“Paillards” means that you’ve pounded the chicken breasts to make them tender and thin. They also cook quickly. My husband found the original recipe in Sunset magazine and we tweaked it a tad – it was terrific:
1 tsp each, salt and pepper
2 Tbsp. plus ½ tsp. chopped fresh rosemary
1 ½ Tbsp. avocado oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
6 strips of cooked bacon, crumbled
½ cup finely chopped shallots
½ cup dried cranberries
½ cup Viognier or other fruity, dry white wine
8 oz arugula, ends trimmed
Preheat broiler with rack set 3 inches from heat. Combine salt and pepper and 2 Tbsp. of rosemary with the oil and rub it over the chicken breast, and some on a baking sheet.
Cook the bacon, save the fat in the pan.
Broil the chicken until just cooked through, turning once, about 8 minutes total. Remove from heat and cover with foil to keep warm.
Meanwhile, cook shallots in the bacon grease, about 6 minutes. Add dried cranberries and wine to pan, stirring occasionally for a couple of minutes until about 3 Tbsp of liquid is left. Stir in remaining ½ tsp. of rosemary, plus a bit more salt and pepper.
Remove from heat and add arugula and bacon. Toss very gently to coat. The arugula will get a bit warm, but you do not want to “cook” it.
Transfer salad to a platter and arrange chicken paillards on top.
Yogurt is a favorite snack. It’s both good tasting and good for you – or is it? Whoops, seems there is a lot of sugar and other stuff in yogurt these days. The non-profit Cornucopia Institute came out with an interesting report on yogurts, “Culture Wars: How the Food Giants Turned Yogurt, a Health Food, Into a Junk Food.” It accuses many major brands of “misleading parents, who are looking for healthier foods for their families, into purchasing yogurts loaded with sugar and containing a myriad of questionably safe artificial sweeteners, colors, and emulsifiers. In some cases, they might as well be serving their children soda pop or a candy bar with a glass of milk on the side.… the flavored varieties (strawberry, for example) of certain brands contain no actual fruit … General Mills (owner of Yoplait) sued Chobani in reaction to their national ad campaign that attacks Dannon and Yoplait for their use of artificial sweeteners and preservatives…”
The report comes with a nifty scorecard that tells you which yogurts are the “cleanest.” High scoring brands that I’ve seen locally include Organic Valley, Straus, Pavel’s Organic, Nancy’s and the Whole Foods brand called 365 Everyday (Organic).
Say you want a vanilla yogurt. Pick up a 32 ounce container of the Straus brand “Organic Vanilla Whole Milk Yogurt.” It has 32 grams of sugar in a 1 cup serving. Yikes! Remember that the guidelines for the daily amount of added sugar is roughly 25 grams for women, 35 grams for men? Well, one cup of this for breakfast puts you over the top. Now pick up a 32 ounce container of Straus’ bestselling Organic, Plain Whole-Milk Yogurt. It has 7 grams of sugar in one cup. It’s their best seller because a lot of us don’t want a lot of added sugar.
So… want vanilla yogurt? Get the Straus plain whole milk yogurt – which is full fat – and add some vanilla extract to it yourself. The best way to go with yogurt is to buy the plain (not flavored), full fat, organic version.
As the Cornucopia Institute’s report made clear, many brands advertising “fruit” have no real fruit in them, just fruit-flavored syrups. Want fruit? Just take the plain yogurt, and put your own fresh or frozen fruit on top. If you use frozen fruit, put as much yogurt as you will eat for breakfast in a bowl the night before and add the frozen fruit topping so it will dethaw overnight. You can also stir in vanilla extract – or not.
If your office has a refrigerator, these bigger 32-ounce containers of organic yogurt are much more cost effective than those little 5- or 6-ounce cups that are loaded with sugar and all the questionable ingredients discussed in the Cornucopia Institute’s report.
And a note about Greek yogurt here: Greek yogurt is strained to remove the whey (the watery part of the milk that remains after the milk has been cultured and strained). This leaves yogurt smooth, thick, and creamy with the consistency of sour cream – but if you have a casein sensitivity, this is not for you because the casein is concentrated. Most Greek yogurts are non-fat and flavored. Don’t waste your money. According to experts Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride and Elaine Gottshall, a lot of commercial yogurt is not fermented long enough to make it a good source of probiotics, nor to make it thick. When we make yogurt at home, we let it ferment 24 hours. Some manufacturers do it in 1 hour. If on the label you see whey concentrates, modified corn starch, pectin, locust bean gum – these are thickeners used to give a thicker texture to yogurt that has not fermented long enough. And if the yogurt is pasteurized – heated – how many live probiotic cultures are left? Not many.
