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February 17th, 2025

Blog, Cooking Technique, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, Hiking Food, Microwave, One Bowl Meals, Running Food, Salad Dressings, Salads, Salads & Salad Dressings

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Quick & Easy Microwave Warmed Spinach & Pear Salad Picture Recipe

Last post showed how to make a quick and easy microwave warmed spinach and apple salad. This post shows how to make a quick and easy microwave warmed spinach and pear salad, which is an example of improvising by changing only two ingredients.

Here are the ingredients I used to make the warmed spinach and apple salad.

All I did to improvise on that salad was substitute a fresh pear for the apple and use dried apricots instead of dried cranberries, as shown below.

ingredients needed to make quick & easy microwave warmed spinach and pear salad

Nothing changes regarding needed equipment. Here’s all you need: microwave oven, microwave safe bowl, colander or strainer, sharp paring knife and cutting board.

Equipment needed to make quick & easy microwave warmed spinach & pear salad

One of the keys to this recipe, just like the warmed spinach and apple salad, is warming the spinach and pear in the microwave oven only until the spinach leaves just start to wilt as shown below, which took only 1 minute in my 1200 Watt microwave oven. As I say in the recipe itself, cooking time will vary depending on your own microwave oven’s Watt power.

spinach and pear are warmed enough when the spinach leaves just start to wilt

Click any picture on this page for a complete, easy to follow picture book recipe.

Quick & Easy Microwave Warmed Spinach & Pear Salad Recipe Pages

More very soon!

February 10th, 2025

Blog, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, Hiking Food, Microwave, Running Food, Salad Dressings, Salads, Salads & Salad Dressings

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Quick & Easy Microwave Warmed Spinach & Apple Salad Picture Recipe

Finished Quick & Easy Microwave Warmed Spinach & Apple Salad

Yep, it’s still winter, and for some of you, it’s still darn cold. A couple weeks ago, after showing how to make very quick and easy, extraordinarily versatile 5-ingredient salad dressings, I said I’d put together some warm spinach salads. This is the first of those recipes: quick and easy microwave warmed spinach and apple salad.

Here are the ingredients I used: fresh spinach, apple, feta cheese, salad dressing, walnuts and dried cranberries. Of course, you can substitute feta cheese, walnuts and dried cranberries however you like to suit your taste and dietary needs,.

Here’s all you need for equipment: microwave oven, microwave safe bowl, colander or strainer, sharp paring knife and cutting board.

One of the keys to this recipe is warming the spinach and apple in the microwave oven only until the spinach leaves just start to wilt as shown below, which took only 1 minute in my 1200 Watt microwave oven. As I say in the recipe itself, cooking time will vary depending on your own microwave oven’s Watt power.

spinach and apple are warmed enough when the spinach leaves just start to wilt

Click any picture on this page for a complete, easy to follow picture book recipe.

images of 3 pages of quick and easy microwave warmed spinach and apple salad picture book recipe

Next up: how to take this quick, easy and fully flavorful warm spinach and apple salad from simple to exciting. All fun!

January 3rd, 2025

Anti-Inflammatory Foods, Anti-inflammatory Recipes, Blog, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, Hiking Food, How To & Tips, Running Food, Salad Dressings, Salads & Salad Dressings

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Making Your Better Eating New Year’s Resolution Easy to Start with This Instant 5-Ingredient Salad Dressing Picture Book Recipe

I just asked ChatGPT (Open AI’s artificial intelligence source), “What is the most popular new year’s resolution in the USA for 2025?” The answer was interesting. ChatGPT said it did not yet have enough qualitative information to give an accurate answer. I like that answer. But, based on trends over recent years, the AI took what it called “an educated guess” that resolutions to improve mental health would be highest priority followed by resolutions to improve physical health, specifically regarding both diet and exercise.

That makes a lot of sense. I’ve believed for a long time that the three things we can do to make the best of our quality of life is eat life-promoting foods, move our bodies rigorously and manage stress, all of which go a long way toward regulating our physical, mental and spiritual well-being.

