Just yesterday I did a great tele-call with my friend Craig Ballantyne, author of Turbulence Training. He is going to be sharing this call with his own readers and clients, but he asked me such an awesome question yesterday, I had to share the answer with you.

“Isabel, how can someone take any recipe out of a regular cookbook and make it Diet Solution friendly?”

I thought this was an awesome question because it is something I do on a regular basis and is how I am able to keep all of my meal plans new, interesting and most importantly….delicious!

Here are my step by step, do-it-yourself, DSP recipe creator rules (ok, that’s a mouthful but you know what I mean):

First, I search the internet or one of my many cookbooks for exactly what I want to make. We’re going to use shepherd’s pie as our example. When I Google shepherd’s pie, I click on the first link that comes up and here is what came up (I have inserted all of my substitutions in italics):

Easy Shepherd’s Pie Recipe (taken from simplyrecipes.com)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs ground round beef (I might use buffalo or even turkey for a little leaner option depending on your metabolic type)
• 1 onion chopped
• 1-2 cups vegetables – chopped carrots, corn, peas
• 1 1/2 – 2 lbs potatoes (3 big ones) (I would use cauliflower instead or do ½ potato, ½ cauliflower)
• 8 tablespoons butter (1 stick)
• 1/2 cup beef broth (use low sodium)
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• Salt, pepper, other seasonings of choice (use unrefined sea salt)

Method

1. Peel and quarter potatoes, boil in salted water until tender (about 20 minutes). (Steam cauliflower so you can mash it or put it in the blender so they resemble mashed potatoes.)

2. While the potatoes are cooking (or cauliflower), melt 4 Tablespoons butter (1/2 a stick) in large frying pan.

3. Sauté onions in butter until tender over medium heat (10 mins). If you are adding vegetables, add them according to cooking time. Put any carrots in with the onions. Add corn or peas either at the end of the cooking of the onions, or after the meat has initially cooked.

4. Add ground beef (or buffalo or turkey) and sauté until no longer pink. Add salt and pepper. Add worcesterchire sauce. Add half a cup of beef broth and cook, uncovered, over low heat for 10 minutes, adding more beef broth as necessary to keep moist.

5. Mash potatoes (or put cauliflower in the blender until they resemble mash potatoes) in bowl with remainder of butter, season to taste.

6. Place beef and onions in baking dish. Distribute mashed potatoes (or cauliflower) on top. Rough up with a fork so that there are peaks that will brown nicely. You can use the fork to make some designs in the potatoes as well.

7. Cook in 400 degree oven until bubbling and brown (about 30 minutes). Broil for last few minutes if necessary to brown. (Watch this carefully, as your cooking time will be less because you are using cauliflower)

Yummy! Is anyone ready for dinner?

Just as a side note, there is nothing wrong with having white potatoes if your metabolic type can handle it, but I find with sheperd’s pie you end up eating too much potato, well beyond what one serving should be and there are many people who cannot eat white potatoes because it effects their blood sugar too much (me being one of them).

The recipe above was an easy one (but I just love it and wanted to share it.)

Let me give you some possible substitutions to many other recipes.

1. When a recipe calls for vegetable oil such as canola oil, which we know we should be avoiding, replace it with coconut oil or butter. This can be done in 90% of most recipes. If you can’t use either of those, use olive oil and cook on low heat (below 350F). If the recipe is for a cake or other baked goods, you can use the same amount of unsweetened applesauce instead of the oil.

2. When a recipe calls for bread crumbs, I either make my own from sprouted grain bread or I purchase gluten free bread crumbs that are made from rice. You can make your own breadcrumbs by drying bread in the oven at 250F for 15 minutes and then putting it in your food processor or blender. Add Italian spices like oregano, parsley and basil to make Italian bread crumbs.

3. If a recipe calls for pasta, many times you can replace it with spaghetti squash.

4. If a recipe calls for sugar, you can use a Stevia blend instead. 1 cup of Stevia Blend (from http://www.stevivasweetener.com) is equal to 2 cups of sugar.

5. Replace all the ingredients listed with organic ingredients instead. Ok, ok, you don’t have to replace all of them, but I just had to throw that in there…hehe.
I highly recommend you give this a try yourself and look for one of your most favorite dishes and see what you can do to serve it “DSP Style”.

Happy Cooking!

  

I think it’s so funny that many people associate healthy eating with torture.

Last summer I was at my father’s company barbecue. As he introduced me to his fellow co-workers, I must have heard at least a million times “Oh, you’re the nutritionist? Well, I want to enjoy my life so I just eat whatever I want.” By the time I got to the third person that made this statement, I just figured I should start telling people I was the inventor of the Hostess cupcake and maybe they would like me better.

I do think if you eat bland, boring and tasteless food every day, yes, that can be torture. Just as feeding someone unhealthy fast food could be considered a form of torture in itself (or slow murder, however you want to define it).

That’s why I always keep the new recipes coming. Many times I have to tweak the recipes I find a bit to fit into The Diet Solution Principles but every once in a while I find a few that are perfect.

That is the case with the 2 recipes below. My colleague and fellow nutritionist, Antonio Valladeres has put together what I think is the best Recipe book to accompany the Diet Solution Principles and he was kind enough to share these recipes with us.

Actually, I don’t do his book justice by calling it just a “Recipe” book. It is so much more than that. Not only will you learn great new and delicious ways to make your healthy food, you’ll also learn exactly how to set up your kitchen with the right utensils and cookware, exactly how to avoid nasty chemicals from certain pots and pans, alternatives to grains, the healthiest oils to use and so much more! Antonio’s got my full “seal of approval” on this book.