Have you noticed that lots of people are buying spiral slicers that turn veggies like beets, zucchini, and sweet potatoes into “noodles?” It’s a great way to by-pass grains and get more veggies in the diet. Plus kids love ‘em. Veggies are much more nutrient dense than a gluten or gluten free pasta. Squash is filled with fiber, vitamins, and nutrients. If you don’t have that slicer gadget, here’s a recipe for the next best thing: making “spaghetti” out of squash. And tis the season because there is a bounty of squash in the markets now.
The yellow squash are often labeled as spaghetti squash in the produce section so you can easily find them. Bring one home, slice it in half the long way. Take a tablespoon and scrape out the middle part where the seeds are – much like you would scrape out a pumpkin – and discard. Then get a roasting pan big enough to fit both halves of the squash (usually that’s a 9” by 13” baking dish). Put in about ½ cup of water and then set both halves in the pan, inside down. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes, uncovered.
Take it out of the oven, let it cool. Get a mixing bowl and a fork. Use the fork to scrape the inside fleshy part of the squash into the bowl. You will see that what you scrape looks like spaghetti!
At this point, you can use a marinara sauce or whatever you like. My way is to add some butter, some roasted pine nuts, chopped raw red bell pepper, and sage. I’m no green thumb in the garden but even I can grow sage so I have fresh leaves to pick and chop up for this dish. If fresh is not available, then sprinkle some dried sage from your spice rack.
Serve it cool. Squash tends to be generous – we always have leftovers. I put leftovers in the refrigerator and serve them again in a few days.
The popular chia seed has a lot going for it – it’s a complete protein, its full of fiber, its high in the anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acid alpha linolenic acid (ALA), it’s packed with antioxidants, and chia seeds have a gelatinous quality that makes you feel full without having to eat a lot, so chia seeds can be good for weight loss and blood sugar regulation. Did I mention they are gluten free and vegans can use them as an egg substitute???
Here comes the “but.” The person many turn to for the skinny on chia seeds is Loren Cordain, the Colorado State University professor who kicked off the paleo movement in a big way with his 2001 book, The Paleo Diet.
According to Cordain: “On paper, it would appear that chia seeds are a nutritious food that is not only high in ALA, but also is a good source of protein, fiber, certain B vitamins, calcium, iron and manganese. Unfortunately, the devil is always in the details… As is the case with many other plant seeds (e.g., cereal grains, legumes) chia seeds contain numerous antinutrients which reduce their nutritional value … chia seeds are concentrated sources of phytate, an antinutrient that binds many minerals (calcium, iron, zinc, magnesium and copper) thereby making them unavailable for absorption. So, in our bodies, chia seeds actually become inferior sources of all these minerals … the mucilaginous gel that surrounds the seeds forms a barrier which impairs digestion, fat absorption and causes a low protein digestibility. Based upon animal and human studies, it is likely that other antinutrients together with this gel may promote a leaky gut, chronic systemic inflammation and food allergies … Until further human trials are completed employing a sample size with sufficient statistical power to resolve these immune system issues, then the potential adverse effects of long term, chronic chia seed consumption may outweigh the potential benefits.” To read more, click here
And yet, the anthropological evidence is that humans have been eating chia seeds for about 5,000 years. Chia seeds are native to southern Mexico and northern Guatemala, eaten by the Aztecs and other native cultures who grinded them into flour, pressed them for oil, and used chia as a medicine. Chia is the Mayan word for “strength.” Chia seeds were revered for their ability to increase stamina and energy over long periods of time. So if these tiny seeds were a great food then, but not now, what happened? Let’s dig a little deeper.
Look back to 1990 – chia seed wasn’t sold commercially; the chia seed had virtually died out. You could find it only in little markets in Mexico. Along came Dr. Wayne Coates and the rest of the team of the Northwestern Argentina Regional Project. They were tasked in 1991 with finding alternative crops to grow in a region that grew pretty much just tobacco and beans.
Wayne Coates, PhD
“We knew nothing about chia until we started analyzing it in the lab,” Dr. Coates told me. “Then we figured it was worth growing. I don’t know if I would call chia a ‘superfood,’ but it certainly has many great characteristics. It is a complete protein. It’s a great source of omega 3. It has no flavor; you can add it to anything. You can eat it whole, milled, ground, soaked – that’s the beauty of it. Unlike flax, it does not go rancid quickly. The high oil content of its leaves acts as an extremely potent insect repellent and eliminates the need for pesticides being used to protect the crop. There are so many positives. Now, if you have been eating a low fiber diet and start eating chia, you could have diarrhea – that’s a natural reaction to the introduction of substantial fiber.”
