Author Archives: Kimberly Crocker

Pasta Carbonara

Carbonara with added asparagus makes for a flavorful dish

Serves 2

1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup pancetta or 4 slices bacon cut into 8ths
2 eggs (raw and whisked)
Salt and Pepper to taste (1/2 teaspoon dried parsley and red pepper flakes optional)
4 Asparagus stalks cut into small pieces.
Parmesean cheese
Pasta: Spaghetti for 2 (approximately 4-7 ounces 120-200 grams)

BEGIN, in a large pan add water and place onto high heat.

In a sauce pan, heat oil and pancetta over medium heat. Make sure that the oil and the pancetta does not burn.

Using a a mixing bowl crack open eggs and whisk with a fork. Set aside.

Add 1 Tbsp salt when water boils. Add half box pasta and allow to boil in water for allotted time along with asparagus. Drain well!

Drain pasta well! Place pasta back into pan over low heat. Add eggs to pasta and then add hot oil with pancetta/bacon to pasta. Turn well. Eggs will cook fast. Allow to cook together for 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and serve with parmesan cheese, cracked pepper to taste and dried parsley/pepper flakes.

Kim Crocker-Scardicchio

Pasta Bucatini with Amatriciana Sauce

3 Tbsp olive oil
I small onion diced
1/3 cup Pancetta
1/4 cup olives sliced (optional)
1/2 tsp pepper flakes
28 ounces (700 grams) Tomato Sauce
2 Tbsp fresh basil ( 1 tsp dried basil)
Pasta: Bucatini
Parmesan Cheese

Begin, in a large pan add water and place onto high heat. Add 1 Tbsp salt when water boils. Add half box pasta and allow to boil in water for allotted time. Drain well.

Meanwhile in a Sauce pan, add olive oil, onion and pancetta. Allow to saute` for 5 minutes. Add sauce, pepper flakes and salt. Allow flavors to come together for an additional 10 minutes. Turn off sauce, add basil. Serve sauce over drained pasta. Top off with cheese.

Pasta Puttanesca

Pasta Puttanesca

A traditional Southern Italian dish utilizing simple and nutritious vegetables to their region. Throw the veggies and garlic into a skillet and allow the flavors to work their own magic!

3 Tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove quartered
1/2 pint mushrooms
1 Tbsp Capers
1/3 cup whole olives (pitted)
28 oz Tomato Sauce
Salt to taste
2 Tbsp chopped parsley
Pasta to serve sauce with; Spaghetti, Fusilli.

In a large pan add water and place onto high heat and bring to a boil.

In a separate skillet pan add all ingredients except the tomato sauce. Allow ingredients to sautee` together for 5 minutes. Add tomato sauce, salt, parsley. cover pan and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.

Fresh Red Ripe Tomatoes is all you need to enjoy Italian Sauce.

When water boils in large pan add 1 Tbsp salt.  For 4 servings add half box pasta (240 grams) and allow to boil in water for about 8 minutes. Place a colander into the sink. Carefully take large pan and empty water and pasta into colander. Add cooked pasta to prepared sauce and integrate will with a large spoon. Place into individual bowls and top off with parmesan cheese and garnish with fresh parsley sprigs .  Delicious!

Personalize Weight Results in 5 Easy Steps

5 Easy Steps to Personalize New Weight Results!

To burn fat around your waist there are some easy habits and exercises you can start today. Your body is genetically programmed to store fat around the waist area. Some people tend to have a harder time keeping fat off their waist. With simple lifestyle changes and enjoyable exercise choices you will be able to lose a few inches off your waist by burning fat with noticeable results in a months time. 

Step 1
The easiest way to start to burn waist fat is to cut out the excess fat currently in your diet. Concentrate on the fat already stored in your waist, not on new fat. Eliminate fast food. Easy to make Recipes can be made at home were you can the ingredients. Include fish into your diet 3 times a week and aim for adding lean meat, beans or soy into your menu plan. Minimize the amount of cheese to 1 ounce per day. Reduce other high fat dairy products you eat including changing from 2% milk to skim milk. Eliminate fried foods and salty snacks!!! 

Step 2 
Watch what you are drinking. ADD WATER, Reduce wine and beer to one glass a day, Eliminate all soda’s and juices (100% juice is okay) from your daily nutritional intake.  The sugars and added ingredients in soda’s are not good for your body and since your body can not use them the SUGARS (sucrase) ARE STORED AS FAT. 

