Better-for-You Poppy Seed Cake

I am not a sweet eater...except for this cake.

And maybe the occasional brownie. And homemade vanilla ice cream. Oh, and Krispy Kreme donuts. And my Grandma P's sugar cookies at Christmas time. Seriously, though, I go weeks and do not eat a single sweet thing other than some diet soda. Really.

Anyway, my mom had shoulder surgery this week. She can't raise her arm, use her hand, bathe herself, you know...big fat "ugh". My next sister is doing all the cooking for her and Dad, but I did deliver Mom's fave snack, strawberry Twizzlers, the other day. And today, I decided to kill three birds (blog post, birthday gift for my little brother, and tasty nosh for Mom and Dad) with one cake plate by baking my version of our family specialty. Suzi can grind away at the meals--I'll do exactly what I want, thank you! Twizzlers and cake it is!

The cake is actually from my Aunt Susie's Home Ec class back in the day. [Sister Suzi's namesake] It is also her favorite cake. But my dad fell in love with it when my mom made it for him. My mom does not bake much. She is an excellent cook and baker, but she gets NO joy from baking. Still, she always baked this cake for special occasions. My mom says Dad even baked a poppyseed cake for her--once. She wondered why it was so small, and then he admitted that he ate most of the batter before baking it. Apparently, I come by that trait honestly. I have never met anyone else who has tasted Solo Poppy Seed Cake, let alone makes it. Which is a shame because it. is. delicious.

So... we love this cake, but it is a cake, and therefore a fatty and sugary delight. My dad, who himself had a heart attack at age 50 (18 years ago) and has assiduously ignored heart-healthy admonitions ever since, vociferously derides any and all health-conscious alterations of "normal" food. But you know what I always say: what he doesn't know, he'll scarf down like the hog he is (same danged character trait. oink oink). After D's heart attack, I created this better-for-you version. Dad has been eating it for the past four years and he doesn't even know it!

Better-for-You Solo Poppy Seed Cake
Original Recipe The original version of this cake is still my favorite sweet food of all time. Either my mom or my mother-in-law makes it for my birthday every year. When I married, my mom gave me the mixing bowl she always used to mix it in when I was a little girl. Yes. It means that much to me. But I am proud of the version I have developed. It tastes like the original, but it is significantly de-fatted and de-cholesterol-ed.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 c AP (all purpose) flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 stick margarine
1/2 c (4 oz) unsweetened applesauce
1 1/2 c sugar
1 can Solo poppy seed filling
1 whole egg
1/2 c egg  whites or egg substitute from a carton
1 c fat-free sour cream or yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 c egg whites from a carton (this is not a misprint! you need these along with the others!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

3. Using an electric mixer of some kind, beat margarine and sugar together.

4. Add apple sauce and mix.
You know those little single-serving packs of apple sauce at the grocery store? Yep. Half-cup. Perfect.

5. Add poppy filling and mix.
That's poppy filling above. Looks like sludge, but smells and tastes heavenly.

6. Add the single whole egg and mix well.

7. Add the 1/2 c of egg whites / egg substitute and mix well.

8. Add sour cream / yogurt and vanilla and mix at low speed just until incorporated.

9. Add sifted dry ingredients and mix.

10. In a separate bowl, beat 2/3 c egg whites to stiff peaks.
Do yourself a favor: if you have a stand mixer, use it. If you have an electric hand mixer, use it. Don't be a hero. Leave hand whisking to the Food Channel chefs unless you want your arm to fall off. Here's the deal with the egg whites: you've got to keep them pristine or they won't form stiff peaks. No fat may touch them, so you CANNOT use the same batter-covered beaters that you just used to make the rest of the batter. WASH THEM. Me? I have a KitchenAid stand mixer with two bowls, so I mix all the other ingredients with my paddle. Then, I load the bowl of egg whites and use the whisk attachment to work them up. I realize that not everyone has a stand mixer with two bowls, however, so you'll figure it out. Just make sure no fat gets in the egg whites or you won't get the lovely, airy mountain of eggy beauty that will add the much needed lightness to this rather densely-textured cake.

