At this time of year, feasting is in order. Many Thanksgiving dishes handed down from year to year are delicious, but not necessarily healthy. Most of us remember eating sweet potatoes swimming in cinnamon, butter, marshmallows and sugar. Delicious, right? It may nourish your spirit, but it’s not good for your body.

Good thing you don’t have to sacrifice taste and tradition to create a healthy meal! Sharon Feuer Gruber, BFC’s nutrition consultant, held a cooking class at the Southeast center last week to get people focused on healthier ways to cook some typical holiday foods. On the menu this month: cabbage salad, sweet potato wedges, and apple compote.

We started by working together to prep the food.

As the sweet potatoes were cooking and people were cutting up the fresh herbs for the salad, Sharon shared the health benefits of the foods they were using.  We talked about how the skin of the sweet potatoes has lots of fiber and nutrients and should be scrubbed and eaten along with the rest of the sweet potato. Why spend money on the whole sweet potato and then toss the healthiest part? And we talked about the nutritious fats the meal featured, including those in the walnuts we sprinkled on top of the apples.

The salad was simple — combine red cabbage, carrots, scallions, cilantro, orange segments, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and a touch of maple syrup in a big bowl. (Full recipes are below.) We served up the salad, piping hot sweet potato wedges, and delicious apple compote, and sat down to eat and talk.

We learned that several people had seen recipes like the ones Sharon demonstrated, but hadn’t tried them at home because the combination of foods wasn’t something that they normally ate. One client said the dishes were “surprisingly good.” And everyone ate them up. Several of the attendees were there because their doctors wanted them to change their diets. They wanted to prepare healthier meals for their families, and the cooking class seemed like a good place to start.

The class finished up by brainstorming ways to modify Stuffed Meatloaf, a recipe that was shared with the Holiday Helpings Story Bank earlier in the week. You can use the same tips with your favorite holiday dish!

Here are the original ingredients:

1 pound ground beef
1 pack of bacon
1 cup of sharp cheddar cheese (shredded)
½ lb. steamed shrimp
1 container crab meat
1 bottle barbecue sauce
1 pack of crackers
1 egg
1 nine inch baking pan

And here are the suggestions from the participants in the nutrition/cooking class:

- Use ground turkey or ground chicken instead of ground beef.
- Add fresh vegetables like green peppers, garlic, onions, and tomatoes.
- Add kidney beans.
- Use hot sauce, tomato paste, or tomato sauce instead of barbecue sauce.
- Use rice, corn flakes, or bread crumbs instead of crackers.
- Use egg whites instead of whole eggs.

Enjoy your holiday!  Have fun and think healthy.

Nutrition Class Recipes:

Rosemary-Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges
3 medium sweet potatoes (about 1 pound total)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 stem and 1 tablespoon of fresh rosemary leaves OR 2 tablespoons of dry rosemary
8 garlic cloves (peeled but not chopped)

1.    Preheat oven to 400°F.
2.    Heat oil briefly to just below simmer. Let a couple of rosemary stems and a few garlic cloves soak in it for about 10 minutes. Remove rosemary and garlic, reserving oil.
3.    Cut potatoes lengthwise into 1/2-inch-thick slices.
4.    Toss potatoes in the reserved oil, coating potatoes. Sprinkle potatoes with rosemary and place on baking sheet or shallow baking pan. Add the cloves of garlic.
5.    Roast about 20 minutes total, or until tender.

Berkeley Cabbage Salad

1 head purple cabbage
3 carrots
½ bunch scallions (also called green onions)
½ cup fresh cilantro (optional)
Olive oil ¼ cup
Apple cider vinegar 3 T
Maple syrup 2 t
Sesame oil (optional)
Mandarin orange segments (optional)

  1. Thinly chop cabbage, carrots, scallions, and optional cilantro. Place in large bowl.
  2. Whisk together olive oil, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, and optional sesame oil. (Taste dressing to be sure proportions are to your liking.)
  3. Toss salad with dressing and optional mandarin orange segments.

Apple compote

Apples
Cinnamon
Walnuts (optional)

  1. Preheat oven to 350
  2. Chop apples into 1-inch cubes.
  3. Place in shallow baking tray and cover bottom of tray with water.
  4. Sprinkle apples with cinnamon.
  5. Bake for 30 minutes or until tender.
  6. Optional: Sprinkle with chopped walnuts before serving.