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Going for a run from my house always ends straight uphill because I live at the top of a very long, upward winding road. One day I hope to run the whole thing without stopping, but for now I manage in increments like “just to that mailbox”, or “to the edge of that next driveway.” It”™s absolutely amazing to me how this works! When I chop this daunting hill into smaller pieces I start winning, and winning makes me want to keep going. When I reach the mailbox or the driveway I think, “Yeah, I did it!” , and then, “Maybe I can go just one small section longer!”

“Kaizen” is a strategy for making significant changes in very small steps. In his book “One Small Step Could Change Your Life”, author/psychologist Dr. Robert Maurer describes how he helped one boss become a better leader in 30 seconds a day. This particular boss was gifted in his area of expertise, but he had a strong aversion to either complimenting or criticizing the work of his employees. As you can imagine, moral and productivity were very low in his department, and the owners of the company demanded change. Dr. Maurer knew he couldn”™t ask for much, so the 30 second a day challnge was agreed upon for a period of three months. How could anyone say no to that?

His client agreed to spend that amount of time each day using his imagination to create a visual image of himself giving a compliment to a member of his team. After a week he was told to spend that time instead giving a compliment to a member of his family at home. (They thought something was wrong with him!) Eventually, as you can well imagine, he was able to spend his thirty seconds preparing and delivering a single compliment at work, and he eventually became a very good boss.

Tryng to change your eating habits is a monumental shift not easily done. It probably won”™t work to say to yourself, “I”™m never going to eat another piece of bread”, or “No more sugar for three months”. But how would you feel about a small challenge like, “this week I am going to eat at least one serving of fresh or gently cooked vegetables each day” ? Although that seems small, making such a change like that is powerful because success breeds the desire for more success (remember my hill).

Only one in four Americans is eating a healthy amount of fruits and vegetables, so as always, this week”™s menu will help you get some more into your own diet. (1)

*Sweet potatoes, carrots, celery and parsley in Chicken Noodle Soup and Potato Fries,

*broccoli in Indian Red Dahl,

*red bell pepper, zucchini, Brussels sprouts and cherry tomatoes in Crispy Fish and Balsamic Roasted Vegetables, and

*bananas in Banana Ice Cream.

In any area of life huge changes are scary and something in us resists all the way, but very small goals are where we find inspiration to keep moving in the right direction.

I would love to hear about any goals you make for yourself, and of coarse, any small victories that come. Molly@OrangeTreeLane.com In return I’ll keep you posted on the hill!

Photo Title: Where’s the Melon?

I have something very simple and exciting to talk about today. Before I get started though, I want to tell you about something I learned in the produce section of my grocery store. If you ask someone who works in produce about a particular fruit or vegetable, they usually seem pleased you asked. I saw a large pile of honeydew melons which looked out of place to me because they are summer fruits. I just can’t stand a bland or mealy melon, so I asked a young woman I saw organizing the plums if she could vouch for the melons because I didn’t want to buy one and then throw it all to the chickens. “You have to find one that has a light yellow color and a slightly tacky feel when you run your fingers across the surface,” she said, and then she whipped out a pocket knife and we had a melon tasting party right there along with another employee who was walking by. It was delicious, so I thanked her, found another tacky one and took it home.

KNOWLEDGE BENEFITS LIFE
Life is always benefitted by true knowledge, isn’t it? I’ve been disappointed so many times by honeydew melons that looked perfect but had no taste at all, and had a I known about the “tacky feel” thing, life would have been better (for me, not the chickens). This is why I am passionate about what I do here at Orange Tree Lane. I believe that being informed and purposeful eaters now will have a direct and positive affect on our health in the future, and the present.

WHAT KILLS MOST AMERICANS?
You’ve probably heard somewhere along the line that coronary heart disease is the leading killer of both men and women in the United States. If you also believe that what we eat has a direct bearing on our health, then this should be very interesting to you. Like me you should be asking yourself, “Is there anything I can do now to avoid or delay this?” I want to see my grandchildren!