Considering this site is focused on how to prepare life-promoting foods as easily as possible, I asked AI, “What is the easiest recipe to teach a person new to cooking?”. The answer: scrambled eggs and toast, which required 5 needed ingredients plus optional ingredients to taste and 12 steps to complete. I think I have an easier answer and one that’s far easier to make and much more versatile than what AI offered: Instant 5-Ingredient Salad Dressing.

Helping veterans make life-promoting meals at Veterans Incorporated, Shrewsbury, MA

First, a quick back story. The first time I ever made this recipe was with a group of fellow veterans who were turning their lives around through Veterans Incorporated (Vets Inc.) in Shrewsbury, MA. One of the guys in the group, a fellow Navy veteran – not the guy shown above – chimed in when I listed the seven ingredients I intended to use: garlic powder, salt, ground black pepper, mustard, honey, vinegar and oil.

“Why do we need the added salt and sugar? A lot of guys here have diabetes and/or high blood pressure. We don’t need that _____(4-letter word for “stuff”)!

I get blunt great and agreed. But this was the first recipe I was teaching these guys, let alone the first time I’d ever met them. My inner dialog: “Fine, I’ll cut the salt and honey – but, boy, this dressing’s gonna’ taste horrible.”

I quickly made the dressing with just 5 ingredients: garlic powder, ground black pepper, mustard, vinegar and oil and asked the guys to taste a spoon of it before I tasted it myself. The stunner? They loved it, so did I – and I’ve never looked back.

Not only does this dressing taste great (most important), but it’s also incredibly easy to make and versatile. As shown in the few sample pictures below, it goes great on any kind of warm or cold salad, over cooked vegetables, meat, chicken, fish, pasta, rice – imagination is your only limit.

3 photos show examples of how versatile instant 5-ingredient salad dressing can be.

The toughest part about making this dressing is gathering the ingredients, like those shown below. You actually see six ingredients because I often use two different types of vinegars for added flavor (flavor rules here!), which you certainly don’t have to do.

Instant 5-Ingredient Salad Dressing ingredients

Click this link or any picture on this page for a complete step-by-step picture recipe that includes information about the sourness of different vinegars and why this recipe is considered low in both salt and sugar.

Instant 5-Ingredient Salad Dressing Recipe 3 Shot

I wish you the very best starting both the new year and your resolutions and will do my best to help you stick to those resolutions related to eating better to improve your quality of life.

More very soon!

November 15th, 2024

Blog, Breakfast, Cooking Technique, Cycling Food, Fruit Pancakes, Pancakes

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Fresh Apple Pancake: Full-On Fall Flavor All in Pictures

Here’s a great way to warm up to full-on Thanksgiving flavors. Apples are the iconic fall fruit, and there’s nothing much more comforting on a cool morning than the soul-warming smell of cooked apples and cinnamon.

The hardest part about making the fresh apple pancake you see above is turning the pancake from fruit side up to fruit side down in the frying pan and then back to fruit side up to serve on a plate.

No problem.

The step-by-step directions you can get here show how to make those turns as easily and safely as possible using either a pan top (as shown below) or large plate (shown in the recipe).

Here’s what you need for ingredients and…

…equipment.

Click this link or any picture on this page for a complete, easy to follow step-by-step picture book recipe.

More Thanksgiving seasonal recipes very soon!

July 27th, 2024

Blog, Breakfast, Cycling Food, Eggs, Fitness Food, Hiking Food, One Bowl Meals, Running Food

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Microwave Cooked Scrambled Eggs Picture Book Recipe

Last post showed how to make stove cooked scrambled eggs all very easily and with 2 quick tips:

Add just a little salt before cooking the eggs to help break down proteins in the eggs so that they turn out soft & fluffy, not fork-bouncing hard and rubbery. You should do the same thing here when cooking scrambled eggs in the microwave oven.
Make sure the pan is warmed to the right cooking temperature before starting to cook the eggs. No need to do that when cooking with a microwave oven.

I will say that the first time I heard of microwave cooked scrambled eggs, I laughed, “No way!”

But then just for humor’s sake, I tried ’em – nose close to the microwave as shown here – and couldn’t believe my eyes.

Even better, I couldn’t believe how flavorfully they turned out, how easy it was to put them together, and how little there was to cleanup as I could mix, cook, and eat the eggs from the same bowl. Great!

