Tag: healthy

Moroccan style Lamb Shanks with Pumpkin

Today I’m sharing a slow cooker recipe using lamb shanks.
After my last post on slow cooking, I have had a request for an easy, healthy recipe.
So I thought I would share this one for Moroccan style Lamb Shanks with Mashed Pumpkin.

I found this recipe in a Coles magazine and it is really tasty. I made very few changes to it.

Usually I adapt it to feed 2 and that is how I will share it today.

Moroccan Style Lamb Shanks with Mashed Pumpkin

Serves 2 – Cooking time is 8 hours

Ingredients

2 Lamb Shanks
1 400g tin diced tomatoes
½ red onion – sliced
2 garlic cloves – crushed
1 red chilli – sliced or whole (we left the chilli whole and removed it on serving)
2 bay leaves
1 tbs cumin seeds (or ground)
1 tbs coriander seeds (or ground)
juice & zest of 1 lemon

approx. 400g pumpkin – peeled and diced
1 tbs butter
Mint & parsley leaves – chopped to serve

Method

* If you have a large enough pan, you may choose to brown the shanks first, which we didn’t.

Brown the onion in a fry pan, and then add it to the slow cooker.
Place the cumin & coriander seeds in a mortar & pestle and break down into a powder.
Add to the slow cooker, along with the garlic, chilli, lemon, bay leaves and tomatoes.

Stir to combine, and then add the lamb shanks, ensuring to spoon some of the tomato mixture over them.
Cover and cook on low or auto (depending on your cooker) till the meat is starting to fall off the bone.
If the tomato sauce is too thin, leave the lid off your cooker and turn it up to high for approx. 30 minutes till it thickens.

Bake or steam the pumpkin till soft.
Mash well, mixing in butter and season with salt & pepper to taste.

Place the pumpkin mash into bowls and top with lamb mixture.
Sprinkle a mix of chopped parsley and mint to serve.

I hope you enjoy eating this tasty, healthy meal perfect for a cold evening.

Till the next post,

Live clean n Prosper

Slow Cooker Cooking – A Healthy Option

Todays post is about slow cooker cooking.

One of the things I love about this time of year is that with the cooler weather, we use our slow cooker more often. There are several advantages with using a slow cooker. 

One being that you can make lovely dishes with cheaper cuts of meat. It is also a healthy way to cook.
Though the cheaper cuts tend to be a little bit tough, the moist cooking method and longer cooking time result in fork tender meat. These cuts are also usually lower in fat. This helps to lower the fat content as well as the calorie content of the meal.

What about nutrition?

With all cooking techniques, there may be some breakdown in nutrients. Though there are a few nutrients, such as lycopene, which turn out to be more easily absorbed after cooking.
The advantage of slow cooking over other methods is that the food is cooked at a relatively low heat for a longer period of time. Cooking “slow and low” in a sealed chamber helps to keep the moisture and the nutrients in your food. 

It also helps to prevent the formation of cancer-causing compounds – such as lipid oxidation products (LOPs) and heterocyclic amines (HCAs). These dangerous compounds form when most types of meat and some fats are cooked at high temperature.

Unlike boiling or steaming, the dish still contains the nutrients. These are usually in the juices which are served as part of the meal. However, the nutrient content of the dish will always depend on the ingredients you use.

What about the bones?

There has been a lot of health revelations in regards to ‘bone broth’ recently and how good it is for us. Well, using your slow cooker to cook lamb shanks or osso bucco and other ‘bone in ‘ cuts, means you are getting the benefits of a bone broth.

Animal bones are rich in calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus and other trace minerals. These are the same minerals needed to build and strengthen our bones. The marrow provides vitamin A, vitamin K2, minerals like zinc, iron, boron, manganese and selenium, as well as omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

In some cuts you may get some connective tissue, which provides glucosamine and chondroitin. These compounds are known to support joint health. All of these animal parts also contain the protein collagen, which turns into gelatine when cooked. This then creates several important amino acids.

As the ingredients simmer away, their nutrients are released into the water in a form your body can easily absorb.


It’s so easy.

The best thing about slow cooker cooking is how easy it is. You put all the ingredients into the pot, turn it on and go to work. When you get home your dinner is ready and waiting. It takes minimal effort to create a nutritious, tasty meal.

So, next time you are thinking about what to cook on a cold evening, think slow cooker.

Till the next post,

Live clean n prosper

(Sources – Huffington Post, bbc Good food, Healing gourmet, Healthline)

Bananas – should we eat the skin?

Todays post is about bananas and whether we should eat their skin as well.

There have been a lot of social media posts regarding this topic recently. It seems to have started with an Australian dietitian – Susie Burrell, who says we should be eating bananas skin and all.

Susie Burrell has stated that eating the peel is an easy way to boost your diet with extra dietary fibre, vitamin B6, vitamin C and magnesium. She recommends blending or baking them to break down the cell walls to make the nutrients easier to absorb – for example, in smoothies, cakes and curries.

The Pro’s and Con’s

The idea of eating the banana and the skins may seem like a good way to increase your nutrient intake.

As ripe yellow skins are rich in antioxidants that can help fight cancer, and green skins contain the amino acid tryptophan, which promotes better sleep. The skins also contain resistant start, a type of fibre that benefits gut health.

However, as vitamins C and B6 are destroyed by heat, using the skins in baking or curries to consume these nutrients doesn’t seem viable. Using them in smoothies makes more sense.

The other factor to consider is chemical absorption. The popular Cavendish variety of bananas are bred using cuttings, not seeds. That means there is no genetic diversity among the plants, and therefore they have weak immunity. As a result, it’s one of the most heavily sprayed crops. The peel, or skins, of the banana absorb some of these pesticides.

Peeled bananas are still healthy

Bananas are a great source of potassium, an essential mineral for maintaining normal blood pressure and heart function. One medium-sized banana can contain approximately 400mg of potassium.

A medium-size banana also contains about 3 grams of total fibre. Fibre is a nutrient that helps regulate the speed of digestion. When our digestion is well regulated, the conversion of carbohydrates to simple sugars and the subsequent release of simple sugars into the body is also regulated.

Approximately one-third of the fibre in bananas is actually a water-soluble fibre. Soluble fibres in food have been associated with a decreased risk of heart disease.
Within their total fibre content, bananas also contain pectin’s. Some of the components in pectin’s are water-soluble, and others are not. As bananas ripen, their water-soluble pectin’s increase, and as a result bananas become softer in texture as they ripen.

As the water-soluble pectin’s increase, so does the concentration of fructose. The mixture of the water-soluble pectin’s and fructose content helps control how fast the body digests the carbohydrates which then reduces the impact of the consumed banana on our blood glucose level.

They are low fat – 

Bananas are a very low-fat food with less than 4% of their calories being from fats. One types of fat that they do contain in small amounts are called sterols. The sterols can assist to block the absorption of dietary cholesterol. By blocking the absorption, they help keep blood cholesterol levels in check.

Therefore the takeaway from all of this,

Including bananas in your daily meal plan may help to prevent high blood pressure, improve digestion and lower cholesterol and blood glucose levels. I have previously shared some recipes using bananas that you may wish to try – Smoothies, Breakfast drinks & Seeded Banana Bread.


If you do decide to consume your bananas with the skin, make sure you choose certified organic product, and wash them well to avoid any possible pesticide residues.
I hope you found this post interesting.

Till the next one,

Live clean n prosper.

Sources – healthline.com, lifeStyle.com.au, whfoods.org