Story and look forward to reading Part 3: Breathing Into Self-Awareness later this week!

The Fork in the Fight: recipes for restoring our souls and thriving in the face of cancer

Part 2: Butternut Squash Curry Bisque

The Recipe

This soup is our mutual favorite for cold winter nights and frosty winter days. It is hearty, flavorful, and comforting. As with all recipes, we believe in using fresh, seasonal, and unprocessed ingredients whenever possible. This can be easily adapted for vegan diets, locally available produce, or taste preferences – as those can change so often during and after treatment. For some ingredients, we have included potential substitution ideas or additional notes in [brackets] should one of them not work for you. For all ingredients we recommend local and/or organic when possible.

Butternut Squash Curry Bisque

Ingredients
+ 1 large or 2 small butternut squash [acorn squash]
+ 1 cup of apples, chopped*
+ 1 cup of sweet red onions, chopped
+ 1 cup of carrots, chopped [purple carrots to boost antioxidants]
+ 2 tablespoons of ghee [coconut or olive oil]
+ ¼ cup of ‘milk’ [raw, organic, whole milk, organic soy milk, or any non-dairy milk]
+ Curry to taste, at least 1 tablespoon [homemade recipe below]
+ 3 ¾ cups of vegetable broth [homemade or store bought]
+ 2 bay leaves
+ 2 tablespoons of local honey** [local maple syrup as a vegan option]
+ 1 bunch of cilantro or tulsi [parsley or another herb if preferred]

Homemade Curry
+ “Make your own by combining and grinding equal parts coriander, cumin, fennel, mustard, fenugreek, cardamom, poppy seeds, cinnamon, ginger, turmeric and 1/3 the amount of any one of the other spices, cloves” –Chef Johnny’s Korma Power, Eat, Taste, Heal, p. 229

Directions

After setting the oven to 350ºF, prepare the butternut by slicing lengthwise and drizzling the faces with ghee/coconut oil/olive oil. Place the squash face down on a cookie or baking sheet and bake for one hour. Roughly 10 minutes before the squash is done baking, chop the onion and sauté over medium heat in 1 tablespoon of ghee or sesame oil. Add chopped carrot and apple once the onion becomes more translucent and sauté for an additional 5 minutes. Once ready, remove the squash from the oven to cool and stir in the curry to the onion-apple-carrot mixture.

Into a new pot, scoop at least 3 cups of squash from the skins and add the vegetable broth. Stir in the onion-apple-carrot mixture, add 2 bay leaves, and top with a lid to let simmer. After one hour, remove the pot from the heat and take out the bay leaves. Blend, in small batches if necessary, and return the puree to the pot. Once the puree has cooled to eating temperature, stir in the milk and honey. Ladle the butternut squash curry bisque into a warm bowl and garnish with cilantro or parsley and a touch more ghee or oil if you are in need of the good fats.

*Ayurveda recommends enjoying fruit separately from other foods, so you could substitute the apple for extra carrots and cinnamon, or just enjoy the recipe as is occasionally, and if you have good digestive strength.
**Honey should be added only after the soup is done cooking as the honey’s beneficial enzymes and some nutritional value will be lost under high heat.

The full recipe can also be found on Andrea’s website, Grounded Here: http://groundedhere.com/butternut-squash-curry-bisque/

We are excited to explore our shared experiences of recovery, relationship building, and self-love with you. Stay well and take time for yourselves during this busy holiday season.

With love and gratitude,

Andrea and G

caregiver caregiving stories patient survivor

Holiday Pie!

For me, the holidays has always been marked by pies. Different types, different crusts, different fillings but oh so any pies! For Thanksgiving, a friend and I decided to take the plunge and make pie for the first time. We found a mixture of family and famous-chef recipes and went to town! We had such a fun time 🙂 Working together and making a whole afternoon of pie baking was a fabulous way to embrace a holiday tradition of mine while helping transform it into a new and joyful experience.

My favorite famous-chef recipe that we used was this one for a wonderfully yummy apple pie. I couldn’t find the Northern Spy apples that the recipe called for so I used Golden Delicious. Otherwise, I followed the recipe to the letter so I won’t bore you with my step-by-steps (just go to the recipe link!) but I’ll show you some of the awesome pictures from our afternoon of pie baking 🙂

You’ll notice two different top crusts on the apple pie…we did two different baking rounds and decided to try and get fancy the second time. Using a simple snowflake cookie cutter, we rolled out the top crust as normal but then punched out snowflake shapes of the crust and laid them out on the top of the pie!

Yum! Do you have any holiday baking traditions? Are you baking anything delicious this holidays season?

caregiver patient survivor

Healthy Eating: Vegetarian

For the next few weeks, here at Lacuna Loft we’re going to explore some different aspects of healthy eating! We’ll talk about various alternative eating styles, healthy eating on a budget, creative ways to fit all those fruits and veggies into your day, and much more! We’ll call upon cancer survivors, nutritionists, and others to offer their expertise.

While we are definitely not pushing one way of healthy eating over another, knowing all you can about the foods we eat is a great thing. We want to give you all the awareness we can in order to help us all make healthy eating choices.

Today we’ll talk about vegetarian eating!

—

Over the past few months, I’ve been exploring vegetarian eating. My reasons for vegetarian eating aren’t really important to this post but I have definitely learned lots in the process, which I thought I’d share.

