About two weeks ago, I gave a talk to a group of medical students at Boston University. The idea behind the presentation is that there’s a pretty significant dearth of nutrition education in our medical school curricula, so I tried to highlight some key points that they would find most helpful – for both their patients and themselves. Sometimes it’s hard to talk generally about eating healthier: everyone knows they should probably eat more vegetables, but so often people just don’t know how. I dislike coming back to that piece of advice again and again unless it is paired with concrete ideas for reaching that goal, which again, can be challenging in a group setting. One of the practical tips I included was to modify recipes by adding vegetables or increasing the quantities already called for in the recipe.
So I took my own advice when making Heidi Swanson‘s wild rice casserole, from her book Super Natural Everyday . While the original dish is healthy all by itself (whole grains, lean dairy, mushrooms), it’s almost begging to be doctored up with some vegetables, too. I opted for a head of cauliflower (a good choice for these early weeks of spring when the temperature hovers around 50 degrees), which blended in seamlessly with the creamy texture. Other ideas include broccoli or peas, which would add some nice color.
