Homemade Apple Chips

What do you do with a bunch of potatoes, carrots, Swiss chard, beets and apples?  I received all of these with my bi-weekly delivery of organic fruits and veggies through Mile High Organics this week.  I contemplated how I wanted to use up the apples.......apple crisp, apple pie, bread?  I love eating apples, but I didn't want them to go bad before I could go through them all.  Then I came across an article from Huffington Post- fruit and vegetable chip recipes and saw a recipe for homemade apple chips.  Super easy and healthy.  My mind was made up!

The recipe I used was from Leanne Bakes Blog Spiced Apple Chips.  All you need is apples and ground cinnamon/nutmeg.  No added sugar or oils!  Here's the recipe from Leanne.

Ingredients:

• Any kind of apple, up to you how much (I used about 8 Jonathan apples) 
• Cinnamon to sprinkle
• Nutmeg to sprinkle (I didn't use any just because I didn't have any)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 220F, and line two large baking pans with parchment paper.
2. Using a knife or a mandolin, slice apples as thin as possible. Lay them side by side on a baking sheet, being careful not to overlap.
3. Gently and carefully sprinkle a thin coating of cinnamon on the chips, and follow with a light dusting of nutmeg.  (Some of mine got a lot of cinnamon......and some not so much.  It's ok if they're not equal!)
4. Bake for one hour, flip the slices, and bake for one hour more. Place on a wire cooling rack. Chips will crisp up as they cool.

 I also made chips out of the potatoes, carrots and beets.  I am on a roll.  Up next is Swiss chard!
You can make "chips" out of just about any starchy veggie or fruit.  I added some spices to the potatoes and carrots to add some flavor.  I never thought about making apple or beet chips......try something you have not thought of before.  I already used the potato, beet and carrot chips with a butternut squash hummus; it was a delicious combination!




 

Three cups of Tipu chai tea

There are lots of things I LOVE about fall, and one of them is drinking delicious hot drinks while the air has a slight chill.  I drink plain tea all the time, and I am even starting to (gasp) drink more coffee too.
One of my favorite specialty drinks is chai tea.  Spicy, sweet and delicious.  There are many variations of chai, some more sweet, some more spicy.  Some taste authentic, some taste fake or too sweet.  There's a relatively new company, Tipu's chai, that makes some AMAZING chai blends.  Bipin Patel, the founder of Tipu's, knows chai.  He grew up in Uganda with his Indian family, and his grandmother from Gujarat, India made traditional Indian food and masala chai for his family.  He now lives with his own family in Montana and makes chai products based on his grandmother's recipe.

Tipu's chai offers many different kinds of chai that you can order on their website or find a store/coffee shop that sells it.  I tried 3 varieties of Tipu's: Chai now- all you need is water, Chai now-the simple life and Chai now- sweet and spicy.  All 3 were in a powder form that needed just water and/or milk.  One thing that I like about Tipu's is they use organic, quality ingredients.  There are no artificial ingredients, and you can taste the quality.  You can find Tipu's all over the country.  Denver/Boulder peeps- it is sold at Whole Foods and Vitamin Cottage!  Check it out.

Chai Now: All you need is water
This flavor was most like a latte, and very good.  It is made with Indian tea, spices, organic evaporated cane juice and non-GMO soy milk powder.  Since it has soy milk powder, you can still get a latte like consistency even though you only add water.  I thought it was a great blend of sweet and spice!  I think this one was my favorite.

Chai Now: The simple Life
This chai has just Indian microground tea and spices.  There is no sweeteners added.  It is recommended to add to a mix of water and milk with your own sweetener.  I used honey for a sweetener, and I used mostly water with about 2 oz of soy milk for this blend.  For me, this was the least sweet of the 3 flavors.  I personally liked the control of adding my own amount of sweetness and being able to choose what sweetener I wanted.  I want to experiment with stevia or truvia next time to see how sugar free sweeteners work with this blend.

Chai Now: Sweet and Spicy
This is similar to all you need is water flavor, but it doesn't have soy milk powder.  If you are a chai connoisseur and like to blend your own amount of water and milk, this would be a great mix to do this with.  If you want to keep it simple and just use water, chai now all you need is water is the better option.

Health benefits of chai
Chai offers more than just a delicious taste and has awesome some nutrition highlights.  The tea leaves are packed with antioxidants, and may help lower cancer risk.  Spices added like cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and nutmeg have been used for centuries for their health proponents.  They are thought to be beneficial for boosting the immune system and helping with some digestion problems.

Bottoms up to the chai!  Sweet, spicy and healthy.  Note some chai drinks can be high in sugar.  Choosing mixes or drinks that you can add your own sweetener, like Chai Now: the simple life, can cut down on sugar amount.  You can also use less amount of the chai mix and combine with more water/milk than recommended, depending on taste preferences.

 

Ragnar Relay: How Do you eat during a 24+hr running relay?

