From Lisa’s Kitchen, Sarah’s Perfect 4Leaf Portabellas!

Posted on 02/10/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

These were a big hit at our first 4Leaf Dinner Party.

My sister, Sarah, made these stuffed mushroom caps for our very first 4Leaf Dinner. They were a hit! These are perfect for a holiday or dinner party; they are big and filling.

Try to use organic produce to avoid pesticide residue. I chose to fill these mushrooms with quinoa rather than tofu or brown rice given their texture and nutritional value. Quinoa is an amino acid-rich seed that has a fluffy, crunchy texture with a nutty flavor when cooked. It is rich in protein, calcium, and iron. It also contains all nine essential amino and is an excellent source of fiber. Choose any type of quinoa. I used both red and white quinoa.

Ingredients:

  • 6 Large Portabella Mushrooms
  • 2 Granny Smith Apples, diced or chopped with skin attached
  • 2 Carrots, Peel Skin and Shred
  • 1 to 1 ½ Cups of Cooked Quinoa (any kind)
  • 7-10 Cremini or White Button Mushrooms, quartered or chopped.
  • 1 ¼ Cup Blanched Almonds
  • 1 Tablespoon Ginger, minced or shredded (Can use minced or shredded ginger in the jar as this has more juices, which I found more flavorful)
  • 1 Tablespoon Garlic, minced (Again can use minced garlic in the jar)
  • 2 Large Zucchini or 3 Small Zucchini, diced with skin attached.
  • 4 Tablespoons of Low-Sodium Tamari Soy Sauce
  • 1 ½ Tablespoons of Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute*

*contains: onion, spices, black pepper, celery seed, cayenne pepper, parsley, basil, marjoram, bay leaf, oregano, thyme, savory, rosemary, cumin, mustard, coriander, garlic, carrot, orange peel, tomato granules, lemon juice powder, oil of lemon, citric acid.

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. Grind 1 cup of the almonds in blender or food processor to create a fine mix, keep ¼ cup of whole blanched almonds on side.
  3. Wash your mushroom caps. Cut the stems off the Portabellas and scrape out the gills (use a spoon to scrape out the gills).
  4. Cut and prepare all vegetables.
  5. Heat 1/4 cup of water on medium-high heat in a frying pan. Add garlic, ginger, mushrooms and fry for 7-10 minutes until mushrooms are semi-tender and lose most of the liquid.
  6. Lower the heat to medium and add carrots, apples, and zucchini. Mix well and fry for 5-7 minutes until all the vegetables are tender.
  7. Add spices, quinoa, and tamari soy sauce. Mix all together. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.
  8. Add the almond mix and the ¼ cup of non-blended almonds to the mixture (This gives the mix a crunchy texture).
  9. Let the filling cool and fill the Portabellas, be generous.
  10. Put the mushrooms in a baking pan, not a baking sheet as there will be liquid released from the mushrooms. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Serve with a side salad and enjoy!!

With love from Lisa...

For a “printer-friendly” one-pager,  ideal on your fridge with a magnet. Just Click Here for a PDF.

Click here for a list of all of  my recipes.

If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now.

Be sure to tell your friends about our easy-to-remember website at www.4leafprogram.com and if you like what you see here, you may wish to join our periodic mailing list.

Let me hear from you: lisa@4leafprogram.com

If you like what 4Leaf eating is doing for you and your family, you might enjoy visiting our new “4Leaf Gear” store. From the New England village of Holden, Massachusetts — Be well and have a great day.

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2 Meals, Day 2, Year 2, Still 2 words: “Whole Plants”

Posted on 02/09/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Leveraging the simple, yet powerful concept of maximizing the percent of your calories from whole plant-based foods. The "one leaf" level is healthier than the standard American diet; the 4Leaf level is near optimal.

What could be simpler? 

This is the second day of the second year of this young blog-site. So I thought it would be good to feature the number 2 today—with 2 words and 2 meals.

For optimal health, simply plan every single meal around two words, whole plants—still in Nature’s package. As we clearly explain in our 4Leaf Program, that’s all you have to do to take charge of your health while doing your part to save the planet in the process.

It’s all very simple. Yet, we’re constantly inundated with confusing information from far too many sources. Just yesterday morning on NBC’s Today Show, there was a segment about the fact that Americans are consuming twice as much sodium as we need (over 3300 mg./day) and that they we’re suffering the high blood pressure and premature deaths that go along with it.

