I’ve been working on my Baba Ghanoush for a little while now and I think that I’ve hit a home run now. Even the teenagers I tested it out on loved it (well most of them any way).

But 2 nights ago I tested it on some very refined pallets (some of whom had actually eaten real baba ganouche in the Middle East) and they said mine was as good as they had ever tasted. So there you go. A little shameless bragging and a great recipe.

For those trying to add more vegetables/fiber to their diet this one is great. It is a little heavy on the fat, and not so good on the protein, but as I have said before a little fat goes a long way to filling you up. It just needs to be done in moderation.

A word of warning, this is meant as an appetizer, or as a filler, not as a whole meal. If you eat this until you are full – well, that would be a caloric disaster:)

So I’m going to include 1 other recipe as well, and an idea on how to combine them for a very healthy complete meal.

Baba Ghanoush Recipe

First, take your Egg Plants (you’ll need 1 eggplant for every 5 people if it is an appetizer and every 10 if you are going to use it in the sandwiches I’m showing you here). Put the Egg plant in the oven set on 350 degrees. Cook it until the skin is almost black.

Second, while the egg plant is cooking, you have to make your own tahini sauce. This is the key to really good baba ghanoush in my opinion.

Take 1 cup of fresh sesame seeds (this will work for 1-2 egg plants), put them on a pan and roast them for about 10 minutes. Once they start turning brown you can pull them out.

Put the seeds into a blender with about 1/4 cup of olive oil, 2 Tbls of lemon juice and 4 cloves of garlic Blend them together adding more olive oil and lemon juice as needed for the mixture to be a little runny. It should be shake like in consistency.

Now, set a side.

Your egg plants should be read now. When you pull them out they will be very plump, take a hot pad and hold them by the stem, and run the plant under cold water quickly. This will cause the skin to contract and it will make getting the flesh part out very easy.

Now cut it into quarters and don’t breath! Maybe it is just me, but I do not like the smell of plain egg plant. Trust me, if you can get past that part, the rest is worth it:)

Use a knife to separate the flesh part from the skin. Discard the skin (that is the stinky part), and dice up the rest of the flesh into a bowl and mash it as best you can.

Now, take the tahini sauce you have made, an add about 1/2 cup for every 1 egg plant that you are using.

Use a blender to mix them well. Now add salt to taste 1-2 tsp  per egg plant will probably do it.

Now for the final preparation, If you are going to use this as an appetiser, take a red pepper, chop about 1/4 of it into small pieces. Then take the rest and slice it into strips.

Take a serving bowl and place the baba ghanoush inside, and make a swimming pool. You’ll want an edge you can put the garnish on, and a pool in the middle. Put the chopped peper in the middle, and pour olive oil into the pool. Then sprinkle with red peper flakes.

Now on the edges arrange the slices and some fresh parsley in whatever manner seams pleasing to you.

And you’re done! Get some pitas and enjoy.

Now, if you are going to follow my advice and use this as a sauce, here is the rest of what you want to do.

Middle Eastern Tomato Salad

Take 2 parts tomato and 1 part cucumber (increase or decrease the amounts depending on how much you need). Chop the tomato into chunks. On the cucumber slice off some of the skin on 4 sides. Then dice it into quarters and then into smaller chunks. I personally do not like too much of the cucumber skin. And I think that it looks nicer to have the light and dark combo on the cucumber.

Now add about 3 cloves of garlic for ever 2 large tomatoes you use.

And about 1/8 of an onion (diced) for every 2 large tomatoes.

lightly cover in olive oil and a little lemon juice. And mix it all together.

Ok, your just about ready to eat now.

If you are going to go Vegetarian style you can make up some couscous, if you are like me and enjoy a little meat you can use a nice marinated stake with this. Or do both!

On both of those, just make them as you normally would.

Now take a pita, put in some couscous. Then a layer of baba ghanoush, now the meat if you are going to do that. Now add the Salad, and then top with some more baba ghanoush.

Now you can really enjoy it!

If you are using this recipe as part of weight loss regime, then 1 half of a pita stuffed full of this good stuff will be enough for a small meal. If you are like me I find that I lose weight the best when I’m eating smaller more frequent meals, and when those meals are very filling.

This recipe if full of fiber and a healthy dose of olive oil fats. It will keep you full for a few hours for sure. And then if you’ve not had enough you can eat it again the next meal. And the next. And the next!

It is a great recipe that can be prepared ahead of time and eaten for several days. In fact it is often better to let it all sit for a few hours just to let the flavors mix better together.

Be Healthy – Enjoy Life!

