Crock Pot Saag (Spinach) "Paneer" and HGK's Top Ten List?

Last night I gave a talk at my local Whole Foods. I titled it "Healthy Girl's Top Ten Tips for Plant-Strong Success." The audience was a group of adults who are participating in The 21 Day Weight Loss Kickstart based on the book of the same name by Dr. Neal Barnard.



I wanted to convey the message that it is important to keep up a healthy eating commitment long past the 21 days and also to give them lots of ammunition on how to stay Plant-Strong in America in the year 2011. "Thank you" to Ellen Darby of Whole Foods for allowing me to share my experience, strength and hope with people in this way. It really means a lot to me.

I know that staying plant strong can be very tough for many people. Beginning tomorrow, I am going to post my top ten tips, one at a time, for ten days. Sometimes with a recipe, sometimes not. I sincerely hope that each of you reading this blog will add your two cents in the comment section to every idea and concept that I propose. Together we can really help each other stay Plant Strong!

But before I begin, another recipe! I'd worked on perfecting a recipe for Indian Saag Paneer for over a year, first lightening it up to fit within the Weight Watchers plan, and then morphing it into a vegan Saag "Paneer" using baked tofu. A traditional Saag Paneer includes cubes of Indian cheese and heavy cream--not Healthy Girl friendly at all. Because it is my number one favorite Indian dish, I've now adapted it into a crock pot recipe so that I can eat it even while I have my makeshift kitchen.

Crock Pot Saag "Paneer" (Tofu)
serves 8

6 medium or 4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 Tbsp minced (or grated) ginger
1 1/2 cups tomato sauce (I used Trader Joe's low fat Marinara Sauce in the green can)
1 Tbsp garam masala
1 Tbsp ground coriander
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 can low fat coconut milk
2 16 oz. bags frozen spinach (or 3 10 oz. boxes), thawed
1 bag fresh baby spinach
2 packages marinated tofu-cut into 1" cubes

Place all ingredients except for fresh spinach and tofu into a crock pot. Let cook for either 4 or 6 hours, depending on when you want to eat.

Before serving, add fresh spinach and stir. When fresh spinach is wilted, puree entire mixture with a handheld immersion blender. Fold in tofu cubes and let warm in crock pot. Serve over brown rice or with naan.
Keeps well in the refrigerator for leftovers.

And speaking of my makeshift kitchen, here's a little peak on where we are at right now with Healthy Girl's Dream kitchen. Lights, walls and a ceiling! Next week . . . cabinets!!!!

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Did You Win a Copy of Unprocessed by Chef A.j.?

If you were the 28th person to leave a comment to my blog posting on Thursday, April 21st, you did! Winner was chosen at random using the random number generator at random.org.



That would be you, Kat, from Kat's Health Corner! Congratulations and thank you to everyone who so generously shared your experiences on your Plant Strong journeys.

Now Kat, please send me your address so that I can ship you your book! wendysolganik@yahoo.com

My sympathies to those of you that really, really want Chef A.j.'s book but didn't win. You'll have to do what I did and buy it from amazon.com! I promise you, if you make the recipes from Chef A.j.'s book, you will wow any non-believers (ie junk food nomming carnivores)!




Do you like blogger giveaways? What would you get really excited about if you had a chance at winning it (besides the obvious lottery that is)?

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And the Winner is . . .

Thank you so very much to everyone who submitted a contest comment for my blogger giveaway. You have no idea how fun this was for me to have so many of you actively engaged on the blog. And you know what that means? More giveaways to come!

Thank you also to Terry Walters and her assistant Blanca who made this giveaway possible.

 I am going to spend some time pouring over the statistics of salt vs. sugar cravings and it's impact on weight maintenance. But, in the meantime . . .

the winner of the Clean Food/Clean Start set

by Terry Walters is . . . 

Karen a.k.a. morganguiney

congratulations!

I will be contacting you by e-mail to get your address.

I hope everyone had fun!

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GIVEAWAY! The Clean Food/Clean Start Set by Terry Walters

I have some uber-exciting news for everyone! Terry Walters, the author of Clean Food and Clean Start, has sent Healthy Girl's Kitchen a copy of both of her cookbooks for a blogger giveaway right here! I'm so totally sure that you are going to submit an entry for this giveaway after reading me go on and on for months about how much I totally LOVE Terry's  recipes.

Seriously guys. Her recipes pack all the flavor and satisfaction into healthy vegan recipes that one could ever hope for. The only changes I ever have to do to her recipes are omit the little amount of oil that Terry calls for and viola! Gourmet no-oil vegan food that is easy to make. No fuss and you're completely satisfied.



This is Terry. Isn't she gorgeous?

So here are the entry rules:

(1) Leave a comment here and answer all of the following questions (this has something to do with my last two blog postings, I promise! I'm testing a theory . . .):

• your name
• Sugar or Salt? your food craving preference
• Are you now or have you ever struggled to maintain a healthy weight?  