During the two-minute segment there was an obese, African American doctor who was asking a fairly trim white patient about his weight. Of course the patient had already had a heart attack and was on the road to recovery—having improved his diet and begun to exercise more.

Whole Plants. What is it about "whole plants" that you don't understand? The first calories of my day on 2-8-12.

He admitted that he was still eating fish, but also acknowledged that he was now eating a huge amount of oatmeal (surprisingly, he said). There you go—WHOLE PLANTS. Amazingly, at one point the reporter did mention that if we ate more fruits and vegetables that we would automatically consume far less sodium. Duh.

Two Words. Whole Plants. A few minutes later, I cut up my first meal of the day: a medium orange, a small banana, four large strawberries, and one medium pear. Then I went to nutritiondata.com and computed the following total score for my first calories of the day:

  • Total sodium — 5 mg.
  • Total calories — 309
  • Calories from fat — 11
  • % calories from fat = 3.6%
  • Grams of fiber — 15
  • Grams of protein — 4
  • Percent of calories from whole plants = 100%
  • 4Leaf level (100% of calories from whole plants)
  • Saturated fat = zero
  • Cholesterol = zero

Meal #2—At 11 a.m., my Sailors Daily Oatmeal. As always, this great meal derives most of its calories from whole plants.

Ingredients include a half cup of Quaker Old Fashioned Oats, about ten raisins, 4 oz. of Pacific Brand unsweetened vanilla-flavored almond milk, one small apple, a handful of blueberries & strawberries, a sprinkling of Uncle Sam’s brand wheat flakes with flaxseeds—and a little sprinkling of cinnamon on top. Of course, I eat it cold and it is fabulous. And just check out this score:

      • Total sodium — 78 mg.

        Sailors Daily 4Leaf Oatmeal -- best if eaten next to a lighthouse

      • Total calories — 496
      • Calories from fat — 48
      • % calories from fat = 9.7%
      • Grams of fiber — 19
      • Grams of protein –12
      • Percent of calories from whole plants = 90%
      • 4Leaf level (90% of calories from whole plants)
      • Saturated fat = zero
      • Cholesterol = zero

Half-time Score. Before having my big meal of the day in early to mid-afternoon, my calories total 805 with only 59 of them (7.3%) coming from fat; I am up to 34 grams of fiber, and my sodium intake is only 83 mg. The percent of my calories from whole plants is 94%, placing me very high in the 4Leaf range. That gives me a little wiggle room with my lunch and light dinner; and provides me with a real good chance of achieving a 4Leaf score of over 80% for the entire day. It’s all a matter of keeping two simple words in the back of your mind:

Whole Plants

  1. Taking charge of our health is really very simple; we just concentrate on two words.
  2. This is how we easily keep our sodium mg. far below our number of calories.
  3. This is how we keep our fat calories below 20% while the average American is close to 40%.
  4. This is how we get plenty of fiber and protein without counting anything—EVER.
  5. This is how we can eat all we want at every meal, achieve vibrant health, maintain a trim body and do some wonderful things for our planet at the same time.

For more information on sodium and fat in your diet, take a look at this 4Leaf page. 4Leaf eating, Part 3–Fat & sodium

Click Here to see our latest book review at VeggieGrettie.com (new yesterday)

Want to receive some occasional special news from us? You may wish to join our periodic mailing list. Also, for help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page.

If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now.

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

And if you like what 4Leaf eating is doing for you and your family, you might enjoy visiting our new “4Leaf Gear” store. From the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks…blogging daily at HealthyEatingHealthyWorld.com

SHARE and rate this post below…One more thing, occasionally an unauthorized ad may appear beneath a blog post. It is controlled by WordPress (a totally free hosting service). I do not approve or personally benefit whatsoever from any ad that might ever appear on this site. I apologize and urge you to please disregard.

J. Morris Hicks -- Member of the Board of Directors -- Click image to visit the foundation website.

Posted in 4Leaf for Life | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Happy Birthday hpjmh.com—366th consecutive daily blog

Posted on 02/08/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

The “Harmony Project”—Much more than a book

Thank you John Robbins, for showing me the way during my early days of learning about the need for harmony on our precious planet.

Before publishing this anniversary blog today, I went back and counted the number of featured “Comments.” Amazingly, it was 52—one for every week of this young blog’s existence.

Many thanks to all of you that have lent their support to our “Harmony Project!”