Matthew Stearmer

This is one of the oddest mixtures but it really works well. I got the original idea from a recipe book and have improved on it in my opinion:) I usually make enough to eat it for 3 days, and even at the end I’m not tired of it.

Like al of the recipes I post, it does have a little more fat per serving than standard wisdom might suggest, but my general philosphy has been to eat meals that are very filling – and just eat smaller servings. The high fiber and moderate fat composition make these recipes very filling – you’ll just have to add a little self-control and maybe a little exercise:)

Ingredients

.5 to 1.0 lbs fresh mushrooms – which ever ones suit your fancy

2 Tbls Butter

2 Tbls Flour

1Tbls Curry powder

3 Cups vegetable broth (3 cups water, 1 carrot, 3 bay leafs, 1 celery stock, .25-.5 White onion (corsely chopped) boil for 10 minutes or so)

15 Oz Solid pack Pumpkin

12 Oz Evaporated milk

2-3 Tbls Honey

1/4 Tsp Nutmeg

Salt, Pepper and Chives to Taste

In one stock pot, start to cook the Vegetable broth.

While that is brewing saute the mushrooms, onion and butter. Once tender, add the floor and curry to thicken it up. Add a little more or less flour as needed to make a paste.

Once the broth is done take out the carrots and the bay leaves. Now stir the paste into the vegetable broth. Stir untill it is thoroughly mixed through.

Now, add the pumpkin and Evporated milk. You’ll have to be careful to get it all stired up. You may need to use a fork to break up the pumpkin while you stir. Now, add in the honey spices and heat through.

Garnish with the chives.

Be Healthy – Enjoy Life

Matthew Stearmer

Only to brag a little, this is probably one of top 3-5 soup recipes that I have ever had – bar none:)

Ok – enough of the bragging. I’ll put this out there and let you all test it and see if you agree.

Ingredients

1lb Italian Sausage

1/2 to 3/4 White Onion (basically just do the onion to taste).

6 Cloves of garlic

.5 to 1.0 Lbs Portabello mushrooms (to taste as well)

2 Tbls butter

About 2 cups of frozen spinich

3-4 Carrots, peeled and diced

4 Cups of Chicken Broth (home made is best. Just take the skins or scaps from a chicken and boil them for about 10 minutes and you’ll have a much better flavor)

1 Can (10 oz) Cream of mushroom soup

9-12 oz of Cheese Tortellini cooked and drained

Pepper

Basil

Thyme

2 Quarts Half-and-half cream

1Cup Romano/Parmesean/Asiago cheese mix

Start boiling the water, and get the tortellini going. Start cooking the sausage and drain it when done. Don’t completely clean out that pan, use it to cook the veggies in. Add butter to the pan, then put in the onions, garlic and mushrooms. Cook, until tender.

If you don’t mind making a few more dishes, at the same time you start the sausage and veggies, get the Chicken broth, carrots going. Once the carrots are soft, add the spinach. Once the spinach has warmed up put in the mushroom and onion mixture.

Once that warms up, add the cream of mushroom soup, tortellini, pepper, basil, thyme. Once that mixes through add the half and half and finally the cheese mix.

Now, do your best to resist eating it all in one setting:)

Be Healthy – Enjoy Life!

Matthew Stearmer

Moving snow the old fashioned way is a great exercise. Minute for minute it is one of the best winter exercises you can do – and it can be a great service as well.

On average here are the calories burned per minute shoveling snow. These are just averages that I could find on the net.

In some ways a comparison is more effecting than thinking of actual calories. Shoveling heavy snow is the most strenuous winter activity that I could find in calories burned per minute. Shoveling light snow was bested only by cross country skiing, downhill skiing, running 8 mph, and full court basketball.

On Saturday I spent about 3 hours shoveling around my neighborhood. It felt good to get out and do a little service. And at the end of the day (I had worked out to a movie as well that morning) I burned off over 7500 calories by these calculations! Not too shabby. I commented to Janille that I could feel myself getting skinner as the hours moved on. It was kind of funny, but I did feel like my clothes got loser as I went:)

Anyway, this is not something everyone should do. There are a ton of medical concerns that need to be taken into account. Not the least of which is the heart and back.

It is estimated that you are 3x more likely to have a heart attack while shoveling snow than just your normal risk factor. There are several reasons for this. The strenuous nature of the exercise is one, but the cold is another major factor. Cold constricts the blood vessels making it harder for the blog to pump as you engage in hard activities – hello heart attack.

It is also easy to get dehydrated. You will sweat a lot, but you may not notice that you have stopped sweating because your clothes will keep the moisture close to your body. So you feel hydrated when you really are not. 

So if you have a heart condition be very careful – maybe even get a snow blower until you get your heath under control.