11. FOLD stiffly-beaten egg whites into cake batter carefully with a very light touch. You are finished when batter looks about like it did before you began folding except for the fact that you can still see flecks of beaten egg white floating in it.

12. Spray a fluted pan with Pam and flour it.

13. Pour in cake batter. Wiggle the pan and thump it gently on the counter to settle the batter evenly.

14. Bake at 350-degrees on the middle rack for ~ 55-60 minutes. The cake will have a dark brown crust and a tester will come out clean when it is fully baked.

15. Let the cake cool for a bit, maybe 10 minutes or so. Then, invert the cake pan on a plate and allow to cool completely before lifting cake pan off the cake.

16. Now, for the iffy part. Sometimes, this fails for me. Lift the cake pan off the cake. You may have to joggle it a bit to loosen the cake, but if you greased and floured as you should have done, your cake will release and you'll have a lovely, dark-brown wonder of a poppy seed cake! If you have the "fool-proof" method for getting a fluted cake to release, please share!
Oh, and I cannot look at this picture without having an almost irresistible urge to stick a plastic flower down in the middle, exclaiming, "Look! A BuuunnnDDt cake!" like Maria Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding!

17. Optional: Set a large paper doily on top of the cooled cake and sprinkle powdered sugar over it. Remove the doily and you'll have a pretty snowflake pattern of sugar on top. I never do this b/c there's usually someone standing at my shoulder with a cake knife as the fluted pan lifts off the cake. It's that good. BTW, I think the fact that this cake is NOT iced/frosted is one reason I love it so. I do NOT like cake frosting.

Not a sweet eater. Really.

Herb Roasted Potatoes

Herb Roasted Potatoes

We had a vegetarian supper tonight. That doesn't happen very often, I'll be honest. But, the portobellos were calling my name at the mega-mart, so we had portobello "burgers' and herb roasted potatoes.

Herbs are weeds, you know. I don't care how black your gardening thumb is, you can grow herbs. And if you don't want to grow herbs, well... what's the matter with you!? I'm kidding, but seriously... try growing them. They can be EXPENSIVE in the grocery store, and you almost always have to buy more than you need, but they taste ah-may-zing right out of your garden. And they grow like weeds! They'll produce all summer. In fact, the more you harvest, the more those little suckers put out! I always plant a single plant of basil, dill, oregano, thyme, chive, and rosemary. That's enough. Plenty, in fact. Weeds, I tell you!

Try it. I promise. It's worth it. I use them fresh all summer, and when each plant starts to produce so much that I can't use the herbs fast enough, I start cutting them back and drying them on my porch roof on a towel (so the critters can't get them). You should see me crawling out my daughter's bedroom window to spread everything out "just so!" And let me tell you, when you rub some dried, garden-grown oregano between the palms of your hands into a pot of chili long-about December? Oh. my. gosh. Heaven in a bowl.

Herb Roasted Potatoes
Original Recipe: Herby Potatoes with Sour Cream

~1 1/2 pounds of cubed potatoes with skins
2 Tbsp Olive oil
1/2 tsp butter flavor
2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil
1 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme
1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Sauce
1/4-1/2 c light sour cream
1/4-1/2 c non-fat plain yogurt
2 Tbsp chopped fresh chives

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Parsley, oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary, and chives

2. Chop all the herbs and combine with oil and butter flavor in a large bowl.
I used a knife to chop the herbs tonight, but I usually use my food processor. To be truthful, I provided you the herbs and amounts the recipe calls for, but I didn't measure anything. I almost never do. Just chop some herbs--whatever you have and to your own taste. For example, the recipe doesn't call for oregano, but I love oregano and I happen to have oregano in my garden right now. So... I used some oregano. It's got a flavor similar to that of thyme, which is also in my garden, so I used half oregano and half thyme. And I think rosemary tends to overpower everything else, so I used less of it than the recipe called for. And we love cayenne's spiciness, so I upped it to about a teaspoon to replace the salt the original recipe calls for. But you do what you want. Remember: be good to your heart! Salt does not equal flavor. FLAVOR equals flavor.

