Healthy Grilling that is Father’s Day Friendly and Diabetes Friendly

Let's celebrate our Fathers.  For many of us Father’s Day is synonymous with outdoor grilling and the smell of barbecue.  It makes us think about all we love about summer.

When June comes around we all look forward to spending more time outside, enjoying time with family around a picnic table and hanging out with friends by the grill.  The challenge is to stay mindful of what we are grilling and serving as we look for simpler ways to provide meals in the summertime. Eating healthy does not have to be time consuming or complicated.

Preparing your meats for grilling. There are simple ways for us to add flavor to our proteins without adding unnecessary calories. For instance, Walt and I have come up with savory rubs that are made up of pure spices and herbs with virtually no calories, absolutely no fillers, no sugars, and that are heart-healthy, bariatric-friendly, diabetes-friendly, gluten-free, and sugar-free. We also offer tenderizing marinades that make for juicy, melt in your mouth, family-friendly options. These are all offered on our blog, always for free. Check out some of the choices below:

Meat and Fish Rubs

Super Easy Chicken Marinade

Super Easy Chicken Marinade

Recipes for Easy Sides. To make it a meal, provide a few different salads that can make serving up healthy meals outdoors healthy and tasty. The great thing about summer salads is that they can be made ahead of time, at your convenience, and then served up later when it is mealtime.  Here are a few of our favorites from our blog:

Broccoli and Sweet Apple Slaw with Dried Tart Cherries

Classic Potato Salad

5 Fruit Salad

5 Fruit Salad

A simple meal hack.  Buy store-bought salads from pasta salad, carrot salad, or a green salad with various lettuces and then put them in your own bowls for serving. Help everyone measure out right-sized portions by hooking the recommended LivSpoon® (a stylish serving spoon with measurement) on the side of the bowl of the salads you are offering so people can naturally serve themselves appropriate servings. 

For dessert. To make it super easy, offer fruit popsicles or get pre-made cookies out of the freezer like our original Rosemary Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies.  

Summertime meals can be easy, tasty, and healthy! 

Healthy Eating Tip: Introducing our new LivSpoons in the much-desired sizes of ⅓ cup and ¼ cup! Now Livliga is offering the completed suite of LivSpoons to make it convenient, comfortable, and a cinch to prepare and serve up healthy and right-sized meals anytime and for any season! Mindful eating just got a little more effortless!

0

Livliga Vegetable Rub—Simple and Savory

There is nothing better than a home cooked meal. What I have learned over the years is that when preparing a meal simpler is usually the best. Often a mixture of herbs and spices to add flavor to your food is all you need.

Previously I have shared recipes for dry rubs for your meat as well as squash.  There are so many health benefits to adding herbs and spices to your meals in addition to adding mouthwatering flavors. People often get marinades and rubs confused. The main difference is that the marinades tend to tenderize the meat as the protein marinates whereas a rub is more of a flavorful coating that adds texture and taste to the protein.

Just as your meats can benefit from a flavorful rub, so can your vegetables. Here is a rub recipe I have developed that makes just about any vegetable taste yummy and works well if you are roasting a medley of vegetables too. Make a batch of it, put it in an airtight container, and then you can have it ready whenever you want a quick rub to spice up your veggies. Typically I use about a teaspoon for a “serves 4” recipe. Make sure to adjust the amounts according to your palette and preference.

Simple and Savory Vegetable Rub

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper, freshly ground
• ¼ teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1 teaspoon granulated garlic, California style
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• ½ teaspoon cumin

Directions

1. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl.
2. Store in an airtight container. Make sure to label it so you know what it is.
3. Use as desired. Should provide 4 or 5 uses. Make bigger batches if desired.

Looking for other savory rubs? Try these on our blog.

Enjoy! And Live vibrant!

0

Dry Rubs for Meats

These are great dry rubs that add flavor to your meats with no calories. Some of the ingredients can only be bought as seeds. Use a small coffee grinder or a mortar & pestle to make the seed a powder.

For Beef

       1T cumin
       2T granulated garlic
       1T ground cloves

For Fish

       1T granulated garlic
       1T dill
       1T ground fennel seed
       1T ground ginger 

For Lamb

       1T cinnamon
       2T granulated garlic
       1T ground coriander

For Pork

       1T cumin
       1T dry mustard
       2T granulated garlic
       1T herbes de Provence

For Poultry

       1T dry mustard
       1T granulated garlic
       1T cayenne pepper (or, to taste)

Directions: 

Mix ingredients for desired rub. Lightly sprinkle rub mixture on both sides of your meat and let sit for 15 minutes before grilling. Put the remaining amount of rub in a Ziploc and label it to be easily identified for later use.

Looking for other great rubs? Try our other great rubs here.

0

Dry Rubs--Great for Summertime Grilling

Dry Rubs are great on everything you grill and make summer time cooking so easy!

I grew up in Kansas City. It is the home of great barbecue...the best by some standards. It is all about the sauce. I never even knew there was such a thing as "dry rub" until we took our kids on a Spring-break to Memphis, Tennessee. We went to a well know barbecue place there and it was a dry rub. It was good food but it seemed strange to call it barbecue.

Then a couple of years ago we went on the Fat Flush Diet developed by Ann Louise Gittleman. She is big on spices in all recipes. In particular, she suggests certain spices as a dry rub on meats. We really liked the flavor combinations and how it enhances the taste of the meats when grilled. My husband does a super job of grilling meats so he enjoyed developing combinations of spices for flavoring each type of meat.

There are many benefits of a dry rub. They are very aromatic so your meat smells great as it is grilling and also while you eat it. Additionally the rubs make the meat wonderfully flavorful and therefore more interesting to eat. And since you are just using spices, the aroma and flavor come with zero calories (my personal favorite benefit for using a dry rub!).

The health benefits of spices are many. They can enhance your health by boosting your metabolism to evening out your moods. As examples, Cayenne is known to boost your metabolism and the production of adrenal hormones which speeds up the breakdown of fat by 25 percent.  Basil helps with anxiety and depression. Each spice has its own benefits.

In another blog posting I plan on sharing the recipes for my husband's grilling rubs. Can't wait to hear how you enjoy them!

0

Spice Rub for Squash

    Wonderful Spice Rub for Butternut Squash and Sphaghetti Squash

This is a great rub my husband developed for squash. It is particularly good on Butternut Squash and Spaghetti Squash.

Ingredients
1 T ground clove
1 T cinnamon
1 T ground ginger

Directions: Mix ingredients for rub. Lightly sprinkle rub mixture over your squash until all areas of the squash are lightly dusted and then roast/bake your squash according to the directions provided. Put the remaining amount of rub in a Ziploc and label it to be easily identified for later use.

Make sure to check out our ther great vegetable rub here.

 

 

 

0