PLAQUE IN ARTERIES
Plaque is a “combination of fat, cholesterol, calcium and other substances found in the blood.” (1) It travels through the arteries with your blood, and over time it can get stuck there in the arterial wall. It can either harden and narrow the passageway, or rupture causing a blood clot to form on its surface. Either scenario reduces the oxygen flow, which can lead to a heart attack, or it harms the heart muscles and weakens their ability to pump a sufficient amount of blood. (2)

GOOD NEWS
The GOOD news is that fiber in your diet can help keep plaque out of your arteries! “Younger (20 to 39 years) and middle-aged (40 to 59 years) adults with the highest fiber intake, compared to those with the lowest fiber intake, showed a statistically significant lower lifetime risk for cardiovascular disease”, according to a recent study by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. (3)

EXCELLENT BEANS AND OATS
Aren’t you motivated just by knowing this? Protect your heart by eating fruits and vegetables, whole grains and beans (which are some of the best sources of fiber in this group.) The American Heart Association lists these foods as excellent sources of soluble fiber: oat bran, oatmeal, beans, peas, rice bran, barley, citrus fruits, strawberries and apple pulp. One apple or cup of oatmeal has 3 grams of fiber, an orange 4.3, a pear 6.5, and if you can find guava, 1 c. gives 8.9 grams. And for the heavy hitter, 1 c. of baked beans provides 10 grams, or almost half of your daily need. (4)

So the theme today is “sticky”…sticky feeling honeydew melons are ripe, and fiber helps keep the plaque from sticking to your arteries. See what good a little knowledge can do? Now let’s use it!

Until next week,

Molly
Test Cook and Researcher for Orange Tree Lane

PS- Fiber focus in this week’s menu is the beans in Spontaneous Black Bean Burritos and apples in Fresh Apple Cake. And don’t forget to have oatmeal for breakfast!

Want to understand even better?
(1) & (2) http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/cad/
(3) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110322172225.htm
(4) http://dietaryfiberguide.com/high-fiber-foods/best-dietary-fiber-sources-vegetables/

This information is solely for informational purposes. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. Neither Orange Tree Lane or any of its affiliates take responsibility for any possible consequences from any treatment, procedure, exercise, dietary modification, action or application of medication which results from reading or following the information contained in this information. The publication of this information does not constitute the practice of medicine, and this information does not replace the advice of your physician or other health care provider. Before undertaking any course of treatment, the reader must seek the advice of their physician or other health care provider.

Let’s say the K in “OK” stands for vitamin K, but then what would the O be…octomom, orangutang, obliterate? Don’t laugh, those were the first three O words that came to mind. None of the above. K stands for vitamin K, but I’m pairing it with the O in OK so that you will remember that vitamin K and Osteocalcin (protein “O”) work together as a team to build your bones. Protein O’s job it is to build the frames that calcium fills, and this is our bone mass. But protein O is completely dependent upon Vitamin K in order to do its work, and so there you have it, Team O.K. You don’t have to worry about protein O because it is readily available, but vitamin K must be consumed in order to be adequately present in the body.

UNEMPLOYED “O”S
Someone could take a sample of your blood and find lots of these O guys just carousing around your blood stream not doing their job. That would mean that you have not been eating enough Vitamin K rich foods, and protein Os are just riding around the bloodstream because they are unemployed. But when Vitamin K is present, it first gets the Os going on their job, and then recruits and sticks the mineral calcium into the framework built by the Os. If you are a parent, or have supervision responsibilities of any sort, this must be sounding very familiar. (1)

75% OF AMERICANS HAVE THEM
It is pretty common knowledge that our bones build density up until our mid 20s, and then we strive to maintain what we have for the rest of our lives. But a shocking seventy-five percent of Americans have idle protein Os surfing through their bloodstream because they simply do not have enough Vitamin K to activate them.(2)

WHERE TO GET MORE K
The two natural forms of Vitamin K are found in abundance in green vegetables like collard greens, broccoli, kale, swiss chard, spinach, parsley, other foods like olive and canola oils, fermented soy, and animal products like egg yolk, some cheeses and chicken. The general consensus from various studies is that we need at least one serving of green vegetables every day, or more specifically, “an individual would need to eat a little more than 1/2 cup of chopped broccoli or a large salad of mixed greens every day.”(3)

K IN THIS WEEK’S MENU
So are you part of that 75% who have something to worry about, or are you in the group of 25% who are investing in their bones today for payoffs tomorrow? This week’s menu is packed with vitamin K brought to you by broccoli, cabbage, spinach and kale. As you see more and more paper skeletons blowing in the wind, use them to remind you about the need to eat vitamin K rich foods for your own skeleton.

