Say Hello to My Lentil Friends

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Growing up in rural Maine, I always though that lentil was just another moniker for split peas, those little lovelies that cook into a scrumptiously heavy winter soup. Not so! I still don’t know exactly what to make of the botanical difference between dried field peas (split peas) and pulses (lentils), but I can give you a quick breakdown on what’s generally out there and what to do with it.

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Power Shopping for Dudes

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When I was invited to write a post for Guiding Stars, the conversation went something like this:

“So, you should write a blog post about power shopping!”
“Uh… I presume I’d have to know what it WAS in order to write a blog post about it, yes?”
“Well, it’s what you do! For your breakfast and lunch sandwiches! You power shop!”
“I thought power shopping involved fist-fulls of coupons and deep thought about nutritional information and whatnot. I just grab a bunch of stuff and cook two weeks at a time.”
“Well, that’s power shopping TOO!”

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All-Star Summer Sausage Subs

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My wife and I are always on the lookout for healthy alternatives to foods we like. In looking for alternatives to the traditional Italian pork sausage, we switched to turkey sausage. Even though it is a much healthier alternative to the Italian pork sausage, it still contains too much sugar and sodium to be really healthy. We also tried some of the chicken sausage that was available at the time. Again, it was better than the Italian pork sausage, but still had too much sodium to really be considered healthy.

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When You Produce From Scratch, You Know What’s in the Product

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The idea is simple. While many food service companies regularly purchase just about everything to avoid paying for skilled labor, we try to make as much as possible from scratch. (How skilled we are is certainly up for discussion!)

Just like kids, adults just need to eat well, whether they like it or not. To get them to do that we employ a term called “stealth health”. Without revealing all my secrets, I can say that there is a fluidity in the recipes we use. 2 tablespoons of salt become 1, three cups of sugar becomes 1 cup plus some organic honey. Milk chocolate becomes dark chocolate, 4 oz. chicken thighs become trimmed breast, and ground beef becomes ground white meat turkey. Whole eggs becomes half egg /half egg white. There is always an opportunity to improvise and make food more nutritious. If we can’t stop you from mac and cheese, we can use whole-wheat pasta, skim milk, and fresh vegetables. We want to sneak in some nutrition to foods that are basically empty calories because we know they will be purchased, then so be it, we do.

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A Cookout Doesn’t Have To Be A Calorie Blowout

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The summer season is upon us and that means a summer full of cookouts celebrating everything from Memorial Day to Fourth of July, graduations, birthdays and family reunions. And, with all these cookouts come a lot of high-calorie and high-fat foods and drinks like chips, beer, soda and desserts.

As I find I’m still trying to shed both holiday and ‘owning my own business’ weight, my goal this summer is to try to demonstrate some discipline. Instead of grabbing soda, my plan is to ask for water or bring my own reusable vessel. Portion control is another obvious goal and as a guest I plan to bring my own low calorie/low fat recipe offering a healthy choice for myself as well as others.

Guiding Stars Expert Chef Erin Dow recently had a great blog post about Greek Yogurt. I have started using it in some of my own recipes lately and I find it to be a great alternative to higher fat ingredients like butter. For example, this summer I plan to try this low fat potato salad recipe:

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