What On My Plate

Turkey & Green Lentils

Lentil Soup

Cabbage Soup

Curried Chick Peas & Asparagas

Shrimp & Cheese Grits

Grilled Potatoes, Ham & Onions

Sweet Potato & Cabbage

Sweet Potato Waffle

Dinner 12/5-12/11

Filed under: CGCooks, Community Green, Cooking, Food, healthy eating

Fruits For Diabetics

• Berries
• Tart Cherries
• Peaches
• Apricots
• Apples
• Oranges
• Pears
• Kiwi

Sure diabetics can have fruit, but they need to be mindful of their choices. Below are some of the better fruit choices for diabetics. Bananas didn’t make the list because a small banana is about 22 grams of carbs, which may be too much for your diet. Diabetic-Friendly Fruit

#CGFC

Filed under: CGHealth, Community Green, Food, green fit, Health, Healthy Eating, The Fit Chick, diabetes, Food, Health, healthy eating

If Diabetic Say No

Happy Holidays! Bah, Humbug. I used to live for the pies, cakes, cookies, ice cream and deserts folks made for the holidays. After being diagnosed with diabetes three years ago, I’ve struggled to keep my sugar under control and sometimes I have failed miserably at being able to walk away from desert. Heck, I’ve given up soda and sweetened drinks. I’ve given up fruit juice, but give up apple pie and cheesecake. That’s where I drew the line, until now.

This year I’m giving up the one teaspoon of sugar in my daily morning oatmeal and my coffee and everything else on the list below of Foods Diabetics Should Avoid. I know it’s possible to be considered not diabetic based on your blood sugar levels and, although I may forever be prone to spikes and high levels, my goal is to walk away from insulin. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

ps: pies, cakes, cookies, ice cream and deserts aren’t on the list below. So they’re okay, right? Just kidding. They are banished, for the most part. but I don’t think I could live without another piece of cheesecake ever. I will do my best to keep it to a sliver only on very special occasions.

• Sugar-Sweetened Beverages
• Trans Fats
• White Bread, Pasta and Rice
• Fruit-Flavored Yogurt
• Sweetened Breakfast Cereals
• Flavored Coffee Drinks
• Honey, Agave Nectar, Maple Syrup
• Packaged Snack Foods
• Fruit Juice
• French Fries

Filed under: CGCooks, CGHealth, Community Green, Health, diabetes, healthy eating

Kale & Squash Soup on a Woolworth Spoon

I eat kale as often as I can so I am always looking for new recipes and experimenting with old ones. This Kale and Squash Soup came together since my GrowNYC’s Fresh Food Box @ Uptown Grand Central included those items. The Patty Pan Squash added a wonderful flavor to the soup. Any squash will do. The taste will change slightly but the soup will still taste great. I also got a head of cauliflower. In food markets the greens are generally removed. In outdoor markets, the greens are usually still attached. I cut the tender greens from the stalks and used them as a substitute for the kale a couple days later with the remaining squash. Great switch! The poblano pepper came from my Milk Crate Garden.

I always eat soup with my Woolworth spoon. It reminds me that in January 1960 I couldn’t have eaten at a Woolworth Lunch Counter and by August I could because of the power of solidarity and non violent protest. There was a Woolworth’s on Bathgate Avenue in the Morrisania neighborhood I grew up in.

My grandmother would take me shopping with her and I’d watch her pick fruit and vegetables and haggle with vendors. We occasionally went to Woolworth’s to buy notions but I don’t ever remember eating there. My grandmother might have gotten service at the counter but I was probably “too colored”. My grandmother died in 1966. I am glad she lived long enough to see the world changing.

Kale & Squash Soup

Ingredients:
1½ cups onion, diced
1½ tbsp. olive oil
½ tsp garlic, minced
4 cups vegetable stock or water (plus a bit more to adjust liquid to your personal taste)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 poblano pepper, diced
4 cups kale, chopped
4 cups squash, chopped
3/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated

Directions:
Sauté onions and pepper in oil for 5 minutes or until soft.
Add garlic and cook for an additional minute.
Add stock, salt and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add kale and squash and cook about 12 minutes or until tender. Add more vegetable stock if your soup needs more liquid, and warm through.
Check seasoning, adjust as needed, and serve sprinkled with grated parmesan cheese.

Makes 8 servings

GrowNYC’s Fresh Food Box @ Uptown Grand Central

Filed under: CGCooks, Community Green, Food, Gardening, It Takes A Village, Morrisania, African-American, CGCooks, Food, Gardening, healthy eating, It Takes A Village, Morrisania, Recipe

Roast Drumsticks with Tomatoes

It’s super easy to throw a handful of tomatoes in salads, but they reach another level when roasted in a pan with chicken drumsticks or thighs. I’ve made this recipe a couple of times, adding Thai basil or rosemary to send it in another direction.

I got a really good crop of cherry tomatoes this year by Crate Gardening. Crate Gardening let me grow tomatoes, peppers and herbs on hard surfaces and in poor soil areas I couldn’t have used in the past.