Remember that small changes eventually add up to real changes that are healthy, so if you don’t presently eat a lot of dark green vegetables, make it your goal to eat at least one extra this week, O.K?!

Molly

See http://dannademetre.com/_blog/Growing_Young to read more about growing older and healthy BONES.

1) http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/mar2004_aas_01.htm

(2) http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/vitamin-k/index.html

(3) http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vitaminK/

The other day my daughter and I went to Old Town for a little tour of California history. There was an ancient scale outside of the 1886 pipe and tobacco shop which required 25 cents to render your weight. Without a care in the world I dug out some quarters from my purse and my daughter stepped on. “Oh, the usual”, she said after looking at where the dial landed. Although its been about a month, I am still trying to recover from the final landing place of my own dial, farther around the semi circle of numbers than I have ever seen it when not pregnant. If I had food in my mouth at the time I would have choked on it.

You have to understand. All I seem to think about is food and how much and what kind I am eating. It’s not like I got so busy with my life that I forgot to take care of myself. I take a lot of care! I eat more vegetables than the average bear, I drink only water, watch my sugar intake, and I exercise at least 3x a week in a pretty substantial way. I felt like my body had been invaded by an unnoticed intruder.

THE STEALTH STRATEGY UNCOVERED
How have I processed this you ask? I had to step back and survey all of the variables. First, I just turned 46, and you know what they say about the middle age spread. But I thought that was for people who stopped taking care of themselves the way they always had, and I was not in that category.

Second, I considered that since starting Crossfit workouts in the past 6 months I have actually been lifting weights like I did in college, and we all know that muscle weighs more than fat. Sorry to say, while I might have more definition, I certainly didn’t see 6 pounds of extra muscle anywhere. But I was willing to concede a few pounds to this possible source of weight gain.

My dear husband, anxious to help me bounce back, gave his confident diagnosis,”It’s because of all those protein bars you keep making and trying out.” True I have been trying to perfect my recipes for this and they are not for people on a diet! Or maybe its because I enthusiastically bought into that, “Dark chocolate is full of antioxidants so you should consider it as good for you” idea.

CONCLUSION: INNOCUOUS ACCUMULATION
My conclusion is that it isn’t any one thing, but like the frog being boiled in the kettle one degree of heat added at a time, its an innocuous accumulation that can take you by surprise in Old Town…a little more chocolate than you’ve eaten before, a little more walking and less running, a little age gain which does seem to naturally change the metabolism even if just a little.

USE STRATEGY FOR GOOD
But if little changes can add up to extra weight, then little changes can also take it away. It you want to eat more nutrient dense foods which will benefit your health, then small changes are what you need, one at a time. We’re really simple creatures, so keep it simple by keeping the changes small. Just like weight gain or weight loss, the small things you do will become real, healthy diet changes .

FIBER: A SMALL BUT POWERFUL CHANGE
One simple change to make is choosing entrees with a greater fiber content. Fiber is crucial to good health for many reasons. It gives a feeling of fullness which satisfies your appetite earlier, it helps greatly with elimination, and it is known to benefit the heart by lowering cholesterol.

In addition to these benefits it helps to protect you from Type 2 diabetes, which has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. Twenty- four million already have it, and 57 million are close behind in a pre-diabetic state. “In fact, the number of adults diagnosed with type 2 diabetes has more than quadrupled since the early 1980s.” (1) What we eat is converted into blood sugar and sent into the bloodstream for energy. Grains with their fiber stripped away convert very quickly and this is stressful to your insulin producing system, while grains with fiber take control and slow the whole conversion process down. One study shows that people eating the most servings of whole grains a day have a 27% less chance of getting type 2 diabetes. (2)

This week’s menu is rich in fiber- filled, delicious food. Canadian Pea Soup is made from split peas which provide 65% of your RDA for fiber with only one cup. The fiber in Honey Sweetened Oatmeal is known to lower blood cholesterol levels. And lastly, the Chocolate Protein Bars have one full cup of high fiber flax meal plus 2 cups of oats.

