If you’ve been bored with your most recent pasta dinners, it’s time to start using your noodle and getting creative in the kitchen. We’ve got a few tips for you to get the most out of your macaroni!

Tip #1: Stop using jarred sauce. Not only are most jarred sauces full of sugar (yes, sugar) and preservatives, but they can also be very boring. You want something that’s going to tickle your taste buds and have your guests begging for more. That’s when a different kind of sauce comes in: homemade arugula pesto! In a food processor, blend 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, 1 clove garlic, 1 handful of Parmesan cheese and 6-10 cups fresh arugula. Add additional oil if necessary. Pour your pesto sauce onto a hot frying pan, add your cooked pasta and toss in the pan until nice and hot. Serve!

Tip #2: Add marinated shrimp, steak, chicken or tofu to your pasta for some flavorful protein action.

Tip #3: Serve your cooked, plain pasta as a delicious pasta salad. All you do is add fresh, colorful veggies and a lemon-basil salad dressing (Whisk together: 1/4 cup olive oil, zest of one lemon and juice of 3 lemons, salt n’ pepper to taste, and dried basil).Toss everything together, chill in the refrigerator and serve at a picnic or potluck! Don’t forget to add fresh basil to the top for a beautiful garnish.

Tip #4: Add about 1/4 cup chicken stock and some chicken sausage (removed from the casing) to a hot pan. Cook until sausage is golden brown and no longer pink inside. Follow the instructions on the package to make sure your sausage is thoroughly cooked. Add some white wine to your pan, and then add some partially-steamed broccoli (it’ll continue to cook on the pan). Add your cooked pasta. Top with some grated cheese and red pepper flakes.

Tip #5: Roast it up. Add roasted portobello mushrooms, roasted garlic, roasted carrots, roasted fennel, and some fresh rosemary to your pasta. Drizzle it all with some white truffle oil and sprinkle some herbs de Provence on top. You can find herbs de Provence in your local gourmet food shop–it’s a combination of lavender and other herbs often used in French cooking. A little bit of this stuff would be delicious atop your pasta.

Tip #6: If you want to go down the less healthy yet extremely scrumptious buttery route, that’s okay, too! Melt a few tablespoons of butter in a medium-sized frying pan. Add some fresh sage leaves, a handful of walnuts and some freshly cooked spaghetti. Toss together, add salt, pepper, and a drizzle of store-bought balsamic glaze. Turn off the heat and stir in a good handful of Pecorino Romano cheese. Serve. Easy!

We hope we’ve satisfied your pasta craving. Share your tips for delicious pasta dishes, too! We’d love to hear ‘em.

Photo courtesy of topquark22, www.flickr.com

Italians are known for being passionate, loving people. Coming from a fully Italian family, I’ve seen it firsthand.  My grandparents, even in their old age, would never leave one another’s side.

When you hear “genetically modified organisms” you may think of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or the X-Men. But a genetically modified organism (GMO) is probably something you’ve ingested in the last few hours.

What are GMOs?

The term GMO is most commonly used to describe the process of altering a food product at a cellular level. Fruit and vegetable seeds are altered by biotechnology companies to yield pest resistant crops. However, animal products, such as meats, poultry, eggs and dairy are genetically altered in different ways. For example, animals are often injected with natural or synthetic growth hormones so they mature quicker for faster production.

Some may argue we’ve been genetically modifying organisms since Gregory Mendel first cross-pollinated plants in the 1900’s. But modern GMOs were first discovered by scientists in the 1970’s and were used in medicine and pharmaceuticals. And they were controversial from the start. Despite their opponents, testing genetically modified tobacco plants began in the early 1980’s. They continue to be used in agricultural crops more than any other field. However, the use of certain GMOs has been banned in Australia, Canada, and the European Union.

