Asparagus, feta & black olive salad

Attribution: this recipe has been adapted slightly from the asparagus, feta and black olive salad appearing on www.taste.com.au.



Ingredients:

• 1 tbs olive oil


• 1 tbs fresh lemon juice


• 4 bunches asparagus, woody ends trimmed


• 55g (1/3 cup) pitted kalamata olives, thinly sliced


• 100g feta, crumbled


• 1 tbs fresh lemon thyme leaves

Method:

1. Preheat a barbecue grill or chargrill on high.


2. Combine the oil and lemon juice in a jug and season with salt and pepper. Brush the asparagus with the oil mixture.


3. Cook on grill, turning, for 5 minutes or until bright green and tender crisp.


4. Divide the asparagus among serving plates. Top with olives, feta and lemon thyme.

Notes:
Goes beautifully with the paprika chicken recipe which is available here.

Paprika chicken

Attribution: this recipe was adapted slightly from the paprika chicken recipe appearing on www.taste.com.au.

Serves: 8
Preparation time: 20 mins + 20 mins cooking time

Ingredients:

• Approx. 1.2 kg chicken bits (either two small whole, fresh chickens or a combination of wings, breasts and thighs, depending on how lazy you're feeling)


• 60ml (1/4 cup) fresh lemon juice


• 2 tbs olive oil


• 1 tbs sweet paprika


• 1 tbs dried oregano


• 2 garlic cloves, crushed


• Lemons, halved, to serve

Method:

1. If using whole chickens, break down into component parts, removing the bones. If using a combination of pre-prepared chicken bits, may be worth cutting each into three or four parts to make marinading more effective and serving a little easier.


2. Combine the lemon juice, oil, paprika, oregano and garlic in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Pour over the chicken and turn to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 3 hours or overnight to marinate.


3. Preheat a barbecue grill or chargrill on medium. Cook the chicken on grill, skin-side up, brushing occasionally with any remaining marinade, for 10 minutes. Turn and cook for a further 8-10 minutes or until the juices run clear when the thickest part of the chicken is pierced with a skewer. Transfer to a plate.

Notes:
This recipe goes beautifully with the asparagus, feta and black olive salad recipe which you can find here.

Maple baked chicken with sweet potato

To be honest I haven't had much time for really-truly cooking lately. However, in the interests of building the volume of recipes available to readers and keeping the site moving forward, at times when I haven't had time to cook, I'll post links to new recipes I've come across even if I haven't had a chance to try them.

Today's link is one which I found in the extensive taste.com.au database - maple baked chicken with sweet potato. If you try it before I do, post a comment or shoot me an email to tell me how you liked it, whether you made any changes, and anything else you think might be of interest to fellow readers/cooks.

Hot cocoa

[OK, so it seems a bit oxymoronic (or perhaps just moronic) given the warm weather Sydney has been experiencing lately, but this evening I had a massive craving for hot chocolate – which of course inspired me to try and come up with a F4L-friendly equivalent. It took a couple of tries to achieve something I was happy with (how I suffered through the experimental phase, but I was thinking only of you, dear reader!), but the below is the result...]

Serves: 1
Preparation time: 5 mins

Ingredients

• 1 cup rice milk (you’ll want to use a brand which has a sweeter flavour as you won’t be adding sugar to this recipe – I used Vitasoy Rice Milk Original which worked beautifully)
• 2 tsp cocoa

Method

1. Spoon the cocoa into a mug.
2. Add a little hot water (hot tap water is fine – no need to turn on the kettle) – just enough to make a loose paste (we’re thinking somewhere between the Clag-brand lumpy paste glue that those of my generation spent our first school years sticking coloured bits of paper to other coloured bits of paper with, and water) – and whisk until all lumps are dissolved.
3. Pour in the milk and stir thoroughly.
4. Whack the mug in the microwave for about 2 minutes (times will vary depending on your microwave – may take a little experimenting to get the milk hot enough but not so hot that you’re going to spend the next 10 minutes wiping spilled-over cocoa out of the microwave’s nooks and crannies).

Enjoy. :)

Notes

• I found the rice milk I used so sweet that it took me two teaspoons of cocoa to come up with something sufficiently “chocolate-y”. Obviously if you’re using a milk like soy or another brand of rice milk which is a little less sweet you might need to down your cocoa input to offset this.
• I also made up a couple of cups’ worth of cocoa up to step 3 and then stored the result in a glass jug in the fridge so I could indulge my sweet tooth with a little chocolate milk when the urge arose.
• When the weather gets a little cooler, I’m thinking I might try this recipe with just a dash of chilli to see if I can find an equivalent to the chilli chocolates I have tried and loved in the past… Will post the results...

Asparagus with hazelnuts and mint

Serves: 10
Preparation time: 10 mins + 5 mins cooking time

Ingredients

• 4 bunches asparagus, with woody ends trimmed
• Olive oil spray
• 1/2 cup dry-roasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
• 1/3 cup fresh mint leaves

Dressing

• 2 tbsp pomegranate juice (I used Pom Wonderful)
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Method

Dressing
Whisk pomegranate juice and oil in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside until asparagus is ready.

