Posts Tagged ‘gourmet’

Food: Five Tips For Storing It

March 7th, 2012 by Owen Jones

There can not be many people who do not like food, but the human race, being what it is, I suppose there are a few. For the rest of us, eating is a source of daily pleasure and, like drink, it is often used to mark a celebration. not only that, but different foodstuffs are used for the different meals or definite occasions.

Celebratory meals were indubitably planned around the seasonal foods available, but some foods were transported great distances for the benefit of those who could pay for them. For example, my Dad thought it was a great treat to get an orange in his stocking on Christmas Day 60 years ago. How times have altered, very few children would think an orange a gift, special or otherwise, any day of the year nowadays.

Nonetheless, the storage of food is still a daily concern and so, I have listed a few top tips on storing food hereunder, so that you will get the best from what you have bought or grown long afterward.

The Smells Of Summer: the scent of fresh garden herbs are one of the joys of Summer. You can preserve many of these herbs in the following way. Take a suitably sized glass bottle and stuff your favourite herb into it until you can get not get even one more leaf in. Then fill it to the top with your favourite oil olive oil (salad oil, not cooking oil). Leave it in the strong sunlight for two days if you are using basil or two weeks for tarragon. Allow the water to separate from the oil and pour the oil off into another bottle. Just one or two drops of this oil on a salad or spaghetti will bring back Summer memoirs.

Bin Ends: sometimes, after a party for example, you may wake up to several small quantities of wine in different bottles. Of course, you can pour like wines into each other. When you are done, pour a teaspoon of olive oil into each bottle. This will form an air proof barrier over the wine thus preserving the wine for another week or two to accompany your favourite dinners – in the cooking process naturally.

Storing Garlic: cloves of peeled garlic will keep for months if you stuff them into a screw-topped jar and cover them with olive oil. As you use the garlic, top up with more olive oil. The oil will absorb some of the flavour of the garlic and make a fabulous (basis for a) salad dressing. If you have used tinned garlic, the rest can be preserved in the same way, but you should rinse and dry them first.

Saving Tomato Paste: if you suspect that you will not be able to use up the left over half a tin or tube of tomato paste quickly, you can put it into the ice cube tray and freeze it into blocks until you are ready to use it.

Parsley Crumble: keep bunches of parsley in the deep freeze. Then, when you need it, you can just crumple the head of the bunch in your hand directly over the pan or plate where you require it and put it back in the freezer. The stalks can be used in the stock pot. in fact, this technique works for all herbs.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching the crock pots by Rival. If you have an interest in cooking or crock pots, please go over to our website now at Large Crock Pots

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Adding Variety To Vegetarian Meals

February 6th, 2012 by Owen Jones

People who are not vegetarians almost certainly ask themselves how a vegetarian cook can keep vegetarian meals stimulating with only vegetables at his disposal. This same thought may be preventing or at least deterring some meat-eaters from giving up meat and trying vegetarianism. The fact is, that vegetarian meals are not merely ‘meat and two veg’ without the meat, although forty years ago there were many vegetarians who started like that.

However, a routine of ‘meat and two veg’ without the meat is not sustainable. A person who eats meals such as these will soon fall sick, particularly if there is no fish, dairy or eggs in the diets either. Many vegetarians opt to eat a small amount to dairy, fish or eggs to help supply much needed protein, which can be difficult to replace in a met-free diet.

Vegetarians have to plan their meals far more than meat-eaters in order to get everything that a body needs to grow, repair itself and defend itself from disease. It will obviously take some time for the newcomer to vegetarianism to learn new recipes and how to cook them so in the beginning, lots of vegetarians do indeed cook meals which are of the ‘meat and two veg’ without the meat type.

This is all right if you know what to exchange for the meat. There are a number of things in the shops, but one of the most helpful is soya in all its various forms. Tempeh is a soya bean meat substitute and so is tofu. Both these can be used to supplant meat for a dose of protein.

