Saturday, November 6, 2010

Simple Home-made healthy and low-fat cream of mushroom soup recipe

Do you know that those restaurant’s
mushroom soup are high in carb and calories?
I know because I have a close friend who is
working as a sous chef in a semi-fine dining french restaurant. I must say….a
lot of tasty food are really very high in fats and carb.

I love the mushroom soup served by his
restaurant as they are using 100% pure mushroom. And I do ask him for the
mushroom soup recipe and want to try it. After knowing the recipe, I notice
that the ingredients that they use is really high in carb which is not health
conscious.
So, I decided to try my own method in
modifying the recipe into a low-fat, low-carb, healthy and tasty mushroom soup.
I would like to share here to those that love mushroom soup like me….

Cream of mushroom (2 serving)

Ingredients

5     Button
mushroom 20 cal
1 tbsp(15g)     Plain
flour       52 cal
1 tbsp(15g)     Reduced
Fat spread              74 cal
1 tbsp     Olive
oil   126 cal
500ml     Skim
milk       192 cal
1 tbsp     White
onion
Salt and pepper
Fresh flat-leaf Parsley (minced)
Thyme leaves (minced)

2 pcs      Whole wheat bread       100 cal



Total calories about 570 cal for 2 person. Each person only take in 285 cal.

This can be a very healthy and delicious breakfast to start a day.

Directions

Clean the button mushrooms by wiping with
dry paper towel. Remember not to wash them. Trim off any bad parts and chop
them into mince.

Heat the olive oil in a pan. Add the
chopped mushroom, onion, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper and cook in
medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes. Check if they are browned and tender. This
is to bring up the fragrance of the mushroom and let it be soft as well. Add a
cup of water, bring to a boil. Turn off the fire and leave it there first.

Meanwhile, use another pot, heat up the butter,
add plain flour and stir it using low heat. Keep stirring until the flour mixed
well with the butter. Don’t get shock when you see a thick mixture forming in
the pot. Add in the mushroom mixed that we prepared earlier into the pot with
medium-low heat. Stir gently. Let it blend in for another 5 to 10 minutes. You
still can add in some water if is necessary. After that, add in skim milk to
the pot and mixed well. Try not to put high heat because we don’t want to burn
the milk.

Now, start adding in minced thyme leaves
and minced parsley. How much you need to put depends on your personal favorite.
If you can’t find any fresh thyme leaves, mixed herbs can be added in as well. Add
in salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 15
minutes, taste it. Serve hot in a bowl with a piece of whole wheat bread. Final touch just sprinkler a bit of
minced parsley on top of the soup to make it delicate. 

Below is the mushroom soup that I cooked. Hope you guys enjoy the recipe.

mushroom soup

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Swimming Towards Good Health - Start Now

You can start putting swimming as your regular form of exercise. By having frequent swimming workouts, it is one of the best and fun exercise you can do to keep yourself fit and healthy. As water provides resistance to your body movements while you are swimming, it really built a complete workout for your whole body. Best effects I see is the limbs part and arms part.

Firstly, you need to deal with the water if you decided that you want to take up swimming. Good thing about swimming is, you don’t need to get very sophisticated equipments or any special skills. Some basic accessories such as goggles, sun block lotion, floating board will do. Regardless of their age, swimming is a nice sport which anyone can practice.

Swimming really paves way for you to attain weight training as well as providing cardio benefits similar to running. In other words, swimming provides you the greatest of both ends. It’s very good to build up your lung system as well as reducing the risk of diseases such as diabetes, stroke, heart attack and etc. It also helps a person to sustain his or her cholesterol and blood pressure levels. As water have a opposing force of more than 12 times compare to air, that’s why swimming requires more work to go through. Through swimming, you will not only aids in strengthening muscles, but also assist in building lean and flexible muscles too. Additionally, it also maintain the cardiovascular health and muscle flexibility.

Through swimming, our body muscles such as chest muscles, arm muscles, abdominal muscles, waist, hips, leg muscles will be trained. It also improve our lung and heart function. Besides that, swimming can relieve stress, burn more calories, improve our respiratory system and growth process and also for the sake of self-safety too. It also helps in developing other skills like sportsman spirit, setting goals and time management. Another word, swimming really has many benefits if we make it as our regular exercise.

Of course, if you really want to get significant results, you really need to learn and understand the proper strokes of swimming. After learning up the correct technique, you will be able to synchronize well with your hands and legs in each stroke, just like rhythm. Through that way, your body will be slimmer as fats are burn more effectively, and you will be able to tone up your abs.

As I mention earlier, swimming can help you to relax from stress. Swimming is recommended as a kind of mental therapy. Just imagine that you are floating in the middle of the pool, kicking the water once awhile relaxingly and lazily, viewing at the big blue sky, letting all the worries away.

Now since you can see that swimming clearly giving you lots of benefits if you swim on a regular basis. You can still go to some public swimming pool or gym pool which is affordable if you don’t own a pool. There’s nothing to stop you from achieving what you want besides yourself. Believe in yourself and have fun swimming.