Beauty from the Inside Out

All the beauty products in the world are not going to make you look your best if your skin is unhealthy. The best way to give your skin that healthy glow is to actually be healthy. This means taking care of yourself by drinking enough water, getting plenty of rest and eating in a way that’s healthy.

Eat the Rainbow

And no I don’t mean Skittles. If you want to look good, you have to eat right. When you are healthy, you look healthy. Treat yourself to plenty of blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, plums and prunes. Yum! And oh, by the way, they’re good for you.
      Other skin-enhancing foods include carrots, sweet potatoes, collards, spinach, kale and beets. What do these foods have in common? They make up a rainbow of beautiful colors-an indicator that they’re rich in vitamins and antioxidants great for combating those skin-damaging free radicals.

Not Just Another Fish Story

The Omega 3 fatty acids found in cold-water ocean fish provide your body with the healthy fats it needs for energy and for absorbing vital vitamins. Wild-caught Pacific salmon is a great source of Omega 3s. You can also get Omega 3s from plant-based sources like flaxseed, walnuts, hazelnuts, strawberries and black raspberries.

For more information on what foods to eat for healthy skin, check out my article, "7 Tips for Healthy Skin," on Ezine.com.

Also check out the February edition of my monthly newsletter, "News from the Humble Neighborhood," (published Feb. 8 ) for skin-enhancing recipes and simple facial masks you can make from items found in your own kitchen.

Drink to your Health

If you’re like most people, you’ve promised yourself that this year you’re going to be healthy. Great idea, albeit a little vague. If you want to be healthy, you have to plan to be healthy. So where do you begin?
     Here is a really simple, truly easy first step on the road to good health. Start each day with a glass of water. I start out each morning with a cup of hot  water with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. This simple action is helpful for digestion and elimination. As an added benefit, I gradually stopped drinking coffee every morning without even realizing it. 
     In the spirit of keeping things simple, don’t get too concerned with exactly how much water you should be drinking every day, just listen to your body. If you’re feeling hungry, drink a glass of water. Sometimes your body is signaling for water, but you misinterpret the feeling as hunger. Have your water and then wait-that hungry feeling might be satisfied. Also remember that if you’re feeling thirsty, definitely drink some water, because that means you’re already dehydrated. On the other hand,don’t overdo it; don’t drink water simply because you’re trying to get in that eighth glass you heard about. Use the 8-glass rule as a guideline, but learn to listen to your body. 

Stay Warm

Can’t seem to get rid of that winter chill? Try this tip for staying warm throughout the day: at the end of your hot morning shower, turn down the water temperature. It might sound a little contradictory to turn on the cold water when your goal is to stay warm, but lowering the temperature-even to a point where you’re still comfortable-closes your pores and helps your body retain heat, thus keeping you warmer.

As far as cooking goes, beets are really wonderful because you can use both the greens and the roots to make completely different dishes. This week I started toying with that idea and ended up with a combination of oven-roasted beets (and other tasty root vegetables) and sautéed greens. These dishes are lovely on their own, but also delicious (my favorite) when served together.

I love this dish and wanted to share it, so I’ve decided to do is to post a few recipes in this blog in hopes of sharing and getting some feedback. I’d love to hear what you think!

Oven-Roasted Beets with Sautéed Greens

Ingredients:
A bunch of beets, including the greens
3 or 4 (or more, if you like) baby turnips, peeled and cut in chunks
6-8 fingerling potatoes
Olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 tsp butter (optional)
Kale
Mushrooms, sliced
Garlic, sliced
Balsamic vinegar

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Wash the beets and trim the greens (leaving an inch or so of the stalks attached to the beets) and set aside. You want to keep the beetroot intact, so that lovely color doesn’t run and turn the other vegetables pink.  Put the beets, turnips and potatoes in an oven-safe baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes to one hour, until vegetables are soft (a knife will slide in and out easily).

Meanwhile, wash the beet greens and kale (discarding the kale stems) and tear or roughly chop into bite-sized pieces. Wash and slice mushrooms. Slice the garlic.

When the root vegetables are nearly done, heat butter and olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When the butter stops sizzling, add the mushrooms and sauté until soft. (Note: if you don’t want to use butter, you can just use olive oil instead. I just happen to like the flavor combination of mushrooms and butter). Add the sliced garlic and sauté until it begins to turn golden. Add the greens and sauté until they turn bright green and begin to wilt. Remove from stove; add a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar and toss.

