Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

My COVID Recovery: No Problem

I’d just come home from seeing the very fun Top Gun Maverick movie with a good group of fellow Hickory Velo Cycling Club buds when I felt flu or bad cold symptoms come on fast. Later that night, I woke with the telltale signs of COVID: mild fever, full body ache, big headache and on-fire sore throat.

Some quick personal health facts. I did not get any COVID shots and am fine with that decision. I’m almost 64 years old, 6′ 3″ and under 160 pounds. I eat and drink exactly what you see on this site with an emphasis on eating a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. I usually only supplement my diet with Vitamins D3 and B12 and a light dose of zinc. And I’m on the bike every day.

I’ve mentioned here many times that the keys to good life quality and both disease prevention and disease recovery are what you eat and how you move your body.

When I came down with COVID last week, I checked in with a good, reliable friend who runs a health food store here in Hickory. She recommended supplementing my diet with the immunity support kit and flu symptom reducing tablets you see here.

I’ve followed her advice to a “T”. I’ve stuck to my diet (regular eating). And I haven’t missed a day on the bike – though I did cut back from “normal” last week, which, even on days I felt worst, always made me feel better both on the road and when I got back home. I mean, how bad can you feel when you’re bathed in North Carolina glory like this?

Bottom line: yes, COVID, the virus, is real. But just like a bad cold or the flu, your outcome is heavily influenced by your health state when you get infected. My good buds here keep an eye out and ask how I’m doing. My answer: considering how severely others have been affected, I got off lightly and am doing great. Thanks, good friends. I sure wish the same for you!

Improvising: Top Gun Maverick and Fresh Spinach & Berry Salad S2E

If you’ve seen the new, fantastically fun Top Gun Maverick movie, you know the “Mav” is all about improvising on the fly and living to fight another day.

If you’re a regular here, you also know I consider improvisation the spice of life, and that spice of life is all about fun.

Here’s an example. Last post showed how to make this very simple but fully flavorful fresh spinach and berries salad – great summertime stuff!

Now, here are some ingredients you can use to take that same salad from simple to exciting (S2E) all very easily.

Sure, these ingredients look like a lot. But don’t let that bother you. They just represent a range of choices you can pick from or substitute with anything you like to make your salad all your own regarding flavor and dietary needs.

Click this link or the picture below for picture book directions and,…

…back to Top Gun – and fun. The “Mav” might have the bad guys – and the Navy – but he’s got nothing on us roadies. Ha!

Fresh Spinach and Berry Salad Picture Book Recipe

Last post showed how to make the (almost) instant 5-ingredient salad dressing below, which is just as fully flavorful and richly versatile as it is simple to make.

Here’s just one of the many salads, that is just as equally full-on flavorful and easy to make as the dressing: Fresh Spinach and Berry Salad.

Regarding the spinach, there’s nothing better than the farm-fresh spinach I used to get from my good bud, Michael Berberian, and his family Berberian’s Farm Stand in Northborough, MA.

Fresh spinach from Berberian’s Farm, Northborough, MA

Now that I’m in North Carolina (which I love!), I usually get my fresh spinach in a bag at Aldi – I’m a big Aldi fan for both their quality and prices, especially in these days with grocery prices skyrocketing.

Here’s what you need to make this Fresh Spinach and Berry Salad:

Just click this link or any picture on this page for a complete picture book recipe.

What is Kefir and What Are Its Benefits?

First, I call us “a life support system for bacteria” because we have more bacteria in our bodies, mostly in our gut, than we have human cells. But really, both our body cells and healthy bacteria are life support systems for each other as they work closely together in balance and need each other to survive.

But, sometimes that balance goes out of whack.

That’s my second point. It’s been at least 15 years since I learned about kefir and started adding it to my diet regularly – and I sure am a big fan!

The reason: For a good chunk of my life, my gut and gut bacteria had been abused by fairly frequently prescribed antibiotic use – and probable overuse – due mostly to repeated ear and sinus infections. And then there was family and work-related stress I didn’t handle well. That nasty combination caused significant gut pain that just wouldn’t quit.

To turn that around, I learned to deal with stress and continue to stay on top of it through daily, disciplined, moment-to-moment applied mindfulness practice. More about that later.

At the same time, I learned how to take care of my gut by adding a combination of probiotics (foods full of healthy bacteria) and prebiotics (foods rich in fiber, that those bacteria need to eat to survive vibrantly to benefit us best) to my diet. The result: no more gut pain and a greatly improved quality of life.

I can, therefore, sure understand the big smile “Champagne of Dairy” line from the side of a kefir container…

…for both its pleasingly zesty, dry, bubbly taste and how it can help you feel. After all, the word “kefir” word comes from the Turkish word “Keyif”, which means “feeling good after eating”. 

All excellent! But what is kefir, and why do people, like me, who drink or mix it with other foods regard it so highly?

Kefir is a fermented (bacteria activated/bacteria rich) yogurt-like drink made from the combination of milk (or milk substitute, like coconut or almond milk) and kefir “grains” (cauliflower-shaped bacterial colonies) that look like this:

The beneficial (“good guy”) bacteria that make up the dozens of kefir bacterial colonies eat and convert the milk sugar in milk (lactose) into lactic acid, which gives the drink its sour yogurt-like taste, and at the same time, allows those bacteria to multiply incredibly rapidly. That rich number and diversity of beneficial bacteria, in much greater numbers than yogurt, gives the drink an equally rich array of health-promoting properties like a boosted immune system, an enhanced ability to fight and prevent infection and disease, improved digestion, stronger bones and much more.

