(10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare)
By Lisa Messinger
Food and Cooking at Creators Syndicate
I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in my New Year's philosophy. As far as resolutions go, determine what you won't give up rather than rigidly planning what you will abandon.
As we move into the New Year,
Sara Dickerman is getting a lot of attention for her angle. In
Bon Appetit: The Food Lover's Cleanse, she has written a non-diet book to get you to your nutritional goals. In the 140-recipe cookbook, she teaches you to "cleanse," not in the usual drink only water or juice way, but by feasting on delicious foods that, as her subtitle promises, "will tempt you back into healthful eating."
The key, Dickerman promotes, is to eat flavorful, comfort foods that are filling and fiber-filled and, therefore, help cut cravings for empty-calorie junk food.
On board for making resolutions of abundance rather than scarcity, as part of a
Kathie Lee Gifford and
Hoda Kotb Today Show special on New Year's Eve, actress
Katherine Heigl promised not to give up cheese this year.
My New Year's non-resolution --- that would jibe with Heigl's --- stemmed from breakfast one morning recently at
Jinky's Cafe: Why not eat macaroni 'n' cheese for breakfast? Jinky's is a gourmet restaurant chain that often gets voted as having the best breakfasts in Los Angeles. Among their dozens of innovative selections, breakfast mac 'n' cheese popped right out. The macaroni 'n' cheese is scrambled with eggs, smoked bacon, crumbled sausage, diced ham and - with a nod toward fiber and nutrients - broccoli florets. Another, both of which you could easily emulate at home by tweaking your favorite mac 'n' cheese recipe, gets a fried sunny side-up egg on top, which echoes a suggestion by chefs
Allison Arevalo and Erin Wade in
The Mac 'n' Cheese Cookbook.
Reading Arevalo and Wade's mac 'n' cheese 2013 manifesto again, also encouraged me to expand my non-resolutions even further: Mac 'n' cheese for dessert, as in Arevalo and Wade's gooey Dessert Mac 'n' Cheese. Fortunately, it also includes one of the most nutrient-packed super foods of all: strawberries. That only adds to its deliciousness, proving that balance is often the best resolution of all.
Fun fare like this proves food preparation can be easy, nutritious, inexpensive, fun - and fast. The creative combinations are delicious proof that everyone has time for creating homemade specialties and, more importantly, the healthy family togetherness that goes along with it!
Another benefit: You effortlessly become a better cook, since these are virtually-can't-go-wrong combinations. They can't help but draw "wows" from family members and guests.
STRAWBERRY-FILLED DESSERT MAC 'N" CHEESE
1 pound dried wide egg noodles
6 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups sliced strawberries
1/2 cup strawberry or raspberry jam
8 ounces mascarpone cheese
2 cups sour cream
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
Topping
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Yields 6 servings.
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Cook the egg noodles in salted boiling water until al dente. Drain, and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process.
In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, vanilla extract, brown sugar, granulated sugar, strawberries, jam, mascarpone, sour cream and melted butter. Add the noodles and stir to fully combine.
In a separate bowl, mix together all of the topping ingredients.
Spoon the noodle mixture into 6 (5-inch-by-5-inch) ovenproof dishes and completely cover with a thin layer of topping.
Bake until the mixture is bubbly and the topping turns golden brown, about 25 minutes. Serve hot.
QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK: Steven Masley, M.D., and
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., authors of
Smart Fat: Eat More Fat. Lose More Weight. Get Healthy Now, have some advice about restaurant bread baskets. "Unless something special is being celebrated, just about everyone should give up the bread basket. You don't need empty flour calories sending your blood sugar levels sky-rocketing and disrupting your hormones and metabolism. Think of bread like birthday cake - it's something you should save for special occasions."
Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food and nutrition writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the National Council Against Health Fraud and author of seven food books, including the best-selling The Tofu Book: The New American Cuisine with 150 Recipes (Avery/Penguin Putnam) and Turn Your Supermarket into a Health Food Store: The Brand-Name Guide to Shopping for a Better Diet(Pharos/Scripps Howard). She writes two nationally syndicated food and nutrition columns for Creators Syndicate and had been a longtime newspaper food and health section managing editor, as well as managing editor of Gayot/Gault Millau dining review company. Lisa traveled the globe writing about top chefs for Pulitzer Prize-winning Copley News Service and has written about health and nutrition for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Reader's Digest, Woman's World and Prevention Magazine Health Books. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.
