Just wing it
JOPLIN, Mo. '
Even when you're cooking with health in mind, there's no reason that you can't get a little creative now and then.
That was one of the messages imparted during a recent meeting of Freeman Health System's Cooking for the Health of It class, when registered dietitian Britney Horine realized that she was missing an essential ingredient for that evening's featured dish ' honeyed orange-almond chicken.
'I don't have any orange marmalade, but I do have some sweet and sour sauce,' she told those gathered for the class. 'So we're just going to wing it tonight.'
Horine may have been winging it with the now honeyed sweet-and-sour-almond chicken, but the healthy cooking class the hospital offers allows participants to get plenty of information they can use in the kitchen.
During the recent class, Horine and those in attendance touched on several topics as she demonstrated how to make the recipe.
Open or closed? That was the question raised when it came time to broil the chicken during preparation of the evening's recipe. 'Does everyone here leave the door open?' Horine asked. As that was the general consensus, the oven door remained open a crack.
If it's a food that you tend to eat a lot of, always check the label for the correct serving size and take a look at the nutritional content.
It pays to carefully read the ingredient list. 'The list is printed in descending order,' Horine said. 'If something is the second or third item listed, you know it has a pretty significant amount.'
Fat happens, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. 'People tend to see fat on the nutritional label and cringe,' she said. 'But we need to have about 30 percent of our diet coming from fats.'
There are good fats and bad fats, but the 'too much of a good thing' rule applies to even the good fats. Horine cautioned that, good or bad, fat is high in calories.
Kraft Foods has a Web site (www.kraftfoods.com) that offers a variety of healthy recipe suggestions, such as the honeyed orange-almond chicken Horine selected for the class. 'You can actually search for low-fat recipes, or ones high in vitamins,' she said.
In the end ' as the chicken came out of the oven and portions were passed around and sampled ' there was a final lesson to be learned: Winging it isn't such a bad thing. The sweet and sour sauce helped create a dish that was flavorful but still low in calories and fat.
Scott Meeker writes for The Joplin (Mo.) Globe.
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