I’ve been asked several times where I get my recipes from, but I don’t have one particular cookbook that I rely on. Most of my recipes are my healthful adaptations of recipe calling for processed or low quality ingredients. Something I especially appreciate about cooking in line with traditional guidelines and methods is how easy it is to convert recipes from any cookbook so that the final result benefits your health. Once you know how to make conversions and substitutes, it’s easy to adapt any recipe you find and make a healthy version.
I know a lot of people find the idea of improving their diets intimidating and aren’t sure where to start. I also know some people feel like they need special recipes that expressly call for the healthy ingredients they want to use. I thought I’d share some basic guidelines so you can see how simple it is to improve the quality of your diet without introducing too much new and different stuff that the family may turn up their noses at, and easily expand your repertoire of recipes.
Shortening/margarine/vegetable oil – instead use butter or coconut oil. This works wonderfully for baking and frying. Substitute it in the exact measure for the unhealthy fat that the recipe calls for. Cold pressed vegetable oils can be used in salads (I use extra virgin olive, flaxseed, and occasionally some others), but not for frying or baking, as they aren’t stable at high temperatures. In my opinion this is the most important thing to get rid of and replace with something better. Fortunately, this is easy to do and can be purchased at your local health food store.
White sugar, brown sugar – instead use organic sucanat (regular sucanat is usually glorified sugar) or honey. Sucanat is easy to substitute for sugar because of its granular quality, and can be used in equal amounts to the sugar the recipe calls for. Because honey has such an intense sweetness, you can use fifty percent honey for the amount of sugar called for (eg 1/2 cup instead of one cup) to have the same am9ount of sweetness. Personally, my ratios are lower since I find most recipes too sweet for us; we use 1/4 c. of honey or 1/2 c. sucanat for every cup of sugar called for. Organic sucanat is available at health food stores and sometimes found in the health section of large supermarkets.
White flour – instead use white whole wheat flour. Nutritionally it’s the same as the darker whole wheat flour ground from hard red wheat berries, but the color is much lighter so the final product will more closely resemble the original recipe. Substitute 7/8 of a cup of whole wheat flour for every cup of white flour. I buy hard white wheat berries and grind my own flour, but you can buy King Arthur’s white whole wheat flour at health food stores.
For animal products – chicken, meat, eggs, milk – use the highest quality product you can find/afford (ideally, pastured eggs, free range meat, raw milk – but any small improvement in this area is worthwhile).
For any processed ingredients, substitute a homemade version or a healthful store bought substitute. For example, instead of regular peanut butter I use organic peanut butter/cashew butter/almond butter that are pure nut butters with sea salt added, nothing else. Instead of white flour pasta, buy a higher quality whole grain version or make your own.
All of these things are very, very easy to do – it’s using similar ingredients to replace the less healthful ones. Small changes that result in major qualitative improvements in the final product.
In addition to using good ingredients, there are a couple of traditional preparation techniques that can be integrated into most recipes. I’ve written about several of these techniques in detail in past posts, and will just reference them here.
In most recipes that call for flour (quick breads, cakes, muffins), you can substitute buttermilk/thinned yogurt for part of the liquid the recipe calls for, and soak the flour overnight in the buttermilk or yogurt, adding the rest of the ingredients the next morning. Alternatively, you can purchase sprouted flour, that doesn’t require any soaking and or advance preparation, either online or at your local health food store.
When cooking with beans, soak them a couple of days in advance and let them begin to sprout before cooking as usual.
Cooking healthfully isn’t hard, and it’s fun to be able to convert any recipe into something that will nourish your family!
(This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays.)
Avivah