Relay exchange in Vail

27 hours, 12 people, two 15 passenger vans, 189 miles of continuous running at altitude from Breckenridge to Vail to Aspen.  Sound crazy?  It was.  It was also exhilarating, exhausting, amazing, beautiful, and soooo much fun!  I just completed the Ragnar Relay in Colorado with my team, Last Call.  We all had 3 legs of the relay and ran from 8:30am September 7th 2012 to 11:30am September 8th 2012.  Everyone on the team was super awesome, and we ended up getting second place in our division and 18th over all out of at least 160 teams!  

How in the world do you prepare for an event like this?  (You may also be asking WHY you would ever want to do this!  It was an amazing experience, I promise!  The trick is having an awesome team.)  Training depends on the length of your total mileage, as everyone had different amounts of running to do.  I had 20.1 miles total for my 3 legs which was the longest.  It also depends where you are starting at in your fitness level and how long you have to train.

Another question: what do you bring to eat on an event like this?  That is tricky.  Running 3 times within 24 hours makes food/drink intake a lot more complicated than training just one time a day.  What can you eat that can sit in a van or cooler all day and will re-fuel you throughout the relay?  This of course fascinates me since I am a dietitian.  There was probably no 2 people in the entire event that ate or drank the same things.  I know the concepts of sports nutrition and recovery, as well as nutrient timing and metabolic efficiency.  However, maybe much to the shock and dismay of some, I didn't always practice what I preach.

What I went into the race with (knowing I was not going to eat it all but wanted options):

My food stash for the relay

• 2 bananas
• 1/2 cup oatmeal with a scoop of protein powder
• Dried figs
• Nut and berry trail mix
• 2 apples
• Kind nut/protein bars
• 1 Lara bar
• 1 Breeze Bar
• 2 packets of Justin's nut butter
• 1 almond butter and banana sandwich
• 1 container of Greek yogurt
• 1 small scoop of chia seed protein pudding
• 4 no bake peanut butter cookie balls

 I ate regular breakfast and lunch with my food I brought before and after my run at 12pm (8.8 miles).  I also drank about 8oz of sports drink afterwards.  I had a dinner of oatmeal and protein powder mixed together plus a banana and nut butter around 5:30pm.  I ran next at 10pm (suppose to 4.6 but ended up being 3.6 miles).  I snacked a little on bars after my late night run, but I wasn't hungry to eat something substantial after that.  For my 6am run (6.7 miles), I didn't eat much before, but I was hungry a few hours after.  I didn't eat all my food, but I was glad to have all my options.    

The rest of that day and into the next day, I didn't eat much.  I just didn't have an appetite.  I know that is a critical time for muscle recovery, but I couldn't do it.  As another nutritionist on my team and I were talking about this, we decided you just have to do the best you can.  Sometimes it's not perfect or what you know it should be, but it's ok in the end.

We had people on our team that ate almost nothing and drank diet coke, people who ate meals plus good servings of snacks in between runs, some focusing on a paleo foods only and lots of variance in between.  Some people ate gels on their runs, some didn't take anything.  Everyone is so different; yet we all accomplished our goal. 

The human body is fascinating.  It can endure a lot.  Everyone is different.  If your nutrition isn't perfect, you'll still be ok.  Some people were recovering from injuries, some people got lost on their running legs, and some runs it took a lot of mental coaching to get through or get excited about.  I think this experience confirmed running is mostly mental; your body can push through more than what you think it can.  

If you are a runner and haven't done a relay like this before, I'd encourage you to do it!  If you want more information on sports nutrition, I know some awesome sports dietitians that are full of practical advice.  Check out Fuel4mance for more information.  Also, if you're not perfect in something that you are technically "an expert" in, give yourself a break and ENJOY the experience!

Finish Area for the Ragnar Relay in Snowmass

 

Broccoli for Breakfast: Besaw's Restaurant Review

Original bar from 1903

Restaurants like Besaw's in Portland's Northwest side are one of a kind and a rarity these days in more ways than one.  Not only is there the original 1903 bar in the restaurant, but their use of local ingredients is quite impressive.  I was fortunate to visit there for breakfast while in town for the International Food Blogger's Conference.  Besaw's was first opened in 1903, and with the same original bar in the restaurant, it feels a little like stepping back in time.  The short version on the history of Besaw's is it started as a bar back in the turn of the century and food was added on the menu after Mr. Liberty sold his share of the company to Mr. Besaw. 

Homemade ketchup and jam

Besaw's is committed to being a sustainable, locally sourced restaurant.  They use as much local food as possible.  They even have a garden in the back of the restaurant, use local, grass fed beef, local cage free eggs and 100% hormone free dairy.  It doesn't get much better than that!  They make their own marionberry jam which is delicious on their sourdough toast.   As a ketchup lover, I was a big fan of their in house made ketchup too.

For breakfast, they have a wide selection of dishes.  I love egg dishes when going out to breakfast, so I decided to order 2 egg breakfast that comes with sourdough toast and garlic rosemary potatoes.  I ordered a side of seasonal vegetables not knowing what I would get.  I was pleasantly surprised when a plate full of broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini and onions came back.  Some  people may turn their nose up at eating a side of broccoli and cauliflower for breakfast, but I was delighted!  They were well seasoned, not overly cooked and added some color to my egg plate.

