Sweet Potato & Black Bean Chili

This recipe comes from EatingWell. It's my new favorite chili and every time I make it I double the recipe. It's that good.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium-large sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 large onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chili powder
4 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle chile (see Note)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups water
2 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
4 teaspoons lime juice
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Preparation
1.Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add sweet potato and onion and cook, stirring often, until the onion is beginning to soften, about 4 minutes. Add garlic, chili powder, cumin, chipotle and salt and cook, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds. Add water and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cook until the sweet potato is tender, 10 to 12 minutes.
2.Add beans, tomatoes and lime juice; increase heat to high and return to a simmer, stirring often. Reduce heat and simmer until slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in cilantro.

Tips & Notes
Make Ahead Tip: Cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months.
Note: Chipotle peppers are dried, smoked jalapeño peppers. Ground chipotle chile pepper can be found in the spice section of most supermarkets or online at penzeys.com.

Nutrition
Per serving: 307 calories; 8 g fat (1 g sat, 5 g mono); 0 mg cholesterol; 51 g carbohydrates; 0 g added sugars; 12 g protein; 14 g fiber; 494 mg sodium; 947 mg potassium.

Nutrition Bonus: Vitamin A (213% daily value), Vitamin C (48% dv), Iron (32% dv), Folate (29% dv), Potassium (27% dv), Calcium (16% dv).

2 1/2 Carbohydrate Serving

Exchanges: 3 starch, 1 vegetable, 1 lean meat

The Dirty Dozen

I make an effort to purchase organic produce, but our family isn't 100% there just yet. It helps me to keep this list from the Environmental Working Group in mind when I do shop so I'm making the best choices. Collectively, the 12 most contaminated are known as the Dirty Dozen.

12 Most Contaminated
■Peaches
■Apples
■Sweet Bell Peppers
■Celery
■Nectarines
■Strawberries
■Cherries
■Pears
■Grapes (Imported)
■Spinach
■Lettuce
■Potatoes

12 Least Contaminated
■Onions
■Avocado
■Sweet Corn (Frozen)
■Pineapples
■Mango
■Asparagus
■Sweet Peas (Frozen)
■Kiwi Fruit
■Bananas
■Cabbage
■Broccoli
■Papaya

You can also download a handy wallet guide here. http://www.foodnews.org/

Kale Waldorf Salad

This recipe for Kale Waldorf Salad comes from Whole Foods Market. It's a little sweet, a little tangy and big on yumminess! I used golden raisins because I like them better and used probably 5 cups of kale total. Everything else was exactly as the recipe states. Very good!

Kale Waldorf Salad (from Whole Foods Market)
Serves 6
This variation on the classic Waldorf salad uses kale instead of lettuce and adds apple and walnuts to the dressing for a creamy consistency without using the typical mayonnaise base.

Ingredients
4 cups packed finely chopped raw kale, preferably dinosaur kale
1 large red apple, such as Fuji or Honeycrisp
1 cup thinly sliced celery
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped, divided
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons raisins, divided
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons water, more if needed
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/8 teaspoon sea salt

Method
Place kale in a large bowl. Chop half the apple and add to kale along with celery, 1/4 cup walnuts and 1/4 cup raisins. Chop remaining half of apple and put in a blender along with remaining 1/4 cup walnuts, remaining 2 tablespoons raisins, mustard, water, vinegar and salt. Purée until well combined and slightly thick, adding water if needed to thin. Pour dressing over kale salad and toss to combine.

Nutrition
Per serving (about 5oz/131g-wt.): 140 calories (60 from fat), 7g total fat, 0.5g saturated fat, 0mg cholesterol, 135mg sodium, 20g total carbohydrate (3g dietary fiber, 10g sugar), 3g protein

Basil Walnut Pesto

Pesto is one of my family's favorites. We eat it on pasta, in sandwiches, with raw vegetables... Prior to adopting a vegan diet for myself, I would make a traditional pine nuts and cheese based pesto once a week. Needless to say, I'm six weeks into this vegan lifestyle and pesto is one thing we have dearly missed. I was hesitant to try a recipe without cheese because the original is so good that I didn't think anything could even remotely compare. Boy, was I was wrong. This Basil Walnut Pesto is incredible. Walnuts are one of the healthiest nuts so replacing them for the pine nuts is a good move and nutritional yeast gives the pesto a cheesy flavor. You won't even miss the cheese! It's delicious and even better than what I was making before. I can't wait for dinner!

Basil Walnut Pesto

1 large bunch of basil, about 3 cups loosely packed
3 large garlic cloves
6 Tbsp chopped walnuts
1/4c nutritional yeast
6 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil (amount varies depending on desired consistency)
salt to taste

Place all ingredients in food processor (start with half of the olive oil) and process until finely ground. Continue to process while adding the remainder EVOO until the desired consistency is reached. Salt to taste. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 3 days. If refrigerating, cover the pesto with a thin layer of olive oil.

health drinks

I love the idea of ditching the morning cup-of-joe for a healthy, vitamin-packed smoothie and/or vegetable juice. There are plenty of fruit-based juices but I've been looking for a vegetable juice and wasn't having much luck. I wanted one that didn't list five fruit juices before mentioning a vegetable, if at all. I wanted something pure. No sugar, additives or fruit juice. So I was very happy to come across the Essential Greens Veggie Juice at Trader Joe's yesterday.

Ingredients in this sweet little (60 calories total!) bottle? Juices from celery, spinach, parsley, cucumber, kale, romaine and at least two of the following sprouts: wheat grass, sunflower greens, clover sprouts. That's it! The bottle says it contains two full pounds of juiced vegetables in each bottle.

This morning we opened the bottle and blended half of it with a banana and maybe a half cup of both frozen blackberries and frozen blueberries. The result wasn't sweet, but made an icy smoothie both my five year old son and I enjoyed.

Of course, juicing the veggies yourself is always ideal but this is a pretty convenient and easy way to do it. My local Trader Joe's sells this 15oz bottle for $3.69 plus tax.

Some of the Rules I try to Live By

Back to Basics. Whole Foods. As little processed food as possible. I thought I would list a few of the Food Rules I try to live by. Here are 7 of Michael Pollan's rules. They are not rocket science. That is the point. We have made "food" too complicated! Here we go:

1. Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. "When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can't pronounce, ask yourself, "What are those things doing there?" Pollan says.
2. Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce.
3. Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. Real food tends to be on the outer edge of the store near the loading docks, where it can be replaced with fresh foods when it goes bad.
4. Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot. "There are exceptions -- honey -- but as a rule, things like Twinkies that never go bad aren't food," Pollan says.
5. It is not just what you eat but how you eat. "Always leave the table a little hungry," Pollan says. "Many cultures have rules that you stop eating before you are full. In Japan, they say eat until you are four-fifths full. Islamic culture has a similar rule, and in German culture they say, 'Tie off the sack before it's full.'"
6. Families traditionally ate together, around a table and not a TV, at regular meal times. It's a good tradition. Enjoy meals with the people you love. "Remember when eating between meals felt wrong?" Pollan asks.
7. Don't buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car.

There are more. He has a great book called Food Rules that will give you even more ideas.

What rules do you live by?