Two for Thanksgiving

Please enjoy these recipes. Maybe you are tired of Granny’s plain on bread crumb stuffing recipe and want to try something new. Looking for a colorful side dish for your turkey dinner? This sweet potato salad is colorful, bright and tasty ,too.

Spicy Dried and Fresh Fruit Stuffing
(Serves 20, you can easily make half the recipe)

4 cups water
1 cup dried apricots
1 cup pitted dried plums
1 cup butter**
2 loarge onions chopped
20 slices slightly dried wheat bread torn into 1 inch pieces (or buy bread cubes)
6 medium tart apples, peeled and sliced (Granny Smith, Macintosh work well)
½ cup golden raisins (regular raisins work well or dried cranberries)
½ tsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
¼ cup white wine or apple juice

Preheat oven to 325◦. In medium saucepan over hight heat, heat water until boiling. Reduce heat, add apricots and plums and cook for 15 minutes until fruit is softened. Remove from heat, drain, cool and chop fruit into small pieces. Set aside. In large pot over high heat, melt butter. Add onion and cook, stirring frequently for 5 minutes or until onion is transparent. Add bread and toss well to mix. Remove from heat, add chopped dried fruits, apples, and remaining ingredients and mix well. If stuffing is too dry, add a little more water or white wine (or apple juice). Place stuffing in an unbuttered baking dish and cook for about 90 minutes. Can be prepared ahead.

**You can easily reduce butter to ½ cup. The Nutrition Values are based on full cup of butter

Nutrition Values:
210 calories per serving
2.2 g protein
24 g carbohydrate
11 g fat
25 mg cholesterol
163 mg sodium
5.2 g dietary fiber


Art Smith’s Sweet Potato Salad
(I don’t know who Art Smith is, the recipe is from the AARP magazine )
Serves 8

4 small sweet potatoes
¼ cup fat free mayonnaise
1 TBS yellow mustard
4 celery stalks, sliced ¼” thick
1 small red bell pepper, cut into ¼” diced pieces
1 cup diced fresh pineapple or crushed pineapple in natural juice, drained (save the juice for dinking!)
2 green onions finely chopped
Salt and pepper to taste**skip the salt and try some lemon pepper
½ cup coarsely chopped toasted pecans or walnuts
Chopped fresh chives (use dried if you can’t find fresh or can omit)

1. Preheat oven to 400◦. Wrap each sweet potato in foil and bake for 1 hour, unwrap and let cool. Peel, cut in ¾” chunks
2. In a large bowl, mix mayonnaise and mustard. Add sweet potatoes, celery, red pepper, pineapple and green onions, toss gently. Season to taste with pepper and salt if you must!
3. Cover and refrigerate for about 1 hour.
4. Fold in pecans and sprinkle with chives

Giving Thanks

“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.” Erma Bombeck

I am one of those people who likes an elegant Thanksgiving dinner, no TV allowed. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

I am, as always, thankful for good health. Too many people take good health for granted. Too many people are in a rut with their health, and while it is an uncomfortable rut, it is one they are used to. To those of you reading this, you are more than likely engaged in the Lifestyle Balance program, working hard, mentally and physically, on lifestyle changes, changes that will decrease your risk for diabetes and heart disease. Take a moment to pat yourself on the back, high five another class participant and thank your lifestyle coach. I will share this with you; you are lucky there is a program that can help you feel better and improve your health. I have asthma and the only thing that helps me feel better is my rescue inhaler when I am struggling. I would gladly give up calories and increase physical activity if it would lessen the burden of asthma. I envy you the opportunity to make changes that will improve areas of your health that would have to be controlled by medication. I don’t have that choice. Choices are good.

I am thankful that some smart people had the foresight to question whether reduction in fat grams and increase in physical activity could reduce people’s risk for onset of type 2 diabetes mellitus, a chronic disease that is life altering. I am grateful that they were right, it does work. And, I am grateful that people are taking part worldwide in this program.

I am thankful for all the caring lifestyle coaches in Montana who are so dedicated to the Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes Prevention Program. Their expertise, knowledge and dedication makes for a hugely successful program. Those of you who are participating in this program know what I mean.

Not all diseases are created equal. Some may be prevented and some can overcome you with a vengeance. I read somewhere (be darned if I remember where I read it or even when and cannot find it on Google) that the most prayed for request at The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is for the health of a loved one. That is pretty powerful. It confirms that we should never take our health for granted.

Please take a few minutes this month and in addition to your Keep Track books, on a separate sheet of paper, write down all the wonderful changes you are experiencing through participation in this program. People are enjoying quality of life they have never enjoyed before. Fill in the blank. Take a moment and reflect on what barriers you have overcome.

· Are you enjoying getting outside and walking with your family?
· Savoring the assortment of fall apples-if not, buy a couple of each variety and enjoy the sweetness, tartness, crispness of them. Pears too, I found 3 different kinds at the store.
· Enjoy the bounty of squash that is out there. Check out this website if you have squash and not sure what to do with it, it is quite versatile. http://whatscookingamerica.net/SquashRecipes.htm
· Maybe you found you are now able to enjoy a new activity, one you thought you would never do, or do again? Dancing, walking the dog, tossing a football with the grandkids?
· Walking up and down the stairs.
· Or like one participant whose story made it to the newspaper said, he could barely walk 300 yards, now he walks five miles at a time. He dropped 100 pounds through the program. WOW. “They are a good reason I’m still alive”. Now, that is being thankful.

This is a holiday that revolves around food. PLEASE, talk to your lifestyle coach for help in balancing, family, food, emotions and stress. You can do it, I know you can, and for this, I am thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving one and all.