Christmas Tree Salad

I've been writing more in my journal lately than my blog, sorry.  I've got some internal work to do so may go missing more than usual in the next few months.  But I wanted to post this salad I've been eating and really enjoying.  I call it a Christmas Tree salad because it's green with red (pomegranate) berries that remind me of Christmas tree lights.

Ingredients:
1 head romaine lettuce
1/2-1 lb cabbage
1/4 -1/2 lb broccoli
1/4-1/2 lb cauliflower
1 apple
1 asian pear
1 orange
1 Tbsp spicy pecan vinegar
1 Tbsp riesling raisin vinegar
1 small pomegranate or 1/2 large
1/2-1 oz seed mixture

Chop the lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower in the food processor using the S-blade.   Put in a big bowl.  Blend the apple, asian pear, orange, and vinegar in the food processor.  Add to the bowl along with the seed mixture.  Extract the pomegranate seeds and add.  Stir.   I like this a lot.

Well, if you don't hear from me for a while, all you have to remember about healthy eating is this:  GOMBBS

G is for Greens
O  onions
M mushrooms
B beans
B  berries
S  seed mixture

That's what I remember when I'm making soup and veggies for the week.   Happy holidays!

today's salad, this week's food

Today my salad is so good it boggles my mind, because it is simple.   I just chopped a head of romaine lettuce, a half lb of cabbage, some raw cauliflower, added 1/2 cup frozen peas, 1/2 cup frozen edamame, a grapefruit, peeled and chopped (okay, a really good grapefruit from Texas called Rio Star), an ounce of my seed mixture, 2 Tbsp Dr. Fuhrman's D'angou pear vinegar.  Now it's true, the high quality ingredients is what makes this salad delish--the good grapefruit, and the d'angou pear vinegar add a wonderful taste sensation that is not sour.  Wow. This made two giant salads.  I also made a microscopic version for housemate.  I'll have these for dinner?  --in 2 stages for sure.

Next week, first the first 3 days anyway, my micro salads will have lettuce, cabbage, carrots, satsuma (small orange), asian pear (a honey-sweet apple), small pomegranate, flavored vinegar, and seed mixture.  I'm expecting that to be yummy!  My roasted veggies will be broccoli, cauliflower, a little butternut squash, a little beets, onion, with chives, sage and basil ('cause I have some in the freezer from the garden), and I'm still working on the marinate, but probably orange juice and no-salt mustard.  Breakfast will be light before exercise,  a bowl of frozen cherries, blueberries, mangos.  Lunch and dinner will be bean soup, micro-salad, and roasted veggies.  I'll probably eat my lunch bean soup early because I'll be hungry after exercise.  I still have lots of bean soup from two batches in the freezer so don't have to make any this week.  Yum, talk about eating like a king.  I am amazed that I sometimes go off plan to eat junk because I think I'm missing something.  This food is thousands of time better.  I wish I could remember that all the time!

Princeton Immersion, Thanksgiving, soup, and stuff

I went to Dr. Fuhrman's Princeton Immersion last weekend.  It was a wonderful trip for many reasons!  It was a great road trip with my friend Suz.  We stopped in Pittsburg to see my best pal Gail, sadly, only for a few hours.  I worked with a student for a day at Princeton which was very productive.  We visited with Suz's parents in Philidelphia.  And the immersion was fantastic.  It was jam-packed with lectures. Dr. Fuhrman is so energetic and interesting, you really can listen to him for hours.  Even better was the food.  This is the main reason I go, though I did learn a lot from the lectures.  I thought I knew it all by now, but one thing I get out of the in-person lectures is what Dr. Fuhrman is passionate about, and what is less certain scientifically.  It helps reinforce what the most important things are to keep in mind.  But the food!  It was the best I've ever had at one of these events.  I think that was in large part due to Chef Martin Oswald's contributions.  He owns a nutritarian restaurant in Aspen, Colorado!  (called the Pyramid Bistro).  He gave a talk on the last day and I have been having fun putting his tips into practice!  We got the recipes from the immersion and slides from his talk.  They are worth a lot!

