Rachael Ray joined the Dr. Oz Show today, helping Doctor Oz fans fix our holiday food disasters. Rachael says the secret to stress-free holiday cooking is to make what you know you make well. Don’t try to make gourmet food that is idyllic, just stick with the recipes and dishes you already know how to make and can trust will come out right. Also make things ahead of time so you can enjoy the day with your family instead of spending all your time in the kitchen.

Rachael Ray’s Fix for Mushy Vegetables

To fix having soggy vegetables, Rachael says roasting them is the easiest sure-fire way to have good tasting vegetables that are cooked right. If your vegetables do get overcooked, then the only thing you can do with them is put them in soup. Put the overcooked veggies (broccoli, asparagus, etc.) in a food processor and add a little sea salt. Add a little bit of warmed-up vegetable stock or chicken stock, just enough to puree it. On the stove, thicken up some milk and add a little shredded sharp cheddar to it. Add just enough of the milk mixture to the vegetable to make it into a soup, so it’s mostly vegetable, and serve it warm.

Rachael Ray’s Potato-Parsnip Latkes (Pancakes)

Rachael prefers to add a little bit of parsnip to anything with potatoes in it, for the extra Vitamin C and fiber, so her potato latkes have parsnips in them.

• 2/3 cup light oil (vegetable, canola, or olive, for frying the pancakes)
• 3 medium Idaho potatoes
• 1 small parsnip
• 1 small onion
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon flat-leaf parsley
• 1 tablespoon chives
• 1 tablespoon dill
• 2 tablespoons matzo meal
• salt and pepper

Shred the potatoes and the parsnip, then mix with a little sea salt and allow all the liquid to drain out. Discard the liquid. Shred the onion right into the bowl of shredded potatoes, letting the onion juice go in the potatoes as well. Chop the parsley, chives and dill and add with the egg and matzo meal to the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper and mix well. Heat the oil in a frying pan, and drop in spoonfuls of the potato mixture. Fry until crispy and flip, continue frying until crispy and golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towel and serve warm.

See the recipe on Dr. Oz’s website

Rachael Ray’s Secrets to Roasting Meat

Stock is Your Friend. Rachael says you should always keep broth in a box on hand…she has it stacked to the ceiling. Whenever you’re roasting something, you need to put a little stock in the pan so the meat can stay moisturized while cooking. If you do overcook your meat, then slice it up in the kitchen and let it bathe in warm stock on the stove for a while, then plate it up.

Rachael Ray’s Cider Beef Stew

This is Rachael’s number one go-to recipe for Christmas meal. She says what’s so great about a stew is that you can’t screw it up.

• 1/2 pound of bacon
• 3 pounds beef chuck
• 3 carrots
• 2 apples
• 2-3 ribs of celery
• 1 large onion
• Herb bouquet (sprigs of sage, thyme, parsley tied into a bundle with kitchen string)
• bay leaf
• salt and pepper
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 2 to 2-1/2 cups organic cider
• 2 cans of beef consommé
• 2 bulbs of roasted garlic
• 2-1/2 pounds potatoes
• 2 or 3 large parsnips
• 1-1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar
• 1 cup whole milk
• Nutmeg for grating
• 1/4 cup chopped chives

Using a large Dutch oven on the stove, start with 1/2 pound of bacon, cut into strips and brown it in a little olive oil until crispy. Remove from the pan and set aside. Dredge chunks of beef chuck in flour, then sear it in the bacon grease until crispy, in batches. Don’t crowd the meat in the pan. Remove the meat from the pan and set aside.

Cut up the carrot, celery, apples, onion and add to the stock pot with the herb bouquet, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Cover the pot halfway and cook for a few minutes to soften the vegetables, then sprinkle with flour and stir for a minute.

Add the meat and bacon back to the pot and add apple cider, consommé and roasted garlic. Bring it to a boil, then put it in the oven at 325 degrees for 2-1/2 to 3 hours.

Remove from the oven and let stand for 20 minutes while you make the potato mash.

Boil potatoes and parsnips until soft, then drain and put back in the pot. Mash with milk, 2 tablespoons of butter, and cheese. Stir in nutmeg and chives.

Serve the stew in bowls with the mashed potatoes on the side.

See the recipe on Dr. Oz’s website

The Importance of Family Health History

Doctor Oz says that knowing your family’s health history is so important that he’s making it step 3 in his Transformation Nation $1 million giveaway. Dr. Thomas Frieden, the director of the Center for Disease Control, joined the show to explain that preventing heart attacks and strokes is so easy. The first thing to do is write down your family health history. Dr. Oz can’t stress enough that WRITING IT DOWN is important. People just have a nebulous idea of what their history is, but writing it down makes it so much more clear.

Make a family tree, and find out who had what health issue and at what age. Dr. Oz make a family history worksheet you can download here, and when you get together with your family, work on filling it out.

Dr. Frieden also wants you to talk to your doctor about what you find in your family history and discuss whether you need to do anything now to prevent disease. Keep the family health history updated over time, and make this a gift that keeps on giving for your family.

Dr. Oz is giving away a Body Tape Measure courtesy of Zappos.com, and you’re eligible to win it if you join his Transformation Nation.

Salt Therapy

Salt has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, and even Hippocrates prescribed salt therapy for breathing problems. Salt therapy has many benefits and can be used to treat many conditions, including

• Colds
• Allergies
• Asthma
• Dermatitis
• Psoriasis
• Cystic Fibrosis

Using a salt inhaler helps to move mucous off the cilia in your airways. Breathe the salty air from the inhaler in through your mouth and out your nose. Use for 15 minutes a day to ward off a cold.

Salt baths help to reduce skin irritation, even that of psoriasis. Add a 1/2 cup of sea salt and a half-cup of oatmeal (on the show he said he was using colloidal oatmeal) to the bath water. The oatmeal helps to lock in the moisturizing effects of the salt.

Burn Belly Fat with Brown Seaweed and Black Licorice Extract

500 mg of Brown Seaweed has been shown to help burn belly fat. In a study, Dr. Oz said that it also helped fix the fats in the blood too, and liver fat…so VERY beneficial. To accelerate the benefits of the Brown Seaweed supplement, add Black Licorice. 2 ML daily in combination with Brown Seaweed has been shown to increase weight loss by up to a pound a week!

Some brands of Seaweed Extract on Amazon.com to consider:

• 100% Pure Kombu Extract Modifilan
• 100% Pure Fucoidan Extract
• Seagate Freeze-Dried Seaweed

Some brands of Licorice Extract on Amazon.com to consider:

• Herb Pharm Licorice Extract
• Nature’s Answer Licorice Extract
• Licorice Root Organic Extracts