Shrimp Stew - OMG Goodness!

One of my favorite magazines is Body & Soul. Every issue has great articles on nutrition, excercise and all around healthy living. In the latest issue, I found this recipe for Shrimp Stew and it's just about the best thing I've made in a long time. Now, in the article, they are saying how great shrimp are for you, and they are, but they don't give the nutrition info on this recipe which seems unusual. By my calculations, per serving it looks something like 350-400 calories, 10-13 g fat, 33 g protein, and 22 g carbs. That of course depends on what kind of sausage you use. I point out the sausage because that's where you'll find the most fat and sodium, and is where you'll have the most opportunity to make this a little bit healthier (every little bit helps, right!).

The recipe calls for italian chicken sausage, but I used chicken andouille sausage and it was excellent. You could use most any kind of sausage and it would be good, but you might want to opt for one with low sodium if you can find it because the real downside of this dish is the amount of sodium. I've looked at several chicken and turkey sausages on the market, and the ones I've found range from a low of 340 mg to a high of 1450 mg of sodium for the 2 links that are called for or 85 - 363 mg per serving, depending on link size and what's mixed in during the processing of it. The maximum recommended daily intake for adults is 2400 mg per day as shown on food labels, but a reduced sodium diet would be around 1500 mg per day. So you can see with the higher sodium sausages you could be getting a substantial portion of your daily allotment in this one dish. Be sure to look at the labels! If you are watching sodium and/or want to eliminate the sausage altogether you may want to substitute cubed chicken or turkey and add some more seasoning to give it that country stew flavor. You can easily make your own seasoning mix from fresh or dried herbs like oregano, rosemary, garlic, thyme, chili powder, various peppercorns and seeds like fennel, celery seed, etc.. Just experiment until you find what you like - my favorite way to cook.

With the potatoes, carrots, onions, and garlic you've got a rich tasting, great stew! Put a salad with it and you've got an easy meal. With any luck you'll have some leftovers, and this is one of those things that gets better overnight.

All this talk of Shrimp Stew is making me want to head to the kitchen and start cooking a batch! Enjoy!

Need a little energy boost this morning? Try these Yoga poses.

I woke up at 4:00 a.m. this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. I really hate it when that happens! Rather than toss and turn all morning until my alarm clock went off, I decided to pick up the book I've been reading in hopes that it would make me sleepy. But it didn't. Of course now I'm feeling sluggish and not fully rested, but I want to get a yoga class in today. So I was trying to think of something that would give me some energy, but wouldn't wreck my blood sugar or jack me up on so much caffeine that I won't be able to sleep later. I happened to go to the Body & Soul Magazine website to look for something I saw in my latest issue, and found these 3 yoga poses that are supposed to "stretch and strengthen the spine, increase vitality, reduce tension, release impurities, and improve focus -- everything you need to face what lies ahead." And it's called "Morning Wake-Up". Sounded perfect!

As it turns out, these are 3 poses are a variation of poses that we commonly do to start yoga classes at the studio where I've been going. And I like them so much that I commonly do them to start my yoga practice at home. They are great to loosen the hips and as I found from reading this article awaken vital energy. According to Kundalini yoga tradition, "a built-in supply of energy lies dormant at the root of the spine, like a bulb that rests underground, waiting for a cue to bloom. " These poses help provide that "cue" and gets that energy flowing.

Give them a try next time you feel tired and sluggish. I feel better already!