(2) Become a fan of Healthy Girl's Kitchen on Facebook (if you haven't already)

• go to Facebook

(3) Subscribe to Healthy Girl's Kitchen by e-mail at the upper left corner of this blog (if you are not currently an e-mail subscriber). Please note that you must open the confirmation email from feedburner and click on the confirmation link provided. That confirmation e-mail will either go to your inbox OR your bulk/spam box so check both places!

All entries will be placed into a hat and one winner will be chosen at random! Winner's entry will be validated for all three contest requirements. The deadline for entries is Saturday, March 12, 2011 at 11:59 pm.

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I'm Making Plant-Strong Dinners with Help from Clean Start by Terry Walters

Thank you to everyone who became a fan of Healthy Girl's Kitchen on Facebook. The fan page is a great place to exchange ideas and ask questions. I encourage everyone to get involved. Making healthy choices is so much easier when you surround yourself with like-minded people.

It seems like my life is beginning to organize itself around our special Friday night dinners. These days, I'm gladly sticking with recipes from Clean Start by Terry Walters because I'm continually blown away by the results I'm getting from this cookbook. The three Clean Start dishes below are all amazing. Terry's delicious recipes are all uber-healthy, but not all super low calorie, so balancing them out with  low calorie salads and raw veggies on weeknights is important for me. But on Friday nights I relax a little, and here's what that looks like for me:

Challah with Clean Start's Carrot Cashew Miso Spread
Trader Joe's unfiltered grape juice
Organic Energy Chana Dal Soup (picked it up from the restaurant this afternoon)
Clean Start's Deep Dish Greens with Millet Amaranth Crust
Simple Baked Tofu with Tamari
Clean Start's Cocoa Brownies

Whew! That's a lotta food! Why does it seem that way to me? Because weeknight dinners, for the most part, have become completely uneventful affairs in my house. I work full time, for one. And secondly, I have found that keeping dinner really simple has helped me to maintain my weight loss. Yeah! Less stress and an easier time with the scale. It's a win-win situation.

Contrast this with the home I grew up in, where a friend jealously remarked, "Every night is Thanksgiving at the Schkolnick's." My mom has spent the greater part of her life in the kitchen, something I envy, as I too inherited the cooking gene. Everything in my household growing up seemed homemade. Mom even went through a make-your-own-yogurt phase. Much to my sugar-lovin' chagrin, there were no Devil Dogs in my house, well, that's not totally true. I think they made an appearance once. But they were kept in the freezer. I think my mom thought that it might help me eat them slower. Not!

Anyway, back to the fabulous Clean Start Dinner.

Clean Start's Deep Dish Greens with Millet Amaranth Crust.

A total winner. I'd gladly make this again and again and serve it to guests.

Clean Start's Carrot Cashew Miso Spread--CRAZY GOOD!

 Better than butter on your bread any day!

Simple Baked Tofu with Tamari

Clean Start's Cocoa Brownies--way TOO good, I've gotta watch myself around these. All of the kids and adults loved 'em and they are made with wholesome real healthy ingredients--bananas, dates, almond meal, maple syrup, etc.--but they are easy for me to overindulge on!

What was dinner like in your home growing up? Are things different in the home you live in now?

What is a typical weeknight dinner for you these days? Do you pretty much stick to the same-old same-old or are you creative during the week? 

Do weekend dinners differ from weekday dinners for you? 

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What I'm Reading Now: Skinny Thinking by Laura Katleman-Prue and Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

Sometimes writing blog posts is difficult. I have so many thoughts running through my brain that I find it hard to begin. Especially when my brain is being flooded with interesting ideas from the books that I am reading. One thing that I have found on my weight loss/health journey is that my learning NEVER stops. I usually have 5 or more books that I am reading at once--ranging from pleasure fiction to healthy vegan cookbooks to the psychology of weight loss to dieting advice. I like it all and I like it all at once. I know, it's a little weird.

Anyway, what all of this reading makes me think is this:

What if you made your health the top priority in your life?

Because that's how I feel right now. My health is my top priority. And I don't feel guilty about it either. The old me would have. I would have been thinking, "Oh, that's so indulgent! My husband and my kids and  my business and my ______ need to be my top priority." But guess what, if I'm not in tip top shape, than not only do I suffer, but my husband and kids and business and ______ all suffer along with me. And that's no good at all.

So for those of you here reading this blog who have issues with compulsive overeating and emotional eating, I recommend Skinny Thinking by Laura Katleman-Prue. You may know that I am a HUGE fan of The Beck Diet Solution by Judith S. Beck as a system of altering your thought patterns from those of a heavy person to those of a thin person. This stuff works. If you haven't read Beck, what are you waiting for?

If you have read Beck than you know how powerful the system is, but the journey doesn't end there. It's a lifelong process and we need all of the support we can get. That's where books like Skinny Thinking come in. Katleman-Prue's thoughts and ideas are right in line with the mental work that I have done with The Beck Diet Solution, they just provide another person's insights into the same recovery process. It's actually really exciting to read Skinny Thinking and to see how far I have come mentally with my relationship with food. I highly recommend reading it if you struggle with emotional eating or compulsive overeating.