Arrange the greens on a plate and place oven-roasted vegetables on top. At this point, I like to rub the beets to remove the skin and then slice the beets before placing them on the greens.

Go Beets!

First things first. I don’t make resolutions. Don’t get me wrong. I love the idea of a brand-new beginning with a fresh, clean slate. Being a “Monday” sort of girl, I even feel a little giddy when the first day of a new year falls on the first day of a new week. Sunday notwithstanding, of course. But resolutions, to me, seem so…well, resolute. It’s too easy to get tripped up early on and then have the excuse of waiting until next New Year’s Day to repeat the cycle. Again. So I set goals instead. Setting goals gives us a much better shot at succeeding than does resolving to do/not do something from now on/ever again. 

New Year’s Day may have come and gone, but it’s still not too late to start planning those positive changes you’ve been mulling over. That’s right, I said, “planning.” It’s amazing to me how we’ve been brainwashed into thinking that if we just have enough willpower, we can miraculously become fit, healthy, organized, energetic individuals who volunteer, increase our earning potential and master a foreign language—all without a plan.

Take Inventory

Before you can get to where you’re going, you have to first figure out where you are. For example, if you dream of running a marathon, you have to start by figuring out how far you’re able to run today. Think of this step as taking a kind of self-administered aptitude test. The most important thing is to be honest and realistic. I’ve always found this Lao Tsu quote so inspiring: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

Set Attainable Goals

If your goal is to find time to exercise and you’re a chronic snooze-button-pusher, then resolving to get up a half-hour earlier every day probably isn’t the best choice for you. Instead, try looking at the rest of your day. Can you take a walk after lunch or dinner? Can you find an exercise class that fits into your existing schedule? Maybe getting fit begins with the simple step of parking at the far end of the parking lot or taking the stairs instead of the elevator. It’s these small, simple steps that are going to take you the farthest.

Get Your Priorities Straight

If you are hitting the snooze every morning, it might be time to take a look at the reasons why. If getting up half an hour earlier to exercise is something you want to make a priority, then think about getting to bed a little earlier the night before. A year from now, would you rather being feeling healthy and fit or still taking comfort in the fact that at least you never missed Letterman’s Top Ten List? Or maybe it’s that afternoon trip to Starbucks that’s keeping you up at night in which case you need to decide which is more important to you: your mocha latte or a good night’s sleep?

These are just a couple of things to keep in mind as you journey into the New Year. As for me, one of my goals is to be more flexible—and that is why I am posting this blog on neither the first of the year nor a Monday. 
 
 

Light a Fire

Instead of barricading myself in my office and trudging through the day’s work—as I am likely to do when I feel myself getting into a funk—I decided to take a different tack. I could keep complaining about the weather and longing for that crackling fire or I could take the matter in hand. So, an armful of logs and an open flue later, I find myself curled up on the couch with my laptop in front of a crackling fire—ready to take on the rest of the day.

Soup’s On!

Now on to that soup! I’ve been thinking a lot lately butternut squash soup. I love the sweet creaminess of this soup and the golden color always seems to lift my spirits. Suddenly, I’m feeling grateful for such a grey and gloomy day; without it, I may not have been inspired to put on my “chef shoes”—a.k.a. fuzzy-lined Crocs—and start oven-roasting and simmering to my heart’s content. So it’s turning out to be a better-than-lovely day, after all, despite its dismal beginning.
    The moral of the story? You have the power to control what kind of day you’re going to have. And if it happens to include a happily crackling fire and a bowl of your favorite soup, all the better!

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All I wanted was a crispy bit of whole grain toast. Too much to ask? I don’t think so. And the only decision I wanted to make was: sweet potato spread or freshly made homemade butter? That’s right, freshly homemade organic butter. Yum. The butter might have won out, I think, but I opened the breadbox and was surprised—and frankly, a little irritated—to find it curiously devoid of bread. Unless you count the three packages of carefully saved ends tucked neatly in one corner. Good for something, but not—in my opinion—toast.

