by Tomato Wellness | Dec 10, 2019 | Tomato Products
The secret to good cooking and healthy eating? All it takes is having the right tool for the job. Putting the right ingredients to work makes your job easy, so make canned tomatoes great again with these tips and tricks.
Canned tomatoes may sound like old news, but their savory umami and versatility in the kitchen make them indispensable in your pantry. Sure, plant-powered eating often thrives on a DIY attitude and recipe hacks. Canning your own tomatoes is fabulous, but many of us lack access to fresh tomatoes during in-season or are otherwise unable to embark on such a project. Canned tomatoes are one of those convenience products that save you time, yet don’t compromise your values of healthful food or environmentalism.
Canned tomatoes in all of their forms – diced, crushed, stewed, sauce, paste – are canned during in-season and within hours of their harvest. This minimal processing makes the canned version far more sustainable than eating off-season fresh tomatoes shipped or flown from hundreds of miles away.
Not to mention the expense! You can find canned tomato products at inexpensive prices year-round, whereas the fluctuating prices of fresh tomatoes can be an obstacle to a tight food budget.
Each serving of these products adds to your daily vegetable tally. Look for those with minimal added salt and sugar to maximize their nutrition. Tomatoes in all of their forms feature vitamins C and A, and other plant compounds, like lycopene which has been linked to reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and some cancers. Read on to learn how to make canned tomatoes new again.
Check out these 6 tips for a fresh take on canned tomatoes:
1. Go artisan. Always having a can or two of tomato paste on-hand enables you to get creative and make your very own artisan sauces. How about a curry-inspired ketchup or sriracha-style sauce for your veggie burger? Or a fancy ketchup that incorporates horseradish or balsamic vinegar for your veggie kabobs on the grill. Try something new with canned diced tomatoes in this savory grain porridge of Tomato Basil Steel Cut Oats.
2. Impress your last-minute guests. Toss a can of diced tomatoes, minced garlic, and fresh or dried Italian herbs with a little olive oil, and all you have to do is run out for a fresh baguette. You suddenly have a fancy bruschetta appetizer! Even better, opt for a can of diced fire-roasted tomatoes. Those grill marks will really have your friends thinking you spent all afternoon poring over the grill!
3. Spice up your routine. Have you noticed all the varieties of canned tomatoes available now? A can of diced fire-roasted tomatoes or with added green chilies become the perfect accessory to tacos, nachos, or this Tortilla Soup. A can of crushed tomatoes with minced garlic, bell pepper, and oregano is the best base for marinara sauce smothered over your lasagna or pizza.
4. Too hot to cook? We all need more meal ideas for the hot summer days that come anytime during spring through fall. Enjoy a no-cook recipe that you can make whether fresh tomatoes are in-season or not. Cold tomato soup, or gazpacho, can be as simple as a bruschetta recipe but with an additional splash of flavorful vinegar. You can keep it simple or add toppings like diced bell pepper and cucumber, croutons, chickpeas, fresh sliced avocado, or fresh herbs. Make this Easy Gazpacho and serve in shot glasses for a fun appetizer.
5. Easy as (pizza) pie. With minced garlic and olive oil, simmer a can of crushed tomatoes in thick puree, or crushed tomatoes with basil and oregano, and you will have stellar marinara sauce in no time. With a sauce this easy, you can jump on that homemade pizza trend and focus your attention on the toppings and inventive crusts made from cauliflower or polenta.
6. Up your roasting game. Thin out canned tomato paste with just a little water, then use to coat your roasting vegetables before popping into the oven. Naturally occurring sugars and umami flavors in the tomato are a great way to season your food without adding oil or salt, give it a try!
Images by Sharon Palmer, MSFS, RDN, The Plant-Powered Dietitian
by Tomato Wellness | Sep 24, 2019 | Recipes
This lighter version of a classic favorite Philly Cheese Steak sandwich will help keep Dad healthy, while also keeping his taste buds more than satisfied. Plus, this recipe is full of cancer-fighting lycopene thanks to the canned tomato products! You can have this sandwich on its own, or pair it with your favorite salad and side dish for a filling, nutritious dinner everyone is sure to love!