Advantages and Disadvantages of GMOs

Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacterium used to create GMO crops, such as BtCorn and other Btvegetables, creates protein crystals that are deadly to certain insects. Studies had shown the Bt toxin broke down in humans and did not pose a threat. However, a recent study in Canada showed a trace of the toxin in the bloodstream of humans. Also, this study, released by earthopensource.org proves claims by GMO proponents aren’t factual. Cattle and dairy farmers also use a GMO, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), to increase milk production. While these advancements produce cheaper and more plentiful crops, they have their disadvantages. Cattle injected with rBGH had an increase in udder infections, which are treated with antibiotics. Those antibiotics are transferred with their milk and meat. This has led to a built up tolerance to antibiotics in humans rendering them useless when fighting off infections and illnesses. Recent studies have also found there may be a link between rBGH and cancer in humans. There is also controversy surrounding non-organic methods to growing crops and their effect on the environment.

GMO Effects on the Body

Dr. Jessica Sedita, ND explains, “Our bodies have the abilities to break down foods when they’re natural. However, our bodies don’t exactly have the correct enzymes to break down foods after their genetic make-up has been modified.” If our bodies aren’t breaking them down completely, certain parts stay in our system. “Any number of things can happen when enough of GM foods are left behind.” For example, “digestive issues, whether it’s gastro issues or diarrhea, more seriously, Crohns Disease or Colitis. If they get absorbed into the bloodstream it can lead to auto immune diseases like, Rheumatoid Arthritis and of course, all of this can also lead to food allergies.”

Steps to begin a non-GMO diet

Transforming your diet to organic can be quite daunting. So, where should a person start? Dr. Sedita began transforming her diet to organic while attending medical school. “It’s not easy. The hardest thing about going all-organic is the cost and most of the time it has to be a gradual process.” She advises, “Start with animal by-products first, dairy and meats. They are the most dangerous. Then move on to organic fruits and vegetables if you can. Seventy-five to eighty percent of plant products are genetically modified.” If you live in an area where a garden is possible, growing your own fruits and vegetables can be a less expensive alternative to buying them. Plus, you might even have fun doing it. Just be careful when buying the seeds. “You need to make sure the seeds are organic too,” says Dr. Sedita. “Growing plants made from genetically modified seeds puts you right back where you started.”

Additional Tips:

• Research your local grocery stores. Find out if they have an organic section or store brands that use non-GMO ingredients (reference www.nongmoproject.org  for assistance).
• Plant organic basil seeds (or whatever your herb) in a pot, put it in the window.  Hey, you’ve got non-GMO food in your house for cheap!
• Remember, even processed foods containing GM ingredients are considered genetically modified.
• When looking for organic produce in the grocery store, look for 5 digit PLU numbers starting with “9.”
• Research local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms. You may find good deals on bulk, organic food in your area. You help your wallet and local farmers at the same time.
• Currently, there are no laws stating a company has to identify GMOs. Assume anything not labeled organic or all-natural has GMOs in them.
• If organic is unavailable, read the labels. “All natural” is better than “conventionally grown,” and they’re all better than genetically modified.
• You can still eat at restaurants. Dr. Sedita says once in a while is okay and “every now and then won’t kill you.”

If you have any questions, you’re not alone. There are many websites and groups to help you transition to a GMO-free lifestyle. For example: Green Peace and Organaholic.

Photo credit: Threadless.com

Photo credit: Adam Wiles

What to eat and what not to eat has been a confusing situation for anyone who wants to eat healthfully and either lose or maintain weight. The prevailing wisdom for the last 30 years has been that eating foods high in fat will make us fat. So in an effort to either lose weight or stay slim, we’ve been avoiding foods that we perceive as being high in fat.

We drink our coffee with skim milk, order egg white omelets, use salad dressings with no oil and spread a chemical-laden fake butter on “whole” grain breads. For snacks or breakfast, we grab fat-free yogurt with fruit-ish stuff and when we eat cheese, it is low- or no-fat and tastes more like plastic than cheese. Parents even give their kids low-fat peanut butter, even though young children need fat for healthy brain development.  Number one, these foods don’t satisfy us and number two, they sure aren’t making us thin! In fact, the nation gets fatter and fatter as we consume more and more of these highly processed low-fat foods that line the supermarket shelves in appealing packaging and oft-misleading labeling.

With new research by the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center, we may be able to put the nail in the proverbial coffin of the failed advice that eating a low-fat diet is the way to permanently lose weight and to achieve good health.