3. Wash, but don't peel, your potatoes. Cut them into ~1" chunks.

4. Add potato chunks to bowl and stir well to coat. The paprika and cayenne give the potatoes that orange color. Nice. They look all roast-y before they even go into the oven!

5. Spread potatoes in large jelly-roll pan (cookie sheet-type pan, but with low edges) or 9x13" baking dish.

6. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-45 minutes or until tender.
How do you know the potatoes are tender? Well, I always spear a potato chunk right out of the pan while it's still in the oven and give it a quick "monkey" chew to test it. You know what a monkey chew is. You've done it. We've all done it. It's that quick, open-mouthed chew while blowing a hollow-cheeked "hoo-hoo haa-haa" to keep from burning your mouth when you're trying to eat something that is too hot to be eaten. You could do that. Or, just stick a fork in one chunk. Hardly any resistance? They're done.

7. While your potatoes are roasting, stir the sour cream, yogurt, and chives together.
I use light sour cream, not fat-free sour cream, b/c I just cannot stand fat-free sour cream. But I always cut it at least half with yogurt to reduce the total fat in the recipe. You do what you want. If you don't mind the grainy, less creamy texture of the non-fat yogurt, you'll be doing yourself a hearty (!) favor to cut out the sour cream entirely! Or you could use fat-free sour cream. Make it work for you. Just be good to your heart.

8. Serve the potatoes on the side with a burger (or a portobello mushroom like I did!) and a veg or fruit. The sour cream sauce is for the potatoes, but I used it on my portobello "burger" tonight instead of ketchup or steak sauce. Yummy yum yum. Oh, and for the record, I do not usually lay my burger on a bed of lettuce. I did that to make a pretty picture.

Grilled Garlic-Lime Chicken

Grilled Garlic Lime Chicken with a Side of Smoky Black Beans

This chicken is so good! And it's a recipe we just kinda toss together. Nothing is measured. Hear that? Nothing. Don't ya love it? Enjoy!




Grilled Garlic Lime Chicken
~ pound of boneless, skinless chicken breasts
juice of 1 lime
splash of vodka or tequila (whatever's in the house)
squirt of canola or olive oil, maybe a tablespoon or two
really healthy shakeshakeshake of garlic powder (NOT SALT!)


1. Fire up the grill if you are using charcoal.
We use charcoal, but suit yourself. In winter, I use a grill pan on my stove, so I don't fire up anything until about 3 minutes before I'm ready to cook. I 'spect if you use a gas grill, you wouldn't need to fire it up much in advance, either.

2. If you are like me, you buy big bags of chicken breasts from a mega-mart. Sometimes those breasts are all different sizes, so you need to cut them down, and maybe even flatten them a little so that each one when cooked will be about the size of a deck of cards / palm of your hand (4 oz).
4 oz is a serving of protein, friends. I'm honest enough to admit this: our dietitian has told us more than once that the foods we eat are not the problem; it's the serving size! I believe I've mentioned we are hogs. In any case, even if you plan to eat 4-5 cuts of chicken breast, you still need to make sure the cuts are all about the same size so that all will take about the same amount of time to grill. Moving on...

3. Wait: do you know how to flatten chicken breasts?
I have a tenderizer/meat-beating hammer thingy because I'm a serious cook (yeah, right. I don't even know what to call the danged thing). If you don't have one, just throw the breasts in a plastic zip-closure bag, let out all the extra air, seal the bag, and whack them a few times with a rolling pin or even a heavy frying pan. It doesn't require specialized equipment. You want them to be about an inch and a half thick, I guess, and only the thickest breasts will need to be flattened. Sometimes I'll butterfly a thick breast instead of flattening it. Butterflying is not difficult. Or if I'm not in the mood to butterfly, I'll just slice the thing in half like a hamburger bun! Shhh. Don't tell anyone.

4. After you've prepped your chicken breasts, throw all of the marinade ingredients in a bag with them. Let them sit awhile in the fridge.
How long? Well, if you are like me tonight, I decided at 5:40 that we were gonna do these, D fired up the grill, and 30 minutes later we were grilling. So... longer is probably better, but hey, you're not gonna ruin the meat by doing only a 5-minute soak. I know. I've done many a 5-minute soak.

