Healthy Cooking

Traditional Indian food has it all -- flavor, variety and health. Typically associated with strong spices like tumeric, curry and mustard, Indian food recipes may seem intimidating to the home cook, but are actually very manageable projects.

Whether you're already a fan of Indian cooking or not, you'll want to try out very simple Indian food recipes to start. Kitchen Daily's Indian Spiced Shrimp is familiar concept that is just exotic enough to get you and your family excited about eating more Indian cuisine. The easy Indian recipe calls for toasting ingredients like peas, peppercorns and chile in a skillet before adding shrimp and shallots. Serve the delicious seafood over brown basmati rice and the entire meal takes about 45 minutes to complete.

Chickpeas and curry have become synonymous with Indian cooking, so the Chickpea Curry Recipe from allrecipes.com is a traditional Indian food recipe. Although the method is simple, there are lots of ingredients, so give yourself about an hour to make this recipe. It's sure to be flavorful as coriander, cumin, cilantro, garlic, onions, cayenne pepper and garbanzo beans are all on the menu.

When you're in the mood to try something more advanced (and when you have a few hours), experiment with this Indian Puff Pastry recipe from Kitchen Daily. This Indian food recipe is a fusion of French and Indian cuisines as it recalls traditional Indian bread, naan, but is folded to resemble a French staple, puff pastry. Naan can be eaten alone or served with a soup.

You've probably heard about "Superfoods," an ever growing list of whole, unprocessed foods that go beyond regular health food and can prevent and even reverse some conditions such as high cholesterol and hypertension. Also known as functional foods or medicinal foods, super foods can have health benefits, especially if consumed as part of a healthy diet that is low in saturated fat and sodium. Though food should not be used to treat health conditions without the consultation of a medical professional, most experts agree that these foods are a valuable part of a healthy diet, and that they do offer health benefits.

Super foods fall into these major categories:

It's easier than you think to get kids to eat their veggies. We've rounded up the best vegetable recipes for kids and the best tips from moms on how to get your kids to actually eat them. Healthy kids recipes plated in a creative way make eating veggies fun.

Since children have active imaginations, they're more likely to eat veggies in creative shapes such as these Mr. Tomato Heads, Vegetable Flowers or snow peas flying fish. Kim Bloom uses creativity to make healthy kids recipes her son loves to eat. Take a tip from this mom and make a Vegetable Forest. This vegetable recipe for kids is simple to make: asparagus "trees," broccoli and cauliflower "bushes" and hummus "dirt." Kim even gets her son to eat kale by making Cha Cha Cha Chips.

Preparing a healthy meal for you and your family can seem like a daunting task. There are many questions that arise, like "Does healthy cooking taste differently (worse) than the meals I usually prepare?" or "Will healthier ingredients cost more money?" or even the huge question of how to begin your journey into healthy cooking. The answers are that there are many easy healthy meals that use fresh ingredients that don't have to cost more than packaged and prepared food.

We offer a few tips to successful healthy cooking and some easy healthy recipes.

Healthy cooking is an important part of maintaining a nutritious eating plan. Because while shopping for and selecting healthy foods at the market is essential, bringing home the right foods is only half the battle. To get the most flavor out of your meals and to stay on track with your dietary goals, it's important to have some healthy cooking strategies.

Happily, healthy cooking isn't hard. If you plan ahead and keep your kitchen stocked with the right ingredients, you can whip up nutritious meals without sacrificing any of the taste you crave. Here are some tried and true strategies and substitutions for healthy cooking that will make sticking to your healthy eating plan a breeze.