After conducting a study of three types of diets, the low-fat diet (with around 20% of the calories consumed as fat) was the least effective at sustaining long-term weight loss. The most successful diet for long-term weight loss was similar to the Mediterranean Diet that is closer to 30% fat, but contains the good fats found in olives, olive oil, salmon, mackerel, nuts, seeds, eggs and avocados.

Photo credit: Desert Health

Many in Integrative Medicine have been recommending the Mediterranean diet for many years, because the Mediterranean countries experience a much lower incidence of heart disease than the United States. Physicians like Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Mark Hyman with the Ultra-Wellness Diet and Barry Sears of the famous Zone Diet have been laying the way to follow the formula of the Mediterranean Diet in books, lectures and their websites for a couple of decades! These physicians have also been warning of the dangers of food additives and the addictive nature of processed foods.

Still confused? Here’s what you need to know to wrap your head around this seemingly contradictory information:

1. To feel full, or satiated, we need 25 – 30 percent of our total calories to consist of the good fats. We feel hungry when we eat a diet that is 20 percent or below. When we eat good fats up to 25 – 30 percent of our total calories, we often end up actually eating less because we aren’t starving and fighting off cravings all day.

2. Most of those “low-fat foods” are highly processed and contain sugar, bad carbs and salt. These are not the good carbs found in fruits and veggies  that are loaded with anti-oxidants and fiber. Fruits and veggies are naturally low in fat, so feel free to eat copious amounts of them, especially veggies and lower-sugar fruits like berries and cherries.

3. The bad carbs found in most of the low-fat processed foods trigger our pancreas to release high levels of the fat-accumulating and fat-storing hormone, insulin. We girls have enough hormonal issues without consuming foods that make our bodies produce high levels of the fat accumulating hormone insulin!

Here’s what you need to know about this important hormone, insulin, and how it can make you fat and keep you fat. When we eat food, it is all turned to sugar in our blood, it’s known as blood sugar, or glucose.  Our blood sugar fuels our brains and bodies.  Look at it as the fuel needed for life energy.  It makes sense that we benefit from a constant flow of energy to help our organs to function well.  Insulin’s job in your body is to keep your blood sugar level by shuttling sugar into your cells so you can burn it as energy. The sugar in your blood that you don’t or can’t burn right away because there is too much sugar that quickly rushed into your blood to be used for immediate energy ends up turning to fat, which is stored for long-term energy. Wouldn’t it be nice NOT to be storing away this extra fat?

It’s critically important how quickly the food we eat turns to blood sugar in this fat storing story. Most processed foods turn to sugar quickly in our blood. This raises our blood sugar rapidly. When our blood sugar spikes, our pancreas is signaled to put out a rush of insulin to push the sugar into our cells to be burned for immediate energy. The sugar in our blood that isn’t used for immediate energy is stored for long-term energy as body fat. If this cycle continues regularly, your cells can become “insulin resistant” and this can be the genesis of type 2 diabetes.

Here’s how we accumulate that rascally belly fat. The rapid release of insulin causes blood sugar to drop rapidly. That’s why we crash and get hunger pangs after eating foods high in bad carbs like most cereals, breads, muffins, cookies, white rice and pasta. Here’s the clincher. Where do you think the high levels of blood sugar that has been pushed down by insulin goes? It turns into a fat known as triglycerides that turns into the body fat that accumulates around our tummies. Yuck. Belly fat looks bad and is linked to many health concerns including cancer and heart disease.

The solution is really darned simple.  Eat real whole foods that turn into fuel, or blood sugar, evenly and will sustain your bubbly self and give your organs the constant source of fuel they need.  Those foods are known as low-glycemic foods that, when combined in a balanced meal, will keep your blood sugar and fuel level and keep insulin, the fat storing hormone, from rising rapidly in your blood. By following a diet like the Mediterranean Diet you will be including and combing these low-glycemic foods. There are many ways to adapt this way of eating to your lifestyle and preferences. If you still want support in implementing a food plan that is right for you; take advantage of my free “health breakthrough session” by emailing me.