So today I'm back from the holidays and putting some of my new knowledge into action.  My soup today has Indian spices and I cooked up the onion as Chef Martin described:  first you heat up a stainless steel pot until hot, then put the onions and garlic in.  They sizzle up, slightly brown, and then release their juices.  You don't need oil, and they still gain a nice flavor.  Fun, it worked!  I did that with the leeks, celery, collards and kale too.  Then the pot was looking pretty burned and I thought, this will take forever to clean up.  But then I did the mushrooms the same way.  Well, they release so much liquid that it just ended up cleaning up the pot.  When they were done, the pot was clean.  ha!   a nice accidental discovery.  My soup was just my usual pile of things that I found in the co-op or my freezer.  I soaked beans, red himalayan rice, lentils, and purple barley overnight, and started cooking them in the morning.  Then cooked up the onions, garlic, celery, leeks, mushrooms, even the collards and kale, like Chef Martin described.  Added them to the pot one by one.  Oh I cooked up a festival squash in the oven, then added it to the soup after it cooled.  Oh yeah, and while cooking up the onion and other veggies, I added some graram masala and curry powder as they cooked.  Add the end I added some currants and fresh ground ginger.  It made for a nice hearty soup.  I froze most of it in single-serving containers.  yum.  I think I'll have it for breakfast every day.   I'll be doing my food prep at night this week.

My food plans for the week are soup for breakfast, and salad and roasted veggies for lunch and dinner.  The salads will be micro-salads made from lettuce, cabbage, maybe some broccoli and cauliflower, all cut up finely in the food processor; and topped with pomegranate seeds, grapefruit or orange, seed mixture, and flavored vinegar.  I love these.  The name should be changed from micro-salad to high-powered salad because it is so nutrient rich.  Tonight I'll experiment with roasted veggies.  I hope I can get this right.  I'm going to follow Chef Martin's advice to cover with foil at first so they essentially steam cook (before burning on the outside), then take of the foil to roast at the end.  I'll top with fresh herbs.  The veggies available now (that I like) are broccoli, brussels sprouts, carrots, onions, leeks, and sweet potato.  I'll do a little of each.  I am just learning to do this.  It would be nice to do a big batch and eat them for several days but I'm not sure how well they will keep.  I think I'll start off by just trying to do one day at a time and hope it isn't too time consuming.  I will add some flavored vinegar and mustard as marinate.  I got some fresh sage and rosemary at the co-op and have some basil from the garden in my freezer.  I hope this works!

Well, this post is long enough so I won't go into Thanksgiving much except to say I made apple sauce for my "brother-in law."  He had two 18 lb bags of apples!  holy cow, we had all the burners going:

It was fun though.  I nibbled a lot on the apples.  In fact, it was so much fun, we decided to make some for ourselves when we got home.  My batch has no sugar in it.  I'm not sure what I will use it in as I am not a great dessert maker or baker, the usual use of apple sauce.  But, heck, it probably could go in soup.

Here's tonight's quick salad I threw together, which is yummy, as salads always are:

That's got lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, blueberries, banana, small orange, seed mixture, and d'angou pear vinegar.

whew.  time to go fold laundry, then start tomorrow's food prep.  whew!  

tomorrow's salad

Let's see if I can remember what went into this:

1 head lettuce

1/2 small head cabbage

1 stalk broccoli

1/3 cauliflower

1/2 cucumber

1 celery stalk

some spinach and arugula, maybe 1 cup packed each?

2 apples, cored

cilantro

1 cup frozen corn

juice of 1 small orange and 1 small lime

2 Tbsp seed mixture (soaks up the juice)

Chop everything (except the last 3) in food processor and combine in a big bowl. Add the last three ingredients. The lime adds a nice zing. I wonder if cumin would be good in this. Or cinnamon...or pumpkin pie spice. It seemed good as it was so I didn't want to mess with it. Update: I did try pumpkin pie spice the next day and didn't like it so much--doesn't go well with the lime. Fortunately it didn't ruin it, but I don't recommend it.

