Create a heart-healthy holiday menu
[Family Features]Enjoying your family’s favorite meals and seasonal sweets is a holiday tradition, but enjoying those beloved treats doesn’t necessarily mean giving up your health-conscious diet.
Before you decide what to prepare for your holiday gatherings this year, consider the benefits of recipes that follow a heart-healthy meal plan like this apple coffee cake. One such plan, the Diet to Stop Hypertension (DASH) plan, benefits the heart and also helps prevent and treat high blood pressure.
Developed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), DASH takes a flexible, balanced approach to eating that helps promote good health over the long term.
- It does not require any special foods, instead providing daily and weekly nutritional goals.
- According to NHLBI-funded research, it can lower two major risk factors for heart disease: high blood pressure and high LDL (bad) cholesterol levels.
- Studies have shown that increasing physical activity according to a plan can help you lose weight.
- When combined with a reduction in salt and sodium, it often provides greater health benefits than just a meal plan alone.
To learn more and find recipes suitable for DASH, visit nhlbi.nih.gov/DASH.
Watch the video to see how to make this recipe!
apple coffee cake
Recipe courtesy of The Heart Truth Program (part of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Servings: 20
- 5 cups tart apples, cored, peeled and chopped
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup dark raisins
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 beaten egg
- 2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease a 13-by-9-by-2-inch skillet.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine apples, sugar, raisins, and pecans. Mix well. Leave for 30 minutes.
- Stir in oil, vanilla, and eggs.
- Sift together flour, baking soda and cinnamon. Add to apple mix, using about 1/3 of mix at a time, and stir until dry ingredients are moistened.
- Make the dough into bread. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the center of the cake comes out clean with a toothpick.
- Let the cake cool slightly before serving.