Lets use the stealth intruder strategy I was confronted with…many small changes which add up to victory, and turn it around for the good. First change, be aware of which foods have lots of fiber and choose to eat them more. (By the way, the picture above is how I grind fresh, fiber and omega 3 rich flax seeds to make meal, which I then use to increase our fiber intake by slipping into everything possible. More OTL recipes with flax: Blake’s Shake, Champion Cookies, Chocolate Banana Omega 3 Pancakes), Tiny Turkey Loaves)

(1) http://www.health.harvard.edu/special_health_reports/Diabetes
(2) http://diabetes.webmd.com/news/20070515/fiber-may-fight-diabetes

This information is solely for informational purposes. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. Neither Orange Tree Lane or any of its affiliates take responsibility for any possible consequences from any treatment, procedure, exercise, dietary modification, action or application of medication which results from reading or following the information contained in this information. The publication of this information does not constitute the practice of medicine, and this information does not replace the advice of your physician or other health care provider. Before undertaking any course of treatment, the reader must seek the advice of their physician or other health care provider.

Have you ever thought about all of the things surrounding us daily which were made expressly to save us time? Probably the largest time saver is a car. (Picture walking to the grocery store nearest your house and carrying back a few bags every few days!) Clothes on the hanger save you from hunching over a sewing machine, and electricity greatly increases the amount of time you can act like the sun is still out illuminating your activities. Though we have lots of things to help us save time, there just never seems to be enough of it to finish our check list, so more of it is what I want to help you save today in the kitchen.

CUTTING VEGETABLES TAKES TIME
You already have a great advantage in your kitchen..things like electric or gas ovens, a few cook books, running water. These are great modern time savers, but when it comes to actually putting a recipe together, good ol’ fashioned cutting fresh vegetables is the part I dread the most because it takes so much time. So to make my life easier and keep me cooking fresh vegetables, I found a way to cut and cook vegetables once for two separate dinners, and I call the two recipes a pair.

PAIRED RECIPES SAVE TIME
This week the Black Bean Burritos filling of onion, garlic, beans and bell peppers seasoned with chili powder is purposefully made in a greater proportion so that there will be plenty of leftovers for its recipe partner “Tasty Turkey Chili“. On chili night I simply rinsed off the cutting board and knife after chopping some fresh kale, and everything else was quickly dumped into the pot from the refrigerator or a can. We had it tonight and my husband said it is the best chili he has ever had.

VITAMIN A IS WORTH YOUR TIME
You might wonder why I bother to throw in the kale since its taste disappears in the chili, or why I’ve included a recipe for sweet potato pie. The answer is that the dark green and orange colors of these vegetables indicate they are rich in beta carotene, a powerful antioxidant. When metabolized it is converted into vitamin A, which in turn acts like a knight on a shiny white horse swooping down with its sword to annihilate the freedom of free radicals. In other words, it stops destructive atoms (free radicals) before they can damage the DNA of healthy cells and cause internal inflammation. Including vitamin A rich ingredients is definitely worth our time!

Beef live is another fantastic source of vitamin A, but I prefer dark colored vegetables or fruit like butternut squash, carrots, red bell peppers, cantaloupe, and the dark green leafy vegetables like kale and collard greens.

HOW TO SPEND YOUR EXTRA TIME?
That spider you see above spends a great deal of her time spinning an elaborate web and catching insects on the back porch outside of my kitchen. Is there something you would like to make or do this week that having extra time would allow you to accomplish? I’d love to hear about it!

PS- Did you see my blog about making Leftover Surprise with the leftovers from last week’s entrees? Tonight I used leftover burrito filling to make chili, but I also had enough to make some extra burritos which were sent in tin foil for lunches today. I simply heated a tortilla in a pan, melted some cheese on top, then loaded it with the black bean filling, leftover Citrus Chicken Salad chopped fine with the meat tossed in, and some salsa. MORE TIME SAVED AND HEALTHY FOOD EATEN.

