The Egyptian Diet the Convenient Store way:)

mm

So my son michael who is in the 6th grade is not the most "interested" student. He mentioned to me about 2 months back he volunteered to make some egyptian food for his class because they are studying egypt. He mentioned a fig cake, and asked if I would help. I said, "sure, just get me the details" Fastforward to last weekend(two days ago) Michaels "details" were "mom, we have to make all that Egyptian food for my class on Tuesday". "All that food" and "Tuesday??" I ask. "yep" he says. Now mind you, this is Sunday and he is calling me from his dads house, and he isnt coming home until Monday. This class is Michaels only C, and my gut is to get on the internet and start to research food trends in Egypt and recipe ideas, clearly fig cake is not all he needs to bring in. However Michael would like nothing more for me to do this all for him, and he just show up for the class food in hand, but he isnt getting off so easy. School only gets harder and eventually parents arent going to be there to help, so I waited for him to come home from school Monday night, and to his astonishment he found no Egyptian food prepared, and I told him to get looking for some EASY recipes. Grudgingly he found a website with tons of recipes and they were super basic. It seems the Egyptian diet is very basic, lots of dried fruits, some vegetables, rice, beans and not a lot of meat because of economics. We chose 3 basic recipes that were easy to make and a one stop shop to our neighborhood convenience store - Walgreens.
The first recipe was the fig cake, although it was called a fig bread, it tasted like a cake. The other recipe was called specifically - Khashaf, and it was a combination of many dried fruits combined then mixed with sugar and boiling water to create a syrup. I must say both were really good, and easy to make. Michael especially liked the cake, and couldnt believe their were figs in it.
From what we read, Egypt doesnt have lots of forest or farming land, so crops are limited, also it is an extremely dry counry, which because of limited rainfall makes for limited plant growth. Tons and tons of vegetables are not on hand, so Egyptians make due with that they have. Rice and beans are a staple as well. We made another dish that neither of us cared for which consisted of rice, elbow pasta, garbanzo beans and lentils in a tomato sauce(I skipped the lentils because I didnt have any) it was heavy with all that carb and the sauce was bland because we didnt use any spices...

Dried Fruit Mixture

1/2 cup dried prunes

1/2 cup dried dates

1/2 cup apricots

1/2 cup figs

1 cup raisins

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 cup boiling water

Boil water

dice prunes, apricots, and figs into smaller peices and add to raisins and dates. Mix in sugar

mix in boiled water and stir until water disolved

let cool and refrigerate for an hour

serve

Date and Fig Bread

1/2 cup dates

1/2 cup figs(cut in quarters)

1/2 cup walnuts

1 1/2 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 eggs

Convenience Store Cooking with Jillian Michaels

I love scanning famous chef and nutrition gurus cookbooks and finding recipes I can tweak to fit the Convenience Store Cooking lifestyle. Admitedly, it isnt always possible to recreate a recipe, particularly when a recipe calls for meat, chicken, fish, certain fresh vegetables. However, even some of those recipes I am able to adapt with canned tuna, salmon, canned vegetables.
Jillian Michaels of Biggest Loser is one of my favorite fitness experts, she has wonderful cookbooks with healthy, delicious looking and sounding recipes. However, her recipes arent too easy to work with when limited in ingredients and money. She is a big advocate of buying organic, and organic simply isnt available to millions of people or affordable. She also tends to use a lot of specialty herbs, and although those I can usually work around, its the funky vegetables that can make a recipe impossible. I have scanned through her cookbooks-30 Day Shred and Master Your Matabolism, and come up with a list of recipes I can adapt and make and will include some in this blog because she is clearly an amazing motivator and fitness personality who has helped countless people get healthy and lose weight.

I tend to have better luck with her breakfast recipes. Jillian is a big advocate of oats, and this oatmeal recipe is quick and easy and packs tons of nutrition. I had to tweak the recipe a bit because to serve two people her recipe called for 3 cups of eggwhites and truly that is over a dozzen eggs, and that just was too much. I cut the recipe to 1 cup eggwhites and added a cup of lowfat milk to the recipe, which helped to replenish the protein. Also, her recipe called for brown sugar and brown sugar isnt always available, but honey usually is, so I replaced the sugar with honey.

1 cup eggwhites(about 6 eggs)
1 cup lowfat milk
1 cup oats
1 tsp canola oil
2 tsp honey

mix everything but oats in a bowl, place in microwave for 1 minute or until egg is fluffy, remove and stir in oats

Pumpkin Smoothie $1.09

Im not ready for Pumpkin season to be over, and actually I dont think it should ever really be over. I know this causes gag reflex in some people(hint, hint, Kim) but the bright color alone should inspire anyone to find a way to like pumpkin, because the brighter the food, the more nutritious. ie, tomatos, carrots, beets etc..... Now that I have discovered many more ways to use pumpkin then just pie, I am having a great time taking in all this alpha and beta carotene, fiber, vitamin A, C, and E, and potassium. This lowfat fruit gem is high in fiber which ofcourse helps control cholesterol and consquently heart disease. That coupled with the Alpha and Beta Carotenes which together are extremely high in antioxidents which do what???? Keep bad loser cancer cells away. Not to mention beta carotene is great for the skin and can reduce the signs of aging as well keep vision strong and its counterpart alpha carotene can stop or stunt tumor growth-yipee. So those 3 reasons alone are great ones to keep on consuming.
simple and good recipe
this serves 1
1/2 cup pumpkin puree(frozen-I froze for a few hours so the drink will be cold without adding ice) .49
1 cup milk .25
2 tsp spoons of brown sugar, or honey.25
2 tsp cinnamon .10
blend all together and drink up

