Sweet Potato Recipes

Image via WikipediaNow this is another very simple fruit (is it a fruit or a vegetable?) that has diverse uses, and the dishes that can be made from it is quite unlimited. I should say, it can be broiled, fried, boiled, cut into round pieces or into chips, mashed, etc., etc.

It is also very economical. Have you seen a sweet potato that is very expensive?

And these are very nutritious, too. The many varieties also add to the variation in color, texture and taste. Makes for the perfect dessert (or dip), as shown in the list of recipes for this versatile root crop.

Go on now... Enjoy!
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Posted by KathyPatalsky
April 22, 2011


Here are some of my most favorite sweet potato recipes. These dishes will add some vitamin-A rich deliciousness to your spring holiday table. Serve these dishes for Easter – or serve them all year long. Sweet potatoes are one of my favorite foods – these are my most beloved recipes. And feel good diving into healthy sweet potatoes! Kids love them too. Eat up! Check these sweet potato recipes out..

Sweet Potato Glow Spirals - a perfect appetizer or small bite. Or serve these bites up for a light lunch. They are kinda like sweet potato sushi! Without the fish. Or rice. But you get the idea!

Sweet Potato Apple Souffle Cups – another perfect small bite or elegant appetizer. Serve these cups warm from the oven for some cozy golden yumminess.

My Famous Sweet Potato Mash – this is my most favorite mash. I serve it at Thanksgiving – or just as a side dish for supper. This is the mash I use to stuff my Sassy Sweet Potato Pitas below..

Sweet and Sassy Sweet Potato Pockets – I first started making these when I went vegetarian – I’d bring them to dinner parties and holiday feasts so that I’d have something to eat! But when everyone started asking for the recipe I knew I had a winner. I make these often – and kids love them!

Sweet Potato Stuffed Roasted Pepper – Lovely hearty side dish for sweet potato lovers like you and me!

Sweet Potato Mash and Lemon Pepper Tempeh – this is one of my favorite meal combos. Protein-rich and super healthy. Give this vegan combo a try!

Sweet Potato Biscuits – the classic sweet potato biscuit gets a healthy makeover. These are vegan, and tender-licious. I crave these cozy biscuits.

Sweet Potato Dream Dip – this luscious creamy yam/white bean dip is the perfect party-starter. Whip it up in a flash and serve it with some crackers and veggie sticks. Par-ty!

Silly Sweet Potato Pizza - the ultimate kid-pleaser that even adults will swoon over. Creamy mashed sweet potatoes, maple, pecan and citrus flavors. Serve as a side dish or main event!

White Yam Sweet Garlic Bean Dip – this was a soup recipe gone wrong, and a bean dip recipe gone right! Creamy and packed with garlic-white yam flavor.

Taken from blogs.babble.com; source article is below:
Favorite Sweet Potato Recipes

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Soy Products & Tofu Health Issues

Image via WikipediaI have come across an article about tofu as being the cause of a lady's health woes, and digging in deeper, it was found that she over-consumed the food, which is thought as a health food in the first place.

Is this article on the same storyline?
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Overview

Soybeans, a mainstay of the Asian diet for centuries, have become increasingly popular in the West as a low-fat source of protein and oil. Soybeans can be used to make many healthy, inexpensive and versatile food products, including tofu, miso and soymilk. Soy products provide "complete protein," meaning they contain all the amino acids essential to human nutrition. Despite the high nutritional value of soy, scientists cannot rule out the possibility of side effects of consuming soy products. Therefore, you should not take soy products without first talking to your doctor.

Breast Cancer Risk

Scientists are not sure if breast cancer risk is influenced by consuming phytoestrogens from soy products. Some animal studies with human breast cancer cells have found that soy phytoestrogens may act as estrogens in the human body and possibly raise the risk of breast cancer, according to Barbour S. Warren and Carol Devine, Ph.D., R.D., of the Sprecher Institute at Cornell University. Long, uninterrupted exposure to estrogen is an established risk factor for breast cancer. Estrogen facilitates the growth of milk ducts in the breast, where most breast cancers arise. Soy phytoestrogens, specifically isoflavones, are similar to human estrogen in structure. This allows them to bind to the same chemical receptors as endogenous estrogen and mimic its action. Women should consume soy products with care because they may increase estrogenic activity in the body.

Thyroid Disease

Soy isoflavones are potent inhibitors of the enzymes thyroid peroxidase and 5'-deiodinase, which are responsible for the oxidation and organification of iodide to iodine. Iodine is a trace element essential for the biosynthesis of thyroid hormones. Inhibition of these enzymes by soy isoflavones lowers circulating thyroid hormones, which results in an increased serum TSH. TSH is the thyroid-stimulating hormone that potentiates the pathogenesis of goiter, the enlargement of the thyroid gland. The effects of soy isoflavones on the thyroid function are more pronounced when you consume an iodine-insufficient diet for a long time. Adding iodine to the diet, however, offsets this effect.