The main event

1. Preheat a griddle pan or frying pan on medium.
2. Spray the pan with oil and add asparagus in manageable quantities.
3. Cook until the asparagus is bright green and "al dente" (ie - tender but still with a little crispiness to it)
4. Set aside to cool slightly.
5. Place on a serving platter, drizzle with dressing and springle with hazelnuts and mint.

Notes

• This recipe can also be prepared by cooking the asparagus over a barbeque grill on medium. To do this, thread as many asparagus spears as will comfortably fit along two soaked bamboo skewers (one at the top and one at the bottom of each spear). Spray each side of the asparagus before placing on the barbeque.
• This recipe was adapted from one found in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, 10 January 2012.
• Pomegranate juice has been shown to significantly increase the time taken for PSA levels (which, when elevated or rising may indicate the presence of prostate cancer or other prostate disorders) in post-surgery/radiotherapy prostate cancer patients to double, indicating that it may help to slow the progress of this disease.

Poached pears in lemon cinnamon syrup

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 litre rice milk (I used Vitasoy Ricemilk Original)
• 4 firm pears (I used Packham pears), cut into quarters (I also like to cut out the cores and seeds for easier eating)
• 3 thick strips lemon rind
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
2. Place pears, rice milk and lemon strips in a small baking dish.
3. Sprinkle pears with cinnamon and bake for 1.5 to 2 hours or until the pears are just tender and the sauce has reduced to a light and creamy consistency. Turn the pears once or twice during cooking so they are well coated in the syrup.
4. Stir in the lemon juice just before serving. (Note that the sauce will thicken if left to stand for a while before serving.)

Notes
This recipe was adapted from one which came on the side of a pack of Vitasoy Ricemilk Original which I bought and which was also available on the Vitasoy website. I found the taste a little unusual at first - it is quite different to the chocolate-y desserts I have always eaten up until now - but after the first mouthful or two the sweet, lemon-y goodness was pretty addictive and I couldn't help going back for seconds!

Watermelon salad

Serves: 4 sides
Preparation time: 10 minutes

Ingredients
1/8th of a large watermelon, cut into bite-size chunks
120g mixed salad leaves, washed
150g fetta cheese, cut into bite-size chunks
1/2 a Spanish onion, cut into fine rings
Generous handful of kalamata olives (optional)

Method
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and serve.

Notes
This delicious salad goes beautifully with a summer-night barbeque.

Red wine may help reduce risk of breast cancer

The Journal of Women's Health has recently published a study indicating that drinking red wine in moderation may reduce one of the risk factors for breast cancer.

The study found that premenopausal women who drank 8 ounces of red wine every night for a month was shown to slightly lower levels of oestrogen (a hormone which fosters the growth of cancer cells) while slightly increasing testosterone levels.

More detail about the study and its findings is available here.

Strawberry milkshake

Serves: 1
Preparation time: 5 mins

Ingredients:

• 250g strawberries
• 250 mls milk (dairy or equivalent)
• 2 tsps almond meal (optional)
• Honey to taste (optional)

Method:

1. Remove the leaves/stalks of the strawberries and toss them into a blender.
2. Add the milk and (if desired) the almond meal.
3. Blend, pour into a big glass, enjoy.

Notes:
I decided to try whipping this up one day when I had a craving for strawberry milk - you know, the really sugary kind you buy in a carton down at the local service station. I must admit that this recipe didn't really satisfy the sugar craving I had, nor was the flavour spectacular (I didn't use honey, hoping instead that the rice milk I used would be sweetness enough - it wasn't) and the almond meal (which I used to beef the recipe up as I was feeling hungry) gave the thing a bit of a grainy taste.

But although the flavour wasn't spectacular (it wasn't bad, just didn't live up to the massive sugar craving I had), I must admit this concoction was hugely satisfying and I'd make it again as it was great when I was feeling tired and dehydrated after a bushwalk on a hot day.

Roast pumpkin and feta salad

Serves: 4 as a side
Preparation time: 15 minutes + 1.25 hours cooking and cooling time

Ingredients:

• Half a butternut pumpkin, de-seeded, peeled and cubed
• Grapeseed oil
• A bag of rocket (arugula) leaves
• 1 Spanish (red) onion, cut and separated into fine rings
• 100g feta cheese
• Packet of pine nuts
• Balsamic vinegar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
2. Place butternut pumpkin on a baking tray; drizzle with grapeseed oil and then roll the pumpkin cubes in oil to ensure they are all lightly coated with the oil. Put the tray in the oven for approximately 1 hour or until pumpkin is roasted.
3. Meanwhile, in a bowl place the rocket leaves, Spanish onion and feta.
4. 10 minutes before the pumpkin is done, toss a generous handful of the pine nuts onto the baking tray and return to oven to roast.
5. When pumpkin is done, remove from oven and set aside to cool for 10 to 15 minutes. When almost down to room temperature, add pumpkin and pine nuts to bowl and gently toss.
6. When serving, drizzle a bit of balsamic vinegar over each serving of the salad to taste.