Canned tomatoes are so much more than convenient pantry staples. They also provide the cancer fighting compound called lycopene! In fact, more than 1.3 million men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year, and numerous studies suggest that lycopene has cancer-fighting properties. Lycopene can be found in tomato products, which contain anti-carcinogenic compounds, such as vitamin A, vitamin C, and fiber. With early detection and higher intake of fruits and vegetables, prostate cancer can be reduced. Thus, it’s important to ensure that you are eating healthy, well-balanced meals and staying active on a daily basis. You can increase lycopene in your diet by adding canned tomatoes into your favorite meals, such as pizza, stir fries, or even smoothies to boost those benefits! So go ahead, try out this Philly cheese steak sandwich and reap the health benefits it provides!
Ingredients
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1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
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1 lb. Lean skirt steak, thinly sliced
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2 cloves garlic, minced
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1 small yellow onion, sliced
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2 oz portobello mushrooms, sliced
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1 green bell pepper, sliced
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1 15-oz can tomato sauce, no salt added
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Ground black pepper, as desired
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¼ tsp oregano
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4 oz mozzarella cheese, part skim
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4 whole grain rolls (hoagie or submarine), split
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet or sauté pan.
- Place sliced steak into the pan and simmer until tender, about 15 minutes.
- Add garlic and onions, cooking for 2 minutes.
- Add mushrooms and peppers and simmer for an additional 10 minutes.
- Add tomato sauce, black pepper and oregano and bring to simmer. Cook until vegetables and meat are very tender.
- Arrange meat, vegetables and sauce over split roll and top with 1 oz of mozzarella cheese.
Nutrition Information:
Serving Size:
1
Amount Per Serving:
Calories: 597Total Fat: 33gSodium: 531mgCarbohydrates: 41gFiber: 6gProtein: 36g
If you’re looking for other delicious recipes that your dad you will love, check out some of our favorites:
Easy Chicken Curry
Swiss Chard Pecan Lasagna
Black Bean Corn Chili
by Tomato Wellness | Sep 4, 2019 | Food and Nutrition
What this Dietitian Learned on a Cannery Tour
By Leslie Schilling, RD
No foods were quite so delicious to me as a tomato sandwich on the beach with my family in the summertime, or my mom’s baked spaghetti loaded with tomato sauce and canned diced tomatoes. In full disclosure, I’ve always been a tomato lover. So, naturally, I was honored to be invited on a tour visiting family farms that produce around 95% of all the canned tomatoes in the United States. We also visited peach and pear farms and learned how many of these beautiful fruits are picked, transported, and canned, in a matter of hours. Let me tell you what I learned about cans, and about myself.
I had canned food amnesia (and I bet I’m not alone).
To be honest, I’d forgotten about canned produce. Between my formal education as a dietitian and a person who has the privilege to buy fresh produce, canned produce had all but disappeared from my grocery list and kitchen. Seeing the process of produce being picked fresh from the field, carefully prepared, and canned, reminded me that I’ve been missing out on the nutrition that canned foods can provide (and sadly, so were my clients). As a dietitian, my clients deserve recommendations that are both nutrient-rich and cost-effective. This tour helped me remember that cans can deliver quality nutrition and reduce the prep time needed to get busy families around a table together. Regardless of your household food budget, canned produce can play a role in every kitchen.
Steel cans are recyclable – 100% recyclable.
My mind was blown on this one. Did you know that a magnet can retrieve steel cans from a kitchen trash bag that ended up in a landfill? That can you never recycled? I didn’t either. Steel cans are retrieved from either landfills or recycling plants and remade into new cans. This makes steel cans a smart choice for families looking to add nutrition and care for the environment we live in.
Nutrition sealed in time.
The canning process is one that has been around for more than a hundred years. While the technology involved in monitoring a cannery may look like a spaceship control center, the process remains simple, clean, and effective. As I watched tomatoes being placed into a rolling water bath, flash-steamed, and promptly sealed, it reminded of why my grandmother canned tomatoes right out of the garden. She’d say they’re fresh now, and they’ll be just as fresh when we open them in the winter.
Not only is the freshness sealed in, the carotenoids that make tomatoes a nutritional powerhouse are amplified. Canned tomatoes are known for their cancer-fighting compound lycopene, which becomes 2.5 times more bioavailable after the canning process. The canning “process” (which is really just steaming or cooking), also brings out valuable nutrients in peaches. Canned peaches have higher levels of vitamin C and folate compared to the fresh fruit.