5. Remove the breasts from the marinade and discard the marinade.

6. Grill breasts for probably LESS time than you think you need to.
Boneless skinless chicken breasts have almost no fat, and they dry out RIDICULOUSLY quickly on a grill. They are done the minute the juices run clear. To check doneness, just cut or poke into the thickest part of a breast and spread apart the flesh. If it's not bloody, you're good to go.

Notes:
1. Ok, I know I said I was not brand-loyal, but I guess I am a little because I use only McCormick California Style Garlic Powder with Parsley because the garlic granules are big and not powdery.
2. Do you know how to juice a lime? You might own a reamer or a juicer tool, but I just slice it in half through the middle, jab a fork into each half, and work the fork around while squeezing the half to get the juice out. You can do that with limes b/c they don't have seeds like lemons do.
3. Tonight, we served our chicken with a side of Smoky Black Beans. I do not buy canned black beans. Except for Kuner's brand, I cannot find any no-salt-added beans close by, and I'm not making a special 30-mile trip--one-way--to get Kuner's. Instead, I now buy dry black beans in bulk, pressure cook them, and freeze them in meal-sized portions.

Bonus recipe: 
Smoky Black Beans
Some cooked black beans, rinsed and drained if you got them from a can
~ 1 tsp dried cumin (probably my FAVE spice flavor)
~ 1 tsp chili powder (be careful! many of them have added salt)
garlic powder (I don't know how much. I just put some in. Be brave. Go for it.)

1. Toss beans with spices and zap in the microwave for a couple of minutes.


Notes:
1. Most cooks say cumin has a "smoky" flavor. I love it. Chili powders (all of them, I'm pretty sure) have cumin in them. Once you are familiar with the scent and flavor of cumin, it is unmistakable.
2. Any leftover chicken and beans make wonderful innards for chicken tacos on a subsequent evening. Just sayin...

Mild Stir Fry

Mild Stir Fry

I do not cook every night. Some nights we scavenge leftovers or eat cereal (with skim milk). Or my son (the vegetarian) will eat white rice with margarine (bla-and) and my daughter will eat Ramen noodles (gross). Yes. I let my kids eat white rice and Ramen noodles. We go out to eat sometimes.  I know all of this erodes my cooking-blog cred, but there you are. You have my blessing if you wish to seek a new heart-healthy blog right now. 

Tonight after several nights of immersion in other things and, therefore, "faking it" in the kitchen, this mom actually put a home-cooked dish on the bar. Not the table. The table's covered with Vacation Bible School stuff. But I did cook from scratch, and I did plate the meal. So, here we go...

This is a meal for which we all need to remind ourselves of the difference between good-for you and better-for you. Is this meal good for you? Probably not by your cardiologist's standards. But is it better for you than what you'd get in a restaurant or even in your typical home cook's kitchen? Sure!

Marinade
1 Tbsp soy sauce (BIG sodium offender, here, but most of it's gonna get discarded)
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar (don't get the cheapest or the most expensive)
1 Tbsp sherry (cheap "cooking" sherry from the grocery aisle is fine)
3/4 tsp sesame oil (mmmm! I love sesame oil! NO sodium and BIG flavor!)

Stir Fry Sauce (I always double this b/c we like saucy stir fry)
1 Tbsp corn starch
1/3 c chicken broth 
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp hoisin sauce (BIG sodium offender)
1/2 Tbsp lo-so soy sauce (again, BIG sodium offender)
1/2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp minced (grated) fresh ginger root

Actual Food Ingredients
1 bag of egg-white noodles 
Some chopped up veg (Tonight, I used about a cup of frozen broccoli florets, half of one orange bell pepper, and 3 bunches green onions because that's what was in the fridge)
1 chicken breast

1. Cut up your veg into similarly-sized chunks or slices. 
I use a cutting board and an impressively large chef's knife. I never ever use a paring knife. EVER.

2. Move the veg to a tray. 
I have several cheap rectangular melamine trays in various holiday themes that I snap up for $1 each at my local Dollar General Store. They are excellent "staging areas" for stir fry and other "I'll get to you later" food ingredients. They are perfect b/c they are about the same length as a cutting board and I can move all the veg to them in one swipe with my impressively large chef's knife. 

