Cream Sauces

To make cream sauces healthier you can use half the cream sauce that it asks for and half 1% milk that has been thickened with Ultragel. You get Ultragel at a health food store and it is good because it thickens things that are cold or hot. It's great for things like potato salad that aren't cooked. It has tons of uses.














In this picture I used it for a pasta salad dressing and I just seasoned the milk-gel mixture with garlic salt, pepper, and seasonings and it was great! It works for alfredo and any other cream sauce.

Wonderful Grains

Grains make up about 80% of everything we eat; we love them! Mostly because with a blood-sugar problem, like I have, grains are very fulfilling. When I had all my food allergies a number of years ago I did a lot of research on the different types of grains. There are SO many that most people never use and some that they've never heard of.
When you can learn the ways to use all these amazing grains, you will find a whole new collection of tastes and textures. There are the more familiar grains, like wheat, oats, and barley. Most people know how to use these.

One grain that is familiar, but underutilized, is millet. It has great health benefits and is way cheap! You cook it just like rice and it is a good substitute for cous cous and is great in salads and in casseroles.

Then you have buckwheat, which is good as flour in pancakes and used in moderation in casseroles. It has an interesting flavor that some people don't really like.
















Our personal favorite is quinoa. It cooks like rice and has hundreds of uses! It's amazing in soups, in waldorf salads, regular salads, in bread or pancakes (pre-cooked)...basically if we could afford it we would use it instead of rice in every instance. It's super healthy and tastes great. When cooked, it has these little 'tails', which is interesting.





















Then there's Amaranth. It's smaller than Quinoa and just as good for you. Both are considered 'supergrains'. With amaranth you just have to make sure it's cooked, because it's not good for you if it's not completely cooked.





















Teff is tied for favorite in my book. It's the smallest grain, not bigger than a grain of sand. I love this one because you can throw it uncooked in waffles and it is so small that it cooks along with the batter. It has a great, nutty flavor and adds to any dish. It can be easily hidden in any casserol or even taco meat.


















The key with all these grains is to learn how to incorporate them into your established dishes and diet. You can keep some cooked in your fridge so they can be added to your normal dishes all week. Throw them in salads, stir fries, waffles, casseroles, etc. Grains will make any dish heartier and healthier. I have to eat this way to manage my bloodsugar, but even normal people say they like the taste of my food better :)

Beans!

These are a staple around here. We use them in about everything. Dry beans are way cheap and so good for you.
I just cook them in the crock pot for about 6 or more hours and drain them and use them. I don't do all those extra soaking steps, and it works just fine for me. We use about every kind of bean...if you just buy a small bag each time you go to the store, you will have a good collection before long.
When the beans are done in the crock pot, I drain them and put them in the fridge. Then I use them all week in our salads, casseroles, quesadillas, etc. They add good protein and fiber.

Bread

Next Topic: Bread
We were blessed to get a sweet grain mill for our wedding along with the Kitchen Aid. This is how we make the flour that makes our bread. When you grind your own wheat, you lose none of the nutrients or virtues of the grain that are even lost in store-bought whole wheat flour. It's also a TON cheaper! We buy the bulk grain when it goes on sale at Wal-Mart and it lasts forever!
We got our bread maker at the local thrift store for $10 and it works perfectly. The key when buying a bread maker at a thrift store is to make sure the paddle is in there, and that it works when you plug it in.
We use molasses instead of sugar and use wheat gluten. The wheat gluten helps the bread to rise better because it strengthens the gluten bonds of the flour. Another key is to put the ingredients in the maker in the order that they are listed on my recipe. It's the best recipe I've used in all my years of making bread in a bread maker. (below)
It takes about 5 minutes at most to put all the ingredients in the maker, then 4 hours later we have beautiful, delicious bread! We seriously live on this stuff; we make 1 to 2 loaves a DAY! Our house always smells like baking bread, mmmm!