While transitioning to vegetarian eating, I learned a lot about the quality of the foods that I put in my body. While the act of cutting meat out of my diet was pretty straight forward, figuring out how to consume enough calories and also enough protein took a little finagling. Adding protein into your diet when you’re used to eating meat can seem cumbersome at first. Brit.co has a great article on adding protein to your salads though eating more vegetables doesn’t mean that you have to eat only salads! (My husband knows exactly how I feel about eating salads for a full meal…it just isn’t a full meal!) 😉 And, did you know that there is plenty of protein in beans, eggs, nuts, dairy, avocados, and other very healthy foods? I now smear peanut butter on my pancakes (thanks to the great advice of a very good friend of mine 🙂 ), grab a handful of cashews in a baggie on my way out the door, make garbanzo bean tacos or add garbanzo beans to soups and salads, continue eating plenty of eggs, have a bowl of plain yogurt with fruit for a snack, eat more whole grains, and pay closer attention to the amount of sugar in my diet.

While eating vegetarian, I’ve also discovered the easiest way to eat healthy in general…start with intention at the source…the grocery store! If I only make healthy decisions while standing in my kitchen, I will be severely limited by the quantity and variety of healthy food in my pantry. If I decide to buy healthy choices then healthy food is what I’ll most easily have on hand when my hunger arises. Eating vegetarian also has its cost benefits. Some of my family has started including vegetarian meals just a few times a week to cut grocery costs.

I will fully admit that I don’t stick to a 100% vegetarian diet…while 98% of the time I eat only veggie, sometimes there aren’t any veggie options (depending on where you’re eating with friends, family, etc.) and I’d rather eat a little meat than skip a meal. Everything in moderation 🙂

How do you enforce healthier eating habits? Have you tried eating vegetarian before?

caregiver healthy eating patient survivor

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Banana Cupcakes

About two weeks ago I felt very inspired by Cupcake Wars to try baking some homemade cupcakes!

I used this recipe for cinnamon cupcakes, this recipe for banana cream pudding that I used to fill each one, and this recipe for a great cream cheese cinnamon icing. The cupcakes are sooooo good 🙂 Sometimes I eat healthy…and other times I eat something wonderfully sweet in moderation (like maybe the cute size of cupcakes?) 😉

Note: the huge bowl of candy was for Halloween! 🙂

Have you baked or made anything delectable and yummy recently? Tell us about it!

caregiver patient survivor

Healthy Eating

Have any specific questions you want us to try and answer? Let us know in the comments below or by emailing info(at)lacunaloft(dot)com

image via

caregiver healthy eating patient survivor

Spread On Some Of That Ginger Jam

The other day I was eating out with a new friend of mine. The toast that came with my omelet had a side of the loveliest ginger jam I’d ever tasted. It had that wonderful ginger spice but was also smooth and sweet. It made me think back to my days of guzzling Diet Ginger Ale and how awesome having some of this ginger jam would have been!

Ginger jam seems like another great way to add a bit of ginger into your diet. A great natural trick for helping a queasy stomach, that ginger spice is found in so many things from drinks to cookies. Before trying this ginger jam, I’d never had ginger this way. Recently, Lacuna Loft added ginger to ice cream (it was delicious!) and everyone has had a ginger snap or two in their day. But ginger jam? Delectable!

Searching around I found two different recipes…one from Livestrong and another from All Recipes. I think this is definitely something I’ll have to try this fall.

Have you tasted ginger jam before? Ever made some ginger jam at home? What are your favorite ginger treats? We’d love to know what recipes you love!

caregiver ginger patient survivor

I Used To Not Eat Donuts…But Then I Got Cancer

I used to not eat donuts … I paid attention to the servings of fruits and vegetables that I ate (and still do). I drank plenty of water (and still do). I allowed myself to indulge in dessert after dinner… but by dessert, I’m talking a few squares of dark chocolate. When I’d visit my parents and we’d go to my grandparents’ farm, we’d always pick up donuts on the way to bring along. I never ate one.

Then…I was diagnosed with cancer.

And you know what?

Donuts taste really really good.

Sometimes you just have to eat what tastes good. Sometimes you just have to experience life around you. Sometimes each of our choices aren’t the healthiest but they aren’t going to destroy us either…sometimes you just want to eat a donut.

What are the I used to not eat ___ or the I used to never ___ that have now changed since your diagnosis?

P.S. Ever try and make donuts yourself? I really want to try this recipe!

patient survivor

Favorite products, gluten-free edition

Going gluten-free means cutting a lot of foods out of my diet (goodbye, croissants!), but there are some things I’d rather not give up unless I have to. So while wheat bread is definitely out of the question, not all bread is off the list.

Twenty years ago, gluten-free breads, cookies, and crackers were hard to find, but now there are decent options in most grocery stores. Sometimes, though, you don’t want a decent option, you want a great one. Here are some of the winners I’ve found in my year of living gluten-free.

GlutenWize cookies and granola (pictured). My mom knows the owners of GlutenWize, which is lucky, because otherwise I probably wouldn’t have heard of them. I’ve had a lot of gluten-free cookies in the last year, and theirs are, hands-down, the best. Their soft and chewy granola is dangerously addictive, too. My top picks are the oatmeal raisin cookies and the maple granola.
Gorilla Munch cereal from Nature’s Path. Crispy, corny, sweet goodness. It’s on the expensive side, though, so my go-to cereals are Chex and GF Rice Krispies.
Schar gluten-free breads. Bread products are some of the hardest to get right, and I’d had some really bad attempts, but Schar has good pre-made breads and also a nice boxed mix.
Bob’s Red Mill‘s gluten-free All Purpose Flour. For when you just have to bake something. I substitute this one-for-one for wheat flour in my recipes, and it always turns out well.
King Arthur Flour‘s gluten-free Pancake Mix. This makes light, fluffy, classic pancakes; they’re easy to cook and very tasty. They can be made into waffles, also, but I’ve never tried that.

I am still on a quest to find some amazing gluten-free pasta, pizza, and bagels, and I’m open to suggestions! What are your favorite gluten-free products?

chronic illness gluten-free patient survivor