3. On the same cutting board as you used for the veg, cut up a single chicken breast into slices or chunks. 
It's nice if the chicken matches the veg, ya know? Why on the same cutting board? Who does dishes at your house? Yep. Same here. We are all about having FEWER dishes to do, even if "doing dishes" really means only "loading the dishwasher." Although it's all gonna be cooked thoroughly, I always cut up veg first and then chicken. It's just good cross-contamination-avoidance practice.

4. Dump all the marinade ingredients into a quart-sized zip-closure bag and slide the chicken off the board and into the bag.

5. Stick the bag in the fridge for 30 minutes. 

6. Get your noodle water boiling.  
You must get the noodles going before you start stir frying because stir fry is, like, instantaneous. You will not have time to boil the noodles after you start stir frying.

7. Make your stir fry sauce. 
I have a clever little Measure Mix and Pour container from The Pampered Chef. If you don't have such a thing, mix all the ingredients using a whisk in a large (4-cup) mixing cup or a small mixing bowl. 

8. By now, your water is close to boiling. Move your chicken bag, your veg tray, and your stir fry sauce to the side of the stove. You are ready to COOK! 
Good grief! Seven stinkin' steps and we're just now gonna cook? I warned you! I told you that you couldn't just rip open a box or take the top off a can if you wanted to cook better-for-you. I did warn you.

9. Your noodles will take about the same time to cook as your stir fry ingredients (~6 min). On your mark...get set...put in your noodles!

10. Fire up your wok/skillet with maybe a teaspoon of canola oil, no more. DRAIN the marinade off your chicken chunks, toss them in the pan and stir fry them until they are juuusst done. "Stir fry" means you stir constantly while you cook over fairly high (ok, high) heat. My wok is smokin' hot most of the time. That's how I roll. This step will take, like, 2 minutes. 

11. Remove the chicken from the pan. 
The chicken chunks/slices should still look a little juicy when you spoon them out of the pan/wok. If they look like dried up gambling dice or crispy bacon strips, congratulations! You've cooked them too long. Fortunately, the sauce and veg hide a multitude of sins. Serve them anyway. Chewing hard builds jaw muscles (!)

12. Veggie time! Toss in the veggies. Stir fry them until they appear to be steamin' hot. 
This will take no more than 2 minutes or so. Your goal is crisp-tender. You do not want "canned vegetable" consistency. Yuck. 

13. Add back the chicken and dump in the stir fry sauce. Stir everything until the sauce thickens and bubbles (that's the corn starch, baby)
Right about now, your noodle timer will ring! Success!

14. Drain noodles. Turn off the heat under the stir fry. Plate everything and bask in the compliments! 
Instead of dumping soy sauce over the dish (insulting!), I drizzle maybe a 1/2 tsp of sesame oil over it. NO added sodium, but BIG flavor, and mostly good fat. Yay!

Notes:
1. This is my go-to stir fry sauce. Not too spicy hot! 

2. Most heart disease patients' doctors tell them they must consume only a heart-healthy (lo-so, lo-sat fat) diet for the rest of their lives. Period. We live by that rule in our house. If you disagree, find another blog. Don't quote "alternative studies" to me. 

3. No meat? No problem! Your cardiologist (if you have one) would probably cheer! Meatless meals are pretty popular with cardiologists.

4. You may not think you know what egg-white noodles are. I'll bet you do. The famous brand is "No Yolks." See? You've heard of them. 

5. Even lo-so soy sauce is HORRIBLY high in sodium. Therefore, I always cut it half/half with balsamic vinegar. If a recipe calls for 1 Tbsp of soy sauce, I use 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce and 1/2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar. They both have that funky, fermented, wang-y flavor, so it's a decent compromise for a heart-healthier diet. And it has ZERO mg of sodium, so anytime you cut your lo-so soy sauce with balsamic vinegar--hey, presto! You've halved the sodium content in the recipe. Kinda proud of myself for that one. Actually, I think my niece, Kayla, suggested it to me. Home run, Kayla!

