Some
believe our current epidemic of obesity and skyrocketing
health problems including diabetes, heart disease,
and cancer can be directly traced to the abundance
of high fructose corn syrup in our packaged foods.
It is a highly processed sweetener, one of the many
synthetic sweeteners available that fool the body
into secreting extra hormones and packing on the pounds.
Results
from an 8-year study of more than 1,500 people by
the University of Texas Health Science Center at San
Antonio, suggest that those who drank diet sodas gained
more weight than those who didn’t.
Organic,
unrefined, unbleached sugar from sugar cane is always
a more health-conscious choice over high fructose
corn syrup or other artificial sweeteners such as
saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame-k and sucralose.
Additional
healthy options to satisfy a sweet tooth might include
locally-collected honey, real maple syrup, nothing-added
fruit juices and brands of chocolate syrup that don’t
contain trans-fats or high fructose corn syrup.
Here’s
a tangy recipe that uses citrus and honey to be sweet
and healthy without resorting to synthetic ingredients
to cut calories.
Citrus-Ginger
Chicken with Root Vegetables
Servings
: 4
Ingredients
2 oranges
2 lemons
4 Tbsp. ginger, freshly grated or 1 tsp. dried
4 Tbsp. honey
4 pieces chicken, fresh or frozen
1 sweet potato, cut in 1/2 " chunks
1 parsnip, 1/4" slices
1 turnip, 1/4" slices
1 cup broccoli florets
Instructions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Spray inside of 3 1/2-
or 4-quart cast iron Dutch oven and lid with olive
oil or vegetable oil.
Wash
the orange and lemon carefully and grate the zest
from 1 of each into a small mixing bowl. Add the dry
or grated ginger to the bowl and the honey. Slice
the fruit in half and squeeze the juice from the scraped
lemon and orange into the bowl and stir well until
honey dissolves. Slice the remaining fruits into thin
rounds and arrange in the bottom of pot in alternating
order (orange, lemon, orange, lemon, etc.) to cover
in a single layer.
Arrange
chicken pieces on top of the citrus rounds and pour
1/2 of juice mixture over chicken, spreading to cover.
Layer with sweet potatoes, parsnips, and turnips and
cover with remainder of juice mixture, making sure
to include the chunks of zest and ginger. Top with
a final layer of broccoli florets.
Cover
and bake for about 53 minutes, or until 3 minutes
after the aroma of a fully-cooked meal wafts from
the oven.
Notes
This is a tangy dish with an unexpectedly sweet, zesty
flavor that is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. I enjoy
serving this to company and seeing their surprise
when they discover that they've been enjoying turnips
and parsnips—vegetables with undeserved negative
reputations.
I
prefer to leave the skins of potatoes, parsnips, and
turnips on and simply scrub them well and remove any
eyes or bad spots. Peeling is always optional in a
Glorious Pot Meal and vegetable skins add many vital
nutrients while aiding digestion. Once you peel a
vegetable it is no longer a “whole food.”
On the other hand, I can live without chicken skin.
Nutritional
Analysis per Serving
Cal
320
Prot 31g
Carb 51g
Fat 3.9g
Chol 75mg
Sod 96mg
Fiber 8g
About
the Author:
Elizabeth Yarnell is a Certified Nutritional Consultant,
inventor, and author of Glorious
One-Pot Meals:
A new quick & healthy approach to Dutch oven cooking.
Surprisingly, Elizabeth didn’t
discover parsnips or turnips until she was in her
30s. Visit her online to subscribe to her free newsletter
at www.GloriousOnePotMeals.com.
Her unique cooking technique holds US patent 6,846,504.
|
