Recipe of the Week: Blueberry Maple Muffins

From Eat­ing­Well

Whole-wheat flour and flaxseeds give these maple syrup-sweetened blue­berry muffins a deli­cious, nutty flavor.

Com­pared to a tra­di­tional ver­sion of the recipe, they have four times the dietary fiber and sub­sti­tute health­ful monoun­sat­u­rated fat (canola oil) for sat­u­rated fat (butter).

Ingre­di­ents

• 1/5 cup whole flaxseeds
• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 3/4 cup plus 2 table­spoons all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tea­spoons bak­ing powder
• 1 tea­spoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tea­spoon bak­ing soda
• 1/4 tea­spoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
• 1 cup non­fat but­ter­milk, (see Tip)
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 2 tea­spoons freshly grated orange zest
• 1 table­spoon orange juice
• 1 tea­spoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
• 1 table­spoon sugar

Prepa­ra­tion

1. Pre­heat oven to 400°F. Coat 12 muf­fin cups with cook­ing spray.
2. Grind flaxseeds in a spice mill (such as a clean cof­fee grinder) or dry blender. Trans­fer to a large bowl. Add whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, bak­ing pow­der, cin­na­mon, bak­ing soda and salt; whisk to blend. Whisk eggs and maple syrup in a medium bowl until smooth. Add but­ter­milk, oil, orange zest, orange juice and vanilla; whisk until blended.
3. Make a well in the dry ingre­di­ents and stir in the wet ingre­di­ents with a rub­ber spat­ula just until moist­ened. Fold in blue­ber­ries. Scoop the bat­ter into the pre­pared muf­fin cups. Sprin­kle the tops with sugar.
4. Bake the muffins until the tops are golden brown and spring back when touched lightly, 15 to 25 min­utes. Let cool in the pan for 5 min­utes. Loosen edges and turn muffins out onto a wire rack to cool slightly.

Nutri­tional Infor­ma­tion
Per muf­fin: 208 Calo­ries; 8 g Fat; 1 g Sat; 4 g Mono; 36 mg Cho­les­terol; 31 g Car­bo­hy­drates; 6 g Pro­tein; 3 g Fiber; 184 mg Sodium; 149 mg Potassium

Recipe of the Week: Avocado Berry Smoothie

From BeWell­Buzz

In keep­ing with the avo­cado theme this week, today’s recipe fea­tures this fab­u­lous fruit and is brought to us by Terresa.

As you read in Wednesday’s arti­cle, avo­ca­dos are loaded with nutri­ents such as dietary fiber, vit­a­min B6, vit­a­min C, vit­a­min E, potas­sium, mag­ne­sium, and folate. They’re also cho­les­terol and sodium free. Avo­ca­dos con­tain 60% more potas­sium per ounce than bananas and are an excel­lent source of monoun­sat­u­rated fat.

But did you know that you can also blend an avo­cado pit into your smoothie? It is packed with very good nutri­ents and its sol­u­ble fiber binds to fat and excess cho­les­terol. Sol­u­ble fiber is very dif­fi­cult to get in our diet and no other food can com­pare with the avo­cado seed when it comes to sol­u­ble fiber.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 medium avo­cado, peeled and pit­ted (or keep the pit!)
• 1 table­spoon cashews, raw
• 1/2 tea­spoon ste­via (or 1 table­spoon honey)
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup blue­ber­ries, frozen
• 6 ice cubes

PREPARATION
Blend the avo­cado, cashews, ste­via, water, blue­ber­ries, and ice together until smooth. Serves 1–2

The Amazing Power of Avocados

From Health​.com

Love avo­ca­dos?

Well you’ll love them even more when you dis­cover their amaz­ing ben­e­fits: they keep you thin, pro­tect your vision, and may even pre­vent cancer.

Eye opener
Pro­tect your vision with a few slices of avo­cado at lunch or din­ner. Avo­ca­dos are rich in lutein and zeax­an­thin, antiox­i­dants found in the retina that keep eyes healthy; they also may help pre­vent age-related prob­lems, like cataracts and mac­u­lar degeneration.

Can­cer fighter
Extracts from avo­ca­dos kill or stop the growth of pre­can­cer­ous cells that lead to oral can­cer and may have a sim­i­lar effect on other can­cers, accord­ing to a recent study. Researchers credit the fruit’s unique combo of nutrients—which include folate and vit­a­mins C and E.

Nutri­ent booster
Add avo­cado to salsa for a big­ger health pay­off. A study from The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity found that peo­ple absorbed four-and-a-half times more of the cancer-fighter lycopene from the toma­toes when avo­cado was added; the healthy fats help you absorb more nutrients.

Health­ier fat
Skip the mayo, and go for creamy avo­cado on your sand­wich. It packs 4 grams of heart-healthy monoun­sat­u­rated fat (which low­ers cho­les­terol), 2 grams of fiber, and 1 gram of pro­tein per ounce, mak­ing it a lower-fat, more-filling sub­sti­tute for the white stuff.