For further reading on Vitamin A:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vitamin-a/ns_patient-vitamina
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4452

We have a local pet store called Kahoots which sells the full spectrum of pets including those for a farm. My jr. high age son called it KaHOOTERs of course because we were there to pick up some chicks, literally. Don”™t you just love a clever 13 year old? Anyhow, we picked out five new ones to add to our hen family of older egg layers, and one day they will give us glorious, fresh, nutrient packed free-range eggs. In the picture you see they had just been moved from a small container to Taj ma Cage and they were expressing their joy by “flap flying”, or getting just a little bit of lift while they scuttle along flapping their baby wings.

PROTEIN TO GROW
Their food is specially fortified with extra protein because for the next six weeks or so it is time warp growing time. I”™ve got a few teenagers who are doing the same thing, although it would be so much cheaper if they could just eat some of that chicken feed! Since that won”™t happen, I want to share with you one of the supplements I give to them for extra growing, protein power and they don”™t even know it! That is because nutritional yeast is what I call a stealth supplement. It dissolves so quickly in liquid that the need for a long discussion about how good it is for you, or how “I know best even if you doubt it so just eat it” just never comes up.

NUTRITIONAL YEAST
Nutritional yeast is grown on nutrient dense molasses or beets; a flaky, yellow powder with a slightly cheesy taste. As I was talking to a friend the other day, she rightly stated that it sounds like something to put in savory dishes as opposed to sweet. That is true, and it is so easy to do! I add anywhere from ¼-3/4 cup to dishes using ground meat of any kind, always add it to broth, and have even been known to slip it in a cheese sauce. My taste testers always think there is something even better about the taste of these entrees, but they just can”™t figure out what it is. You know, the stealth nutrient!

This week it is used to enhance the flavors in Crock Pot Meat and Vegetables, but you can also hide it with the canned salmon over salad, and slip some into the Feta Chicken Pasta sauce. And don”™t worry about upsetting your system with extra yeast because there are no live cultures here, just 18 digestible amino acids, a rich supply of NATURAL (not synthetic) vitamins B2, B3, B6, B12 and folic acid. And did I mention the minerals?

More stealth moves:

-Toss it with hot popcorn along with whatever else you usually put on it.
-Add to crambled eggs.
-Gives soup broth just a touch of cheese flavor, and you can use lots!
– Adds some zip to vinegar and oil over salad.
– Add to the toppings on garlic bread or to mayonnaise on a sandwich.
-Or take a dose between meals by dissolving 1 Tablespoon into some water.

Have fun experimenting, and inspire me by adding a comment on the side here if something works well for you.

PS- You can find nutritional yeast at most health food grocery stores, usually next to the protein powders, but sometimes in the bulk section too.

Sometimes for work my husband has to “pull” public records from the county courthouse. During a busy time he asked to me to do this errand for him, and then he was gone. I had an address and two case numbers with names. When you pull records are you removing them from a tight space? Come on now, this is a far cry from my sweet little kitchen in suburbania.

My first debacle downtown was going down a one way street the wrong way, and of course there was a police officer standing on the corner just waiting for me. I threw my hand up over my mouth and looked mortified in an attempt to solicit sympathy, and I guess it worked, or else I looked too stupid to bother because she shook her head and waved me on.

Next I tried to stride along towards the court house trying to look as though I fit in, but I was the only one of my kind. Skinny, young, vegan looking things walking boldly in strappy shirts and the perfunctory look of boredom, an army of tatted and khaki clad homeless sitting next to their carts on the sidewalks, and a multitude of very disgruntled looking men of all ages streaming in and out of giant white building. I was the only file puller I could see.

Walking in the door I was immediately confronted with a security check point; “Take off all metal objects” was the only sign I saw in the confusion, plus small trays on one side and a conveyor belt on the other, and three intimidating guards. “What are you waiting for?” snarled one of them when I didn”™t bring the tray with my cell phone and belt over to the other side fast enough. At the directions desk she barked, “Basement, number 42″, which ended up being a warehouse of files separated from us “pullers” by a wide white counter and a few very bored looking clerks. “It is a felony to remove the file from the room or a paper from the metal brads inside the folder”, yet there was a Xerox machine to my left and I needed copies. Questions about how this all worked raced through my mind as I tried to glean some insight by watching other people in the room.

After filling out a few forms one clerk went to get my file. It was full of pages and pages of forms relating to a trial. Which one was I looking for? At fifty cents a copy I decided to put a marker on each page for her to copy that looked like it might have important information, hoping I didn”™t miss that ONE piece of paper I was there for, whatever it was.