Is Professor Coates aware of Professor Cordain’s take on chia? Oh yes.
“Years ago I corresponded with him about it, but he wasn’t open to it so he’s running on generalities. Flax seed has anti-nutritional properties, but not chia. The soluble fiber in chia is very helpful to diabetics because it slows down the glycemic factor. People eating chia have lowered their cholesterol, lost weight, gained energy, and solved joint issues. Chia has been a food for thousands of years.”
And what of the argument that the omega 3 in chia seeds, alpha linolenic acid (ALA), is something the body has a tough time converting?
“The only essential omega 3 is ALA – your body cannot make it,” Dr. Coates explained. “EPA and DHA which come from marine animals are not essential; our body converts (makes) them from ALA. The reason so many people have a problem making the conversion is because they eat way too much omega 6. That’s the omega fatty acid in so many fried and processed foods. The same enzyme the body uses to convert or ‘process’ omega 6s is the same one it needs to convert ALA to EPA and DHA. We should eat about equal amounts of omega 6s and omega 3s, but the standard American diet can deliver, say, 20 times as much omega 6. So if you have used up all your enzymes processing the omega 6s, you don’t have much left over to help you convert that ALA omega 3 to EPA and DHA. The conversion is a problem because of the imbalance of omega 6 in the diet.”
What about flax, the other seed with ALA?
“Flax seed is going to pass right through the body unless you open its hard shell by soaking, grinding, or cooking. That hard seed coat is nature’s way of protecting the omega 3 in flaxseed from going rancid. So you need to grind, cook, sprout, or somehow open the seed so that the digestive process can be effective. If you do not do this, the seeds will just pass through your body. Flax seed also goes rancid quickly so you have to grind it daily. Flax, by the way, has not been in our diet until recently. People historically used it to make linen and such, but they did not eat it.”
Chia, he explained to me, is very different than flax.
“The omega 3 in chia is protected by the natural antioxidants in the seed. You can sprout it if you want to, but there is no research I know of that documents that it makes a difference. You can eat it whole, milled, ground, soaked – that’s the beauty of it. Chia’s omega 3 is stable when it is milled at ambient temperatures. It doesn’t go rancid easily. Our milled chia is good for one year, whole seed for five years.”
Today, Dr. Coates is retired from the University of Arizona where he specialized in new crop development and mechanization. He sells the AZChia brand and points out that not all chia is worth buying.
“Chia seeds are black/gray, and white/cream. (Go here for photos.) Anything else colorwise is immature chia or weed seeds. Sometimes you find a lot of small round completely black seeds. These are weed seeds, not chia as it is an oval, egg shape. Immature seeds will have lower protein, and lower omega 3 content. I’ve even seen weed content in some of the chia that is on the market.”
To watch a really interesting University of Arizona video presentation on chia, go here.
I recently talked with Dr. Wayne Coates who had a lot to do with reintroducing chia seeds to the modern diet.
Here is one of his recipes for using chia seeds – and look at what a different recipe this is for mushroom soup!
• 1 pound mushrooms, mixed varieties if possible
• 1 ½ Tbsp butter
• 2 Tbsp safflower oil
• 1 ½ medium yellow or Maui onions, diced
• 1 cup raw cashews, washed in hot water
• 1 ½ Tbsp dry chia seed
• 1 ½ teaspoons dried sweet basil
• 2 cloves garlic, diced
• 2 stalks celery with leaves, diced
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon (scant) tamari
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 medium tomato
Add raw cashews to 5 ½ cups of water and blend until smooth to make 6 ½ cups of cashew nut milk. Add chia seeds and let stand for 15 minutes.
Next, sauté half the mushrooms in safflower oil for 4 minutes. Add nut milk and blend.
Pour mix into saucepan. Sauté onion, celery, and garlic in 1 Tbsp oil with basil and tamari for 4 minutes. Add sautéed vegetables to the liquid mix. Chop remaining mushrooms and add to mix along with cayenne pepper, sesame oil, and salt. Cook for 15 minutes.
Chop tomato and add 1 ½ minutes before serving. Serves 5.
The popular chia seed has a lot going for it – it’s a complete protein, its full of fiber, its high in the anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acid alpha linolenic acid (ALA), it’s packed with antioxidants, and chia seeds have a gelatinous quality that makes you feel full without having to eat a lot, so chia seeds can be good for weight loss and blood sugar regulation. Did I mention they are gluten free and vegans can use them as an egg substitute???