What are your favorite ways to enjoy an avocado?

Snooze-Friendly Snacks

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Well-planned bed­time snacks can help keep hunger pangs from wak­ing you dur­ing the night while pro­mot­ing rest­ful­ness. Rather than eat­ing ice cream or tor­tilla chips straight from the pack­ages, which sets you up for overeat­ing, try rea­son­able por­tions of sleep-friendly foods:

Warm milk with honey. In addi­tion to pro­vid­ing warmth and com­fort, this snack pro­vides valu­able amounts of tryp­to­phan, car­bo­hy­drates and cal­cium — a min­eral that enhances mus­cle relaxation.

Banana with nut but­ter. Bananas and nuts also pro­vide tryp­to­phan and car­bo­hy­drates, with the added ben­e­fit of healthy fat. For added cal­cium, choose almond butter.

Air-popped pop­corn. As a whole grain, pop­corn pro­vides more vit­a­mins, min­er­als, fiber and pro­tein than snacks such as french fries and chips. To guard against night­time bloat­ing, use nat­ural herbs and spices instead of salt.

Turkey on whole grain toast. Tryp­to­phan is blamed for post-Thanksgiving feast grog­gi­ness. Although overeat­ing and alco­hol are usu­ally stronger influ­ences, turkey does con­tain the calmness-boosting chem­i­cal. The NSF sug­gests pair­ing it with bread for opti­mum sleep enhanc­ing benefits.

Oat­meal. Oat­meal, another nutri­tious whole grain food, pro­vides more fiber and pro­tein than low-fiber cere­als, such as puffed rice and corn flakes. For tryp­to­phan ben­e­fits, pre­pare oat­meal with low-fat milk and top it with nuts or sliced banana.

Yogurt. Yogurt, like other dairy prod­ucts, pro­vides valu­able amounts of cal­cium, pro­tein, tryp­to­phan and car­bo­hy­drates. To main­tain low sugar intake near bed­time, swap your usual ice cream out for yogurt topped with fresh or frozen berries and whole grain granola.

Read more at LIVE​STRONG​.COM →

Recipe of the Week: Spicy Green Salad

Add some heat to your greens with this blend of veg­gies and spicy dress­ing. Dress­ing sal­ads prop­erly means coat­ing the leaves lightly. With vinai­grette, one table­spoon of dress­ing for two cups of greens accom­plishes this. In addi­tion to sav­ing calo­ries, these amounts allow salad ingre­di­ents to stay sprightly since oil is what makes them wilt. In this week’s recipe, the pureed veg­eta­bles give the salad dress­ing body that nor­mally comes from oil. See how in this vivid, almost creamy com­bi­na­tion of roasted red pep­per, tomato, jalapeño and just one table­spoon of oil.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 roasted red bell pepper*
• 1-inch wedge sweet onion, chopped
• 1 small gar­lic clove, chopped
• 1 medium plum tomato, seeded and chopped
• 1/2 jalapeño pep­per, chopped (for a hot­ter dish, do not remove seeds)
• 1 tsp. agave syrup or honey
• 1 Tbsp. fat-free, reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 Tbsp. extra vir­gin olive oil
• 4 large romaine let­tuce leaves
• 4 red-leaf let­tuce leaves
• 1 packed cup baby arugula
• 6-inch piece Eng­lish cucum­ber, sliced
• 2 plum toma­toes, sliced crosswise
• 1/4 red onion; about 3–4 very thin slices as rings

PREPARATION

1. In blender, whirl red pep­per, onion, gar­lic, tomato, jalapeño, agave, broth, vine­gar and salt until pulpy. With motor run­ning, whirl in oil. Set dress­ing aside while mak­ing salad.
2. Wash greens. Tear let­tuces into bite-size pieces and whirl in salad spin­ner to dry. Place let­tuce and arugula in salad bowl. Add 1/4 cup dress­ing and toss until greens are just coated. Add cucum­ber, toma­toes and onion rings. Toss lightly, and serve immediately.

* If pos­si­ble, roast pep­per your­self. Here’s how:

1. Pre­heat oven to 425 degrees F.
2. Place seeded pep­per half, cut-side down on oiled bak­ing sheet and roast 20 to 30 min­utes until skin is well-blistered.
3. Place pep­per in small bowl, cover with plas­tic wrap and let sit for 20 minutes.
4. Using fin­gers, remove skin. Roasted pep­pers may be tightly cov­ered and refrig­er­ated for up to 4 days.

NUTRITIONAL INFO

Makes 4 servings.

Per serv­ing: 70 calo­ries, 4 g total fat (0.5 g sat­u­rated fat), 9 g car­bo­hy­drate, 2 g pro­tein, 2 g dietary fiber, 160 mg sodium.