The good thing about these substances is that they can be made to taste of anything you like – they take on flavours fairly readily. They can also be treated to resemble the texture of meat.

Seitan (wheat gluten) is a similarly adaptable and helpful product, but you have to be sure that you are not allergic to gluten first, because this allergy appears to be spreading. Soya bean products and seitan can be easily bought at health food shops and Oriental shops.

As you become more capable at cooking vegetarian meals, you will almost certainly rely less heavily on these things. Beans and nuts are also useful substitutes, but you will probably have to learn how to use them first. Take a look at chickpeas, lentils yet kidney beans.

Soya by-products like soya milk and soya yoghurt and even soya margarine can be used to take the place of regular dairy products. You can also create a type of healthy milk from rice water or / and blended nuts. Besides making milk and casseroles from nuts, some nuts are fantastic in salads. Have a go with walnuts, cashews and almonds and try seeds too like sesame and poppy. Sunflower seeds and others are great for snacks.

Bread and sandwiches are tasty vegetarian fast foods. Experiment with different kinds of flour. Get yourself a bread-making machine and bake your own bread. Preparation time is minutes but you can set the timer to cook the bread for when you like. Seven in the morning beats any alarm clock.

If you would like to read more about Welsh food, food in general or cooking eggs in particular, please visit Traditional Welsh Recipes

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What Is Bread?

February 5th, 2012 by Owen Jones

Bread is a vital ingredient in the diet of millions of people on a daily basis. However, there are as many kinds of bread as there are peoples’ eating it and most countries have more than one type of bread as well. In it’s most fundamental kind, bread is made by cooking a dough of flour and water. However, it seldom rests there except in children’s scout camps.

The flour can be manufactured from almost anything that can be dried and pulverized, so in Europe and America, flour is most normally manufactured from wheat, rye and corn, whereas in India it is often made from gram and in Thailand it can be made from rice but there are numerous other types of flour as well, besides all the possible mixtures obtained by mixing the different flours.

Often, whole grains or rough-ground material will become added into fine flour to improve texture, taste, roughage or / and aesthetics. Also, in the same vein, occasionally the dough will get rolled in seeds such as sesame, poppy or other kinds of crop like rolled oats. The second ingredient is water, but not always. You can use water, milk or even beer or yoghurt or a mixture of a few of them.

Then there are additives. No, not the E-numbers or chemicals such as flavour-enhancers or preservatives, they are completely uncalled for, unless you are using poor quality ingredients or you want the loaf to have a long shelf life. No, I am talking about natural additives. Yeast is the first additive. It makes the bread increase in volume and so makes it light. Bread without yeast is more like cake. Sugar, honey or molasses is added to help the yeast increase in size.

Salt is the first real additive. Salt is added to inhibit the action of the yeast and as a flavour-enhancer, and you could add celery salt (garlic or any other salt) instead or table salt. However, you do not really have to use it if you do not use yeast. After that, the world is your oyster, you can put what you want.

Some individuals add an egg to give the bread more body or fruit such as raisins. Or you can add bananas instead or as well. Nuts are tasty in home baked bread too and so are dried plums and apricots. I used to like to add a handful of rolled oats for additional fibre.

A little oil (olive or other) or butter will help the bread’s elasticity and it will also keep longer as well, not that that was ever an issue in our household. Herbs and garlic is lovely in homemade bread and so is ginger or onions. In fact, one of the best breads I ever baked was done with the left overs from my Sunday lunch. I could not eat it but it was not enough to put in the fridge so I put it in the bread mixture.

I put in French green beans, a little potato, some cabbage, a bit of chicken, kidney beans and the gravy – only a little of |each. It was the best bread I ever baked, but I have spent the last ten years trying to replicate the loaf in vain, because I did not write down precisely what I did.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on several topics, but is now concerned with low cholesterol diet recipes. If you want to know more, please visit our site at What Foods Lower Cholesterol?