Try picking foods that aren’t wrapped in plastic and have fewer than five ingredients. Foods like organic whole or 2% dairy, eggs, meat, poultry and fish, plant proteins like beans and brown rice, organic non- genetically modified tofu, nuts like walnuts or almonds and most fruits especially berries and apples, almost all vegetables, especially greens except white potatoes, which if you eat the fibrous skin and drizzle with olive oil is still better than processed low-fat foods. Use olive oil on your salads with either fresh lemon and vinegar of your choice and slice up some avocado too. If you want bread and can tolerate wheat, try the sprouted grain breads that aren’t made with flour they are lower glycemic choices than most of the breads out there. I like the Ezekiel products found in most health food stores.

Of course, even these foods need to be consumed in a balanced diet that is right for your bio-individuality. Some people even have to be sure they are eating the right types of vegetables so they don’t create kidney stones.  Also, some medications can interact with certain fruits and vegetables. So be sure to check with a health professional before starting any new eating regimen if you have any health concerns.

Food is powerful stuff; choose it wisely for great health and optimal weight!  Here is an even more complete article on my blog.

Please Note: These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The products and information presented on this article/website are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The information on this website is for educational purposes and is not meant to replace the advice of medical professionals. If you know or believe you have a health problem, you should consult a health professional. The author, HollyPinafore.org and Productive Health USA specifically disclaim any liability, loss, or risk personal or otherwise that is incurred as a consequence directly or indirectly of the use or application of any of the contents of this website/blog.

While we all love a little boozin’ and schmoozin’, there are times when liquor isn’t appropriate. Try this quick & easy mango mocktail. It’s great for big kids and little kids.

Mango Peach Mocktini

Ingredients:

• Vanilla flavored seltzer water or club soda
• Ginger ale (optional)
• Mango nectar (Goya® brand is great)
• Peach nectar
• Maraschino cherries
• Pineapple cubes

Into a large pitcher with lots of ice cubes, pour in 4 parts ginger ale, 2 parts vanilla seltzer

Add 1/2 cup mango nectar and 1/2 cup peach nectar

Stir, pour into cute martini glasses and garnish with pineapple cubes and maraschino cherries

Serve it up!

Are you in the mood for a light and fruity drink, without feeling guilty consuming all that sugar? Why not try this easy to make Low Sugar Blueberry Sangria recipe, with agave nectar!

Ingredients:

1 bottle of your favorite red or white wine (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Zinfandel, Shiraz, Riesling, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay)

1 lime, 1 lemon, and 1 orange cut into wedges

1 cup fresh blueberries

2/3 cups Agave nectar

2 oz. brandy or rum (optional for those with a sweeter tooth!)

2 cups sparkling water or club soda (optional)

Instructions:

Pour wine in the pitcher and squeeze the juice from the wedges into the wine. Add blueberries and agave nectar. Add brandy or rum for a richer—and stronger— drink. Chill overnight.  For a little spritz, add sparkling water or club soda just before serving.

You will have plenty to share, so invite the girlfriends over and start the night off with this delicious concoction!

Cheers

Kathryn Smith, one of our resident personal trainers, sure knows how to make healthy lifestyle choices (check out her fitness videos on our homepage).

Yet she also, of course, knows how to have a little fun when the occasion calls for it! Here’s her family’s recipe for rum punch that’ll have you puckerin’ with pleasure. What’s packed into it? A little sweet, a little sour and a whole lot of sass. It’s a hot summer getaway in a glass…for all of us girls and guys who can’t really afford to hop a flight to the islands.

Simply Refreshing Barbados Rum Punch

• to make 56 oz:
• Sour  – 9 oz  Lime juice  (Rose’s sweetened lime juice)
• Sweet – 19 oz  Liquid Sugar (simple syrup)
• Mount Gay Rum  – 28 oz
• Crushed Ice

Garnish with a wedge of lime and one or two maraschino cherries
2 dashes of Angostora Bitters (optional)
grated nutmeg (optional)

Photo credit: www.villavillas.com

Did you ever listen to that old Herman’s Hermits song Love Potion No. 9 and secretly wish you had a little bottle yourself? Yeah, me too. It would be so convenient to have some on hand for that cute guy who smiled at you in the subway or to finally woo your best friend, whom you’ve been in love with for years. It would simply cut the waiting time. We could skip right past all of the games and jump, rather than fall, in love.