Happy New Year Chicken Marinade

Serves: as many people as you want it to!
Preparation time: 5 mins + marinading time (min. two hours, max. overnight) + cooking time (varies depending on your preferred cooking method)

Ingredients

• As many free-range chicken breasts as you need for the number of people you're catering for
• Jar of minced garlic
• Jar of dried tarragon
• Extra virgin olive oil

Method

1. Place chicken breasts in a container large enough to hold them fairly snugly - you want as much of the marinade to be in contact with the chicken at any one point as possible.
2. Scoop half to one teaspoon of minced garlic onto each chicken breast (the quantity of garlic depending on how much contact you are likely to have with your fellow man over the next day or two; and making sure not to touch the chicken and return the teaspoon to the jar - that way food poisoning lies!).
3. Shake a generous quantity of tarragon over the whole.
4. Pour a liberal amount of extra virgin olive oil over the whole shebang and mix the whole lot up. You want garlic, tarragon and olive oil over everything. Then cover the container and return to the fridge.
5. Depending on how long you've got (overnight ideal, but a couple of hours will work too), turn the chicken every couple of hours to make sure the marinade is soaking in all over the place.
6. When it's time to cook, simply whack the beautifully marinaded chicken into a frying pan, the oven or onto the BBQ and cook as usual.
7. Serve with a salad and a fresh, crispy bread roll.

Hand cut sweet potato chips

I made a trial batch of these delicious chips and ate my way through a goodly portion of them all on my own!

Serves: 2 as an indulgent main, 4 as a side dish
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes in total

Ingredients

800g sweet potatoes, peeled

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp wholemeal plain flour

½ tsp dried thyme

1 tsp low-sodium salt

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius and put a large saucepan of water on the stove and put on high.
2. Cut potatoes into 1cm thick slices, and each slice into 1cm thick chips.
3. When water is boiling, add chips and leave for 3-5mins or until just tender.
4. Drain and return chips to saucepan on a low heat and shake gently to dry.
5. Transfer chips to a baking tray. Drizzle with oil, add flour, thyme and salt and toss gently to combine.
6. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, turning halfway through, until chips are golden and crisp.

Fruit puree

I'm not really a big fruit fan so I'm always trying to find ways to work more into my diet. This benefits you, dear readers, because aside from the nutritional benefits of fruit, they can be a great alternative source of sweetness if you're trying to avoid or altogether don't eat refined sugars.

One fail-safe approach is to make a fruit puree. I like to use apples and stone fruit, either alone or in any one of a number of combinations depending on what I've got in the fridge. All you do is peel and core/stone the fruit, cut them into roughly inch-square cubes (very rough - don't think too much about it!), then put them in an uncovered saucepan with a slosh of water to help get things going over a low to medium heat. You basically want it all to be simmering along gently until the fruit softens enough for you to give it a quick whiz with a bar mix, creating a lovely, indulgent puree.

If you want to dress things up a little, you could add honey to taste or experiment with different spices - apples with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg is one delicious example.

I find fruit puree great on its own as a dessert or sweet treat, or I store it in a jar in the fridge ready to be spooned over porridge.

Why I started the Food for Life series

If you or someone you love has just found out that you’ve got cancer, you’re probably feeling pretty helpless. I certainly was when my dad found out he had prostate cancer. As soon as he got the news he was on the internet, researching anything and everything that could possibly help to tip the balance of the battle against the disease in his favour. Obviously there were the usual things – exploring surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and he did what needed to be done in this regard. But he also read a lot of scientific research which showed that eating certain foods and avoiding others could help to prevent cancer developing in the first place, or could make the body less hospitable for it, hopefully helping to slow its growth or prevent it recurring.

So he started on a strict diet – avoiding or, where possible, completely eliminating things like red meat, refined grains, potatoes and refined sugar from his diet and being careful to get a decent amount of exercise in each day. Interestingly the diet he was following largely resembled the healthy eating pyramid put out by the Harvard School of Public Health, as I discovered during my own research some time later.

So far he’s still winning his battle against the rotten little bunch of cells which have caused him so much trouble. But he continues the diet – and it’s given him a new lease on life – he’s lost weight, gained energy, and says he feels better than he has in a long time.

However, he does complain that food isn’t so exciting any more. And when I’ve tried cooking for him, finding a recipe which doesn’t use red meat, refined grains, refined sugar or potatoes but was easy to make and tasted delicious proved to be a bit of an ask – and when I was searching the internet for ideas, this seemed to be a common problem for the loved ones of other cancer sufferers as well. So I decided to start this "Food for Life" series – so that those of us who feel helpless in the face of our own or our loved ones’ illness can feel a little less helpless by preparing food for them which looks and tastes good, and which, based on current knowledge, may help tip the scales in favour of the ones we love so much.

You’ll find here a collection of recipes which avoid or don’t use the things from the top of the Harvard School of Public Health revised health pyramid. Our current knowledge about nutrition says that eating a diet like this is good for you, whether you’ve got cancer or not. And if you do - hopefully these recipes will make it harder for it to keep growing or to come back.