Sliced into a salad or sandwich, tomatoes usually play a supporting role. But this time of year, tomatoes are at their best.

Today’s Health-e-Recipe celebrates tomatoes as the main ingredient: Broiled Tomatoes Provencal highlights this favorite garden vegetable with a little breadcrumbs, Parmesan cheese and oven time to create a flavorful treat brimming with cancer-fighting lycopene. Noted for its ability to prevent prostate cancer and even retard the growth of prostate cancer cells, scientists are investigating lycopene’s possible protection against skin, lung and other cancers, too. Its levels are highest in cooked and processed tomatoes (it is also present in other red produce including red grapefruit, papaya and watermelon).

Try these simple broiled tomatoes as a healthy appetizer or side dish for a light, late-summer fish or poultry entree, along with some leafy greens. Click here to subscribe to Health-e-Recipes.

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Peaches are peaking right now. These sweet, juicy orbs are the perfect summertime dessert or snack.

One medium peach has 2 grams of fiber, only 40 calories, 285 mg of potassium and a fair amount of vitamin A. A treat when sliced into fruit or green salads, peaches are prime for pies, too. But today’s Health-e-Recipe is a way to get the delicious combo of peach with a crunchy, baked whole-grain topping without the calories and fat of pie crust.

Our Peach Crumble with Blueberries adds berries’ succulent flavor along with their cancer-fighting phytochemicals called anthocyanins. You can find more delicious fruit recipes from the AICR Test Kitchen. Click here to subscribe to our weekly Health-e-Recipe.

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Ever tried whole-wheat pasta? Today’s Health-e-Recipe for Confetti Macaroni and Bean Salad is a great opportunity.

Now carried by most grocery stores, all or part whole-wheat pastas give you more health benefits than plain white pastas. The texture and taste of whole-wheat pasta is different from regular pasta, so try out various brands.

Since Americans eat a lot of pasta, choosing the whole-wheat kind can help you get the 3 daily servings of whole grains recommended for good health. Whole grains such as whole wheat have more dietary fiber to keep your digestive system working well and to add a few more cancer-fighting phytochemicals, vitamins and minerals to your diet. If you are gluten-intolerant, try substituting 3 cups of cooked barley, bulgur or brown rice for the pasta. Also whole grains, they blend beautifully with the other ingredients in this recipe.

You can find more recipes for healthy whole grains from AICR’s Test Kitchen. Or get a free download of the newly updated Beans and Whole Grains brochure from AICR’s New American Plate series. Click here to subscribe to our weekly Health-e-Recipe.

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Surf summer’s heat waves with AICR’s Blueberry-Watermelon Freeze, today’s Health-e-Recipe. Watermelon’s red color means it has plenty of lycopene, as do cooked tomatoes and red grapefruit. Lycopene is one phytochemical researchers believe may help discourage prostate cancer.

And blueberries are bursting with anthocyanins, a class of phytochemicals also found in cherries, red grapes and cranberries. AICR grantees have found – you guessed it – these compounds may help protect us from cancer. When you eat combinations of fruits and vegetables, their many kinds of phytochemicals work together to maximize cell protection and help to ward off DNA damage that can lead to cancer. For more delicious summertime recipes using foods that fight cancer, visit AICR’s Test Kitchen. Or, click here to subscribe to our weekly Health-e-Recipe.

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Getting tired of the same old lettuce and tomato salad? Summer’s the time when salads are at their most appealing and today’s Health-e-Recipe for Mango, Cucumber and Red Pepper Salad mixes up salad stereotypes. The crunchy cukes and juice red pepper contrast in color and texture with the soft smooth mango. Here’s how to peel a mango like a pro.

Dressed with citrus, mint and peanuts, this salad still adds lettuce – but red leaf, a darker variety so therefore higher in phytochemicals that fight cancer. Share this zingy salad with friends, and find more unusual salad combinations at AICR’s Test Kitchen. Click here to subscribe to weekly Health-e-Recipes from AICR.