Creamy Manhattan Clam Chowder-Lowfat, nutritous warm up $5.24

I dont think it is officially Winter until December 20, but it sure feels like it has been Winter for a while in the Chicagoland. I can only imagine living in a food desert, or atleaast in an area where a store is not super close, might not inspire one to walk miles in this weather to get food for dinner. Especially if one thinks the dinner wont be good. However1, that is a misconception that has to be dismissed. I have been to very basic convenient stores in the Chicagoland and I also been to stores such as Walgreens and CVS, and they absolutely carry food products that are healthy and inexpensive, and most importantly, easy to cook with. This clam chowder is made with a few staples that one should have in their house- olive oil, garlic powder, and milk. What needs to be purchased is a can of clams, a 15 ounce can of diced tomatos in sauce, and extras would be dried parsley, dried onion. I have lots of dried spices on hand because they are incredibly inexpensive at both Walgreens and CVS. Infact the everyday low price is $1.19 per jar, and sometimes 2 for a $1.00. This soup takes about 5 minutes to assemble and then 30 minutes to simmer. Lots of nutrients in this filling, yet lowfat soup. Clams provide protein, iron, potasssium, vitamin A, and folate. Olive oil provides the Omega 3's, milk lots of protein, iron and calcium and lets not forget one of my top if not top foods-canned tomatoes. They provide vitamin A, C, K, FIBER and Lycophenes which are the antioxidents that kick big old bad cancer!!
ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil .25
2 tsp garlic powder .20
1 can clam in juice $1.99
1 can 15 oz diced tomato in sauce $1.99
1/4 cup milk(I use vitamin D).40
optional 2 tsp dried onion and 1 tblsp dried parsley .40

heat oil in soup pot add clams in juice garlic powder and onion and parsley
saute on medium for 5 minutes
add can of diced tomato and stir all together
gradually add milk(if you prefer a creamier soup add more milk, the more calcium and protein the better)
simmer on low for 30 minutes
serve

Rigatoni Alforno $5.99

I think it is great to make pasta sauce from scratch, because truly not a lot of ingredients are needed. Would fresh garlic be perfect?-yes!! But if we dont have any to work with, we just dont, so we make due. The other option is bottled pasta sauce but many times there are fillers in there like corn syrup, and a bunch of ingredients that arent pronounceable, and it is usually very pricey especially in a convenience store. Im a big advocate of garlic powder, I once knew a chef who used it all the time. It gives garlic flavor, but doesnt have all the sodium as garlic salt.

This is a great dish especially for kids because it provides carbs in the diet which everyone needs, tomatos which provides the fruit/vegetables, cheese which provides the dairy, and olive oil which provides the oil. Not to mention ton of vitamins and minerals esp coming from the tomatos. Remember, tomatos coming from a can are even healthier then fresh tomatos because in the canning process valuable nutrients like lycopenes are magnified and made even more potent!
ingredients
1 can tomato sauce 16 oz 1.99
1 can diced tomato 1.99
1 tsp minced onion .10
2 tsp garlic powder .10
2 tablespoons olive oil .40
1/4 cup milk(what ever vitamin you have).10
1 lb rigatoni pasta(or penne)1.99
1 cup mozarella $1.32
preheat oven to 300
to make sauce
heat sauce pan with oil on medium
toss in onion, saute
add garlic, saute 5 more minutes
add tomato sauce and diced tomato
stir for 5 minutes and simmer on low for 30 minutes to 1 hour
boil noodles while sauce is cooking
set aside in a baking dish
add sauce to pasta and toss so noodles are evenly coated
pour cheese over mixture and place in oven for 30-40 minutes or until noodles and cheese are slightly brown on top
serve

Spaghetti Agli Olio made with Chili Infused Olive OIl

A big trend in restaurants is to serve olive oil in a bottle or a bowl for bread dipping. This is not only delicious, but far healthier then butter with bread. Ive already talked about the omega 3's that are absorbed when consuming olive oil. A great way to add a kick to your olive oil is to infuse with red pepper flakes. There are lots of nutrients in red pepper. It is an excellent source of beta carotene which serves as a very powerful antioxident. The process is insanely easy. The only two ingredients required are olive oil and red pepper flakes. Olive oil can appear a bit pricey at your local convenience store, but I look for sales and they happen often and when they do, I usually purchase a few.

1/2 cup olive oil .40
1 tsp dried crush pepper .10
12 ounces linguine

in a small heavy sauce pan, heat the oil and crushed red pepper flakes over low heat for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for two hours. Pour into jar and refrigerate.

To make pasta cook 12 ounces pasta according to instruction
in large skillet pour 1/4 cup red pepper infused olive oil and heat for 1 minute
add pasta and toss so pasta is coated in oil, add more red pepper flakes according to taste
remove from heat
serve with parm cheese(optional)

Green Bean $4.51

Here is a modified version of a green bean dish i grew up on. Fresh onion would be great, but wont be happening from my local convenience store and the canned onion are just too fattening. 2Also, my mother always made this with canned mushroom soup, which was delicious,but the sodium tends to be really high, so im sticking with just mushrooms. Btw, mushrooms can be omited if you have some none mushroom eaters.

ingredients:
1 can 14 oz green beans $1.99
2 tablespoon butter .40
2 tablespoon flour .10
1 tsp salt .05
1 tsp sugar.07
1 tablespoon onion .10
1/2 cup sourcream .45
1 cup grated cheddar cheese $1.00
1/2 cup crumbled round crackers .35
1 tsp butter .10


Preheat oven to 350
Melt 2 tablespoon butter in skillet on medium heat
stir flour until smooth
cook 1 minute
stir in salt,sugar, onion and sourcream
add green beans and stir to coat
transfer mixture to a 3 1/2 cassorole dish, spread shredded cheddar cheese on top
top with crumbled round crackers and bake for 30 minutes