Regarding more, here are two excellent resources for detailed information about kefir health benefits:

9 Evidence-Based Health Benefits of Kefir (Healthline)

Microbiological, technological and therapeutic properties of kefir: a natural probiotic beverage (National Center of Biotechnology Information, National Medical Library)

Based on my health history noted above, I strongly recommend giving kefir a shot both for it’s flavor and how it helps support your richly diverse and vitally important microbiome (community of good, life-promoting bacteria).

Whole Grain Cereal with Fresh Fruit & Kefir Picture Book Recipe

Last post showed how to use Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Cereal to put together a fully flavorful energy igniting/energy sustaining breakfast bowl. In that post I mentioned that recipes are just suggested guides that can be altered to meet your specific taste and dietary needs.

And, even though that post featured Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Cereal as the main ingredient, you certainly can make that recipe – or something very much like it – using any cereal you like. True to that word, here’s what I’ll call a “twist on a twist” based on a breakfast I had in Germany years ago, “Bircher Muesli mit Obst und Yoghurt” (Muesli with fruit and yogurt), that usually comes in two separate bowls, as shown here.

It is certainly easy to see from the ingredients I use below to make what I call Whole Grain Cereal with Fresh Fruit & Kefir that my interpretation of the recipe is quite a bit different than what I had in Germany.

And, that’s exactly where the fun comes in – and all it takes is a little imagination and, sure, some risk taking, to make the most of that fun.

Click this link or any picture on this page for the Whole Grain Cereal with Fresh Fruit & Kefir Picture Book Recipe that you can use as is or vary however you like.

Next post: what exactly is kefir and why do I feature it so much?

Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Power Cereal Breakfast Bowl Picture Book Recipe

Here’s one very easy, fully flavorful way I use the Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Cereal featured in the last post to put together a “fire me up and keep me going!” pre-ride sustained energy breakfast bowl made with…

…these ingredients.

I say “pre-ride” because cycling is what I do most, but this breakfast bowl works just as well to prepare for any physical activity: run, hike, gym, anything that requires sustained energy.

Regarding the recipe itself, as mentioned in the picture book directions you can get by clicking this link or any picture on this page,…

…what you see for ingredients here are only suggestions intended to inspire your imagination to make your own breakfast bowl all your own.

Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Power Cereal Picture Book Recipe

Last post was about how to repurpose a failed recipe. The Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Power Bars I tried to make didn’t work out as intended as solid bars that would stay together in bar form if taken along on a bike ride, run or hike. But the crumbling result, packed with fully flavorful ingredients, sure worked fine as a robust cereal rich with both “get up and go” fast fuel complex carbohydrates and energy sustaining protein and healthy fats – and tastes great!

The recipe for Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Power Cereal uses these ingredients…

…and is actually two recipes in one as it shows first how to cook quinoa if you want to use quinoa and don’t already have it cooked when you start putting the power cereal together.

Click this link or any picture on this page for a complete picture book recipe.

Next post will show how I use this cereal to power up before a good bike ride.

More soon!

Turning a Recipe Failure into Fully Flavorful Success

Mistakes? Ha! That’s just part of learning no matter how skilled you are in any field. And, no way to sugar coat it, the Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Power Bars I made recently, and intended to add to the recipe lineup here, just didn’t work out as planned – not even with the terrifically flavorful ingredients shown here.

The first signs regarding intended purpose as power bars: crumbling dough when I formed it a baking sheet. Then, cracks in the finished loaf (see the red arrows below), which was a clear sign the bars would fall apart easily, especially if tucked in a pocket for a hop on the bike or run.

The worst part: the flavor wasn’t as full on as I’d expected – and that happens.

But no way were all those terrific ingredients getting tossed in the trash. Instead, I did what the bars wanted to do anyway and crumbled them into a container to be “repurposed” as a chocolate-granola cereal and then…

…made this much more full-on flavorful chocolate, grain and nut butter cereal breakfast bowl.

I’ll get that picture book recipe out right after I first put together a purposely made picture book Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Power Cereal recipe.

More very soon!

How to Speed Up Pineapple Ripening

At the end of the last post I promised I’d show how to improvise on very easy-to-make pineapple, yogurt & jam. That plan sounded fine until I realized that the pineapple I was going to use to make and shoot those directions wasn’t yet ripe even after I’d had it on top of my fridge for about a week, as shown below

No problem. Just another opportunity to improvise in a different manner. Though I’ve not done this with a pineapple before, I figured I could probably speed up the ripening process by doing what I do with other fruits and avocados that sometimes take days or longer to ripen out in the open.

Last night I put the pineapple in a paper bag (can’t use a plastic bag for this because plastic doesn’t allow for needed air exchange that makes ripening work; paper does),…

…then clipped the bag closed (because it would’t stay closed just by folding the bag top), and…

…put the bagged pineapple on top of the fridge, which I’ll now keep an eye on to see how quickly the pineapple ripens.

More soon!

Pineapple, Yogurt, Jam, and Dried Fruit Picture Book Recipe

 

Last post showed how to ripen and cut a fresh pineapple as easily as possible. Here’s a fully flavorful, very easy-to-make way to enjoy cut pineapple for breakfast, lunch, dessert or as a refuel snack after pushing yourself physically. As always, the ingredients you see below are only suggestions. Use your imagination to make your pineapple, yogurt, jam, and dried fruit all yours!

Pineapple, Yogurt, and Jam IngredientsClick this link or any picture on this page for an easy-to-follow step-by-step picture book recipe.

 

Next post: an example of how to improvise on this recipe.

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