Trim Down Tuesdays: Q&A + Beet Salad

Welcome to Trim Down Tuesdays with Karen Moreno, RD, CDN!  Each Tuesday Karen will post answers to questions that you, the readers, ask about diet and/or nutrition AND of course, she'll post one of her own recipes.

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Here’s the question and answer for this week!

1. How can we eat healthy and maintain that type of lifestyle while still enjoying all the foods of the holidays, both Passover and Easter!?

With the holidays right around the corner it can be hard to lose weight. So here's my suggestion! In the two weeks before the holidays, which starts now, focus on exercising and eating right. During the holiday season change your focus to weight maintenance. If you can maintain your weight and refocus once the holidays are over you'll still have time to get in shape for the summer.

Just  a few things to remember:

1. Try to EXERCISE at least 3 times a week. If you can't make it to a gym, try to walk for at least 30 minutes a day and always remember that you can break up your routine into smaller intervals. So three 10 minute bursts of activity are just as good as one 30 minute session.

2. PLAN AHEAD. If you know you are going to a family dinner in the evening make sure to eat a big breakfast and healthy lunch so that your not starving when you get to dinner.

3. If dinner is a BUFFET, make sure to SEE EVERYTHING that is being offered FIRST before starting to build your plate. This way you can pick and choose what you like. Always start by filling your plate with salad and vegetables, then add your protein (chicken, fish, beef) and lastly, add some starch (pasta, rice, potatoes), about a fist-full worth.

4. If your GRANDMA makes your favorite dish only once a year then ENJOY it! Let that be your indulgence and make the rest of your meal healthy.  

5. DESSERT.  If you feel like you need something sweet after your meal, try having a bite of the dessert that's calling for you.  Have one bite for the taste and then stop, because you know the second bite is going to taste just like the first one! :) Fruit is always a good option too.

6. Most importantly, if you give in to your temptations one night, just remember that it's only one meal, be sure to jump right back to where you started the next time around. Don't let one bad meal or snack ruin the day, put a stop to it then and eat healthy at your next meal.

Happy Holidays!

Here's Karen's recipe for this week! It's similar to My Mama's Beets, but not entirely the same at all! 

Did you know that both Beets and Swiss chard are different   within the same plant family? Although beets tend to have a bad stigma due to their high sugar content they are very low in calories. I love beets because of their dark purple color which adds a lot of flavor and color to salads. Not only do beets taste good but they are also full of folate, magnesium, potassium, fiber, and vitamin C which can help protect against birth defects, heart disease, and certain cancers, especially colon cancer. The pigment that gives beets their rich, purple-crimson color-betacyanin- has been shown in many studies to be a powerful cancer-fighting agent. In addition, studies have shown that beets have a very high anti-inflammatory effect on the body. 

When preparing beets, be careful not to stain yourself. I always wear kitchen gloves when preparing them so that I don’t ruin my newly manicured hands. If the beets somehow do make it onto your skin, just rub some lemon juice on them and it will remove the stain (a trick my grandma taught me).

Beet Salad

Serves 6-8 (as a small side salad/appetizer)

4 large beets

¼ cup olive oil

4 tbsp vinegar

1 tsp salt** (not necessary if on a salt restricted diet)

½ tsp sugar

¼ tsp pepper

4 garlic cloves, crushed

½ of a white onion, finely chopped

**Tip: Salt will blunt beets' color, so add only at the end of cooking if needed.

Rinse and clean the beets—remove the leaves and roots. Do not peel. Boil in a pot of water for about 40 minutes, until they are fork tender. Wearing gloves, peel the beets under running water. The skin should come off easily.  Slice the beets and chop into 1-inch thick cubes. 

In a separate bowl mix all the ingredients and whisk until it thickens a little. Pour over the beets and mix it all until it becomes covered with the sauce. Put in the refrigerator and cool for about 1 hr. Serve cold. ENJOY!