Asking about my other file I heard, “Mumble mumble 2005. “What happened in 2005?” Tired clerk, “I said room number 2005 third floor!” Four windows along a counter and one says “Start Here”, so I stood there to wait”¦until someone from behind tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Would you mind putting your name down on the clipboard?!” How long had they been waiting for me while I just stood there like a dummy? Sorry! I was a fumbling file puller.

So why did I tell you this? My point is that sometimes we are pushed out of our comfort zone. The way you live, how you shop, what you eat”¦these are all comfortable habits inside your comfort zone. A diet and/or exercise change might be on the outside of that comfort zone, adding some stress to your life at first, but eventually it will become the new, healthy “norm”. I am passionate about helping you make changes healthy changes which will benefit you now and in the far future. This week fish with cooked kale and a vegetarian chili might feel as comfortable to you as my trip to the courthouse, but trust me, everything gets easier with practice, including how you eat. I sure learned a lot by my experience down at the courthouse this week. By the way, need any files pulled?

The other day one of my kids wrote on the family master calendar, “(His name) is Awesome Day”. That kind of spunk deserved a door covered with post it notes detailing his awesome qualities as a person and acknowledgment of his valuable contributions to mankind thus far. His response…”You mean if I put something on that calendar it happens?!”

Now wouldn’t that be awesome if I really had something like that in my kitchen? Everyone wants a genie lamp, me included. “Dinner is made, house is clean, I’m at the spa…that would be really nice. But the harsh realities of life won’t quit, and quite frankly, I can tell little lamps or bottles all day that something is done, but you and I both know it won’t be unless I get to working on it. But he did get his “Awesome Day” because by writing it down it took on the almost magical power produced by planning ahead.

PLANNING AHEAD MAKES IT HAPPEN THE WAY YOU WANT
And that’s really my point today; the incredible power of planning ahead. 365 days ago today I posted my first menu for Orange Tree Lane. My goal? I wanted to make cooking and eating healthy food more understandable and do-able for busy families. So I wrote Weekly Specials to teach and inform. I found and tested recipes that reinforced the Weekly Specials. I made videos showing how to put things together so that you can learn just by watching. I compiled 51 menus which can be personalized along with a shopping list by adding or subtracting any recipe from my archives.

SWEET SUCCESS
But guess what? I have rarely been able to enjoy the convenience of any of it because I’ve been creating the content. There was one time when we were having guests for the holidays and I personalized a menu to include things I knew would work for them and for a crowd. I kept the list of entrees I was ready to make posted in the kitchen, and each day I simply chose one and made sure I was ready to go by doing some of the prep work the night before or in the morning. It was AWESOME. I had accomplished my goal and was enjoying the sweet results of my own labors.

No genie lamp, but certainly the magical convenience of having everything I needed at my finger tips. My son wanted something unrealistic, but what I created was realistic and it felt almost magical to plan what I wanted and then watch it happen.

CELEBRATION OF 365 DAYS OF PLANNING AHEAD!
For the one year birthday celebration of Orange Tree Lane (.com) I decided to look back over the year and pick some of my personal favorite recipes to compile for this last menu of the year.

* First, I loved Crock Pot Beef Tacos because it cooks while I sleep, takes minutes to throw together, tastes great, and I can add fresh avocado, spinach or cabbage and tomatoes when it’s time to eat. Leftovers are great rolled in tortillas with some of the cooked onions and bell peppers and cheese for easy and healthy lunches.

*My second choice was Cheese Ravioli with Butternut Squash because I became aware of butternut’s amazing antioxidant powers and cooked it for the first time this year. Plus I have always loved ravioli and this dish is very quick and easy to prepare once you have practiced opening a butternut enough times for it to lose the scare factor. Once again I transformed leftovers into nifty lunches by putting them over a bed of lettuce and spinach leaves with a tasty vinaigrette.

*I chose Amazing Enchiladas for my third recipe because they taste wonderful and can be put together in 30 minutes if you buy cooked chicken or use the paired recipe system I developed which makes extra chicken on another night so its ready for this. Also, it’s easy to make extras to freeze or for lunches and they have less cheese than any other enchilada recipe I’ve ever seen yet don’t sacrifice taste.

