<a title='By User:Nino Barbieri [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons' href='http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-_Pumpkins_-.jpg'>By User: Nino Barbieri [CC-BY-SA-2.5], from Wikimedia Commons
I come from a family of chefs; I love to cook and during Thanksgiving I am happiest in the kitchen. I can be in a kitchen for hours on end amongst knifes, produce, herbs and sauces in the midst of creation. It usually takes me the whole day to create a meal my family can consume in fifteen minutes flat. But since I cook, they end up doing the dishes so it works out!
For the past several years, I’ve focused on really healthy meals and have become much more interested in the nutritional impact of food. The average Thanksgiving dinner has a whopping 3500 calories; it would take about 7 hours of moderate biking to burn off the whole meal. I skip the sweeter version of sweet potatoes. I serve baked rosemary sweet potato fries; I’ve also tried ginger and lime infused butternut squash soup, cabbage steamed with apples and tomatoes, polenta with herbs and a trio of mushrooms instead of stuffing and pumpkin pudding instead of the pie. For the past several years, I have also brined my turkey and then used the leftovers to make turkey stock and turkey soup.
Most of my favorite recipes have come from a medical focused cookbook called SuperFoods RX by Dr. Stephen J. Pratt & Kathy Matthews. This book outlines the health benefits of fourteen powerhouse foods that aid in health and longevity in life. Four prominent Thanksgiving food items make the list: