Wishing Everyone a Happy, Healthy

and Kosher Pesach!

An Easy Soup for Pesach

Carrot Soup (Parve)

Braise some carrots with oil and sugar. Add water and cook. This simple soup is easy to put together during the busy week of Pesach. For an interesting variation, substitute a cup of orange juice for water. Chopped parsley makes a nice garnish.

2 pounds (1 kilo) carrots, peeled and sliced

1 cup water

2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil

1 ½ teaspoons sugar

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

8 cups water

Put the carrots, 1 cup of water, oil, sugar, salt and pepper in a large pan. Cook on high heat until the mixture boils. Reduce the heat, cover and cook for 5 minutes.

Uncover the pan and cook over medium-high heat, until the water evaporates and the carrots are tender. Cook the carrots, stirring occasionally, until they're glazed. It's alright if they brown just a little.

Add the rest of the water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and cook covered for 10-15 minutes, until the carrots are completely soft.

Puree the soup with an immersion blender.

6-8 servings

Pesach Cookies

Here are two of my favorite Passover cookie recipes. Gorgeous, delicious and full of healthy almonds.

Sienna Macaroons (Parve)

Plan ahead before you make these cookies, as they need to sit overnight (or 8-10 hours) before baking.

2 ¼ cups blanched almonds

¾ cup sugar, divided

2 egg whites

Pinch of salt

2 teaspoons lemon zest

½ teaspoon vanilla extract (or 1 packet vanilla sugar)

½ teaspoon almond extract (optional)

Powdered sugar

Put the almonds in the bowl of a food processor with 2 tablespoons of the sugar. Process until finely ground. Set aside.

With an electric mixer, beat the egg whites and salt until they are stiff and dry. Gradually beat in the remaining sugar.

Fold in the lemon zest, vanilla and almond extracts. Add the ground almonds and mix well. The mixture should be firm.

Put some powdered sugar in a shallow bowl. Coat your hands with the sugar and shape the dough into small diamonds (about 1 x 1 ½ inches; 2.5 x 4 cm). Use the powdered sugar to keep the dough from sticking to your hands.

Place the cookies on parchment-lined baking trays. Let them sit at room temperature overnight, or about 8 to 10 hours.

Preheat the oven to 250 F (120 C). Bake the cookies for 20-30 minutes, until they are slightly golden and cracked. Cool them completely on a baking rack. Dust them with powdered sugar before serving.

Makes about 36 cookies

Faux Florentine Cookies (Parve)

2 ¾ cups sliced almonds

1 cup powdered sugar

2 egg whites

Finely grated zest of one orange

Parve chocolate (optional)

Preheat the oven to 300 F (150 C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and spray the paper with non-stick baking spray.

In a medium size bowl, gently combine the almonds, sugar, egg whites and orange zest.

Drop scant tablespoons of the mixture on the baking sheets, leaving plenty of space between each one. Dip your fingers in water and flatten each cookie into a very thin disc. It should be as flat as possible, but still cohesive. Each cookie will be about 2 ½ inches (6 cm) wide.

Bake for about 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool completely before carefully removing each cookie with a spatula.

For chocolate coated cookies, gently melt the chocolate in a double boiler or microwave. Brush one side of each cooled cookie with the warm chocolate. Cool them on a rack, chocolate side up, until the chocolate hardens.

Store these cookies in an air-tight container.

Makes about 40 small cookies

Acupuncture Counters the Effects of Eating Too Much Matzah

This according to an email promotion I recently received.

I'm not against acupuncture. Our Tai Chi instructor is an accomplished practitioner of Chinese medicine and has had excellent results treating a variety of ailments with acupuncture. He's successfully stuck needles into me and my husband.

Would I ask him to help us deal with constipation and stomach discomfort brought on by eating too much matzah? Probably not. Because I'd try not to eat too much matzah in the first place.

Sure, there's the minimum requirement for the Seder. But that's just one night. (OK, two if you're not fortunate enough to live in Israel.) There's no mitzvah to eat matzah with every meal. Pesach meals don't all need to include matzah kugel, matzah brei, matzah pancakes, minas and matzah balls.

Just like I don't eat bread at every meal during the year, I don't eat matzah at every meal during Pesach. Who needs all those constipating carbohydrates?

My other strategy is to load up on high fiber vegetables and fruits – vegetables in salads, sides and main courses. Vegetables added to kugels, pancakes, minas and matzah brei. (Try matzah brei with asparagus and sautéed onions for a special treat.)

Instead of cookies, cakes and even more (chocolate-covered) matzah, serve fruit. Fresh, cooked or dried, fruit is great for breakfast, dessert and snacking.

Are you eating matzah in the form of matzah-meal laden baked goods? Switch to macaroons and tortes made with eggs and nuts. Nothing's wrong with a little dark chocolate for dessert either.

For those of you who are comfortable with "non-traditional" medicine, acupuncture can work wonders. But I'd save the needles for now and stick with preventative nutrition during Pesach.

Pesach Shopping

Pesach food is a little slow getting onto the grocery store shelves here. But every day there's something new.

Today I found cooking oils. Fortunately, there was a lot of olive oil – the healthiest choice. They also had canola oil, which some people consider kitniyot. Kosher l'Pesach avocado oil (delicious, healthy and expensive) is also available this year.

Then I saw something else – palm oil.

Years ago, highly saturated palm oil, palm kernel oil and coconut oil were used extensively in commercial baking. When health professionals and the public finally influenced a change, industry switched to hydrogenated oils, which turned out to be full of unhealthy trans fat.

Now that trans fat is out, manufacturers are back to using palm and coconut oil. It's true – they have 0% trans fat. But they are highly saturated and can raise blood cholesterol levels.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute warns that the "high content of saturated fat... in... palm kernel oil, palm oil, coconut oil, and cocoa butter" puts people at risk for heart attack or stroke. The World Health Organization states that there is "convincing evidence" that palmitic acid (found in palm oil) increases the risk of heart disease.

That's reason enough to skip palm oil this Pesach and choose heart-healthy olive, walnut or canola oil instead.

Is drinking soda bad for your bones?

If you drink a lot of soda at the expense of calcium-rich beverages, you certainly could be at risk for bone loss or weakness. The soda itself is not to blame. It's not the carbonation or the caffeine – it's filling up on one thing and not getting enough of another.

But there's something else in soda that may be harming your bones. It's a chemical in cola called phosphoric acid.

In a large study, women who drank three or more cola-based sodas a day had significantly lower bone mineral density than women who drank the same amount of non-cola soft drinks.

Phosphoric acid causes the blood to be more acidic. Calcium and magnesium in the blood help neutralize the acid. If there are not enough of these minerals in your blood, your body takes them from your bones.

There are plenty of other reasons to stop drinking soda. Their empty calories fill you up so you're not hungry for real food. And they have way more sugar than any of us need. Eliminate a daily can of soda from your diet for a whole year and you could lose up to 15 pounds!

What about artificially sweetened sodas? Phosphorus in cola is still an issue. And even though most sweeteners have undergone testing, I still advise against ingesting large quantities of them.

What's your best bet when you feel thirsty? Plain, unadulterated water.

How do you choose what foods to buy?

I wasn't surprised to find that most of my readers base their food purchases on healthfulness. But that's not true for a lot of others, especially Americans.

According to a 2009 Food and Health Survey, most Americans decide on food purchases based on taste. Price, healthfulness and convenience come afterwards.

The lesson for me is that nutrition education isn't enough. People need to learn how to shop with health and economy in mind. Then comes the art (and joy!) of learning to cook without spending all day in the kitchen.

If you're new to my blog, take a moment to browse through the recipes. Most are fairly easy and require a minimum of preparation time. You'll also notice that I don't use a lot of fancy ingredients. I'm a big fan of inexpensive proteins like beans and peas, and simplified meals like soup and muffins.

Share these recipes and ideas with your family and friends. They'll convince most people that food can have it all – taste, nutrition, economy and convenience.

Processed Food – How Depressing

I can't say that processed food – or the thought of it, gets me depressed It’s sad to see money wasted on sugar, salt and fat-laden foods. But it doesn't put me in a funk.

Then again, I'm not eating much of it.

The first study to look at dietary patterns and depression (British Journal of Psychiatry, November 2009) proved rather interesting. It was one small study based on recall. And a single study obviously has its limitations.

What was so interesting?

People in the study who ate a lot of processed foods were at higher risk for depression than people who ate a more nutritious whole-food based diet.

I always thought that people ate processed food because it tasted good. Shouldn't tasty food make you feel better?

Apparently not.

We're not at all sure why depression was more prevalent among those who ate more processed food. Maybe there's a connection between sugar intake and depression. Or heart disease and depression. Perhaps insulin resistance plays a role.

And how does a whole-food diet protect against depression? Folate (a vitamin found in many fruits, vegetables and legumes) may affect neurotransmitters involved in depression. Fish, a good source of polyunsaturated fats, may reduce depression.

The study's lead author doesn't think it’s just one nutrient. In his opinion, it's the cumulative and synergistic effect of lots of different nutrients.

It's too early to draw conclusions. But what's there to lose?