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Being A Social Vegetarian

January 28th, 2012 by Owen Jones

Lifestyle changes are the hardest ones to achieve and one of the toughest lifestyle changes that anyone can make voluntarily is to become a vegetarian. Frequently individuals find it more comfortable to become part of a support group when making lifestyle alterations; think of Alcoholics Anonymous, Weight Watchers or giving up smoking. Joining a support group can help the student vegetarian as well.

The advantages of being a member of such a support group are many, but some of them are encouragement, advice and friendship. You may not need the friendship, but you might like to socialize with other vegetarians so that you can see how they deal with eating out and basically simply mixing into a society designed by and for meat-eaters.

However, whether you propose giving up your old friends or not, you may find yourself gravitating away from them after a while quite naturally. Remember the old expression: ‘Birds of a feather flock together’? This is fairly standard.

You will have problems substituting something else for meat; you will get worried that your diet is lacking in some mineral; you will start wondering which restaurants serve truly vegetarian food and lots more.

Your newly discovered support group friends will be a immense source of encouragement and advice in this sphere. You might not like the concept of a ‘vegetarian support group’, yet you could just as easily join a vegetarian dining club or vegetarian cookery class, the impact will be the same – you will learn and you will create new friends.

If you have trouble locating such a group by the standard methods of your local Yellow Pages and an Internet search, try going to the local community centre, where there may be yoga groups – a couple of the attendees will be vegetarians that you can ask. Or go to you local health food shop and ask there Similarly you could ask at a martial arts club or a Hindu Indian restaurant. If all else fails, you could start your own club.

If you organize your own club, find a supportive bar or restaurant that will prepare your meal suggestions for that night at a reasonable price. After a time, I am sure you could build up a lovely little club of twenty individuals and the landlord might let you have your own room to dine in once a month like the Masons.

If you think that this is too much in the early days, you could just set up a blog. A blog is an interactive web site, where you and others can post relevant information. If you keep the name of the blog relevant to your town and vegetarianism, you should find that other people looking as you once did will find you, whereas you discovered no one. Once you have built up a group of local, on line vegetarian sympathizers, you could suggest meeting once a month in the flesh and take the dining notion from there. An advertisement in the local paper would help as well.

If you want to read more about Welsh food, food in general or cooking eggs in particular, just visit Traditional Welsh Recipes

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Poor Eyesight These Days

January 14th, 2012 by Owen Jones

Not very long ago, it was not at all unusual to see blind people walking the streets tap-tapping away with their white sticks, being guided by a dog, normally a Labrador, but I have not seen anyone like that in Britain for years, as far as I remember.

That has to be a good thing; it has to mean that we are starting to cure or at least alleviate most types of blindness.

My aunty had cataracts for years when I was a child in the Sixties – it was just one of those facts of life. Some people got them when they were old and others did not.

My brother’s mother-in-law had cataracts in the late Nineties and she was put on a two year waiting list to have them taken away, but at least she had hope and they were going to be got rid of free of charge.

I do not know of anyone else that has eye trouble except myself. I could not get my glasses clean one day and then a friend said he saw a white spot in one of my eyes. He drove me to the hospital and the doctor said that I had ‘premature senile cataracts’.

Well, I live in Thailand now and he did not use those precise words. He told me that the cataracts were because I was prematurely senile.

I asked him if that was what he really meant; he looked it up in a book and we both had a hearty laugh about it, although he never really corrected himself.

My condition turned out to be a little more problematic than only cataracts, but when I went from the local hospital to a major hospital in Pattaya, the doctor saw me within 30 minutes and asked me if I wanted the cataracts removed.

I said that I did and she was willing to do the operation there and then. I got it postponed for 24 hours, but she would have sorted my eye out that day in a 30 minute operation, which does not need anaesthetic. I think that that was wonderful.