Unfortunately for us, such things don’t exist outside of movies and Santeria churches. Don’t fret though, because there are a few tricks you can turn in the kitchen to help win over your guy. Everyone knows that food is a way to a man’s heart; so a little aphrodisiac wouldn’t hurt one bit.

Originally, aphrodisiacs were sought out to increase libido because malnutrition was rampant, which leads to decreased sexual desire as well as lower fertility rates. Foods that represented seeds, including eggs, snails, and bulbs, were thought to contain special sexual powers by the ancient Greeks. Later, those who sought love were more interested in foods that rounded out the diets of the loveless.

In addition to the more, shall we say, ‘scientific’ choices, the Greeks believed certain foods would increase desire based off of their mythology. Because Aphrodite considered sparrows to be of an “amorous nature,” the likes of Pliny and Dioscordes encouraged the Greeks to whip them up into love stews.

Many of the foods listed as aphrodisiacs are actually things we eat every day, like almonds, bananas, and coffee. Some of them, like oysters and truffles, are extra special and quite delicious. And some are not likely to be found in your pantry any time soon…unless you have asafetida, an Indian herb with a garlicky flavor, in your cupboards. Here are a couple simple recipes that are sure to please, and hopefully ignite the desire of, your crush this summer.

Chocolate Almond Nut Jobs
Adapted from “Room for Dessert”

• ¾ cup almonds (a symbol of fertility, whose scent induces passion)
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate (the Aztec’s “nourishment of the Gods” that contains endorphins, or chemicals that positively affect neurotransmitters in the brain)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (whose scent and flavor increases lust)
• 2 tablespoons honey (thought to cure impotence and sterility)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Roughly chop the almonds. Spread on an un-greased baking sheet and toast until golden brown and fragrant. While the almonds are toasting. Melt the chocolate in a bowl placed over simmering water. Stir in the vanilla and honey. Fold in the chopped nuts. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and scoop out tablespoons of the chocolate-nut mixture. Refrigerate until ready to eat.

Arugula Basil Pesto

• 2 cups arugula (documented as an aphrodisiac since the first century)
• 2 cups basil (said to stimulate sex drive and create a sense of well-being)
• 3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted (rich in zinc, which maintains male potency)
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves
• ¾ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Place first five ingredients in a food processor. Pulse 7 or 8 times or until the mixture forms a smooth paste. Add cheese, salt, and pepper and pulse until combined. Serve over al-dente pasta or spread on a panino.

Photo credit: Flickr Creative Commons User Brenda Clarke

This was a disaster. No. The tart would not have been a disaster had I tied my shoes. I was getting dressed to meet some friends when my timer rang. I ran downstairs, not bothering to tie my shoelaces. I yanked open the oven, pulled the tart out, and started toward the counter. As soon as I took my first step away from the oven, I noticed something was wrong. I couldn’t walk.

I struggled. I tipped forward, the pie sliding gracefully off of the baking sheet like an olympic ice skater. There was nothing I could do. It was over for my poor little tart. I saw it suspended in the air, looking at me sadly. Why were you not more careful? the tart seemed to ask. With a deafening crash, the tart hit the ground, turned over, and splattered most of its contents all over my kitchen floor. I wanted to cry.

Photo Credit: Hayley Daen

I had called my brother Beau down to see “how beautiful the tart was.” He walked into the room and burst out laughing. Apparently my misfortunes are hilarious. He did taste the tart, off of the floor, may I add, and declared it to be delicious. He also ate a piece of the crust, which was mostly undamaged, and sung its praises. I deeply regret my clumsiness, as this could have been one incredible dessert.

Early one morning, I made my way down to my kitchen dressed in the striped onesie I received for Christmas. I sleepily pulled butter and eggs from my fridge and flour, sugar, and other ingredients from my pantry. I set everything up on the counter, ready to create something special.