Mexican Chopped Salad

Today's salad started with my usual veggies chopped in a food processor: romaine lettuce, kale, bok choy, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. Stir in a giant mixing bowl.

Then I chopped 2 apples and a yellow bell pepper in the food processor and added those. I would have added cilantro but I didn't have any. Stir into the giant mixing bowl.

Then tomatoes from a 16 oz can (from our garden). beans. and 1 cup frozen corn. Stir into the giant mixing bowl.

I took the water from the can and added 3 Tbsp seed mixture, 1 Tbsp oregano, a sprinkle of chipotle powder, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1-2 Tbsp spicy pecan vinegar (any vinegar or lime or lemon will do), stirred that together and then stir into the giant mixing bowl.

I'm looking forward to lunch and dinner!

Breakfast was just nibbling on this and carrots and sugar snap peas while preparing.

confetti salads

This is my new name for my "microprocessor" salads, which can be misconstrued with electronic devices. Carol has a beautiful presentation of her confetti salad on her website. This is a much better name for it. I think she was also inspired by Carrots' thread on the Fuhrman forums.

microsalads

Today's microsalad was sooooo good. I was thinking it's as good as any Thanksgiving treat. It's pretty much what I posted a week or two ago, so I just updated the post a bit and added a few pictures. Maybe I'm just insane to think this is so good, but hey, as long as I'm happy with it.

Fall microsalads

Here's what my microsalads have been like lately.

Chop in a food processor and stir into a big bowl:

1 head romaine lettuce (about 1/2-1 lb total)

1/4-1/2 lb broccoli

1/4 - 1/2 lb cauliflower

1/4 - 1/2 lb purple cabbage

1/4 lb bok choy or baby bok choy

puree in a food processor and add to the bowl:

1-2 oranges (2 if small), peeled, remove seeds

1 banana peeled

1 apple and/or 1 pear (or 2 small apples)

Then stir into the bowl:

1 oz ground seeds (pumpkin, sesame, sunflower, hemp) and pignolias

pomegranate seeds from 1 pomegranate

optional

add 1/2 cup edamame

This fits into three 3-cup tupperware bowls. Total calories (without edamame) is about 1000 so it's substantial! This tastes like dessert to me. It's crisp, fresh, inviting, zingy (from the pomegranate), and sweet (banana, orange and apple!). It's real yummy! This post describes how to "peel" a pomegranate and extract the seeds.

Here's the fruit I used one day. At left is a persimmons--I left that off the ingredients list because I use it rarely but it's a nice treat when you have a ripe one.

Here's the final product. It may not look like much but boy is it tasty:

Today's microsalad

This is a combination I've been having a lot lately because strawberries have been cheap and delicious! I vary the amount and type of greens so today's is just an example. Sometimes I used kale or cabbage instead of bok choy or lettuce. I also don't measure things out specifically, this is just what they came out to be when I weighed them.

Ingredients:

Romaine lettuce, 4.6 oz

broccoli, 1 stalk (peel the outer stalk layer)

cauliflower, 1/2 lb

spinach, 4 oz

bok choy, 8 oz

1 lb strawberries (big box)

6 oz blackberries (small box)

another fruit if you want, e.g., pear, apple, orange (peeled, deseeded, sliced)

juice of 1 lime

1 oz fresh squeezed orange juice

2 Tbsp seeds, grind if desired (e.g., flax which you need to grind, chia, hemp, sunflower)

Chop the veggies in a food processor using the s-blade. trim the strawberries, then chop them with the other fruit in a food processor. They will liquify but I like them chunky so I don't fully puree them. Do it to your desired chunkiness. Combine everything except the seeds in a large bowl. I then dish them out into 3 tupperware bowls to have with brekky, lunch and dinner. They are like dessert even though they are loaded with veggies! I wait to add the seeds until mealtime. It seems fresher that way.