Nutrition Content:

Per serving: 97 calories, 1 g protein, 6.7 g carbs, 1.5 g fiber, 7.5 g fat, 1 g sat fat, 376 mg sodium, 174 mg potassium 

—Karen Moreno, RD, CDN

Blood Orange and Beet Salad

I whipped this salad up over the weekend.  I used what I had in the fridge and it was a total hit!  I think it would also be a great Valentine's Day salad, if you're trying to go for an all red meal.  It has beets, blood oranges, and tomatoes, all which are red!  Blood oranges are now in season, they are one of my favorite types of oranges!

Blood Orange and Beet Salad
(serves 4)

1 package baby arugula
3 ears of corn, shucked
1 container of grape tomatoes, halved
3 red beets, cooked and sliced
4 persian cucumbers or kirby, sliced
2 blood oranges, peeled and edge trimmed
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper, to taste

Place first 5 ingredients in a large salad bowl.  Right before you are ready to serve the salad, hold one blood orange over the bowl, and using a paring knife, cut along the membrane on both sides of each segment. Free the segments and let them fall into the bowl.  Allow the juices to drizzle over the salad, squeeze the membranes to extract the rest of the juice. Repeat with the second blood orange.  Add olive oil, the juice of 1 lemon, salt, and pepper.  Mix salad, serve, and enjoy!

Roasting?

Back in May I posted a recipe for my momma's beets, but here's another way you can prepare this red (or yellow) sweet and healthy root vegetable.

Oven Roasted Beets

3 beets peeled and cut up into chunks

1/2 cup olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Place beets on a sheet pan lined with tin foil and drizzle olive oil on top. Put on rubber gloves and mix the beets in with the olive oil so that it coats every beet. Sprinkle beets with salt and pepper and place in a 450 degree oven for about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes flip beets over to the other side and bake for another 30-35 minutes mixing every once in a while until they are fork tender.

Eat your roasted beets on this salad or this salad or eat alone! ENJOY!

Beet and Endive Salad

Going clockwise starting with the roasted sweet potato coins, beet and endive salad, and mushroom quinoa. Here's a closer look at the beet and endive salad. Roasted Beet and Endive Salad

2 Endives sliced

2 Roasted beets

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

For the Dressing

1 tablespoons dijon mustard

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tablespoon white wine vinegar

the juice of 1 lemon

Combine ingredients in a small bowl and pour over salad before serving!

My Mama's Beets

This recipe is something my mom makes every week, usually for Shabbat dinner. It is usually served as a side salad, but I think they can be great on top of an arugula salad with some goat cheese and pine nutes, or even a sprinkling of pine nut brittle. This is a really simple recipe that any beginner can make to impress his or her guests anytime of the year!

Warning: Make sure you have some disposable gloves on hand, unless of course you want to dye your hands red!

My Mama's Beets (makes enough to fill up a 13 cup Glad plastic container)

15 red or yellow beets

1 1/2 cups canola oil (can use vegetable oil instead)

1 1/2 cup red wine vinegar

juice of 3 fresh lemons

Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Boil beets in a large pot filled with water, be sure water covers all the beets in the pot. Boil for about 2 hours on medium heat or until they are fork tender.

2. Put on your disposable gloves and rinse in the sink a few times, to get rid of some of the red dye. See photo below. (FYI that's my mama helping me peek some of the beets!)

3. With gloves on peel the skin off the beets, rinse under water, and place cleaned beets into a large bowl. The skin comes off very easily without a knife. All you need to do is squeeze gently around the beet and you will see the skin peels off.

4. Keeping the gloves on, slice each beet in half and then slice each half into thin slices and place in a large container.

5. To dress the beets combine oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, salt and pepper into a small bowl, mix together, and then pour into your container and place in the fridge to cool. Make sure that all the beets are covered in the dressing, this helps preserve the beets. (They will last a long time, up to two weeks in the fridge.) See photo below.