Soy Allergy

Food allergies are immunologically based abnormal responses to a particular food or food component. Symptoms of soy allergy can range in severity from harmless skin reactions to gastrointestinal disturbances to respiratory distress to cardiovascular problems. Researchers have identified at least 15 soy proteins that are responsible for allergic reactions; however, the mechanism of action has remained unclear. The protein 2S globulin has been recognized as the most powerful one. Soy allergy is more common in children than adults. If you have allergies to soy, you should avoid all soy products such as tofu, miso, soymilk, soy flour, soy yogurt and tempeh.

Gout

Soybeans are also rich in purines, natural substances found in all body tissues and in some foods. Consuming large amounts of soy products, including tofu, can raise your uric acid level and make the gout worse. Uric acid, a purine degradation product, deposits in joint spaces as small crystals and causes intense pain, swelling and inflammation.

Taken from livestrong.com; source article is below:
Health Issues Related to Soy Products & Tofu

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Flight of the bumble bees

Image via WikipediaThis is a sure sweet thing!
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By Paul Jobin
Tuesday Apr 19, 2011


If there's one thing most of us have in common it's a story about being stung by a pesky bee.

Mine involved chasing a rampant bull terrier, which had my favourite gumboot well lodged in his jaw, past a stack of beehives. Then there was the time I fetched a flying frisbee that had thumped a hive in the long grass.

New Zealand has some 300,000 beehives, home to honey bees that live for only six weeks but manage, in that time, to fly about 800km. And did you know that bees don't sleep, but take short breaks in which they barely move to conserve energy? And that in its lifetime, the average bee will make only about half a teaspoon of honey?

Honey has been a part of the human diet for at least as long as recorded human history. In New Zealand, the first hive of honey bees was imported from England to Hokianga, Northland, in 1839 and this country now has some of the healthiest, most disease-free honey bees in the world. We even export bee semen.

New Zealand beekeepers produce a saleable crop of about 8000 tonnes of honey each year; primarily clover. To understand how incredible these little critters are, visit BeesOnline Honey Centre & Cafe in Waimauku, west of Auckland.

This artisan honey producer specialises in monofloral honeys, but it has also diversified into other honey products, too - the BeesOnline red wine and manuka honeygar brilliantly engineered in owner Maureen Maxwell's kitchen is a superb alternative to white balsamic vinegar in cooking. It's particularly fabulous as a marinade for pork belly with star anise and cinnamon bark.

It's also low in fat and high in anti-oxidants.

Maxwell compares BeesOnline honeys to fine wine - manuka and strong bush honeys can be thought of as similar to full-bodied dry red wines, mineral and herbaceous. The sweet floral characteristics of honey made from pohutukawa or tawari, on the other hand, can be likened to a sticky dessert wine.

Honey will keep in your cupboard for up to a year. Clear honey can crystallise over time, but put the jar in a jug of hot water and it will return to its clear, liquid state. Crystallisation does not affect the honey's quality.

When substituting sugar with honey in cooking, use half the amount as it's twice as sweet. When beating, beat honey for longer and more vigorously and add half a teaspoon of baking soda for each cup of honey used. This will neutralise honey's acidity and help the food rise.

Now, when I am pouring clear liquid amber honey over my gorgonzola stuffed figs in parma ham, I find I can forgive the odd sting from the buzzy bee.

By Paul Jobin


Taken from nzherald.co.nz; source article is below:
Flight of the bumble bees

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An American cookbook by Amanda Hesser

There is a new cookbook and it is focused on American dishes.

Below is an excerpt from the book, which is also lifted from an article, as indicated below:

My book began in 2004 over a lunch of Sri Lankan food at a restaurant in Manhattan. Susan Chira, a foreign correspondent and editor at the New York Times, was cultivating book projects by the paper's staff–ers. She asked me if I had any ideas. I had exactly none, but we began talking about cookbooks. It occurred to me that of the many cookbooks containing recipes from the Times, the best known – the one on nearly all of my friends' mothers' kitchen shelves – was The New York Times Cookbook by Craig Claiborne. Still in print, it was originally published in 1961, nearly 50 years ago.

American cooking has seen monumental changes in the intervening decades. We discovered classic French food and then Italian, New American, Japanese and south–east Asian before looping back to France for a brief rendezvous with the bistro, and then on to the trattoria, tapas bar and British butcher. We learnt about seasonal cooking as well as local cooking, sustainable foods and artisanal ingredients. We became vegetarians, pescatarians, vegans and locavores. In 1961 there were lots of curious home cooks. Now there are lots of obsessed and well–informed foodies. Before lunch was over, this book was in the works. It would include the most noteworthy recipes all the way from the 1850s, when the paper began covering food, to today. Had I known then that it would take six years and entail cooking more than 1,400 recipes, I might never have started.

To read more, follow the source article below:
'The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century' by Amanda Hesser

 

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