Here's a picture of one bowl with a small spoon in it.

Breakfast micro-salad

Here's a salad I made several times this week. It was so filling I often spread it out to lunch even though it has under 500 calories.

Maybe it doesn't look the greatest but it takes a longer time to eat if you don't chop it down with the food processor. I like it both ways.

Ingredients:

Lettuce and/or spinach, 5-10 oz

cauliflower and/or broccoli (optional), 0.5-1.5 lbs

Fresh herbs if you want (e.g., chives, dill, cilantro), optional, I just do this when I have some in the garden

lime juice, from one lime

fresh berries if in season, otherwise frozen (16 oz)--This time of year it's fresh strawberries and blackberries, very yummy. But I don't shop every day so other days it's frozen cherries and blueberries or banana, etc.

1 orange, peeled

1/2 cup edamame (optional)

1 Tbsp seeds (e.g., sunflower, chia, flax, hemp) (optional)

I chop everything except the seeds, edamame and lime in the food processor. I grind the seeds in the coffee grinder, juice the lime, and add them. You can chop the edamame in the food processor too.

healthy black bean salad

Despite all the healthy stuff in here, my guests enjoyed it too. I brought this to a potluck tonight.

Ingredients:

1 lb dried black beans (I was out, so used Rancho Gordo vaquero beans--they are black and white), or 2 cans

1 bunch kale, frozen

juice of 1 lime

flavored vinegar (optional)

1 stalk broccoli

1-2 cups cauliflower

1 red bell pepper

fruit--10 oz frozen or fresh mango, or apple, orange, pear in any combination, maybe 12-16 oz total

some cilantro and/or chives

10 oz bag of frozen corn

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Cook the beans if dried (soak overnight first, cook for a few hours), drain. Add the corn which will thaw the corn and cool the beans. Remove the kale from the freezer and crinkle right away with your hands (shatters into small pieces so save chopping time!). Add the lime juice and some vinegar to the kale. Chop the rest of the ingredients in a food processor, combine everything in a big bowl. Serve and enjoy!

I forgot to take a picture of the final product but here's the beans and the corn before draining:

and here's the veggies after chopping in the microprocessor:

Then they were all combined. It was good and filling!

today's food and last week

Today's brekky was my "dessert" salad. It had spinach, romaine lettuce, a bag of frozen cherries, sliced banana, 1/2 cup edamame, 2 Tbsp spicy pecan vinegar. The cherries and bananas are so sweet, that's why it's like dessert. yummy yummy:

Lunch was banana walnut ice cream for a treat! and some carrots and celery.

Dinner was a "micro-processor" salad, Carrots' invention from the Fuhrman forums. It's a salad where you chop everything in the food processor. This had a bunch of greens I harvested from the garden (came up from last year):

kale, mustard greens, spinach, chives, cilantro

+ some local greens from the co-op:

ramps, arugula, sorrel

+ apple, orange, (pureed in the food processor) and juice of 2 limes

+ 1/2 cup frozen peas (as is)

+ 1/2 Tbsp chia seeds:

I thought for sure this was going to taste horrible. The greens were strong and bitter, especially the mustard greens, and I thought, I really should cook these, but I didn't feel like it. Fortunately the lime, orange and apple made it taste great. Amazing! The lime is key for offsetting the bitter taste of the raw greens.

This last week I was working 16 hours days, and didn't have the time or inclination for cooking, besides the beets, mushrooms and beans I added to my "micro-processor" salads. I mainly just ate salads for brekky (like this), and micro-processor salads for lunch and dinner. Tomorrow for lunch I'll make black bean hummus and lightly steamed veggies for dipping. I'll probably cook more at lunch this week as my collaborator will be joining us I think. And I'll have salad for brekky and dinner probably. That's my guess but I never know when my mood will change.