6. We need to have a discussion about broth. Even the 1/3-less sodium broth you can buy in a can or box in the grocery store is not lo-so enough to suit my husband's doctors. Therefore, for everyday [read: non-holiday] cooking, I use Herb Ox instant chicken and beef broth which I can get at most of our nearby grocery stores. It has NO sodium. Each packet makes 1 cup of no-so broth. 

7. Hoisin sauce. Oh, the salty deliciousness that is hoisin sauce. No gettin' around it: this stuff is ri-DONK-ulously high in sodium per serving. As bad as soy sauce (hoisin: ~700 mg / lo-so soy sauce: ~600 mg) But the good news is this: even with the recipe doubled, there's only a serving of hoisin sauce in this entire recipe. So, unless you are gonna belly up to the table and do a Jabba-the-Hut, the sodium count per serving is not as bad as the label would make you think. Nevertheless, you simply cannot eat stir fry sauce everyday. I know: bummer.

8. Ok, I'll admit it. I'm a fresh-ingredient snob. I do not like jarred minced garlic or jarred ginger. Does that mean I never use them? Weeelll, I never say never. But do yourself a favor! Buy that gnarly looking ginger root from the fresh produce section of the grocery store. Peel that sucker and grate it on a fine grater and you will never, I mean NEVER, willingly go back to jarred or powdered ginger root.

Marinara Sauce

We eat a lot of pasta in this house. I'm sorry, FOOD TV superstars. I watch you gleefully toss a palmful of salt into every pasta pot, insisting that I "must" do the same. No, I mustn't. If he knew I was cooking like that, Dr. E would give me a disapproving glare, and I can't take it. Besides, if I make a flavorful sauce, why do I need salty pasta?

Here's a sodium wake-up call:

How much sodium in a teaspoon of salt?  2325 mg
Dietary guidelines for people with high blood pressure? >1500 mg/day
How much sodium does your body actually need per day to function? ~250 mg (ouch!)

Remember when I said "canned sauces must go"? Sodium in a half-cup of Ragu pasta sauce: 300-360 mg/serving.  Get that? 1/4 of your allowable sodium intake gobbled up in a half-cup of pasta sauce. And let's be real. Who eats only a half-cup of pasta sauce at a sitting? By the way, don't even think you can get around that "canned sauces" blackout by buying plain canned tomato sauce and doctoring it, either. Unless you buy the no-salt-added kind, canned tomato sauce is anywhere from 200+ to 400+ mg/serving. And how much in a serving? 1/4 cup. What. a. downer.

The good news is this: healthy marinara sauce is easy-peasy to make yourself. Here is a delicious, fast, easy homemade marinara sauce for some pasta. It is 100% developed by us, so there is no link to an original recipe. If you use a pound of dry pasta, it serves 4 or thereabouts. It should probably serve more people, but we are hogs.

Puree

Marinara Sauce  (~30 mg sodium per 1/2 c of sauce)
Extra virgin olive oil
1 29 oz can tomato puree (I use Contadina or Red Gold)
3-4 plump garlic cloves, pressed or finely chopped (cloves are sections of a bulb)
1 small-medium onion
1 Tbsp dried oregano
1 Tbsp dried basil
1 Tbsp garlic powder (NOT garlic salt)
1 Tbsp onion powder (NOT onion salt)
1 bay leaf
~2 Tbsp granulated sugar

1. Toss onion, dried oregano and dried basil in food processor and chop finely. I use a Cuisinart 4-cup processor. Yes, you can chop with a knife.
2. Heat some olive oil (1-2 tsp) in a 3-qt saucepan over medium heat. Toss in pressed garlic and saute briefly. If your oil is too hot, you will scorch the garlic, and trust me, that's disgusting. Patience, grasshopper.
3. Once garlic has turned white and smells delectable, add bay leaf and the onion/herb mixture from the processor and heat until it begins to add to the heavenly chorus.
4. Add the tomato puree. Be careful, it will probably plop and blubble. 
5. Add the garlic powder, onion powder, and granulated sugar.
6. Reduce the heat to low, slap a lid on the marinara sauce, and let it go for a while--at least 15 minutes. Check it once in a while and get busy boiling your pasta. Remember! No salt in that boiling water.
7. Remove the bay leaf and serve over pasta noodles of your choice.

