Healthy Food Post

I've been cooking for mom what I call "heart attack recovery" food.  No sea salt, butter, and now gradually adding olive oil back into the mix.  Normally, the above "foods" are healthy, but for heart attack patients, no no's, so I've had to learn to cook differently.  Fresh lemon juice takes the place of sea salt and makes food have the "illusion" of being salty.  Lots of green leafy vegetables(spinach and kale), avocados(good fat), berries(very good for the heart), steel cut oatmeal with raisins and flaxseed(it's important to keep elimination regular), lentils and English peas (good for the heart), fish(fish oils VERY good for the heart), bananas(loaded in potassium), etc are pretty much heart attack recovery food.  Not too bad.  Her plates are looking pretty much the same, with a slight variety every day.  :-)!

In trying to stay heart healthy, I picked some fresh mint from mom's herb garden and decided to use my dehydrator.  It's been in a box for about a year.  I picked and dehydrated spearmint leaves.

Once denhydrated, crushed the dried spearmint leaves.

Then, added them to empty loose leaf tea bags that I keep on hand to make my own teas, or use loose leaf teas I buy.

Voila!....Mom has homemade spearmint tea picked from her own herb garden. 

Next project.......dried fresh sage and fresh basil that I had bought from the store for preservation.

voila!  Just like the store bought rosemary and sage and tastes so much better!  I don't know why I haven't used my dehydrator much more before, but in taking care of my mom, it's coming in quite handy.

Made homemade brown rice milk for a smoothie.  Heart Attack patients cannot have any dairy products, and I noticed that store bought rice and almond milk even from the health food stores have unnatural ingredients in them.  I mean, there should be two ingredients in rice or almond milk.....water and almonds, or water and brown rice.  :-)  Anyway, made my own.  The recipe for this can be found in my cookbook on sale at Amazon called "The Cookbook of Culinary Elegance."  

BELOW:  The following pics are the ingredients I put in the smoothie really for my own future reference since I've never made a "heart healthy" packed smoothie before.

bananas and blueberries

dates(used as the natural sweetener) and fresh mint leaves

avocado and mango

kale and spinach and organic flaxseeds

power packed healthy smoothie