We have come a long way from habitually seeing blind people on the street and putting up with cataracts through a two-year waiting list to immediate removal of cataracts by laser surgery in 40-50 years.

At least we have in the West and in the East too, if you have the money. There are still millions of individuals in Asia and particularly in Africa suffering blindness and partial blindness for the sake of an easy 30 minute operation.

Two weeks after my surgical treatment, my other eye commenced to cloud over. It was as if it had been holding on with its last scrap of strength until I got the other one sorted out.

I had that one treated last year and when I was allowed to take off my patch and look about me with two good eyes again for the first time in a decade, I could not believe that I had forgotten how bright the world actually is and that I had not noticed how drab my world had gotten.

If you are worried about an eye operation, do not be. What you will experience when you are able to see properly again will make all the apprehension seem ridiculous and if you have the opportunity to give someone their eyesight back, please do it.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a number of topics, and is now involved with 500 Delicious Diabetic Recipes. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Easy Diabetic Meals

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How To Cook For A Vegetarian Visiting You

December 22nd, 2011 by Owen Jones

If you are giving a dinner party soon are you worried about cooking for a vegetarian that you know is coming? Of have you been reluctant to invite a friend or colleague to dinner because you do not know how to go about catering for them? This piece is about how to cook for a vegetarian visiting you.

The first thing to do is to find out what type of vegetarian your friend is because there are a number of kinds. A strict vegan is a vegetarian that will not eat any animal produce whatsoever, not even honey. Some will not even eat yeast, however there are others less austere who will eat fish, dairy products or eggs.

So, hope that they are not stringent vegan, because it will make your task much easier.

There are a number of questions you can pose to find out what your dinner guest will eat. You should get this stage sorted out long before the day comes to cook your meal as you may have to get in some specialities.

Ask whether they will eat any sort of meat or fish at all. Numerous vegetarians will eat dairy products and eggs; a couple less will eat fish and a very small number will eat chicken or turkey. If there is something they will eat, you could either prepare that for everybody or only for your guest.

Ask whether they object to eating with utensils and cutlery or from crockery that has ever been in contact with meat. Some do, most do not. Their reasons for not wanting to mix the two might be medical rather than philosophical, so it is worth finding out.

Enquire how strict they are about eating things that include milk or eggs, because as I am sure you are already know, cake and most sweets contain milk, cream or / and eggs. This is not difficult, you can serve fruit of some kind instead, yet again, it is worth knowing in case you have put your heart and soul into your piece de resistance only to find that they can not eat it.

It is also a good idea to find out whether your guest will eat yeast or honey as this obviously has an effect on bread and some cakes, sweets and puddings as well. A fantastic alternative to yeast bread is Irish soda bread.

If you can not find enough common ground, you could ask them to bring their own food or even to come around early to help you cook a vegetarian course that everyone can taste. Many vegetarians will happily bring something with them or join in the cooking in order to share their taste for vegetarian food with their fellow diners.

One last thing, is that some vegetarians do not take salt or have special sauces in bottles that they like. Enquire whether this is expected to be a difficulty, and whether they want to bring any specialties along with them.

Do you need to lose that excess weight real fast? Well, take a free look at The Atkins Diet, by going to our website called The Atkins Diet Plan

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3 Recipes For Cantaloupe

December 22nd, 2011 by Owen Jones

The variety of melons called muskmelons consists of a juicy, edible fruit that is characterized by its round shape and a ribbed exterior. Cantaloupes are a variety of muskmelons..

Extensive variation occurs in this fruit. Some cantaloupes are large yet others are small; some have pink or yellow flesh yet others have white or light-green flesh. The flesh of these fruits contains a large amount of water; therefore, their food value is not high, being only a little over half as much as that of apples.

If melons suitable for the table are desired, they should be selected with care. To be just at the correct stage, the blossom end of the melon ought to be a little soft when pressed with the fingers. If it is very soft, the melon is perhaps over ripe; yet if it does not give with pressure, the melon is still young.