Using canned foods can help reduce food waste.
These days, commercially canned produce must include a best by date, which is generally 36 months from the date of being sealed. When these canned foods are prepped, ready to open and add to a meal, we can also reduce food waste. Sadly, I’ve thrown away far too many fresh fruits and vegetables that I’ve forgotten or didn’t have time to prepare. Keeping canned produce in mind in our homes may help us add nutritional value and reduce food waste at the same time.
If you forget about the goodness of cans like I did, try to remember the acronym I created to prevent myself from ever experiencing canned food amnesia again.
S – Sealed at the peak of freshness.
T – Takes less time and money.
I – Can improve overall nutrition quality.
R – Can reduce food waste in fully recyclable packaging.
Let’s help families STIR in cost-effective nutrition that’s as fresh as fresh can be.
Big thanks to Pacific Coast Producers for hosting this amazing opportunity to see the harvest and canning process.
Nutrition Counseling for Families
Leslie Schilling owns a Las Vegas-based coaching practice, specializing in nutrition counseling for families, those of all ages with disordered eating concerns, and professional athletes and performers. In addition to running her practice, Leslie serves as a performance nutrition consultant for Cirque du Soleil® and an eating disorder specialist and supervisory consultant for eating disorder treatment centers in Nevada. With her warm, compassionate, and entertaining personality, Leslie been featured in media outlets like Women’s Health, Self, Pregnancy Magazine, The Yoga Journal, Bicycling, BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, US News & World Report, and on HGTV. You may know her best as the creator of the Born To Eat® approach and co-author of the award-winning book, Born To Eat.
by Tomato Wellness | Aug 2, 2019 | Recipes
Yes, pizza CAN be a health food! This recipe for Thin Crust Spinach Pizza is ready in under 30 minutes and is filled with nutritious ingredients, vitamins, and minerals!
Spinach is awesome! And as a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, I want to celebrate everyday like it’s national spinach day. And spinach, tomato sauce and cheese? One of the best combos. I’ve cooked up a super quick and easy dinner recipe for spinach pizza that I’d love to share with you. I’m a fan of healthy convenience – that means cooking from scratch when you can, shopping for healthy packaged foods, and using time-savers to get dinner on the table pretty darn fast. My shortcuts here? Frozen chopped spinach, jarred pizza or marinara sauce, pre-crumbled feta, and whole-wheat flatbread. No need to rinse, sauté, boil, mince, crumble, mess up six pots and pans, or roll out dough that clearly has no interest in flattening out. If you’d like to sub the shortcuts for homemade dough or fresh spinach or some other ingredients, I know it’s going to taste awesome, I have no doubts. But these shortcuts are great for busy nights and dishwashing-haters like me.
Indulge me for a second while I opine about spinach. I load this pizza up with the stuff. Why? Well, 2 cups is 89% water, which means it’s naturally low-calorie and filling. For just 129 calories, you get 15 grams of protein and 14 grams of fiber, which helps you feel satisfied, and supports muscle growth and development and bowel regularity. To get the same amount of protein, you’d need to eat 6 slices of turkey and you wouldn’t get any fiber. Plus, those 2 cups of spinach are high in calcium, magnesium, potassium, vitamin A, and vitamin E, and a good source of zinc and vitamin C. And bonus – the vitamin C in the pizza sauce will enhance iron absorption!
So here’s the recipe. Perfect for a busy night. Fun to make with kids. Great for singles. Or couples. Or parties.
Ingredients
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1 whole wheat flatbread or lavash (I used Trader Joe’s whole wheat lavash bread)
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1/4 cup good pizza sauce or marinara sauce
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2 cups frozen, chopped spinach, cooked. Squeeze out excess water.
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3 artichoke hearts, roughly chopped
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1/4 cup chopped fresh buffalo mozzarella
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2 tablespoons crumbled feta cheese
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees FahrenheitLine a baking sheet with tinfoil.
- Pre-crisp the flatbread by baking it for 2 minutes on each side (4 minutes total).
- Spread the marinara on the toasted flatbread, leaving a 1-inch border of crust.
- Cover evenly with chopped spinach.
- Arrange the artichokes on the spinach.
