Heart Healthy Food

Valentine’s Day is a day away. Such a happy week and day! We’re doing our last Valentine’s post and we’re taking a little different approach. We’re looking at heart healthy foods. Oh, and we haven’t forgotten or left out our Oscar Dress card, we’re gonna do up a card and our top 10 list of dresses next week so hold tight!

We usually do the typical Valentine post, heart crafts and sweet treats but today we’re going to delve into some foods that support heart health. Literal hearts!

Top Heart Heathy Foods:

1.      Leafy Greens – They a great source of vitamin k which helps with promoting proper blood clotting and to help with good artery function. Some include, spinach, kale, and collard greens which are full of minerals and vitamins and antioxidants.

2.      Whole Grains – They are high in fiber which can help reduce bad cholesterol. Common whole grains are quinoa, oats, rye, brown rice, and barley.

3.      Berries – Are also high in antioxidants and help with controlling the bad cholesterol. Blueberries in particular help improve cells that promote blood clotting. Berries that are good to have are strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries.

4.      Avocados – Are high in monounsaturated fats which help lower cholesterol levels and lower the risk of heart disease. They are considered a healthy fat and are also high in potassium.

5.      Beans- Beans can reduce the levels of blood triglycerides and bad LDL cholesterol. They can also help reduce blood pressure and inflammation which are linked to heart disease.

6.      Dark Chocolate – Yum! It is rich in antioxidants and flavonoids and can help lower the risk of heart disease. Make sure to have a high quality of dark chocolate though with at least 70% of cocoa.

7.      Tomatoes – They have lots and lots of lycopene that has powerful antioxidant properties which can neutralize harmful free radicals that can lead to inflammation and heart disease.

8.      Garlic – It contains allicin which has therapeutic effects. It can help reduce platelet buildup that can lead to strokes and blood clots.

9.      Olive Oil – Again it is loaded with antioxidants that can relieve inflammation and decrease the risk of chronic disease. The monounsaturated fats in it helps with heart health.

10.  Green Tea – It has a lot of polyphenols catechins which can prevent cell damage and improve heart health. It can also decrease blood pressure and lower cholesterol.

Thanksgiving Dinner Sides

We are right into Fall now. The weather is cooler and crisper and there are more clouds and overcast days. The leaves are changing colours on the trees and on my way to work I see all the squirrels burying their nuts for the months ahead. With Fall, comes Thanksgiving. Canadian Thanksgiving is just over a week away and we have a couple of posts dedicated to that.

This week we are looking at that big Thanksgiving dinner. Some of the most important elements of that dinner are the sides that accompany the turkey and ham. We have put together a list of yummy sides to try out for your Thanksgiving dinner along with a couple of recipes for ones that we have made in the past at our own dinners.

Green Beans – They seem to be a popular veggie for Fall meals. Try a Green Bean Casserole or Green Beans with Shallots.

Bread – You’ll usually find some sort of bread or buns with you big Thanksgiving dinner and Cornbread or Fresh Biscuits are perfect for that.

Cranberry...-You will most likely find something cranberry with your turkey dinner for something different you can try a Cranberry Relish or a Citrus, Apricot, and Cranberry Compote.

Brussel Sprouts- You will love them or hate them, but they are a permanent part of most Thanksgiving dinners and a way to try them is to crisp and “burn” them like in Samantha’sYummy Brussel Sprouts recipe or cover them with cheese in a Cheesy Brussel Sprout Bake.

Veggies- Most of the time you’ll find your typical veggie mix on the table for dinner but a twist on them would be a Holiday Roasted Vegetable mix or some Maple Bacon Carrots or some Smashed Broccoli.

Sweet Potatoes – Something that always makes me think of turkey dinner is yams/sweet potatoes and a Sweet Potato Salad or Sweet Potato Soup are different takes on this staple.

Here are a couple of recipes that we like to make...

Caramelized Carrots

8-10 carrots

Brown sugar

Butter

Water

Peel and cut carrots into sticks. Place them in a casserole dish and sprinkle some brown sugar onto them along with blobs of butter. Add in a little bit of water so that it just covers the bottom of the dish. Make sure you don’t use too much as you’ll have water coming out of the carrots.

Put in the microwave wave with the lid on for 5-10 minutes or until soft. Don’t overcook.

After they have softened in the microwave, take the lid off and put the dish on the stove top on medium heat. Let the liquid come to a boil and cook off. You want the carrots to caramelize and get all goldenly brown. You can give them a stir here and there while they are cooking on the stove. As soon as they look ready, take the off the stove and serve.

Yam Casserole

3 large yams

1 Tbsp. of butter

1 Tbsp. of honey

Juice of 1 orange

Nutmeg to taste

Salt and pepper

Boil the yams and cool before slipping off the skins. Blend or puree all of the ingredients together. Spoon into a buttered casserole dish and bake at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes. Serve warm.

Fluffy Mashed Potatoes

You’ll often see mashed potatoes on the table at Thanksgiving dinner. One thing that everybody loves is fluffy and flavourful mashed potatoes so take a look at this super simple how-to to make the fluffiest mashed potatoes ever!

The key to fluffy mashed potatoes is to remove as much starch as you possibly can. Boil your potatoes as you usually would. Drain them and rinse them under warm water for about 30 seconds; that’ll get lots of the starch off. Allow them to dry as much as possible.

Pass the potatoes through a food mill/ricer back into the pot that they were cooked in and add 2 cups of whole milk and 12 tablespoons of butter (these measurements were based on 4 pounds of Russet potatoes. Make sure the butter and milk are warm before adding them to the potatoes. Fold the mixture until all combined and season with salt and pepper.

Thanksgiving Centerpiece

Thanksgiving is coming up so we’re going to give you some ideas today about how to decorate your table if you’re having a big dinner to celebrate.

We’re making a centrepiece today. Actually we’re making a two part centrepiece. First of all we are cutting out different shapes of leaves to make sort of a runner for the centre of the table. These leaves are used as a decoration but they are also used as a special keepsake. You can get all of your guests to write things that they are thankful for on the leaves and then you can read them all after your dinner and keep them or hand them out.

So for the leaves, we used a Silhouette to cut out shapes or you can find a variety of leaf shapes and trace them. Pick a range of Fall/leaf colours to use and make enough to cover the centre length of your table.

Next to make the second part of the centrepiece you will need a few more ingredients. You can go to the dollar store, craft store, or grocery store to find supplies.

You will need a couple of vases depending on the size of your table and how much you want to decorate. Size and shape are up to you. We chose three glass vases. One is taller and skinnier for the middle and the other two are shorter and a bit fatter. We decided to go with very simple straight up and down cylinder shaped vases.

You’ll also want to pick out some candles. Again the size and colours are up to you; you might want to stay away from the really tall and skinnier ones though. We tried out some tea lights along with some bigger short white candles.

Next buy some bulk or packaged dried items like beans, lentils, etc. We went with popcorn kernels, red lentils, green spilt peas, and kidney beans because their colours are very Fall like and complement each other.

Lastly make sure you have some twine or thick ribbon that you can tie into a nice bow.

To put these centerpieces together layer your dried food in your vases. You can do them all the same or different, up to you. We’ve done the two smaller ones the same and the middle one different.

You’ll probably want to have at least two different colours per vase.

Place your candles on top and then tie your ribbon or twine close to the top of the vase.

Arrange the leaves on your table and then place the vases in-between.

Now you have a table all ready for a big Thanksgiving dinner!