You can check out this amazing food guide for yourself here:
http://healthyurbaneating.com

Here are 2 great recipes you can try right away:

Lemon Pepper Chicken with Turkey Sausage
4 legs of organic chicken
2 large Italian turkey sausage
1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper
1 tablespoon of garlic salt
Sea salt, black pepper to taste
2 lemons squeezed and two slices for garnish

Pre-heat oven to 350° Fahrenheit. Mix seasoning in a bowl. Place chicken, turkey, and sausage on a flat roasting sheet or pan. Sprinkle with half of seasoning. Cook 15 minutes. Remove and sprinkle with remaining seasoning. Continue basting and turning for 15 minutes and cook through. Turn once more then pour lemon juice over the legs and the sausage. Garnish with lemon slices.

from http://healthyurbaneating.com

Carob Chip Cookies
1/3 cup of walnut oil
1/2 cup of pure maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 organic egg
¾ cup of brown rice flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup of carob chips unsweetened
Dash of all-spice optional

Grease two baking sheets and preheat oven to 375° F. In a medium size bowl, combine the oil, maple syrup, and vanilla. Beat the egg and stir into the oil mixture. Gradually stir in flour and baking soda to form a stiff batter. Fold in carob chips and drop the batter into the baking sheets by teaspoons. Bake for 10-15 minutes until cookies are lightly brown. Remove from the oven and cool. Serve with almond or rice milk.

from http://healthyurbaneating.com

Happy Cooking!

  

I’ll admit, I’m a pretty good cook and people love when I invite
them over for dinner. Not only are my meals super tasty and super
healthy (Did you expect anything less?), but you would not have any
trouble making them for you and your family.

On Sunday night I made such a delicious dinner, I had to share it
with you. I will admit, it was a bit more weekend appropriate as
the actual prep time was about 20 minutes total, but the chicken
took 1.5 hours in the oven.

Anytime I consider making any meal or trying a new recipe it has to
pass the Isabel test:

1. Follow and adhere to all Diet Solution Principles

2. Easy and quick to prepare (no I don’t have hours to spend in the
kitchen)

3. Easily accessible ingredients (I don’t want to play scavenger
hunt in the supermarket just for some random ingredient)

Sunday’s dinner definitely passed the above test and it also passed
the most important test of all: TASTE!

Here are the recipes with references to each ingredient in the Diet
Solution Manual.

Isabel’s Secret Baked Chicken (and now it’s no longer a secret)

Ingredients:

· 1-2 Tbsp unrefined, organic coconut oil (Why? – Details found in
Chapter 8. Can be purchased at www.nutiva.net)

· 1 tsp organic minced garlic (I buy this already minced)

· 1 tsp Celtic sea salt (Why? – Details found in Chapter 12. Can be
purchased at www.celticseas.com)

· 1 whole lemon

· 1 whole red onion

· 3-4 lb whole chicken (I buy all my meat and poultry from
www.grasslandmeats.com)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

I mixed the coconut oil, garlic and sea salt in a bowl. I rinsed
the whole chicken and transferred it to an oven safe pan. I then
coated the chicken with the coconut oil mixture (I put the mixture
on my hands and rubbed the mixture under all of the chicken skin.
Yes, I got down and dirty with it). I then cut the whole lemon into
4 parts (after I washed my hands of course). I put all 4 pieces of
lemon under the chicken skin, spread apart around the chicken. I
then cut the red onion in 4 parts and put that in the chicken
cavity. This whole process took me less than 10 minutes. I put the
chicken in the oven at 375 degrees and it was delicious in 1.5
hours.

Now it was a Sunday and I was home but I had a million things to
get done around the house, so I didn’t have much time to prepare
dinner but I was going to be around for the hour and a half cook
time.

After I took the chicken out of the oven, I prepared some homemade
guacamole and chopped up some fresh veggies to have with it.

Isabel’s Homemade Guacamole (this never was a secret recipe)

· 2 Avocados

· ½ tomato chopped

· ¼ onion, chopped (you may want to use less. I had onion breath
the rest of the night. Even my dogs didn’t want to talk to me)

· Chopped cilantro (I’m not sure how much went in there, but it was
loaded)

· Celtic Sea Salt

I mixed all the ingredients together. While I was chopping the
contents of the guacamole I sliced up some cucumbers and tomatoes
and got out a bag of baby carrots. This is what I used for the
guacamole instead of chips.

Now, if you really want to use chips, I suggest making some spelt
chips yourself.

Cut 1-2 spelt tortillas into 4-6 pieces. Cook these in coconut oil
until crisp. I don’t suggest you have these too often, as many
people will lose weight faster without too many grains.

There was my dinner: Baked Chicken, cut veggies and guacamole. You
may even want to add in some lettuce and use the veggies and
guacamole as a salad.

Oh, and I won’t forget to mention the small piece of organic dark
chocolate I had after dinner. One small piece really hit the spot.

In health and happiness,

Isabel De Los Rios
www.TheDietSolutionProgram.com

P.S. – Just in case you need to convert the units of measurements
above, use our free online conversion calculator at
www.thedietsolutionprogram.com/freestuff.aspx

P.P.S. – There are many more delicious recipes like these included
in The Diet Solution Program Manual. They have all been Isabel
tested and approved. If you haven’t already, download your copy of
The Diet Solution Program at www.TheDietSolutionProgram.com