If you do not have a heart condition – well – go out and do a little service. It will be great for your heart and your soul.

Be Healthy – Enjoy Life!

Matthew Stearmer

According to eDiets.com the average American eats at a restaurant 159 times a year!

That is an amazing statistic if it is accurate. I looked up how many calories it takes to cook a meal and for me it is about 140 cal, for 1 hours worth of food preparation. If I made just one complex meal a day (typically I do two), then I will have burned enough calories to just changing from eating out, to making my own, to peel off about 14 lbs of fat a year.

For some this will be the difference between obesity, and health, for others it will be the difference between stabilized weight and gaining each year – like most of us do. Just looking at it on the surface makes makes a good case that we should try to make all the food that we can. But that is only half the story. Eating out is only part of the problem. Cooking with whole foods is another step we need to make.

Over the last 50 years the average diet, according to FAO, has changed significantly  – and it is not because of all of the eating out alone.

Here is just a quick run down.

We consume almost 900 calories more a day than we did 60 years ago.

Most of increase has come from refined foods and vegetable oils.

We are eating few complex carbohydrates

We are drinking alcohol slightly more (well – not me anyway – so that is a "we" that really means just you:) )

We eat 2x as much chicken and a little less beef.

Anyway, the list goes on, but the bottom line is that we are consuming more, and more of those things that hurt our bodies worse – all the refined pre-packaged foods. Basically what it amounts to is that we really did not eliminate anything out of our diets, we just added to them all "healthy" stuff that we buy in boxes at stores and snack on all week long. Sure it is low in fat, but it is HIGH in sugar (to try and make it taste good) and that has lead to many of our current health problems according to several government, and intergovernmental groups.

Here is just an example. When I eat at McDonalds I typically order a Double Cheese Burger, a McChicken, a medium fry, and a medium drink. That will fill me up nicely for less than $5 – and 1400 Calories! I will have take at least 1 hour to drive and get it and get back to my home/office.

Whereas if I fix my salad at home – and I make a mean salad – I can put anything that I want on it practically (My typical salad will have the following; spinach, sprouts, cottage cheese, tomatoes, celery, jalapeños, avocado, coconut, raisins, rice noodles, red onions, green onions, carrots, mushrooms, paremsean cheese, almonds and a vinaigrette) and it will not even top 400 calories. Plus, it will have taken me about 1 hour to make and eat (I cut it all from scratch), which burns about 140 calories by itself.

Now, I will be full for hours because there’s over 12 grams of fiber and protein in that salad. It will have taken the same amount of time to go to McDonalds and get fat – as it did to make a really healthy meal and works towards being skinner. I’d have to work out on my elliptical for about 1-2 hours to simply catch up.

So how much time did I save? I thought it was supposed to be more convenient. When we factor in the whole cost there is not really anything convenient about restaurant food.

A commitment to cook more of our own foods from their natural state means that we will not only burn more calories to begin with, but the foods that we chose to cook with will be much more filling and healthy for us.

Be Healthy – Enjoy Life!

Matthew Stearmer

I had a few really weird dreams last night. One of them was about solving Rubik’s cubes. I was watching a competition where people were solving the mind bending puzzle in just a few seconds. After the competition the competitors were showing the audience how they did it. The problem most people had solving the puzzle was learning that you had to break down your success in order to move forward.

 Too bad the other 5 sides are a complete mess. But who cares we got the green and the yellow down!

In order to really solve the puzzle you have to let one area of success break down in order to move forward. We cannot obsess over one side not being completely done all of the time. In fact some areas might even get a little more chaotic before they get better. But we are not focused on just the completion of 1 or 2 sides. That cannot be our goal. We need to have a complete life, and if the goal is a complete life, a complete cube we need to focus on that and not on just one side.

I’ve been writing a lot this week on this topic, and I’m doing that because I think that it is extremely important to get into our brains. We have to focus on the whole.
 

I’m not talking about giving up on a side. That is not solving the puzzle either. If we get the gree right, and then destroy it in order to get the blue right, did we really accomplish anything? Not at all.

Life has to be solved in tandum.

I found this video on the net as well about how to solve the cube. Sorry I cannot embed it. He had disabled that feature. He says he is going to help you solve the cube problem in less than 3 seconds. He does so by throwing the cube away. Not exactly a solution, but that is what some of us do about life as well. If we cannot solve it all. Or be happy with only a few sides solve then they just throw it away.

The other thing about the cube is it always seems to get messed up again. No matter how many times you solve it – one of your kids will come around and goof it up again, or your boss, or life in general. But if we learned to solve the whole puzzle once we can do it again and we will do it faster this time. We get better and better at handling all the circumstances life throws at us.

