Healthy Life Kitchen by Marilu Henner, Lorin Henner, Lorin Henner (With)

From the Publisher

If you're like most people, 70 percent of what's in your kitchen right now is unhealthy and has to go. Now the good news...there are healthy and tasty alternatives to everything in your refrigerator and pantry, and the transition is easier than you think.

When it comes to food, most of us go through a constant tug-of-war between the foods we love and the foods we feel we should be eating. But what if we didn't have to give up our favorite foods? What if we could take recipes from our childhood or our favorite cookbooks and find healthier ways to enjoy them?

Marilu Henner's Healthy Life Kitchen shows you a new way, a better way, to create a "health factory" in your home. Out go the red meat, dairy, and refined sugar products, and in come the freshest fruits, vegetables, grains, soy, seafood, poultry, and seasonings imaginable-and, in a few easy steps, you've created a Healthy Life you!

After inspiring legions of readers with Marilu Henner's Total Health Makeover and The 30-Day Total Health Makeover, Marilu presents the first cookbook in her bestselling series, introducing tantalizing dishes that fit perfectly into her life-changing health plan. Marilu has collected her best-loved recipes of the last twenty years and mixed in her distinctive warmth and humor. With pioneering health advice, helpful kitchen tips, and plenty of gusto, she serves up a magical array of hearty meals for your nourishment and pleasure.

Only Healthy Life Kitchen features:

• 175 delicious recipes, such as Blueberry Crunch Muffins, Savory Squash Soup, Thai Shrimp and Asparagus Salad, Upside-Down Garlic Chicken, Sierra Stew, Miso-Glazed Sea Bass, Coconut Sorbet, and Killer Brownies.
• A virtual tour of a health food store to help you select the healthiest brands and products.
• Secrets for steaming, boiling, poaching, grilling, roasting, baking.
• Easy-to-use conversion tables for modifying your favorite foods and recipes to achieve maximum health benefits.
• Helpful suggestions on what to cook for kids.
• Extensive lists of the harmful chemicals and preservatives in your food and under your sink, and the healthy alternatives to these kitchen hazards.
• 14 easy-to-make entrees using soy, America's fastest-growing food product, including EZ Sloppy Joes, Tofu Tacos, Hunter's Tofu, and Santa Fe Wrap.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Forewords & Introductions
• Read an Excerpt
• View a Recipe

Table of Contents

Forewords & Introductions

The enormously popular actress, author, and guru Marilu Henner is back again. This time she offers her advice on giving your kitchen and eating habits a total makeover in Healthy Life Kitchen -- the cookbook for everyone who loves food but doesn't want to sacrifice taste or satisfaction in order to eat well. Naturally, she advocates a diet of fruits, vegetables, grains, soy, seafood, and poultry while opposing red meat, dairy, and refined sugar products in a diet. A first response from some may be, "Feh!" But these recipes are inventive and easy and will have you smacking your lips and declaring, "Yum!"

Read an Excerpt

Serves 4 to 6

Bryony and Inara

Marilu: This Asian-influenced Tex-Mex flavor actually happened by accident during one of those "I'm in the mood for this flavor kind" of moments.

Tasters' comments: "Wonderful combo of the sweetness in scallions and cilantro." "Fun to eat"

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon chili pepper
1 teaspoon ginger, fresh or dried
1 pound fresh rock shrimp, shelled and cleaned
1 cup chopped red onionsSalt and pepper to taste
One 10-ounce can black beans
1 cup chopped scallions
1 cup chopped cilantro
1 head butter lettuce, cleaned and separated

Instructions

Heat I tablespoon of olive oil with chili pepper and ginger over low heat. Add shrimp to mixture and turn heat to medium-low. Saute until shrimp turn pink, about 8 minutes. Set aside. In a separate skillet, saute red onions in I tablespoon olive oil over medium-low heat for 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add one-third of the black beans, saute, and mash the beans. Add remaining beans, saute, leaving those beans whole.

Add shrimp mixture, scallions, and cilantro. Saute for 2 additional minutes.

Serve wrapped in butter lettuce or in a bowl so each individual can wrap his or her own.

Bow-Tie Pasta with Salmon and White Beans

Serves 6 to 8

MaryAnn Hennings

Marilu: This is one of the team's favorites.

Tasters' comments: "This has a great combo of flavors." The dill with the salmon mixes so well." "Sooogood."

Ingredients

1 pound farfalle (bow-tie pasta)
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
6 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons soy sour cream
1 pound smoked salmon, cut in strips
One 15-ounce can white beans
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/3 cup chopped fresh dill
2 to 4 tablespoons capers
1 small red onion, chopped
Coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 cup soy Parmesan

Instructions

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add pasta and cook until tender. Drain immediately. Transfer pasta to a large mixing bowl.

While the pasta is cooking, make the dressing. Place garlic in a blender or in a food processor fitted with a steel blade; pulse until chunky. Add mustard, vinegar, and lemon juice, and process until combined. Gradually add olive oil and soy sour cream.

Pour dressing over pasta. Add salmon, beans, parsley, dill, capers, and red onion. Mix together.

Add pepper to taste. Top with soy Parmesean.

View a Recipe

Olive's Tuna Tartare
Serves 8

Marilu: While performing in Vegas last summer, I fell in love with Olive's Restaurant at the Bellagio Hotel. Here's my favorite dish. I've been known to order two of these in one sitting—one for an appetizer and one for dinner. Yes, it's that good.

