https://www.youtube.com/embed/gdlVJOkmJd4
Holly Nicastro: Welcome
to the Our Hearts cooking demonstration. I'm Dr. Holly Nicastro, a
nutrition scientist with the National Heart Lung and Blood
Institute, or NHLBI. Joining me today is Carlene
Thomas, a registered dietician nutritionist, a food
photographer, and blogger. February is American
Heart Month. Heart disease is the leading
cause of death for men and women in the United States, but the
good news is, it's largely preventable thanks to lifestyle
choices like exercise, healthy eating, not smoking, and
managing stress, just to name a few. Research shows that social
support makes it easier for us to be heart healthy.
Our hearts are healthier
together. We can find social support at
work, in our communities, and even online. This week we're focusing on Our
Hearts online. Thank you all for tuning in, and
please let us know in the comments where you're joining
us from. Speaking of online, websites are
a great resource for free information and recipes on
heart healthy recipes. Carlene shares heart healthy
recipes on her blog, "Oh, Carlene." Carlene Thomas: I'm so glad to
be here with you guys and as we talked about, heart disease
is so preventable through what we eat. Through things like fruit and
vegetables and whole grains, and a lot of the things that we're
going to be cooking with you guys today, you can make
some extremely great heart healthy choices.
When I'm looking for inspiration
on when I'm building my blog recipes or sharing on Instagram
live, I head online with all of you guys to see inspiration. Through resources like NHLBI, or
what you guys send me on Instagram direct messages, I
find some great inspiration for cooking healthy. Holly: Great. Now, NHLBI recommends
the DASH eating plan. DASH stands for dietary
approaches to stop hypertension. It emphasizes fruits,
vegetables, and whole grains. It includes fish, poultry,
beans, nuts, and healthy vegetable oils. It limits foods that are high
in saturated fats. That would be fatty meats, full
fat dairy, or tropical oils, and it limits sweets and sugar
sweetened beverages.
For a lot more information on
the DASH diet, you can check out the NHLBI website, and we'll put
that link in the comments. Carlene, what are we
cooking today? Carlene: We're making three
things with you guys today, but we're going to start off with
dish number one, which we have here. This is our chicken picadillo,
which we're calling a chikadillo recipe. It starts with all one
pot things. It's chicken and rice staples,
which a lot of people have on hand. We wanted to pick something
that was easy, one pot, and just staples.
They're easy to dress up
multiple different ways. For the recipe number one. In this one pan dish we have a
little bit of olive oil, some onion, two kinds of peppers for
color, although you could easily add in a yellow pepper if you
wanted to do stop light colors. As well as some chicken already
going here. Okay. Now, we're making the
big changes. We started with the chicken and
rice, which we'll add later, but Holly's going to add in some of
our ingredients here. We've got golden raisins. We have some ground cumin and
bay leaves, make sure to remove the bay leaves later. Some lemon juice, low sodium
chicken stock, no salt added tomato sauce, and a
little bit of water. Holly: Great. This recipe substitutes chicken
for the beef that you normally find in picadillo recipes, so
that helps keep it lower in saturated fat. Which is good, because saturated
fat can raise levels of unhealthy blood cholesterol. We're substituting some of that
saturated fat from the beef with heart healthy olive oil.
This chicken dish is also a
great way to add vegetables, which are a good source of
vitamins and minerals like potassium, calcium, magnesium. Carlene: This, through the magic
of Facebook live, we're going to cover and bring out
the final dish. But, what happens here is you
cover it and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Really what you're just going
for, is for all the flavors to combine and for that chicken to
get really nice and tender. Holly's going to go ahead and
start chopping our cilantro while I switch out to a
few other things. Now, with the cilantro that
Holly's chopping, fresh herbs a great way to add a lot of flavor
for those who are on a sodium conscious diet, or for those who
are looking to be a little bit more calorie conscious.
In this pot, while Holly's
chopping that, we're getting started on recipe number two,
which goes to show how much you can take those same staples,
the chicken and the rice, and change it up. Okay, so while that's heating,
we're also going to get started with our beans. Holly: Great. Beans are a great source of
fiber, great source of the minerals we were mentioning
earlier, and I found that they're already kid friendly. I know if I make something with
beans, my kids will eat it no matter what it is. Carlene: Okay, so to those black
beans, which we rinsed and drained, and that's a great way
to reduce the sodium. A simple rinse and drain is a
great way to reduce it by up to 30%, just a simple change. Holly: Great. Carlene: Let me get
your cilantro. Holly: Okay. There you go. Carlene: Perfect.
This is just our quick side
salad that we're throwing together for a little bit more
color and texture. With our final dish, Holly's
going to help me garnish this while I plate up our beans
and mango salad. Here are the toppings that
Holly's working with. We've got some green olives and
a little bit of caper. Holly: Okay, so this chicken
picadillo, like we said, if you're just joining us, it's a
healthy one pot dish full of vegetables, low in sodium,
and very delicious. You're not missing out on
any of the flavor here. Carlene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
A little bowl of that. Holly: Great. Carlene: Okay, so are we ready
to move onto dish number two? Holly: I think so, what's
number two? Carlene: Okay, so here's
the great thing about dish number two. You saw how easy it was to throw
together dish number one with chicken and rice. So, we're taking it a little bit
more veggie heavy and some different kinds of
starter things. In again, our one pot meal,
we're going to use that left-over chicken and rice. Leftovers are a great way to
reduce stress because the chicken and the rice is
already done, you know.