Various ways of serving cantaloupes exist. If they are to be served plain as a breakfast food or a lunch dessert, cut them crosswise into halves, or, if they are big, divide them into sections lengthwise.

With the melons cut in the desired way, remove all the seeds but keep the melons on ice until they are to be served. The pulp of the melon may also be cut from the rind yet then diced and used in the making of fruit salads.

Again, the pulp may be partly scraped out of the melon and the rinds then packed with fruit mixtures and served with a salad dressing for a salad or with fruit juices for a cocktail. The pulp that is scraped out may be diced and used in the fruit mixture.

Recipe 1

FRUIT IN CANTALOUPE SHELLS

During cantaloupe season, a delightful fruit salad can be made by combining a number of different types of fruit with the flesh of cantaloupe and serving the mixture in the cantaloupe shells. Such a salad is a fantastic one to serve if light refreshments are desired or when something unusual is required for a light lunch.

Cut cantaloupes in half crosswise, yet, using the French cutter, cut some of the meat into round balls. Dice the rest and mix with any combination of fruit desired. Position this in the cantaloupe shells after cutting points in the top edge. Garnish with the balls cut from the cantaloupe but serve with any desired dressing. You can also sprinkle nuts on top to add a variation of textures.

Recipe 2

FRESH FRUIT COMPOTE

1 cup fresh blueberries 1 cup fresh strawberries, halved 1 cup sliced fresh peaches, peeled 1 cup fresh blackberries or raspberries 1 cup watermelon balls 1 cup cantaloupe balls 1 cup seedless grapes 1/2 cup sparkling wine (or sweet) wine, chilled 2 tbs thawed orange juice, frozen, concentrated, undiluted

Mix together all of the fruit in a large glass or ceramic bowl then gently stir to mix. Add the orange juice and wine and gently stir again. Chill with a wrapping on it for at least 20 minutes. Mix again lightly before serving.

Recipe 3

ERDBEER BOWLE (Strawberry Wine Punch)

1/2 pt strawberries, stemless, rinsed, cut in half 1 tbs granulated sugar 1/2 bottle German Riesling, well chilled 1 tbs brandy (preferably Alsbach Uralt) 1/2 bottle German Sekt well chilled

Bowle is a typical German party wine punch. During the month of May, throughout Germany, bowle is served flavoured with fresh woodruff (Waldmeister), a sweet scented herb with white flowers, which grows particularly well in wooded yet shady areas away from hot sun. Later, during strawberry season, bowle is made with strawberries which grow abundantly everywhere. As German summer season progresses, bowle is willing with other fruits like peaches, chunks of juicy watermelon, cubes of bright orange cantaloupe, or plump raspberries.

Put the strawberries in a substantial covered glass jar (a sun tea jar is fine), sprinkle them with sugar and drizzle them with the brandy. Put them aside to marinate for two hours to allow the sugar to draw out the juice from the berries.

Add white wine, stir, then set aside for two further hours. When finished to serve, pour into a punch bowl. Add Sekt and serve chilled in wide champagne style glasses, making sure to dispense strawberries with the wine.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on a number of subjects, but is at present concerned with Recipes to Lower Your High Blood Pressure. If you want to know more, go to our web site at Gourmet Recipes and Good Health.

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Dental Problems For Diabetics

December 12th, 2011 by Owen Jones

The main problem for diabetics is not the lack of insulin, it is the result of the deficiency of insulin and that result is that the blood becomes over-saturated with sugar (or glucose).

Everyone’s blood has sugar in it, the blood carries this energy to the limbs and organs to keep them working, but there is a fine balance between sufficient and too much.

Insulin controls that balance, so if you do not produce enough insulin, as diabetics do not, your blood becomes thick and sugary. That does not sound too bad on the face of it.

Maybe a diabetic should be able to run further and faster than others with all that extra energy being pumped about the body.