My ecncouragement to you today is to not throw it away. Nor to focus on just one side. But to live a whole life so that in the end we are complete and get better and better at solving the messes life can throw at us.

Be Healthy – Enjoy Life!

Matthew Stearmer

I so relate to Bob Incredible! I remember back in the good old days when I used to take on the evil forces in the universe and stop their sinister plans to take over the earth. Those were the days. /sigh.
 

Once we find our purpose we can move from the Really Strong Fat Man mode to one of health and wellness. We will have a reason to be healthy and continue in a lifestyle that will bring us a complete life. Not one just focused on one thing at a time.

One thing that I really like about Bob is that his end result was not what he looked like in his glory days. He was different, but still looked good. There was a maturity about him that was different.

As I work on transforming my body I realize more and more that I will never by 18 again. On some level that used to bother me. But now, I think that I have a better self image in mind. First off, I’m working on being healthy, not just skinny. And second, because of a focus on health, I am free to let my body become its best self right now. I know that I have matured. I will look different, but I still intend to look really good:)

Be Healthy – Enjoy Life

Matthew Stearmer

I just found a neat tool online that will tell you on average, how long your family lives. Based on genealogical archives the database automatically calculates the average life expectancy of your family compared to all others and then graphs it over a 30 year time frame.

Over the last 30 years my family has about a 10 year longer lifespan than average.

I guess that is comforting. But then I remembered a story a friend of mine told. A friend of his was hitting middle age and decided he wanted to create a 100 year plan. He wanted to live 100 year – and enjoy it. So he went to his doctor to help him develop this 100 year plan. They consulted, ran tests and then evaluated.

The doctor said all of your test came back perfect. Your cholesterol is great. Blood pressure is great. Triglycerides are normal…. And your obese.

What?

The man protested, but I workout ever day. I can bench press twice my weight. Doesn’t that make a difference?

The doctor then went to his whiteboard and wrote "Really Strong – FAT MAN"

The point, there is more to health than just strength, or being skinny, etc. health and living well is much more than that. And if we want to not only live a long time, but really enjoy it we need to be healthy, not just strong, or good in a health measure or two. A real 100 year plan will not just rely on the genes, but will integrate exercise, proper eating, sleep, stress reduction – the whole gamut. When we focus on the whole, not just one piece, then we can have a real 100 year plan that we will want to be around for.

So Be Healthy – Enjoy Life

Matthew Stearmer

Initially I received quite a few visitors interested in discussing politics, but I guess that got a little to controversial. So I’m back to posting on health and wellness now. So everyone can breath a sigh of relief.

Please study the issues and vote. But that is all I’ll say for a while I think.

Ok, on weight loss. Well, what can I say. I’ve been sick all weekend. So even though I’ve mopped around and watched a few movies, I’ve not had the energy to really get on and exercise. I’ve also not had the energy or desire to eat. So, I’ve not exactly been health – which is kind of the point of being sick. In fact that is the exact opposite of health last time I checked.

Profound. I know.

Anyway, as I have looked over this last week I have noticed a trend.

1) Very Very stressed

2) Not exercising nearly enough

3) Not drinking nearly enough

4) Not taking my supplements at all

5) Not eating whole foods hardly at all.

6) Not sleeping nearly enough

Now, I do not know if there is one of the things that really is the tipping point. All I can tell you is that is what my last week has looked like as I lost my focus on weight loss in favor of politics and simulteanously added a ton of stress with my work.

So end result is that I’m going to change all of that this week and see how quickly I recover.

I got some good sleep last night – 9 hours actually – which is like a miracle. And I’ve drinking a lot more water. So, I’ll add the rest and see how I do.

Be Healthy – Enjoy Life!

Matthew Stearmer

I’m really looking forward to the game this weekend. A friend of mine has put together a little football group that is playing each weekend in the park. Mostly we’re just a bunch of older guys with a slight competitive streak and a desire to still whoop up on some of the young teenagers that show up:)

Honestly I’m not that good. But it sure is fun to do.

For the weekend I’m going to play ball for about 1.5 hours and then I’m going to get the rest of the dirt moved around my yard before it freezes solid. We are still waiting for the concrete to come in so I don’t think that I’ll be able to finish things before the winter sets in, but I at least want to get everything in place.

This week has been an insane schedule. I’ve only gotten about 4 hours of sleep each night. So I’m going to try and relax a little and catch up on some badly needed sleep. And I’m going to write a few political pieces since that seemed to be more interesting that weight loss.

Be Healthy – Enjoy Life!

Matthew Stearmer