The Search for Inspiration

I’m not a wasteful person and I simply can’t bring myself to throw it away–which is how there came to be three practically empty packages to begin with. What to do? Make breadcrumbs? Nope, did that with the last batch. Make toast anyway? Definitely not. I try to limit my bread intake (even if it is a nice hearty whole grain) and so I want to fully enjoy it when I do have it. Bread ends don’t cut it.
     What, I asked myself—out loud, alone in my kitchen and sounding more aggravated than I should have—what do people do with these things?! I wasn’t actually expecting an answer, but one came to me, calmly and rationally, anyway: they make bread pudding.
     Of course they do. I’ve done it myself. Once. With splendid results, even. Suddenly, the clear, crisp late summer day seemed like the perfect day to make bread pudding, particularly as my brain started inventorying potential ingredients…the buttermilk from my fresh butter-making project, the fresh peaches liberated from an upstate-NY farm stand over the weekend (not to worry—I paid for their freedom)… Ah, the exciting possibilities!

All’s Well that Ends Well

Well, those pesky bread ends ended up well; warm bread pudding with fresh peaches on a cool evening is a far cry from the brink of disposal, to be sure. This week, I have more fresh peaches and an idea or two for improving this already tasty dish. When it’s ready, I’ll be sure and post the recipe, I promise. This is going to be a fun week in the kitchen!

I never did make that toast.

Look Before You Leap
 
This is very important: If you’re using a recipe, read through it—in its entirety—first, thereby eliminating one of those “Oh, rats (or your favorite expletive)!” moments when you realize too late that you were supposed to chill, soak or otherwise prepare something ahead of time—or that the cooking time exceeds the time by which your guests will be arriving by several hours. Trust me. You’ll thank me for this.
This is also the time to make sure you have all the ingredients—or if you don’t, you can decide what substitutions you’re brave enough to make.

Get it Together

Get your ingredients together before you start cooking. In accordance with my Virgo nature, I line them all up on the counter in the order in which I’ll be using them. You can line them up any way you want to; the important thing is to get all your ingredients in front of you, so you can do a headcount. Make sure you have everything—and enough of it.
To simplify the cleaning-up process, I put away each item after I’ve used it. By the time I’m finished, all my ingredients have either been used or put away! 

Wash and Go

The clean-up-as-you-go method works really well for all your pots, pans and utensils, too. I use whatever spare seconds I have to quickly wash up any items I’m done with so I won’t have a huge mess to contend with when I’m done.

These are the tricks and tips that work for me—feel free to share your own!
 

Case in point…

The first time I made dinner for a boy was a disaster. Food this bad should be outlawed. Seriously. But there I was—17 and feeling pretty cocky about my mad kitchen skills. The challenge? His favorite—homemade macaroni and cheese. From scratch. No recipe required. How hard could it be? Make the mac, throw in the cheese along with some other mac-n-cheese-friendly stuff, stick in the oven and wait.

What could happen?

Right. Let me paint a picture to illustrate the magnitude of my glorious catastrophe. Imagine a tasteless mess of mushy macaroni floating in a milky sea bobbing with clumps of separated cheese chunks. Now sprinkle on some half soggy, half crispy breadcrumbs and you’ve got the idea…

Is she really writing a cookbook?

What I love about that all-too-true story is that I was fearless. I’d never considered failure as an option and so I didn’t see it as one. We laughed and moved on. The defining aspect of that moment is that it didn’t define me as a lousy cook.

If I could make a meal that bad, then I knew I had in me the potential for something really good. After all, every action has an equal and opposite reaction…

A Happy Accident

I may not have bastardized any comfort food lately, but I can still make a damned good mistake. For instance, that last minute addition to a dinner party when I decided the menu had to include broccoli slaw (btw, there has to be a better name for this—I’m taking suggestions).  Except of course, I had used the ingredients—the ones I “knew” I had—in other dishes. There was not so much as a drop of yogurt, the raisins had disappeared into thin air and every last slivered almond was spoken for.

So I made it up as I went along. My homemade mayonnaise (with a splash of apple cider vinegar and some sucanat) replaced the yogurt and I found water chestnuts were a delightful replacement for the crunch of the almonds. As far as those wayward raisins, I simply substituted dried cranberries. Voila! An accidental success!

Don’t let preconceived notions or a fear of failure keep you out of the kitchen. Have fun! Go wild! And remember, if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not cooking!

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