Notes:

1. I can get from "maybe we'll have pasta tonight" to food-on-the-table in less than 30 minutes with this recipe.

Paste

2. Canned tomato puree (always my preference for marinara sauces) or canned crushed tomatoes (also ok) have far less sodium than canned tomato sauce. Because lower-sodium alternatives are readily available, we always avoid canned tomato sauce. Sauce and puree and crushed and paste are all different products.  Crazy, huh? That's a photo of paste to the left. I don't even have canned tomato sauce in my house for a photo. Finally, check those food labels. You'll be amazed at the difference in sodium levels among brands. 
3. No meat? No meat. Two reasons. First, our son is a vegetarian. Second, ground beef has some sat fat, which we avoid, no matter how much we love the taste. Could we use ground turkey or chicken instead? Or a plant-based meat substitute? Yep. If you want red meat, add it. Just remember that you are adding sat fat when you add red meat. I'm not anti-red meat. I love red meat. I wish we could eat more of it, but on a lo-sat fat diet, it's a BIG no-no. In a sauce, we don't miss it, so I leave it out.
4. In summer when we have fresh basil and oregano, we use them. Chop 'em in the food processor separately from the onion, and add them closer to the end of cooking, and NOT in step 3. To cook them that long would destroy their lovely, fresh pop of flavor.
5. I always add fresh (raw) garlic and onion as well as powdered. My husband does not. He always uses fresh and only sometimes uses powdered if he thinks the sauce needs it. See what you think. It's not rocket science. Enjoy!

Welcome to my cooking blog

Meet D and me. D had a heart attack September 21, 2009. He was 42 years old, and his heart attack put us on the fast track to heart surgery, rehab, and, ultimately, culinary experimentation and better eating. 

Ok, why am I blogging about heart-healthier recipes NOW? Why wait 4 years? Frankly, it takes a while to build a pantry of tried-and-true recipes. But the immediate reason is this: a friend's husband recently had a massive heart attack. My co-workers wanted to make food for the family so that his wife (our fellow co-worker) could focus on him and not on cooking during his first days at home after his month-long hospital stay. The problem? Most of us always send--what? come on! you know what!--casseroles! Yep, casseroles full of cheese and cream soups and salt and canned veggies and other high milk fat dairy products like sour cream! And all, I mean all, of that stuff is off limits for a heart patient. Consequently, some of my co-workers came to me and said, "Your husband had a heart attack. What do you cook?" And that got me thinking... maybe people would like to try better-for-you recipes by a real, regular cook/working mom. So here we are.

For the first months after my husband's heart surgery--triple bypass--I tried an exclusively no-salt-no-fat added diet. My husband's verdict? "Nikki, this food is making me wish I'd died. You've got to let me eat something good [read: familiar]."  

See, I made the mistake of trying to cut every pre-9/21 dish out of our diet even though the dietician at the hospital looked at our food diary and told us we really weren't doing too badly before the heart attack: "You make food from scratch, not too much processed food. Good. Too much cheese. Bad. Stop that. Even 2% milk is too much milk fat. Skim from now on."   etc and etc...

Darin's plea from the heart made me realize I had to get creative. And so...

This blog chronicles my effort to make "better for you" food for D based on the foods he already knew and loved before 9/21. No, I don't know the calorie counts, fat grams, or sodium levels of these recipes. This is real life, and I am a real cook. I am not a dietician or a scientist. I don't have a dietician or scientist on retainer to analyze my recipes. I only know that I have cut the sat fat, cholesterol, and/or salt and have managed to preserve a reasonable--and often delicious--level of edibility. 

Disclaimers: 
NO, some of these foods are not fat-FREE. They are also not sodium-FREE or cholesterol-FREE. And they are not necessarily lo-cal. 

I did not create the recipes from scratch. Many of them are altered versions of recipes I have used for years. In addition, since 9/21, I have become a shameless thief and manipulator of recipes. I have cribbed them from blogs and Weight Watchers and cookbooks and product labels and have altered all of them. They are reduced-fat and reduced-sodium and better for you. In fact that's what I call all of my heart-healthier recipes: better-for-you. 