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Making homemade pizza usually involves making a crust that has to be tossed and kneaded and put in a warm place to rise. It’s a good way to include physical activity in your cooking – but at the end of a long day, you may want a simpler solution.

Today’s Health-e-Recipe uses rice for a crust that holds a variety of healthy veggies and part-skim mozzarella. Rice is the go-to grain for many of the 2 million people in the U.S. who have celiac disease, where eating any food that contains a protein called “gluten” can cause severe intestinal problems. Gluten is found in wheat and other grains.

Here, rice allows you to avoid highly processed frozen or delivered pizzas, and even mixes in Parmesan for a delicious cheesy flavor to complement the cancer-fighting garlic, mushrooms, peppers, onions and tomato sauce, whose phytochemicals all work together in this dish to protect your health. Click here to subscribe to Health-e-Recipes.

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Today’s Health-e-Recipe for Yogurt-Marinated Chicken Kabobs borrows a time-honored tip from Middle Eastern and Indian cooking: Use yogurt as a marinade.

Yogurt is a “probiotic” – meaning that it contains live, active cultures of bacteria that benefit our digestive systems. Studies suggest that probiotic foods like fresh yogurt can replenish healthy bacteria in the gut that may be depleted in people who are taking antibiotics. Some early research even indicates that eating yogurt regularly may help prevent colon cancer by keeping colon cells from developing abnormalities.

To find delicious recipes that use yogurt, like Strawberry-Melon Smoothie, Tandoori Spinach and Yogurt-Dill Dressing, visit AICR’s Test Kitchen. Or just substitute plain, low-fat yogurt for some or all of the mayonnaise in dressings, for sour cream on baked potatoes and in dips.

Click here to subscribe to Health-e-Recipes.

(photo credit: National Cancer Institute)

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If you’re hungry for red meat and concerned about your health, you don’t have to take an all-or-nothing approach.

It’s true that AICR’s expert report on diet, nutrition, physical activity and cancer prevention found that red meat is associated with higher colon cancer risk. But it didn’t say red meat should be banned from our diets.

The expert report’s advice is to limit red meat to no more than 18 ounces (cooked) a week. That’s 3 meals each containing 6 ounces of red meat; or 6 meals each having 3 ounces of red meat.

Today’s Health-e-Recipe for Roasted Garlic Steak Sandwiches shows you how to add lots of flavor from a phytochemical-rich garlic marinade to a modest amount of meat, making this healthy portion highly satisfying. It’s also accompanied by healthful spinach and other greens plus a hearty whole-wheat bun. Click here to subscribe to AICR’s Health-e-Recipes.

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Today, AICR’s Health-e-Recipes hit the big 3-0-0.

Every Tuesday for the past 300 weeks, we’ve sent out a new recipe from the AICR Test Kitchen to what is now many thousands of email subscribers. Each one has been developed by a team of recipe developers and dietitians here at AICR, and rigorously taste-tested by AICR staff (as job perks go, it’s a good one.)

To celebrate, we came up this light, delicious and summery risotto, a serving of which weighs in at just at 300 calories.

Click here to subscribe to weekly Health-e-Recipes from AICR.

Do you have a favorite AICR recipe?  Click over to this week’s Health-e-Recipe and read how you can tell us about , and enter to receive a copy of AICR’s New American Plate Cookbook.

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Besides being a good Scrabble word, quinoa (“keenwah”) is a really beneficial whole grain. Find out why in today’s Health-e-Recipe for Quinoa with Mushrooms and Squash. Sample the first crop of summer squash – zucchini and yellow “crookneck” – along with mushrooms in this recipe.

Mushrooms contain ergosterol, a compound that turns into vitamin D, plus the cancer-fighting mineral selenium. With AICR funding, researchers at the Beckman Research Institute’s City of Hope in Los Angeles found that white button and other kinds of mushrooms suppressed production of aromatase, a substance that fuels production of the hormone estrogen – linked to increased risk of post-menopausal breast cancer. So enjoy this all-around excellent recipe for cancer prevention. Receive Health-e-Recipes each week: click here.

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