Here’s all you need for ingredients and…

…equipment.

Click any picture on this page for a complete, freshly revised step-by-step picture recipe.

Microwave Oven Cooked Scrambled Eggs Recipe First Page

June 23rd, 2024

Anti-Inflammatory Foods, Anti-inflammatory Recipes, Blog, Cycling Food, Dessert, Fitness Food, How To & Tips, Running Food

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Banana Ice Cream Full-On! Picture Directions

Adding commonly found ingredients to make banana ice cream with full-on flavor

Last post showed how to make fully flavorful (non-dairy) banana ice cream using only 3 ingredients: frozen bananas, vanilla extract and ground cinnamon. (Please also see Bananas Are Good Food! if you haven’t seen that post before or have been informed incorrectly by other sources that bananas are not good for you.)

This post show how you can easily use some of the commonly found ingredients in your kitchen to take that simple banana ice cream to full-on exciting. Here’s an example of what I used recently to help kick your imagination in gear.

Commonly found kitchen ingredients to take simple banana ice cream to full-on flavorful exciting

When you download the recipe, you’ll see I point out that I added a fresh peach not shown in the above ingredients. That’s exactly what I mean about improvising on the fly to suit your taste and/or dietary needs.

Please click this link or any picture on this page for complete step-by-step picture book Banana Ice Cream Full-On! directions.

June 16th, 2024

Anti-Inflammatory Foods, Anti-inflammatory Recipes, Blog, Cycling Food, Dessert, Fitness Food, Running Food

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Big Flavor 3-Ingredient Banana Ice Cream Picture Book Recipe

Last post focused on the health benefits of bananas, which, as one of the world’s most consumed foods, are often given a bad rap, as shown in the popup ad below, for no good reason at all.

As a lifelong avid cyclist, I always have bananas on hand, either at room temperature or frozen, as shown in the shot below of the top of my fridge and inside my freezer today. Those two more darkly patched bananas are actually plantains, part of the banana family, that I use to make sweet & savory dishes.

Of course, there are many ways to enjoy bananas, and here’s one of my favorites: banana ice cream. To start as easily as possible, I’m showing just the base recipe here that requires only 3 ingredients: ripe bananas, vanilla extract and ground cinnamon – no cream or sugar at all. And though those ingredients, when blended together, taste killer good, I’ll show you in future posts how to take that base recipe from “simple to exciting” with added easy-to-find, fully flavorful ingredients.

The only kicker: you’ll need a sturdy food processor, like the one shown below, to make this recipe. If you don’t have one, either click this link for mash and freeze banana ice cream, which doesn’t require a food processor, or borrow a food processor from a friend or relative and make enough banana ice cream to share with them.

Click this link or any picture on this page for easy-to-follow 3 ingredient banana ice cream picture book directions.

March 13th, 2024

Blog, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, Vegetables

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Microwave Cooked Broccoli & Tuna in Lighter Alfredo Sauce – Easy & All in Pictures

Here’s another recipe we worked on together through AARP-sponsored “Gotta’ Eat Well” senior citizen kitchen empowerment at Eastway Rec. Center in Charlotte last Thursday. As I told an engaged group of women, who have become a band of “let’s make something fun & flavorful” friends, making microwave cooked broccoli and tuna in a lighter Alfredo sauce is just one very easy and fantastically flavorful way to take microwave cooked broccoli from simple to exciting!

Here’s what you need for ingredients:

As shown in the ingredients picture above, the key to making the lighter Alfredo sauce is substituting heavy cream with evaporated milk and using fat-reduced (“lite”) cheese with no loss in Alfredo sauce flavor or creamy texture. Here’s a nutrition label comparison showing that ounce for ounce, heavy cream contains more than twice the calories and five times the fat as evaporated milk (1 ounce = 2 tablespoons; you have to double the numbers you see in the heavy cream label to make an equal comparison with evaporated milk).

Click any picture on this page for a complete, easy-to-follow step-by-step picture book recipe.