The other book that I am very enthusiastic about right now is Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Appetite for Reduction. For those of you who don't know who Isa is, she's a very successful vegan cookbook author, who wrote, among other things, Veganomicon and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I own a copy of Veganomicon but would never purchase a copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Why? Because I know myself, and vegan or not, those cupcakes would take over my body and mind. Who needs that?

But back to my copy of Veganomicon. I picked it up in the beginning of my vegan path, knowing how immensely popular it is, hoping that I would discover a world of healthy food in it. NOT! I quickly realized that it was just vegan food, probably delicious, but no better for my waistline than spagetti and meatballs. So it sits on my shelf to this day.

Imagine how shocked I was when I found out that Isa has just published a new cookbook entitled Appetite for Reduction. It seems that all of that "vegan" food she had been cooking up for years developing her cookbooks got her into some trouble, if you know what I mean. Now, from the introduction, it appears she got herself a copy of Dr. Fuhrman's Eat to Live. "My decision was a personal one. My knees were achy, my periods were irregular, and my energy levels were low. I needed to change what I was eating--less fat, less sugar--and I needed to get more active . . . when I eat low-fat, plant-based meals I feel better, weight does come off, and unless I skip breakfast or something, I never feel hungry. It's become a sustainable way of life for me!"

What's her new mission? Nutrition! Nutrient dense, low calorie, low fat recipes. A whole new book of them. How cool is that?! I was rooting for you Isa! She has hit it out of the ballpark with this one. To everyone reading this blog: GET THIS BOOK NOW.



And because I don't have a recipe to share with you today, I leave you with this:
The Wannabe Chef's Snickerdoodle Dessert Hummus
Couldn't wait to get home and make it after I saw it on a blog this morning!

How do you think it tasted????

Have you read any books about the psychology of weight loss? Do you recommend any in particular?

Or is emotional eating not an issue for you at all (luck out!)?

What are your thoughts on "vegan cooking" vs. "healthy vegan cooking"? What does "healthy" cooking mean to you? Has reading any particular book influenced your thinking on these matters?

Peace and love folks!

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Plant Strong Dinner Party

fun with a smart phone

It's been a very busy and dramatic week, the highlight of which was a telephone call with Rip Esselstyn himself! Author of the New York Times bestseller The Engine 2 Diet, and certified hottie, Rip is paving the way for more and more Americans to realize the health benefits of a vegan diet. It seems that Rip is looking to build a bank of photographs of plant strong food taken by "real" people, so if you've got any cool shots submit them here. My photographic entries peaked Rip's interest in what I was doing over here at Healthy Girl's Kitchen and I look forward to talking with him more in the future about spreading the message.

My hectic weeks are bookended by Friday nights, when it is common for us to have friends or family over for dinner. It's a spiritual thing, marking the end of the week and celebrating the beginning of a period of rest. Friday night dinner is really special--we set the table up real pretty, light candles, get to know the people in our community on a different level and, well, eat. Lots and lots of delicious food.

I start preparing for a Friday Night Dinner on Monday, at the latest--all week long, a little at a time, so there is no stressing about it. There's something very exciting about sharing a plant strong meal with guests. I know that most people that I invite to our home don't make a habit of eating this way and I enjoy the possibilities in that.

Here's what was on our menu this week:

The Attias Family Baking Company Challah
Trader Joe's unfiltered grape juice
Chaya's Carrot Soup get the recipe here
Big green salad with hearts of palm, sliced almonds, craisins, carrots and cucumbers
Clean Start Sauteed Greens with Leeks and Garlic
Clean Start Acorn Squash with Quinoa, Apricot and Sage Stuffing
Big bowl of fresh strawberries, rice pilaf and grilled chicken breast for the kids, but interestingly, only one of 5 kids ate the chicken
Dessert--graciously provided by our guests--and not plant strong!

My friend Cindy makes and sells the most beautiful and scrumptious challah. It's a real treat. You can check it out on Facebook.

Clean Start Sauteed Greens with Leeks and Garlic-pure fantasticness

Clean Start Acorn Squash with Quinoa, Apricot and Sage Stuffing--another winner from the cookbooks of Terry Walters. I fall deeper in love with her every time I cook from one of her books. All I do is eliminate the oil from the recipes in the books (not a big deal at all anymore, I just use the broth saute method instead) and every recipe is 100% plant strong/nutritarian.

On a final note, gotta love the Wall Street Journal for givin' some major love to the greens. Today's article on the cover of their weekend section, along with 8 recipes for greens, explains why chefs around the country are beginning to have a love affair with these oft overlooked veggies.

Do you entertain in a plant strong way?

Do you feel like you need to serve animal protein to non-veg'n guests when they are in your home?

Do you have a go-to plant strong entertaining menu or do you like to experiment when you have guests over?

What's your go-to veg'n cookbook for entertaining?

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