Roast Drumsticks with Tomatoes

Makes 6 servings
Start to Finish: 1 hour

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 red onion, cut into 8 wedges
3 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
3 garlic cloves, smashed
6 drumsticks
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon smoked paprika

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Grease a 9-by-13-inch casserole dish with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil.

2. Arrange the onion, tomatoes and garlic in an even layer in the base of the casserole dish. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil.

3. Season the drumsticks with salt, pepper and paprika. Arrange them in a single layer on top of the tomatoes and then drizzle the chicken with the last tablespoon of olive oil.

4. Roast until the tomatoes are very tender and the chicken is fully cooked, 35 to 40 minutes. Serve warm.

Crate Gardening:

• Use a Plastic Milk Crate* as a planter
• Line it with cardboard or a doubled black plastic bag
• Poke drainage holes in the sides 2 inches up
• Fill the crate with a 50/50 mix of compost and planting soil
• Add a slow release fertilizer when the box is 1/2 full
• Add more soil and put in the plants
• Fill to within 3 inches of top
• Add 2 inches of compost
• Sprinkle slow release fertilizer on top of soil
• Use black plastic tucked in the sides or shredded newspaper as mulch
• Water around base of plant regularly and thoroughly
• Enjoy the harvest

*You can buy Plastic Milk Crates at Home Depot.

Filed under: CGCooks, Community Green, Food, CGCooks, Food, healthy eating, Recipe

Sweet Potato Fries

Sweet potatoes are regarded as a healthy alternative to the white potato but some say sweet potatoes are to white potatoes what brown rice is to white. In a head-to-head comparison, they are very similar. In a 100-gram portion, the white potato has 92 calories, 21 grams of carbs, 2.3 grams of dietary fiber, 2.3 g of protein and 17% of the recommended daily value of vitamin C. The same amount of sweet potato, on the other hand, has 90 calories, 21 grams of carbs, 3 grams of fiber, 2 grams of protein, 35% of the recommended daily value of vitamin C and 380% of the daily recommended value of vitamin A. The Vitamin C and A content may make sweet potatoes the winner but white potatoes are usually cheaper and are more versatile in recipes.

PREPARATION

1 Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Wash and dry the sweet potatoes. Cut the potatoes into sticks (like French fries), keeping the skin on.

2 Toss the sweet potatoes on a baking sheet with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Place in the oven for about 25 minutes, tossing halfway through cooking, until crispy and golden brown.

 

Filed under: CGCooks, Food, Health, CGCooks, Food, healthy eating, Recipes

NYCHA Gardeners: The Best People on Earth!

NYCHA Gardeners: The Best People on Earth. Sounds like a marketing slogan. It isn’t but it should be. I spent a thoroughly enjoyable day with New York City Housing Authority gardeners and residents at the 13 Annual NYCHA Garden Conference at the James Weldon Johnson Houses in Harlem, USA on April 15, 2016. It’s a shame some folks stereotype, pigeonhole and otherwise see the world through the wrong glasses. They miss the world’s wonderful diversity. Life is often like being on the roadside with a flat tire. Your circumstances aren’t the best but that doesn’t mean there aren’t flowers by the road or they are less beautiful than those in a meadow in Martha’s Vineyard.

NYCHA gardeners have discovered that. They value their gardens and lavish them with love and attention in the midst of urban difficulties that would turn hair grey. Hundreds of NYCHA resident gardeners attended the 10 workshops during the day on How to Grow a Winning Garden to How to Improve Garden Soil or talked to the various vendors offering green services and information from composting to healthy eating. Unilever, one of this year’s sponsors, was proud to present their Growing Roots NYC Program and their chef and cooking crew prepared a very tasty Pasta Primavera.

The NYCHA Garden Program has reached a robust 54 years and is the longest running NYCHA initiative. With approximately 700 resident gardens in the 5 boroughs, NYCHA makes quite a statement to their commitment to on-the-ground resident involvement especially when communities struggles with balancing healthy eating and nutritious food with diabetes and growing numbers of inactive and overweight children.

Gardening is one of the most effective ways you can teach Environmental Education and combat community health issues (repeat that 3 times to yourself). The face of gardening is certainly tomatoes, collards, butterflies and sunflowers but the stuff behind the scenes addresses responsible land use, pesticides, soil science, urban agriculture, exercise, diet and disease. All that with a garden salad and a glass of ice tea on a sunny Saturday afternoon. That’s tough to top but that Urban Education Example (UEE) is repeated over and over again throughout the city and, in particular, NYCHA.

I’m glad to be a NYCHA Community Greener. I enjoy working with NYCHA residents and helping them to further develop the pride they already have in their homes and gardens. I look forwards to this year’s great events. I was able to take photographs when not running my workshop on How to Create a Winning Garden. You can find the links below for my presentation, photos of the gardeners and the Green City Force.

How to Create a Winning Garden
NYCHA Garden Conference 2016
Green City Force @ NYCHA Garden Conference 2016
Unilever Growing Roots Program

Filed under: CGGrows, Community Gardens, Community Green, Events, NYCHA, CGGrows, Community Gardens, Community Uncaptured, environment, Events, healthy eating, NYCHA