Step 3  
Replace white breads in your diet with whole grain bread. Replace plain pasta with whole grain pasta. Only eat whole grain cereals.  You body converts white breads to sugar, which in turn will result in added waist fat. Opt for more vegetables and fruits when making your Grocery Shopping List for Weightloss in 5 Tips 

Step 4   If you are not already doing so, start some general moderate exercise. Exercise 4-5 times per week. The exercise should include 20 minutes of cardio such as hill climbing, jogging, biking, swimming, hiking, etc. The general exercise will balance your input of calories and stop the addition of new waist fat. Walk 20-30 minutes per day. 

Step 5 
Concentrate on core exercises. Do a core workout for 15 to 20 minutes every 3rd day. You will not need any more than this to quickly reduce waist fat. Do not increase the frequency of the core exercises, give your body time to recover. There are many great core workouts out there or you can develop your own routine. Core workouts include sit-ups, leg lifts, and mason-twists. There are many other exercises that concentrate on the waist to the mid-section of the torso. 

IMPORTANT: Document in a journal:
Weight
Waist Circumference (passed around waist and over belly button)
Daily Exercise
Drinks
Foods for the day (include condiments.) Read more Tips to Modify Recipes 

Exercising your core as little as 30-45 minutes per week, along with the diet changes are the keys to burn waist fat.               BELIEVE that you will succeed! 

Kim Crocker 

References 

A comparison of the effects of swimming and walking on body weight, fat distribution, lipids, glucose, and insulin in older women-the Sedentary Women Exercise Adherence Trial 2.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20197194 

Effect of nutritional counselling and nutritional plus exercise counselling in overweight adults: a randomized trial in multidisciplinary primary care practice. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20026554 

Modification effects of physical activity and protein intake on heritability of body size and composition. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19710197 

Photograph http://www.savvy-diets.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/Reduce%20belly%20fat.jpg

Can Maple Syrup Benefit Diabetes?

Recent research done on Maple Syrup compares and contrasts the Maple Trees’  protein’s, hormone’s and enzyme’s and how they may positively impact Diabetes in human’s.  Too good to be true?  While sugars have to be monitored in a diabetic diet, researchers are going deeper and exploring Abscisic Acid’s importance in an individual’s diet. 

The main phytohormone, abscisic acid, found in both maple water and maple syrup is getting alot of attention as the same phytohormone  that is also found in dark green vegetables like broccoli and in berries.  The abscisic acid travels up and down the tree stem and comes from the chloropasts in leaves, which also produce cartenoids that give color to fruit.  Looking more closely at how this special phytohormone operates within the tree has shown that it is able to to promote wound healing (via proteinase inhibitors)  also meaning that it can fend off pathogens. How does that tie into a human’s diet?   “Along with other effects, it is known to stimulate insulin release through pancreatic cells and to increase sensitivity of fat cells to insulin, which makes it a potent weapon against metabolic syndrome and diabetes.” (News-Medical.net)

Dr Yves Desjardins, a professor at the Department of Phytology at Université Laval in Quebec, Canada and has studied Maple Trees and the production of it’s syrup.  Dr. Desjardins confirms that further studies  must be done in order to better conclude how maple syrup affects insulin homeostasis long term, and how we can more accurately understand the consumption of maple products and their affects on insulin behaviour.  Likewise, University of Rhode Island researcher Navindra Seeram, specializes in medicinal plant research, has “found more than 20 compounds in maple syrup from Canada that have been linked to human health, and 13 of these compounds are newly discovered. ” (Medindia.net)
Food Sceintists eagerly await news, “Studying maple products is of particular interest to the food science sector when we consider that all the bioactive molecules of the sugar maple are carried in its sap and that these molecules are forty times more concentrated in maple syrup.”

Before adding maple syrup to your diabetic diet talk to both your Doctor and Diabetes Educator so that they can monitor any changes that you make in your diet and accurately document your blood chemistry.

Kim Crocker

REFERENCES
http://www.diabeticsnacks.org/
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20100305/Research-reveals-maple-syrup-and-maple-water-contain-abscisic-acid.aspx  March 5,2010
http://www.plant-hormones.info/abscisicacid.htm
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/March2010/05/c6318.html Montreal, Canada March 5, 2010
Medindia.net http://www.medindia.net/news/Anti-Oxidants-in-Pure-Maple-Syrup-Prevents-Cancer-Diabetes-Study-66716-1.htm  March 22, 2010