* To round it off I included the Orange Tree Lane Carrot Cake recipe because it is delicious and healthy at the same time and it one of my favorite flavors. And finally, I save so much time with OTL GF (gluten free) Bulk Pancake Mix. We avoid all of the stripped down white flour, hidden hydrogenated oil and preservatives of traditional mixes, and I don’t know if it’s in our imaginations, but some of us feel less “puffy” and bloated when we reduce the amount of gluten we eat. I even use this convenient mix to replace the dry ingredients in muffin mixes by just adding 1/3 c. more sugar and 1 Tbsp. more baking powder.

WHAT NOW?
So what’s ahead? I am so excited because now that I have come full circle, I am going to do it again… only better. Some of the recipes will stay the same and some new ones will be added. I’ll work on ideas for ways to get more vegetables in our diet, and share with you ways to make your work produce more results in less time. And I’ll never stop talking about nutrition so that it is always on our minds and influencing our food choices. And as always, you can get your menus personalized with matching shopping lists any time from the website. Sound good?

Join us for year number 2 if you haven’t already by making signing up at http://orangetreelane.com/. As a member you will be able to access all of the recipes, menus, and keep your own recipe box of favorites too!

Let’s travel this road together! Come see what’s cooking on the Lane,

Molly

For more pictures and extra posts from me go to http://otlane.blogspot.com/ .

Our life is about to change; drastically. Breakfast at 6:15, healthy and durable bag lunches ready by 7:00, and then they are probably going to still want dinner at night too! I knew there was something more than just sleeping in that I like about summer. But this year, I am resolved to bring some order to my daily chaos in the kitchen. First of all, I am going to plan ahead (gasp) for more than just dinner, and have those ingredients waiting for me so I can do more than just hope something is in the refrigerator when I roll out of bed. Next, in my planning I am going to save time by finding ways to make last night’s dinner into tomorrow’s lunches.

Ultimately, I want to make lunches that will:
1) taste good
2) keep their shape in a backpack
3) won’t kill anyone after being in a warm locker for a few hours and
4) give good nutrition and steady energy throughout the day.

REDUCE SIMPLE CARBOHYDRATES
One trap that is so easy to fall into when preparing bagged lunches is to rely on lots of ready made, kid approved simple carbohydrates like juice, pretzels, white bread, sugary treats and crackers. We want life more simple, but carbohydrates are better for us when complex because they provide healthier digestion, better fuel for energy and more vitamins and minerals. Think unprocessed whole grains and fruit”¦whole wheat bread or tortilla instead of sourdough for your sandwich, spelt angel hair pasta rather than regular noodles, whole wheat pastry flour in the pancakes, whole pieces of fruit instead of fruit juice, and quinoa, couscous, or wild rice instead of white rice with dinner.

COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES SUSTAIN ENERGY LEVELS
While the starch in complex, whole grain carbs will eventually end up as glucose blood sugar like processed grains and sugars, it will happen more slowly and evenly because the complex carbs in whole grains take more time for your body to take apart than simple sugars, and the fiber helps even more. This slower digestion eliminates the spike and then fall in blood sugar levels that accompany the digestion of carbohydrates without fiber. Instead of a rush and then crash in your energy level, complex carbs provide energy that is more constant and even as the digestion moves steadily along at a slower pace. And don’t forget, that ever present piece of fruit next to the sandwich (or whatever) has fiber along with its carbohydrates to slow down digestion just like a whole grain does, so don’t replace it with anything that has been processed (has packaging basically). (1)

BEANS ARE MAGICAL…NOT THAT!
Beans are another secret weapon that you should have in your kitchen at all times in order to make dynomite lunches. Besides being cheaper than almost anything else in your cart, beans are very rich in complex carbohydrates, fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals. For instance, one cup of kidney beans provides 30% of your recommended daily allowance for protein, 45% for fiber, 28% for iron, 42% for vital trace mineral manganese and 57% for folate. Then there are the good amounts of phosphorous, magnesium, potassium, vitamin B1 and vitamin K also hidden in this one particular mighty bean. (2) In addition to all that, they survive better than meat without refrigeration and are key players in popular entrees like burritos and chili.

