Pasta for Italians only!

Happy Monday great foodie friends!

It has been far too long since my last blog post!

This dish is a classic and tasty flavor pow for all who like a little kick of spice.

This dish is one that I have loved for years from a favorite restaurant of mine. Quattro’s or Gusto Di Quattro now.

The dish is known as Spaghetti for Italians only. I used fresh linguine but either Will work.

What you need:

1/2 cup of good olive oil

1 lb Ground Chicken (I like dark meat- so much more flavor!)

2 minced garlic cloves

2 tsp of chili peppers

Salt to taste

4 oz Black beans or black turtle beans

1 tsp of Italian parsley funky chopped

1 cup of tomato sauce – ours was chicken based.

Parmigiano cheese to serve with

What you will do:

Heat up the oil on medium high heat & then add the chicken and start to brown.

At the same time heat up your pasta water and make sure to salt the water! The fresh pasta cools quickly, approx 6-8 mins.

Add in the salt, garlic, parsley and chili flakes and stir to incorporate

Then add in the tomato sauce & stir. Cook for another 5 mins on medium low to blend all the flavors.

Now top with your fresh grated parmigiano cheese (to love cheese is to love life for me!)

This pasta is also great to make your own- you can adjust your spice level or garlic to your liking.

You gotta try this!

Cook with your Kids & Family- eat real food

Happy Monday great foodie friends.

The more I see what people consider food (especially the young and young families) the more I realize that we as a society need to get back to the basics. 

Don’t get me wrong, fast food every once in a while should be ok but making it the rule vs. the exception  begs the term “You are what you eat”.

I fully realize how busy life is and that time is short and a rare comoddity for most families but in some way or another through the generations one could always say the family is busy. 

Let’s look at this way, planning and learning are the keys to what I am proposing.

1. Stay to the outer 4 walls of the grocery store.
2. Watch cooking shows or look through cookbooks and plan out at least 5 meals for the week. 
3. Go to farmers markets 
4. A lot of foods or meals freeze well so you can make it ahead.
5. Reduce refined sugars, salts and msg loaded seasoning. There are easy recipes to create your own seasoning, sea salts and healthy herbs that will make your foods taste much better.
6. Do all of this with your kids! 

When you cook with your family it brings us back to our roots. Think about the “family” meal and sitting around the table with friends. It’s what connects us as people and what feeds our soul as well as our bodies. 

Teaching the young that hamburgers and French fires are not the healthiest way to eat but rather roasting a fresh chicken and serving it fresh vegetables are the “norm” will pay off for the future. 

Please don’t take this as a lecture but rather a friendly nudge to remember to learn where your food comes from. Make things fresh ahead that you can incorporate in your weekly meals (pasta sauce, chicken, beef or vegetable broths) and watch how you reconnect with your family and friends as you sit together, cook together and laugh together.

You gotta try this! 

Yes, Organic Can Cost More. Here Are 10 Reasons Why It’s Worth It

Is buying organic worth the money?
Thank you Huff post for sharing this with us!
What if you knew the government and certain businesses were messing with your brain? Well, they are. As Ellen Ruppel Shell writes in her book Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, governments and some big businesses know that most people get the same buzz from a good discount as they get from gambling. But as with gambling, the “house” always wins.

For every big-win story, there are thousands more who’ve lost. This discount technique comes into play in our food as well, as no government subsidies or handouts are given to organic farmers, putting the cost of paying for pricey certifications, inspections and high insurance plans solely on them. This is why the things you buy the most — such as milk and eggs — are dirt-cheap compared to their organic counterparts. Zap! That good deal just gave you a buzz that encourages you to resist organic.

So, allow me to attempt to rewire your brain a bit — or perhaps free it — with 10 reasons that organic is worth it!

1. Organic farmers get no government subsidies or handouts. Whether you are liberal or conservative, that’s a good thing. Although, it does mean that your tax dollars are paying for all that cheap food.
2. You will automatically become an environmentalist without having to make a donation or show up for a protest. Here’s a short list of things organic farmers help keep totally out of our soil, water, air and bodies: toxic fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, sewage sludge, antibiotics and growth hormones. All of these are known to cause grave physical damage in people as well as bees, bats, frogs, and fish.
3. You will be healthier. You can pay more now or pay later (in health care costs). Agricultural chemicals are known to cause diabetes, obesity, cancer, allergies, asthma, infertility, miscarriage, birth defects, ADHD and perhaps even autism. And we’ve only scratched the surface in understanding what damage these toxins are doing to our health.
4. You can feel good about your contribution to a better world. It’s kind of like making a charitable donation, but instead of it filtering through a middleman, your money directly helps an entire chain of good people, families, and the environment they affect. Your health, too.
5. You are supporting families and businesses that are making the world better. I have seen this with my own eyes over and over again. Farm families that thought they would lose their farms because of the fluctuations of commodity milk prices switch to organic and not only save their farms, but also find that they are all healthier and happier as a result. And the companies that help them transition, like Organic Valley, are truly wonderful companies that do great things for their farmers, their customers, their employees, and the whole community.
6. You will be helping to prevent climate change. Seriously! Organic soil holds much more carbon, uses much less fossil fuel resources — which aren’t just used in tractors but are in the toxic chemicals that are made from fossil fuels used in nonorganic farming practices — and sustains habitats for all the creatures that help keep our planet healthy.
7. You will be helping to prevent droughts and floods. Research at the Rodale Institute and many other institutions have shown that organic soil is much more absorbent than chemically farmed soil. That means it holds more water during droughts and floods. Plants grown organically also have a much bigger and more resilient root system, so they can last longer in extreme weather.
8. You will be doing your part to leave the world a better place than you found it. Really, what is the price of that? And all you have to do is go food shopping and eat yummy stuff and perhaps buy organic cotton clothing for your body and home (cotton is one of the most toxic crops on the planet).
9. Karma Points: When you pay more for good things, other people can afford to pay you more. This is where the true economic brain rewiring happens. It might not seem like a direct link from one thing to another, but as Ellen Ruppell Shell shows in her book, everything is connected economically. Our obsession with cheap stuff actually shrinks all of our economies and pocketbooks and makes it much harder for employers to increase wages and spending. Try it. 10. You’ll see it works. And at the very least, you will eat better in the process.
And lastly, it just tastes better. You are getting better-quality food that nine times out of 10 does taste better. Just ask my kids. Here’s what my seven-year-old said when she was eating a salad out at a restaurant in Manhattan: “This doesn’t taste good — it doesn’t taste organic; organic is better!”

click here for the official Huffington Post article

You Gotta Read This’s!