Yum! Eggs, toast and garlic rosemary potatoes

Broccoli: it's whats for breakfast

Sure you can put non-traditional vegetables in an omelet.  But what about just as a side dish?  I was challenged to start using different veggies for brekafast more on my own.  Would you do it or do you associate certain vegetables as lunch/dinner only?  Mad props to Besaw's for serving delicious, local, out of the box meals.

What is Food Styling?

Yesterday my roommate and I took a tour of Souders Studios in Golden, CO.  This studio photographs food and beverages for different restaurants, food companies, cookbooks and beverages companies.  Companies like Red Robin, Max and Erma's, Atkins and many others use Souder Studios.  We got to see their high end equipment and some of their finished products.  Everything was very professional, creative and beautiful!  It was so fun!  Yesterday they were taking pictures of Atkins bars.  Even simple shots with these bars can entail a lot of detail and adjusting!
Do you love food?  Do you love taking pictures of food?  You can spot a foodie if someone is always posting pictures of food on instagram, facebook or twitter.  Food styling is actually a profession that merges photography and cooking.  At Souders, they had professional expertise on both ends.  They have a professional chef, Stephen Shern, that cooks food and photographers Rick, Robin and John.  They offer tours, and you can see pictures of their studio on Souder website.
If you want some practical tips you can incorporate in your own food photography, desserts for breakfast has an article on current food photography styles and trends.

Just some of the plates and cups they have for pictures!

Kitchen at Souders Studios

Atkins bars getting ready for a photo shoot

Here are just a few examples of photos from Souders Studio:

 

 

Souders Studios has weekly recipes with pictures posted on their website.  This week's is charred tomato and onion salsa......yummmmm.

 

Healthy Chocolate Berry Pudding

Do you like the consistency of pudding and gel foods?  A pudding recipe I love is chocolate chia seed protein pudding.  I'm also a fan of putting chia seeds in drinks (water to tea to smoothies) so that it forms a gel like consistency.  What about you? I have another recipe for a delicious pudding that I LOVE!  This one is chocolate pudding and would also be great for kids.  Unlike the boxed kind in the store, there are no artificial ingredients, it is high in fiber, vitamins and minerals and protein.  It is loaded with fruits, so no need for extra sugar.  The recipe is from One Green Planet's Raw Chocolate Berry Pudding.

Ingredients:

• 1 banana
• 1 large handful frozen strawberries
• 1 large handful blueberries
• 3-5 dates or prunes (I used prunes)
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 tablespoons cacao
• 1/4 cup non-dairy milk (or more, add as needed) (I used soy)
• 1 tablespoon nut butter/coconut oil to make it creamy
• 1 scoop chocolate protein powder (My optional addition)

 Directions:

1. Blend all ingredients together until silky smooth.  Top with optional fresh mint leaves.  Serves 2-3.  The consistency is like a thick smoothie.  It is sweet with a subtle chocolate flavor.  Delicious breakfast, summer treat or post workout recovery snack.

 Another favorite pudding recipe is a Turkish gum pudding.  I was lucky enough to have it in Istanbul, and it was so good!  Although not as healthy ;-).

Nutrition Labeling Current Trends: Helpful or Harmful?

Do you look at nutrition labels when grocery shopping?  Most of us who are health conscious do.  I know I am always looking at the nutrition facts even for foods that I know I don't want.  What factors are important to you when buying food?  Ingredients, calories, fat, sugar, fiber, protein?  According to research in 2007-2012 from the European Food Information Council cited in www.foodnavigator.com, price, taste and brand over rule nutrition labeling.  The research suggests people know how to read a nutrition label but don't usually make food choices based on nutrition.  Instead, pricing, taste and brands are more of an influence for purchasing something.  Food Navigator also notes that shopping in a hurry or feeling pressured makes us more likely to choose foods based on taste, price or brand over nutrition.

So how can people make more health conscious decisions, especially when in a hurry?  What about health claims or eye catching nutrition symbols on packages?  Many foods have colorful or stand out health claims or symbols on packaging.  Consumers can just look for these symbols and be able to make healthier choices, right?  Well, maybe not according to another European study from Food Quality and Preference cited in www.foodnavigator.com.  Nutrition claims may have a negative effect on perceived quality of food according to their research findings.  Researchers studied people's perception of a regular biscuit and a non-sugar biscuit.  Information on the biscuit packaging had a strong influence on perception of how the biscuits were going to taste.     

These 2 studies suggest we make decisions to buy food products based on price, taste and brand instead of nutritional quality.  When foods have nutrition claims on the packaging, this may actually cause a more negative perception on sensory indicators like taste.  Do you agree?  These studies were done in Europe.  Do you think the results would be different here in the US? 

How can we shift consumers to make food choices based on nutritional quality instead of taste and price if nutritional claims don't seem to help?