- Add chopped mozzarella.
- Sprinkle feta cheese on top.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the goat cheese is slightly brown and the mozzarella has melted.
Caroline Kaufman MS, RDN is a Los Angeles-based Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, freelance writer, blogger and media spokesperson. Her advice has been featured in Health, EatingWell, Real Simple, Fox News, PBS Parents, upwave, and Food and Nutrition Magazine. Caroline loves to help busy people achieve their nutrition goals without adding stress; if you like the sound of that, check out her blog and follow her on Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook.
by Tomato Wellness | Jul 26, 2019 | Recipes
Dinner is served thanks to this amazing recipe for Roasted Brussels Sprouts & Chicken Enchiladas. Be sure to make extras because they will be gone in a heartbeat!
It’s always a good time for enchiladas. Is it weird to wrap up enchiladas with little, baby cabbages inside? I say no. This is mainly because lately I’ve been living in a Brussels sprouts obsessed phase. And also because it’s always a good time for enchiladas, whether they’re filled with little green Brussels sprouts or not. No judgment here. I accept all the enchiladas.
There’s this thing about crispy oven-roasted Brussels sprouts that just does it for me. Actually oven-roasted veggies in general just do it for me. Oven-roasted carrots with a pinch of sea salt + honey. Oven-roasted tomatoes topped with Parmesan + basil. Umm yeah.
Tomatoes just have this magical way of getting all caramelized and sweet when roasted. A can of roasted tomatoes can do wonders to a plain ol’ pizza crust. Really, tomato anything can do wonders for a dish. Not to mention the powerhouse nutrient lycopene, which tomatoes are bursting with.
I buy a lot of tomato paste. It’s one of those pantry staples just necessary for life. So many recipes call for a delicious addition of tomato-y goodness. Enchilada sauce, pasta sauce, pizza sauce, soups, stews…they all NEED it. This article on how to save leftover tomato paste has spared quite a few half empty cans of the stuff.
So for this recipe I filled enchiladas with mashed acorn squash, which makes them oh-so-creamy without being super heavy and cheesy. A little of extra sharp cheddar on top adds plenty of cheesy goodness. Pair that with the sweet enchiladas sauce and you’ve got yourself a perfect dinner.
Ingredients
Enchilada Filling
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2 chicken breasts, cooked & shredded
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1 small acorn squash, sliced in half and seeds scooped out
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2 cups fresh Brussels sprouts (~18 balls), quartered
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½ teaspoon chili powder
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¼ teaspoon cumin
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¼ teaspoon salt
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¼ teaspoon black pepper
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12-14 (6-inch) corn tortillas
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½ cup extra sharp white cheddar, grated
Enchilada Sauce
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3 tablespoons olive oil
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2 garlic cloves, minced
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1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoon chili powder
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2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
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6-ounce can tomato paste
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1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F.
- Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and place acorn squash cut side down. Bake for 40 minutes, or until soft.
- While baking, toss the quartered Brussels sprouts with olive oil, salt and pepper. Spread onto a separate baking sheet and place in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring twice throughout cooking.
- While baking, make your enchilada sauce. Heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add in garlic and stir until garlic turns golden brown, about 1 minute. Add in chili powder and stir for 1 minute. Add in chicken broth, tomato paste and salt. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and cover.
- Scoop flesh out of the acorn squash into a large bowl. Add in shredded chicken, roasted Brussels sprouts, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper.
- Now assemble your enchiladas. Wrap your tortillas in a damp paper towel and heat for 30 seconds in the microwave to make them pliable. Scoop ¼ cup enchilada sauce into the bottom of a casserole dish (I had to use 2 baking dishes).
- Lightly coat a tortilla with enchilada sauce, add some filling and roll up the enchilada. Repeat until tortillas and filling are all rolled up. Pour remaining enchilada sauce over the top of the enchiladas. Sprinkle with cheese.
- Bake at 375F for 35-40 minutes. Just before serving, place under the oven broiler for 30 seconds to get the cheese all crispy.
Kylie is a food blogger and dietetic intern living in Houston, TX. Her recipes try to make healthy eating something to look forward to. While healthy eating is important, Kylie is a huge fan of everything in moderation…including moderation. You can connect with Kylie on instagram, twitter, facebook, bloglovin or pinterest.
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