Feeling the love? You will be after you see these recipe below!

🍽️ Lovers’ Lentils, with Textured Soy Protein

🍽️ Science Backs Eating Fermented Foods

🍽️ Sensual Chocolate-Covered Strawberries!

Healthy News Dose

4 Healthy Tips for Valentine’s Day!

Special someone out there or not, Valentines day is typically an indulgent holiday, filled with chocolates and heavy dinners.

So here’s our 4 top tips on how to help stay a bit more healthy this Valentine’s day:

1. Bake something relatively healthy for dessert at home instead of ordering dessert when you’re out. Want the love heart jammy cookies above? Click here for the recipe + 60 more! 😉 

2. Check labels to evaluate how healthy your ingredients are: Look for desserts with unrefined sweeteners and low added sugar.

3. Ask for a fruit bouquet instead of chocolate! Or compromise between the two and consider making some chocolate-covered strawberries like the ones described at the end of this newsletter!

4. If you’re going to a party, plan ahead and make something healthy that you can bring an enjoy while you are there.

Alternatively, if you feel like splurging this Valentine’s Day, don’t let me stop you! 

From a cook’s perspective, I tend to avoid going out with my wife on Valentine’s Day, simply because the restaurants are usually at capacity, and the quality of service maybe isn’t as great as it could be on a quieter night.

For Valentine’s Day in our home, if both of us aren’t working that night, we tend to cook up something nice, and generally will splurge on a fun bottle of wine.

The Cooking Corner

Lovers’ Lentils, with Textured Soy Protein!

Love lentils? These mushroom-heavy lentils are packed with deep and smoky flavors you’re guaranteed to enjoy! Textured soy protein works wonderfully in this dish as a meat substitute, although you can add certainly add a few links of chorizo if you are looking for a heavier version with meat.

This dish will leave you and your partner or friends feeling warm, cozy, and comfortable on this Valentine’s Day, and it’s so reasonably-priced per serving! I make lentils at home roughly once a week, all year round.  It usually takes me about 2.5 hours from start to finish, as I prefer my lentils to be served completely soft and tender.

Ingredients: 

• 5 Tablespoons cooking olive oil

• 2 sweet onions, medium dice

• 1 green or red or yellow bell pepper, medium dice

• 5 medium-sized carrots, cut into bite-sized chunks

• 16 oz (1 lb) button or Bella mushrooms, quartered

• ½ cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped

• ¼ cup dry white wine

• 1.5 cups dried lentils

• 4 cups vegetable stock, or water

• 1 bay leaf

• 8 garlic cloves, minced

• 1 Tablespoon sweet pimentón

• 1.5 Tablespoons smoked pimentón

• ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

• 1 cup dried textured soy protein

• 2 teaspoons sunflower seed oil

• Kosher salt & freshly-ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions: 

1. Add three Tablespoons of cooking olive oil to a Dutch oven or large soup-cooking pot.

2. Add the diced onions, bell pepper, carrots, and mushrooms, and cook over medium-high heat for roughly five minutes, while stirring.

3. Add the chopped parsley and white wine, and cook for an additional fifteen minutes, until the alcohol has evaporated.

4. Add the dried lentils, along with the vegetable stock, and bay leaf.

5. Bring the contents to a simmer, and reduce the heat to low.

6. Continue to cook the lentils until they are completely tender.

7. While the lentils are cooking, add the remaining two Tablespoons of cooking olive oil to a small sauté pan, along with the minced garlic cloves, pimentón, and red pepper flakes.

8. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook for a few minutes, until the garlic and spices are sizzling nicely in the olive oil.

9. Transfer the garlic and spiced oil to the lentil-cooking pot, and stir to combine.

10. When the lentils are fully soft, combine 2 cups of hot water with the 1 cup of dried textured soy protein in a bowl.

11. Allow the textured soy protein to soften in the hot water for twenty minutes.

12. Drain the liquid from the soy protein.

13. Add two teaspoons of sunflower seed oil to a small sauté pan, and add the drained soy protein.

14. Cook over medium-high heat while stirring until gently browned on the outsides.

15. Transfer the cooked textured soy protein to your lentils, and stir to incorporate.

16. Taste the lentils, and season with Kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper.

17. Want 60+ more GF recipes? Click here!

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Upgrade your plate…

Chocolate-Covered Strawberries!

Chocolate-covered strawberries are foolproof to make at home. Even your kids can do this!

1. To make the chocolate dipping sauce, melt ½ cup of chocolate chips in a small dry sauce pan over medium-low heat.

2. Make sure there is no water in the sauce pan, as this will cause your chocolate to crystallize.

3. When the chocolate is almost fully melted, add in 2 Tbsp of heavy cream, along with 1 Tbsp of butter, and stir until fully combined.

4. Dip the pointed end of each strawberry in the melted chocolate, and place on a parchment-lined platter.

5. Transfer the dipped strawberries to the fridge, to allow the chocolate layer to set and harden for roughly one hour.

6. Once the outside of the chocolate covered strawberries has set, you are ready to serve.

*Note if you leave the dipped strawberries in your fridge overnight, a small quantity of strawberry juice might leak out from the berries onto the parchment paper.

Don’t miss a recipe tip again by joining our exclusive foodie community over HERE.

Until next time!

Your fermenting friend,

Andy G

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