I toasted half a cup of pecans on the stove over dry heat while I began to work on the rest of the recipe. I whisked together sugar, flour, dark rum, eggs, and vanilla extract. I cut the butter into small cubes and dropped them one by one into a small saucepan, which I proceeded to place on the stove over low heat.

I covered the saucepan with an inverted strainer to avoid being burned and allowed the butter to sizzle and brown, becoming deliciously nutty and rich. Once the butter had become a deep golden color, I quickly and carefully whisked it into the egg mixture. I chopped the pecans and scraped them from the cutting board into the custard. I placed the custard in the fridge to cool and thicken while I worked on the pie crust and the pears.

Photo Credit: Hayley Daen

There were a few pears left in my fruit bowl, so I grabbed two very ripe ones and carried them over to the cutting board. I peeled and quartered them, discarding the fibrous centers. I cut the quarters into thin slices and out them into a bowl along with two tablespoons of brown sugar and a tablespoon of dark rum. I tossed the pears around a bit to coat them and let them macerate in the bowl for fifteen minutes.

Using tart dough that I had in my freezer, I rolled the dough out into a large circle. I use a pate sucree dough, as I like a bit of sweetness to my tart shells. It is easiest to roll sticky doughs out between two sheets of plastic wrap, and it also keeps the countertop and the rolling pin clean and free from a gooey mess. I draped the round of dough over the tart pan, rolled across the top, and peeled away the excess.

I lined the tart pan with tin foil and filled it with pie weights to keep the shell from puffing and cracking. I placed it onto a baking sheet and slid it into the oven to bake for twenty minutes until it was just beginning to gain some color. After the timer went off, I took the tart shell from the oven and let it cool to room temperature while the custard finished thickening in the fridge.

Photo Credit: Hayley Daen

In between Lady Gaga songs and strange German music videos, I arranged the slices of pear in concentric circles inside of the tart shell. I carefully poured the custard over top of the pears and put the tart pan back onto the baking sheet. Once again, I popped the tart into the oven to bake for another thirty minutes. And after that? Well you know what happened.

This tart could have been a real winner. The custard filling had a quietness and subtlety about it. I most definitely will attempt it again, although perhaps when I am wearing laceless shoes, or no shoes at all. I wish, for your sake, that I had more attractive pictures to show; I am not too disappointed because failure is a part of the process and is a good experience to have. Has anyone else had any cooking mishaps?

Pear, Rum, and Pecan Tart
Adapted from David Lebovitz’s “Room for Dessert”
3 eggs
1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons dark rum
1/2 cup pecans, toasted
10 tablespoons butter
2 medium pears
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon dark rum

1 prebaked 9-inch tart shell

To make custard:

Whisk together eggs, flour, sugar, vanilla, and 3 tablespoons dark rum.
Coarsely chop pecans after toasting.
Cut butter into chunks. Melt it slowly over low heat in a saucepan. Be careful when it bubbles up. The recipe said it calms down and, indeed, it did. When the butter gets dark and looks like the color of maple syrup, remove from heat. Don’t let it burn. Quickly pour it into the egg mixture. I poured it through a strainer because there is some “stuff” left from the butter. When you pour it, make sure you whisk the egg mixture rapidly so the eggs don’t cook. Stir in the pecans. Put this in the fridge to thicken for an hour.

For the pears: Peel them. Quarter them. Core them. Cut lengthwise 1/4 inch thick. Put them in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of dark rum and the brown sugar. Macerate them for 15 minutes. Be sure to toss them often to coat.

To bake the tart: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Put the rack in the center of the oven. Arrange pears concentrically in the prebaked tart shell. Pour custard over pears and fill to rim. Set the tart on a baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes until golden brown. Cool before serving. Pair with chocolate sauce and/or homemade whipped cream.

The following article was written by Dr. G’s well-trusted fitness trainer Bob Cioppa and originally published in the St. John Sun Times. Originally titled “How Not to Become a Sumo Wrestler.” Used with permission from the author.

Photo credit: Flickr Creative Commons User Meg Lessard

Holly Pinafore™ Magazine: wtnh.com

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