However, it does not work like that. The thick, syrupy blood cannot get into the fine veins and capillaries, which means a deficiency of energy in these places, which are often at the very ends of your body and in internal and external organs.

Skin, hair, eyes, teeth and toes are all starved of the sugars they need to keep them going, not just to keep them super-fit. The places with the finest blood vessels start to go first.

Not only that, but where the blood does reach will be more easily infected, because the bacteria think it is party time with all that extra food/energy in the blood.

A small infection that the body;s immune system could usually have dealt with in a day or two soon gets out of hand. This is a major problem for diabetics and one of the areas that is easily infected is the mouth.

Without the scheduled dental check-ups that affluent people can afford, the mouth would often become infected, as it still is in poorer countries and among poorer groups in rich countries. Children and older people are always needing fillings, extractions and infections sorted out.

For diabetics who do not seek appropriate dental care this can soon become a major problem. Smoking worsens the problem. The concerns really start to mount up for smokers over the age of 45 when dental problems usually start to resurface after 20 odd years of relatively healthy teeth and gums.

Periodontitis is especially dangerous for diabetics. Periodontitis is an infection that affects the bones and gums in the mouth. It manifests itself in receding, bleeding gums. This exposes the blood rich in sugars to infection. Diabetics ought to inform their dentist of their condition and go for a check-up every six months.

Diabetics can easily lose all their teeth if they get periodontitis and it is easily done with high blood sugar levels. The first sign of such dental concerns is bleeding teeth or gums.

It is imperative to regulate the blood sugar level to as close to normal as possible to avoid these and other complications and the two first keys to try are diet and exercise, otherwise you may have to resort to medication.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a number of subjects, but is now concerned with diabetic friendly meals. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Cookbooks For Diabetics.

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Is Vegetarianism On A Budget Possible?

November 25th, 2011 by Owen Jones

The household budget makes up a substantial part of most families’ outlay and of that the largest part of the bill is for food. Meat probably makes up the largest part of that food bill too, so you would be forgiven for thinking that you could save a lot of money by giving up meat. You would suppose that becoming a vegetarian might save you some money.

However, that is not always true. You can save money by taking up vegetarianism on a budget, yet it does not necessarily work out that in that manner without some effort on behalf of the vegetarian. The fact is that vegetables, on their own, often seem boring to someone who used to get pleasure from a good steak or barbecued spare ribs, so food manufacturers have come up with all manner of accoutrements to liven up vegetarian dishes yet these are not usually all that cheap.

Even some of the fairly regular vegetarian staple foodstuffs like nuts are not necessarily cheap, particularly if you want variety. After all, you can not just eat salted peanuts, not that all that salt would be good for you anyway but when you begin to buy macademia nuts or pistachio nuts for a change, you will find them dearer than meat.

Eating out at vegetarian restaurants is also relatively expensive, because the market is comparatively small. There are not many restaurants that refuse to cook meat and the percentage of the population that is vegetarian is still fairly small. This all leads to higher charges, and that is if you can find a vegetarian restaurant outside a substantial city. A sandwich bar is likely the closest thing you will find to it in most towns but there will be meat on the premises too.

The cost of vegetarian food is exacerbated if you insist on eating organically grown food. Eating just organically grown food can add 30% to your food bill making vegetarianism on a budget impossible. So what can you do to trim down the price of your food bill if you are a vegetarian?

The first thing to do is decide if you really believe the whole organic story. Some do, some do not. Either fashion, you could endeavor increasing the costly vegetables in your garden, your greenhouse or in an allotment. If you can not do that, you could offer to buy these vegetables from friends, if they will grow them for you. Numerous pensioners take up gardening and numerous pensioners would be happy of the extra earnings.

Another way is to shop at farms or farmers’ markets. I know that time is valuable, but if you can just go to such a shop once a week, you could purchase enough food for three or four days without it deteriorating. Purchasing in bulk like that ought to be cheaper too. A sack of potatoes will last a month and it is far cheaper than purchasing a few pounds at a time from the supermarket.

Another method of reducing costs is not to purchase your fresh fruit and vegetables from supermarkets at all, because it easy to be enticed to buy the latest fad fruit or vegetable from halfway around the world at an exaggerated cost ‘just for a change’. Stick to locally grown fruit and vegetables that are in season and you might just about manage vegetarianism on a budget.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on several topics, but is at present concerned with French dip sandwich recipes. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Vegetarian Sandwich Recipes.

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3 Healthy Sandwich Recipes Without Meat

November 25th, 2011 by Owen Jones

Sandwiches are one of the first ever fast food recipes. You can make them in advance and take them with you, they can be consumed hot or cold but they do not require re-heating. Sandwiches can include meat or not and in fact are a robust meal for a vegetarian. Sandwiches are the vegetarian’s answer to a hamburger. So, I have put three very healthy sandwich recipes below that do not involve meat.

Recipe 1

French Onion Sandwiches Serves 4

2 tablespoons butter or margarine 4 ounces seasonal mushrooms, chopped pretty small 1 medium onion, sliced and divided into rings 1 cup vegetable stock 1 tablespoon cornflour 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce 1 clove garlic, chopped finely or 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder Dash of pepper 4 (1-inch) slices French bread, toasted 2 (1-ounce) slices Swiss cheese, halved (optional)

In a large skillet melt butter. Add mushrooms and cook on medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes until tender. Remove from skillet, retaining juice.

Cook onion in juice until tender.

Combine stock, cornstarch, Worcestershire sauce, garlic (or garlic powder) and pepper. Add to skillet. Cook and stir until bubbly. Cook and stir 2 minutes more.

Place mushrooms on bread. Top with cheese and onion mix.

Recipe 2

Fried Green Tomato Sandwiches Serves 4

8 ounces mushrooms, sliced 1 large egg white 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup cornmeal 1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper 1 pound green tomatoes (3 medium), cut in 1/2-inch slices 1/4 cup low-fat mayonnaise dressing 1/4 cup low-fat plain yogurt 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives 4 green-leaf lettuce leaves 8 slices firm whole-grain or white bread, toasted

Cook mushrooms. Drain on paper towels.

Meanwhile, in pie pan, beat egg white and salt. In another pie pan, combine cornflour and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Dip tomato slices in egg-whites to cover both sides, then dip in cornstarch to coat both sides well. Lay on waxed paper.

In mushroom juice in skillet, cook tomato, a few at a time, over medium-high heat until golden brown and heated through, around 3 minutes. Drain.

In small bowl, combine mayonnaise, yogurt, chives with 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Spread on toast. Arrange lettuce, tomatoes, and mushrooms between toast slices.

Recipe 3

Greek Salad Heroes Serves 2

3/4 cup thinly sliced fresh mushrooms 1/2 cup thinly sliced cucumber 2 tablespoons ripe olives 2 tablespoons crumbled feta cheese 1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar 1/8 teaspoon dried oregano 2 Roma or small tomatoes, thinly sliced 1 clove garlic, minced 2 (2 1/2 ounce) submarine rolls 2 lettuce leaves

Combine first 8 items in a small bowl; mix lightly. Let stand for 30 minutes, mixing occasionally.

Cut a thin slice off the top of each roll and set aside.

Cut a 2-inch wide, V-shape wedge down the length of every roll (as they do at Subway). Keep bread wedges for another use.

Drain vegetable mixture. Line each roll with a lettuce leaf then spoon vegetable mixture evenly on top, cover with roll tops.

These nourishing sandwich recipes without meat create a lovely snack or light luncheon and can be kept fresh in a luncheon box all day.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on several subjects, but is at present concerned with French dip sandwich recipes. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our site at Vegetarian Sandwich Recipes.

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