Quote:
Originally Posted by nycfem
Question for all:
What do you like to add to your food to increase the nutritional value?
On a daily basis I add nutritional yeast to a lot of things as well as ground flax seed. Those are my two main stapes but I'd like to add more.
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I like to cook up an batch of Quinoa, or Pearled Barley, and keep it in the fridge, to use over several days. Sometimes I sprinkle two tablespoons of Quinoa or Pearled Barley over my Romaine salad, to boost the protein content.
I also use walnuts, roasted organic soy nuts, pine nuts, and all kinds of seeds -- like Chia seeds, Sesame seeds, Flax seeds, or cashews or peanuts.
I make my own salad dressings too, which the prime base of any dressing I make is made with organic tofu. This way, my salad dressing is protein rich too and it is filling. Too, I also use Flax seed powder as an binding agent, which also helps curb my appetite.
I love to sautee Tempeh. I break up an bar of Tempeh and sautee it in EVOO and sprinkle a bit of turmeric powder spice on it, which is an warm flavoring agent, as well as tasty.
Oh, back to Pearled Barley. This whole grain, on it's own, is basically not too flavorful. I sometimes take half of an batch of cooked Pearled Barley and make an summer salad out of it. Here's how I do that:
Save back half of an freshly cooked batch of Pearled Barley and set aside in an fairly large serving bowl. Add about an 1/2 cup of EVOO to the Pearled Barley. Set aside, while you prep other items which go into this Pearled Barley salad. 1) slice up an cup of black olives (or buy them pre-sliced, use one small 4 oz can). 2) cut up an bouquet of fresh Basil leaves. 3) Dice up an small Red sweet onion (about 1 cup). 4) slice up some sunburst, orange colored cherry type tomatoes (they're sweet and low acid content). 5) chop up about an cup of walnuts, finely. Take all the side ingredients and fold it into the EVOO'd Pearled Barley and stir well. Lastly, use a bit of sea salt, about 1/2 teaspoon of Cardamom, a pinch of Nutmeg, a pinch of Cinnamon, and about an teaspoon of Tumeric powder. Re-fold the Pearled Barley salad again, to make sure all the seasoning's are blended well, into the salad. I sometimes add a few roasted cloves of garlic, but not everyone likes garlic. I think it adds toward to flavor of the whole salad. So people can use roasted cloves of garlic or not, according to how their taste preferences. Also, you can used roasted Edamae too, as part of this summer salad. Avocado would compliment well, too.
Refrigerate for about three hours (or so), before you serve this salad.
I like it warm (from being freshly made) or chilled. It's got an Mediterranean flavor of it's own and is very filling and tasty. It's high in protein too.
Here's what it looks like, in case some of you have not used Pearled Barley for an summer-type alternative salad idea.
Enjoy!