1 1/2 pounds very fresh bluefin or yellowfin tuna, diced into pieces the size of a raisin
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil leaves
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro leaves
1 tablespoon finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
Greens from 1 bunch scallions, finely chopped
1/2 to 1 teaspoon Vietnamese chili paste
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 to 2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon roasted sesame oil

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl. Cover and chill for no longer than 1 hour before serving. Serve on fresh sliced cucumbers if food-combining, or on toast points if including a bean dish with your meal.

Note: If you cannot find Vietnamese chili paste, you can substitute Chinese or Thai chili paste, which you should be able to find in any well-stocked grocery store. Because different brands vary in degrees of hotness, you should add a small amount at a time and taste after each addition.

Cilantro Corn Chowder
Serves 8

Marilu: This fresh and healthy-tasting chowder really has a hearty flavor without being too filling.

Tasters' Comments: "You really can taste the flavors." "Excellent."

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 cups red onion, chopped
1 cup diced carrot
1 1/2 cups diced yellow bell pepper
1 1/2 cups diced red bell pepper
4 cups potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 tablespoons vegetable soup concentrate
3 cups frozen or fresh corn kernels
3 tablespoons fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons chopped chives
Salt and pepper to taste
1 avocado, sliced (optional)

Put olive oil in a large soup pot. Add onion, carrot, and bell peppers and sauté until the vegetables soften, 4 to 6 minutes. Add potatoes and mix well into the vegetable mixture. Sauté an additional 7 to 8 minutes. Add 7 1/2 cups water and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat for 15 minutes.

Remove 1/2 cup of broth and dissolve soup concentrate into it. Add this to the soup and mix well. Cook soup an additional 3 minutes, stirring continuously. Remove 1/3 of the soup with lots of vegetables in it and set aside. Blend remaining 2/3 of the soup until smooth in a blender or food processor. Stir in reserved soup, corn, cilantro, and chives. (If you want to thicken the soup up just a bit more, blend a few more of the whole vegetables from soup with 1 cup of corn.)

Bring soup to a low boil, stirring frequently, and simmer for 10 minutes on low heat, continuing to stir so that soup doesn't stick to bottom. Season to taste.

Serve with sliced avocado on top if desired.

Shrimp and Chanterelle Salad
Serves 4

Marilu: This great summer starter salad has a lightness to it. The shrimp and chanterelles work well together. They actually enhance each other's natural flavor.

Tasters' Comments: "Elegant and delicious."

2 tablespoons salt
12 ounces large shrimp, peeled and deveined
8 ounces chanterelle mushrooms, cleaned and cut into bite-size pieces
Freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 plum tomatoes, cut into wedges

In a large saucepan, bring to a boil 1 quart of water and the salt. Add shrimp and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Remove them when they are almost fully cooked and let cool. Put the saucepan of water aside.

Season mushrooms with salt and pepper. Place olive oil in a skillet and heat on high, letting the oil get very hot. Carefully add mushrooms and sauté until soft (about 5 minutes). Remove them and let cool.

Season tomatoes with salt and pepper. In a bowl, put 2 teaspoons of water from the pot the shrimp was cooked in and a teaspoon of oil from the mushrooms and toss together with the shrimp, mushrooms, and tomatoes. Serve in small individual bowls or on plates.

Spicy Cold Soba Noodles
Serves 6

Marilu: This is my favorite dish from the large, great City restaurant, whose cookbook (thank goodness) can still be found. I love this dish so much, I wanted to photograph it. There is a Zen quality that just makes me feel like I'm doing something great for my body.

Tasters' Comments: "Fantastic." "A++" "This is one of my three desert island choices."

1/3 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon molasses
1/4 cup sesame oil
1/4 cup tahini
1 tablespoon barley malt
1/4 chili oil
3 tablespoons balsamic or red wine vinegar
1/2 bunch scallions, white and green parts, thinly slices
Salt to taste
1/2 pound soba noodles (Japanese buckwheat noodles)

Place soy sauce in a pan over high heat and reduce by half. Turn heat to low, stir in molasses, and warm briefly. Transfer to a mixing bowl. Add sesame oil, tahini, barley malt, chili oil, vinegar, and scallions, and whisk to combine. Season to taste with salt, if desired.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rapid boil. Add noodles, bring back to a boil, and cook, stirring occasionally, until they just begin to soften, about 3 minutes. (Soba noodles can overcook very quickly, so stay nearby.)

Have ready a large bowl of ice water. Drain noodles, plunge in ice water, and drain again. Place in a colander and rinse well under cold running water. Combine noodles and sauce, toss well, and chill.

Sesame Sweeties

Marilu: "Mmmmm, good."

Tasters' Comments: "This not too sweet confection has a great flavor." "A sesame and coconut lover's dream."

1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/3 cup honey
2 tablespoons raw sunflower seeds
2 tablespoons tahini or sesame butter
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Grind sesame seeds into powder in a food processor, grinder, or blender. In a mixing bowl, combine ground seeds with all other ingredients except coconut until they form a stiff and slightly crumbly dough. Press into 12 balls and roll in coconut. Chill for 1/2 hour.

_{Recipes from Healthy Life Kitchen by Marilu Henner with Lorin Henner. Copyright © 2000 by Marilu Henner.}