Is every single recipe good for you? Nope. But every single one of them is better for you than the original that you might have LOVED before your heart attack and that you might still crave. You can eat them knowing you could do a lot worse! Eat them without guilt? Weeellll... not every single one. But life is short (how well my husband I and I know it), and sometimes, LESS guilt is better than no guilt. 

More Disclaimers: 

If you want to cook heart-healthy foods, you must prep and cook almost all food yourself. Boxed foods, mixes, and most canned/jarred foods and sauces must go (unless you can them yourself--more on this in a later post). Most casseroles must go. No more vegetables from a can. No more salad dressing from a bottle. Crazy-cheezy deliciousness must go. Most restaurant foods and fast foods must go. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts and fish will become your protein staples.

Knives and cutting boards and mixing bowls and spices will become your close friends. Yep. Get ready, friends, because even if you have never been a cook, you're gonna learn, and fast.

We are not sweet eaters at our house, so you won't find many dessert recipes on this blog. Sorry 'bout that. And the sweets I post are not lo-sugar because sugar is the one thing we do not have to reduce in this house [all together now: thank goodness!].

I am an experimenter and a dump-cook. I am not organic, and I am not gluten-free, but if you are, hey! Live and let live, I always say. Take what you can get from my blog and ignore the rest. 

I am a user-of-what-is-in-the-fridge. I am not brand loyal. If you like off-brands, use them! I sure do.

Sometimes, I will blog about food-finds and cooking products that I love. 

I will post the original recipe and its creator/publisher if I know them. 

I don't know the first thing about blogging recipes, so I don't know how to do the "print" button so that readers print only the recipe in a neat recipe-shaped box, etc. Maybe I can't do that even if I tried using blogger.com. Maybe I won't always use blogger.com. But I've blogged on this platform before, and it's free, so that's what you're gettin' for now.

Some of you will come to this blog later in its life and you will not see this first post and you will not understand that I make no specific "food-guru" claims. You will then make remarks in the comments about how I am uninformed and how the nutrition information is lacking in my recipes. I've seen how you operate. I know who you are. I have a computer. I have a kitchen. I can cook, and I have two words for you: shut up. This is not your circus, and I am not your trained monkey. And on that note, we begin!

Ok, I said "few desserts and sweets," but I'm offering up one right off the bat because D loves them and they were one of my first post-9/21 successes. When I presented the finished product to him and said he could eat them because they had only "good fat", D actually kissed me. Right on the mouth.

Crispy Cereal Treats

Original Recipe for Kellogg's Rice Krispie Treats Here

6-8 c crispy rice cereal
10 oz bag of marshmallows
1/4 c extra light tasting olive oil or canola oil (I use olive)
1 tsp butter flavoring [I use Wilton Clear Butter Flavor]

1. Lightly spray a large microwave-safe bowl with Pam non-stick cooking spray. [OK, everyone. That's the last time I ever type "Pam non-stick cooking spray" on this blog. If you see "Pam", assume it's Pam non-stick cooking spray unless I tell you otherwise. Thank you.] I use a Tupperware Thatsa Bowl because it has a rockin' thumb-gripper hole so I can hold it against my gut and really get after the stirring.

2. Microwave marshmallows and oil together in a large bowl for 2 minutes. [Microwaves vary. Mine is a Kenmore over-the-stove 1000-watt job. All times on this blog are accurate for MINE, not YOURS. Pay attention the first time you melt mallows. They are GROSS if you burn them. Just sayin'...]
3. Stir using a rubber spatula lightly sprayed with Pam.
4. Microwave for 1 more minute.
5. Stir in butter-flavored extract.
6. Stir in cereal.
7. Press cereal mixture into a 9x13" pan and allow to cool.
8. Cut into bars and enjoy! I promise you, no one will know you've altered this recipe. My husband is a crispy cereal treat connoisseur and he thought I had gone off-the-plan when I gave him these treats. Nope. I'm just that good, dear!

Notes: If I'm in the mood, I'll use more cereal and more mallows (but not more oil/butter flavor) and make a BIG batch. Like for birthday parties or something like that.