MEET SOME OF THOSE GOALS WITH THIS WEEK’S MENU
As you can see, I have lofty goals for school lunches, which makes me a nerd, but nerds now rule the world so you are welcome to copy any of my ideas that sound agreeable to you. First, to use the dinner-next day lunch idea, I will make extra marinated chicken in the Buffalo Chicken Salad recipe and slice the extras very thin to make delicious sandwiches on whole wheat sub rolls. Extra beans from Ultimate Healthy Baked Bean Diner will be rolled into Spontaneous Burritos, and if I’m feeling rich, I’ll broil some extra salmon on Teriyaki GInger Salmon w/ Salad night and roll it in whole wheat tortillas with creamed cheese and spicy arugula for delicious lunch entrees.

If you have some great ideas for healthy and durable lunches, please send them along..I would love to hear your input and then share some with everyone. We’re all in this together, remember?

Good bye freedom. Hello structure.

Molly
Test Cook and Research Specialist for Orange Tree Lane

(1) http://www.prevention.com/11fixesforinstantenergy/list/1.shtml

(2) http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=87

It was a fateful decision to go across that field; I haven”™t felt my adrenaline pumping like that in a good while. I don”™t want to exaggerate, but as a city girl I found myself in very unfamiliar and uncertain territory, with the possibility of snakes under every foot fall, and most importantly, my beloved mother behind me following my lead. “Let”™s stroll down the road a bit while they fish” became “Lets turn aside here and find the pond mentioned on that sign”, and the then the fateful “Well, we can see them across this field so let”™s cross it to the river”™s edge and work our way back that way.”

I soon found myself in the middle of a swampy field full of grass higher than my head, and a very red-faced senior citizen wearing a skirt and light blue flip flop tennis shoes following close behind me. In no time we felt that turning back would take even longer than finishing our “short cut”, but it was getting hotter by the minute, and who knew if the snakes would continue to run away from my stick? There was a slight feeling of doom, kind of like the feeling you get when you go camping and realize that what you brought to eat is all you get. No helicopter was going to come and rescue us; we were committed whether we liked it or not, and that was not comfortable for urban dwellers like us who are used to options.

To her credit, mom never complained, although I could tell her senses were on high alert and she was creating quite a story in her mind to tell to the ladies back home. I, on the other hand, was wondering if she suspected that I did this on purpose to get her to exercise more vigorously, because lately I”™d been saying things like, “Mom, when you walk, do you ever perspire, or feel your heart beating faster to where you wouldn”™t want to carry on a conversation?” The only answer I ever got from her was a little, lady-like twitter. The scenario I was putting to her is stage 7 out of 10 in a workout intensity scale used by Oprah Winfrey”™s former trainer Bob Greene. He encourages his clients to work up to that level of exertion, and then gradually sustain it longer and longer until they reach 20 minutes of stage 7 or 8 (just a bit more) intensity of training.

Why do you need intensity? Because “low intensity exercise doesn”™t do much for your metabolism, but moderately high intensity exercise does.” (1) A higher metabolism allows you to reap the benefits of exercise all day long because it continues to burn calories at a higher rate, even during sedentary activity like sitting in front of a computer. (Eating breakfast also gets it started earlier!) So basically, one investment of greater effort when exercising multiplies itself exponentially! Sound good?

Of course you must confer with your doctor before intensifying your workouts, but it is worth stopping to reflect a moment on what you are doing. Do you sweat, or do you push yourself hard enough sometimes that you don”™t want to talk, do you eat breakfast, or do you exercise early in the day? If not, you may be missing out on an opportunity to become a more efficient calorie burning machine.

But getting back to mom and me, we gave up our plans to get to the river and set our eyes on the less distant road instead, only to find on arrival that we were hemmed in by a barbed wire fence. But now I believe in angels because we soon found a hole big enough to climb through, and we never stepped on a snake in an hour of walking through rushes. One last embankment to climb up out of the brush and we were surprised by a face to face meeting with my son who had been looking for us. He swears a snake had just made its way into the bushes when we appeared. Do you think he was kidding?

(1) Make the Connection :Ten Steps to A Better Body and a Better Life by Bob Greene and Oprah Winfrey, Harpo, Inc, 1996- pg. 134