My learning on this crucial topic began in 2002, and the “Harmony Project” was launched in 2006. Why “harmony?” Since I began reading about all of the global issues that are driven by our rich Western diet, my favorite word has been harmony.

But before reading a few John Robbins’ books in 2003, I had never realized the importance of living in harmony with our planet—where everything is connected. Why hpjmh? I wanted it to be as short as possible and I wanted it to mean something; hence,

Harmony Project—J. Morris Hicks

Until 2003, I had never realized that we humans are the only species (out of millions) in the history of the world that has drifted away from living in harmony with Nature. Where everything in our universe is connected, we’re the only piece that doesn’t quite fit with the rest.

4Leaf Violet, my youngest granddaughter. This photo was sent to me by her mother, Diana, (from the grocery store) after reading yesterday's blog about parenting.

When it finally dawned on me about how “everything is connected,” I suddenly had my blinding flash of the obvious: “Oh my God, we’re eating the wrong food.”  Then a few years later in 2006, I saw the Al Gore movie (An Inconvenient Truth) about global warming and was disgusted that he didn’t even mention the #1 cause—the raising of livestock (according to the U. N. Report that same year).

Shortly after seeing that movie, I decided to start assembling what I had learned on a website that I would build and manage. I chose the url HarmonyEarth.net for that website—two words that convey the continuous need for everything to be in harmony on our planet.

So, in effect, that Harmony Earth website was the first chapter of my Harmony Project, whose mission is stated thusly:

 An ongoing effort to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

The next few chapters of the Harmony Project. In early  February of 2011, I launched this blog. From 20 visitors a day in the early days, we’re now averaging close to 1,000 and are hearing from people all over the world. Just yesterday I got a note from James in Oslo, Norway.

A few months later, we introduced our trademarked 4Leaf Program with the objective of making it simple for people to take charge of their health. You see, the Harmony Project essentially begins with human health—because our desire for health is what drives us to consume a diet that just happens to be in harmony with Nature.

For the past year, my tagline on this blog has been: Promoting health, hope and harmony on Planet Earth, a phrase that was used in the last paragraph of our book, Healthy Eating, Healthy World. And thanks to my relationship with Dr. Campbell, the publisher of The China Study, BenBella Books,  also published our book on October 4, 2011.

Promoting health, hope and harmony is the overall theme of our book.

What next? I have concluded that the single biggest step that humankind can take in bringing us back into harmony with the rest of the planet—is to begin an aggressive move in the direction of a whole foods, plant-based diet. It will save water, reduce water pollution, free-up land, restore biodiversity and reduce global warming—while at the same time, reducing our consumption of fossil fuels by up to 30 percent. And our reward for taking this step is vibrant health for ourselves.

Latest Chapter of the Harmony Project. But before we can enlist the support of the best and the brightest to get serious about helping us move toward that plant-based diet, we must first dispel the “protein myth” that is believed by almost everyone. The latest chapter of the Harmony Project is a campaign to dispel that myth.

Since some 95% of the people in the Western world mistakenly believe that we “need” to eat animal protein to be healthy, the obvious plant-based solution to so many of the world’s most pressing problems never even make it to the table for consideration. So, all we need to do is dispel that “protein myth” which frees up those creative minds—releasing them to create plant-based solutions beyond our wildest dreams.

Within the next two weeks, I expect to announce the next chapter of the Harmony Project. Stay tuned. As for harmonyearth.net, she was retired in mid-2011; but the url continues to send visitors to hpjmh.com. In closing…

One other bit of trivia: The side street closest to my Main Street home in the Borough of Stonington is named Harmony.

Click Here to see our latest book review at VeggieGrettie.com

Want to receive some occasional special news from us? You may wish to join our periodic mailing list. Also, for help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page.

If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now.

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

And if you like what 4Leaf eating is doing for you and your family, you might enjoy visiting our new “4Leaf Gear” store. From the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks…blogging daily at HealthyEatingHealthyWorld.com

SHARE and rate this post below…One more thing, occasionally an unauthorized ad may appear beneath a blog post. It is controlled by WordPress (a totally free hosting service). I do not approve or personally benefit whatsoever from any ad that might ever appear on this site. I apologize and urge you to please disregard.

J. Morris Hicks -- Member of the Board of Directors -- Click image to visit the foundation website.

Posted in Recipes & meals | 7 Comments