Fall Inspiration
Fall Cooking
When Fall arrives I’m always more inspired to cook. Especially on Sundays.
I like easy healthy recipes that can simmer for hours in a crock pot or on a stove. I especially love the ones that I can use throughout the week to make meal prep much easier.
The following recipe is one that can be used with pasta or whole grains, or “as is” for those who love soup, or as a sauce over fish, chicken or omelets.
I got this recipe from the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health website. Kripalu is not only a great yoga center but they are really tuned into healthy eating and nutrition.
I am including one of my favorite Kripalu recipes here. The recipe is from Kripalu Chef Deb Morgan and I’ve also included the nutritional commentary from Annie Kay, one of the Kripalu nutritionists.
You can find this recipe and many others under the Kripalu Recipes link. Be sure to check out the attached explanations of the benefits from the ingredients. That is the best way to learn about healthy eating and this information will serve you well in the future.
Vegetable Bolognese
Ingredients:
Serves 4 to 6
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 large Spanish onions, medium diced
1 large carrot, peeled and medium diced
2 stalks celery, medium diced
5 large white mushrooms, medium diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup chopped parsley
2 tablespoons rosemary
½ cup burgundy wine
3 cups vegetable stock
1½ cups canned plain tomato sauce
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
Directions:
Heat oil in medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and ¼ teaspoon of the salt and sauté on low heat, with the lid on, until the onions are translucent, about 6 to 8 minutes. Remove the lid, raise the heat to high, and cook vegetables until caramelized.
Add the mushrooms and continue to sauté until they become lightly caramelized. With the heat still on high, add the garlic, rosemary, and parsley. Cook 3 to 4 minutes, until the garlic is fragrant. Add the wine and continue to simmer, reducing until mixture is dry.
Add vegetable stock and tomato sauce and simmer for 30 minutes or up to 2 hours. (If you intend to simmer it for a longer time, add an extra ½ cup of stock and keep an eye on it, as it will cook down over time.) Finish with salt, pepper, and olive oil.
*Note: The flavors of certain soups and sauces develop over longer cooking times. If time is an issue, partially pureéing the sauce or soup will help to marry the flavors more quickly.
Annie Kay’s nutritional commentary: A Feast of Flavonoids … and Much More!
Deb’s delicious Vegetable Bolognese is not only a comfort food, it also bolsters natural immunity and long-term health. Onions are one of the richest sources of a flavonoid called quercetin, which can lower the risk of some cancers. Flavonoids are more concentrated in an onion’s outer layers, so try to peel away as little as possible during prep. Low-temperature cooking helps preserve quercetin’s health-promoting action.
Carrots are bursting with beta-carotene and vitamin C, both of which offer strong antioxidant benefits. Celery and parsley are also rich in vitamin C, and parsley offers volatile oil compounds, including myristicin, which has been shown to inhibit tumor formation. Mushrooms are rich in beta-glucans, excellent for maintaining cardiovascular health, and selenium, important in our antioxidant systems and for DNA repair.
Tomato sauce is rich in the superstar carotenoid lycopene, which is protective against a number of cancers and promotes colon and prostate health. Organic varieties of tomato products may boast substantially higher lycopene levels than non-organic. To top it all off, there’s the resveratrol found in red wine, which has been generating exciting early data for its ability to turn off the genes of aging.
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Annie Kay mentions the ingredient resveratrol which is found naturally in red wine. There has been a lot of press about the benefits of resveratrol and red wine extracts which are now available in isotonic supplement form. For further information about Resveratrol as a supplement and about other supplements that include red wine extracts, check out the research and information about benefits here:
If you have any questions about supplements in general or about Resvertrol or OPC-3 in particular, message me in the comments below and I’ll be happy to give you my contact information and answer your questions.
Like the recipe, and the nutrional commentary. Especially pleased to learn not to peel away the outer layers of an onion in order to retain the flavonoids! Thanx Linda.
Thanks for the feedback Gina. I too liked that comment about the onion. =)