March 6th, 2024

Anti-Inflammatory Foods, Anti-inflammatory Recipes, Blog, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, Hiking Food, How To & Tips, Running Food, Salads & Salad Dressings

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Easy Fresh 5-Ingredient Salad Dressing Picture Book Recipe

About a month ago, I posted this extremely easy-to-make Instant 5-Ingredient Salad Dressing that’s so versatile, it goes great, of course, on salads, but also on pasta, rice, sandwiches, cooked vegetables – imagination is your only limit.

This post is about how to make that dressing fresh-er just by substituting garlic powder with fresh garlic.

I’m a big fan of fresh garlic for its rich, bold flavor – and its broad spectrum health benefits that include: improved immune system, lowered blood pressure and cholesterol, cancer prevention, improved athletic performance – and more (for more details in short, easy-to-read form, click this Spice World link).

Two quick practical tips about fresh garlic. First, choose fresh garlic bulbs, like the one shown below, that are firm to a hand squeeze, heavier in weight (more water content) and show no signs of dark grey mold under the skin or green shoots growing out of the bulb.

Second, to make peeling the garlic skin easy, which is the least fun part about dealing with fresh garlic, first crunch the individual garlic cloves with a forceful press and satisfying garlic skin pop using the side of a wide-bladed chef’s knife, as shown here.

Once you chop the fresh garlic, as shown briefly below, the rest is all down hill. Just add mustard, ground black pepper, vinegar and yogurt.

Peeling the skin off a fresh garlic clove, then slicing and chopping that fresh garlic clove

You can see all the above – and more – by clicking this link for the complete Fresh 5-Ingredient Salad Dressing picture book recipe.

January 29th, 2024

Anti-Inflammatory Foods, Anti-inflammatory Recipes, Blog, Cycling Food, Empowerment, Fitness Food, Hiking Food, How To & Tips, Salad Dressings, Salads, Salads & Salad Dressings

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Pear and Avocado Salad Picture Book Directions

Last pos t showed how to make a fully flavorful, exceptionally easy to make, highly versatile Instant 5-Ingredient Salad Dressing. I made that dressing most recently to start a “Gotta’ Eat Smartly” series of food demos with AARP at Eastway Recreation Center in Charlotte earlier this month. That series is designed to give senior citizens the hands-on kitchen skills and knowledge they need to empower themselves to make life-promoting/quality of life improving meals.

If you’re a regular to this site – or know me personally, you know flavor rules – always! Here’s an example. Sure, we could’ve used that Instant 5-Ingredient Salad dressing on a traditional lettuce and tomato salad, but where’s the flavor fun in that? So instead, I showed the group of a dozen very engaged women how to make a Pear and Avocado Salad – and then how to improvise on that very easy base recipe. First, here’s what you need to make the base recipe – and you’ll see that we replaced a store-bought salad dressing in the top picture with our Instant 5-Ingredient Salad Dressing.

I mentioned “improvising” above, and by improvising I mean adding or substituting ingredients based on either/both your taste and/or ingredients you have on hand – and remember, recipes are just guides. So, for example, I asked the women if they thought it would be ok to substitute or even supplement the pears with apples. Sure! And then I suggested adding adding flavors as they liked based on personal taste.

That last sentence fired up a lively discussion. “Can I add chicken or any other meat?” Yes! “What about fresh herbs?” Sure!

“What about adding potato salad?” Absolutely! And that potato salad question led to a talk about mayonnaise in potato salad and which mayonnaise brand I like. My comment: I don’t like using processed foods, like store-bought mayonnaise, with long paragraphs of ingredients, some of which are NOT found in nature. So, I improvise and substitute mayonnaise with Greek yogurt, mustard and spices.

“If you do that, then what about making homemade mayonnaise?” one of the women asked. “A friend of mine makes it all the time and says it’s easy.” Great idea! I’ve never made it before, but I’ll learn and we’ll make it together next time we’re together.

Next time is coming up fast: Thursday, February 8th – and I’ve already started practicing.

I first picked a top-rated homemade mayonnaise recipe from Inspired Taste. I then improvised a bit, as they suggested, and will need to do more of that. You know the flavor deal. I’m not rolling out my version until that flavor kicks it full-on.

In the meantime, back to the Pear and Avocado Salad featured here. Please click this link and pass it on for the easy to follow picture book recipe shown below. And remember: that recipe is just a guide. Play with it. Improvise. And, most of all, have fun!