You're reducing food waste,
you're saving some time so you can do some more heart
healthy activities. Carlene: In this pot we've got a
little bit of garlic and ginger, scallions, water chestnuts, and
that chicken I went ahead and started with. Holly, if you want to go ahead
and add our two extra add ins. We've got out stir
fried veggies. You can use frozen, don't feel
like you have to use fresh. Frozen is a great thing to have
in your kitchen, in your pantry, in your freezer, because
it doesn't go bad. It's there when you need it.
Also that brown rice. Holly: Great. Brown rice instead of white rice
means you're getting a lot more fiber, and a key component of
the DASH eating plan is that it's low in sodium. This recipe helps to achieve
that by using light or low sodium soy sauce instead of the
full sodium soy sauce. What's great about DASH as well,
you can change it up to fit with your dietary restrictions. If you wanted to make this dish
vegetarian you easily could, you could just omit the chicken, or
you could substitute it with your favorite meat substitute
or even beans. Carlene: That sounds so good. With this sauce that we're
putting in, like Holly said, we've got a little bit of that
light soy sauce and we also have some sesame oil.
Sesame oil if you've ever
smelled it, super fragrant, it's a great way to add a ton of
flavor while being really conscious of sodium and
calories. Holly: Yes. Cooking this dish, it's really a
great opportunity to invite a family member to come join
you in the kitchen. Please let us know in the
comments who's your favorite person to cook with. I know I love when my husband
and my kids join me.
Carlene: Yes. My husband is also a great
cook, I always like him in the kitchen with me. With our Wiki rice, which is
what we're calling dish number two, it is really a good
look at leftovers. The chicken. The brown rice. The stock veggies you have in
your freezer or fresh. We're going to garnish it with a
little bit of that green onion that we started with, and a
little bit of sesame seeds. Holly: Right. Now, adding these toppings, it's
a great way to personalize this. I know at home my five-year-old
son he loves to tear up and add basil to his own dishes to
make it his own. Carlene: With this dish, like
you said the basil, you could easily add a little Thai basil
if you wanted to. Or, you could add some other
fresh produce on top, but really the personalization of having
toppings like this is it makes it fun for everyone. Everybody gets to be really
involved in the kitchen, everybody gets to take their own
take on it, and like you said, your kid and your husband have
their personalized things. My husband likes spicy. No thanks on the spicy for me,
but you could also add a spicy topping to this
if you wanted to.
Holly: Right. This was dish number
two, our Wiki rice. Look how fast that was. High in fiber, high in vitamins
and minerals, low in sodium, heart healthy. Carlene: Definitely, and a
great weeknight recipe. Also if you're just tuning in,
we want to know in the comments what your favorite weeknight
dish is, because I would love to know for when I get
home tonight. Holly: Right. Carlene: What about dessert? We never want to miss out
on things like dessert. Now, when you saw in dish number
one we used that mango in a side salad, but here's your
opportunity to take advantage of being a little
budget conscious. When you see fruit that is a
great deal at your farmers market or in your grocery store,
you can go ahead and buy it, cut it up, freeze it flat on a tray,
and then bag it, so those little pieces don't stick together.
Carlene: In our mango smoothie
today, we have a little bit of low fat milk, some banana,
mango, and also a little bit of ice. But, the nice thing about this
is it's really easy to change, because you can always add
something like raspberry to it or strawberry or even going back
to those fresh herbs, some mint. Holly: Great. We'll be putting the links to
all of these recipes in the comments below, but if you're a
dessert person, fruit is an excellent way to satisfy the
sweet tooth at the end of the meal. Consider substituting some of
your more traditional desserts for fruit salad or fruit
smoothies just like this. Carlene: Mm-hmm (affirmative). This is just a great example
again of three really easy things you can do that are
health conscious. We know those lifestyle changes,
making decisions with your diet, it's an easy way to
reduce your risk for developing heart disease.
We've got the whole grains, the
lean protein, the fruits, the vegetables. All of those can help combine
along with being with your favorite people and the social
support you can find online, like with NHLBI, or Instagram
or wherever it is, to do some positive changes. Holly: Great. Well, thank you all for
joining us today. I know our hearts are already
feeling healthier thanks to these recipes, and from the
social support of cooking together and having
you all join us. You can find social anywhere at
work, at home, even online. Throughout the month of
February, let us know what you're doing to stay
heart healthy. Post on social media and use the
hashtag, "Our hearts." For more information on American
Heart Month, heart disease, or OurHearts, you can check
out the NHLBI website. Link will be below in
the comments for a wealth of information. You can also follow The Heart
Truth and NHLBI on Facebook and Twitter. Holly: Thank you again
for joining us today.
We hope you learned
something new. Thank you to Carlene. Have a great heart healthy
day everybody..
