Plant Powered Awesomeness!

You cannot see how delicious this juice tastes – but, TRUST ME – it’s the bomb dot com. We have been juicing several times per week for a while now and I am loving it! You can find high-speed centrifugal juicers fairly inexpensively and I used one of those for years. Just recently, I upgraded to a low-speed masticating juicer and it was one of the best birthday presents I have ever received. Thanks ME!

Choose organic vegetables, if available. Wash and cut veggies to fit in juicing chute.

1 bunch kale

1 peeled beet

1 cucumber

1/2 lemon (with peel and seeds, there is a powerful compound in the peel that ups the nutritional game exponentially)

1 green apple

This makes about 2 12oz glasses. Enough for you and someone you want to keep healthy! Drink slowly and enjoy!

Gazpacho!

It’s been hot, Hot, HOT! Even so, this Gazpacho recipe is so good that I would eat it in the dead of winter. Oh! That’s a lovely thought! Did I mention it’s also ridiculously easy? Well, it is. My 4 year old great niece helped me make this and loved the end result. We think you will, too. If you have a garden full of homegrown tomatoes, absolutely use those in place of the canned ones! My garden is giving me some, but not enough – so we compromised.

Into a blender or food processor:

2 peeled cucumbers, chopped into chunks

1/2 red bell pepper, chunked

1/2 purple onion

2 scallions

1 Tbsp. parsley

2 Tbsp. cilantro (optional – you know if you like it!)

15.5 oz. can organic tomato sauce

5.5 oz. Spicy Hot V8 juice

1/4 cup good olive oil

2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp. Himalayan or Celtic salt

1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Blend all ingredients together. Taste for seasonings. Serve with desired toppings of:

chopped avocado

minced parsley

minced cilantro

sour cream or kefir

chopped boiled egg

minced cucumber

drizzle of olive oil or balsamic vinegar

Go BIG on the accoutrements or go home! The best dressed gazpacho is definitely the winner!

Granola

Granola is a tricky one – oh, not the recipe. That’s just easy. Tricky is buying granola and thinking you are getting a good, “healthy” option. If you make it yourself, you can use quality fats, good seed & nut options and just-the-perfect-amount-of sweetness and KNOW you are getting a good, healthy option.

Start with good oats. I LOVE Bob’s Red Mill. I love the company. I love the man who gave the company back to his employees for his 81st birthday. And, they are just the best oats I have ever had. My preference is the thick rolled oats, but the regular rolled oats are fine, as well.

4 cups thick rolled oats

1 cup pecans, chopped

1 cup (or more) pumpkin seeds

1 cup sliced almonds

1 cup coconut chips

Place all the dry ingredients into a large baking pan. Stir them up!

We need some wet ingredients:

1/2 cup coconut oil

1/3 cup pure maple syrup (or more, to taste)

1 tsp. molasses

1 cup very hot water

Stir until the coconut oil and maple syrup melt and combine.

To this, add:

1 tsp. cinnamon.

1/2 tsp. cardamom

and just a pinch of pink Himalayan salt

Stir it all up and you will have a dark oh-so-heavenly liquid.

Pour this into your dry granola mixture and make sure everybody gets their fair share. Stir and stir and stir. Now, you must taste it. It’s the only way to test for seasonings. Remember you will add some sweetness with dried fruit after baking, but now is the time to tweak. I like a mildly sweet granola, so if you need more, add it now!

Pre-heat your oven to 250 degrees and slide it in there for about 45 minutes. Stir. Continue cooking low and slow, stirring about every 15 minutes for another 45 minutes or until the granola is browned and dry. As it gets closer to done, you may want to reduce your time between stir/checks to 5 minutes. It will get perfect FAST. One of my saddest days (in the kitchen) was getting impatient and turning on the broiler to speed up the browning process. We couldn’t save it. Burned granola… what a waste! You will be rewarded for your patience! Ah! Now, if you are adding dried fruit, stir it in. I used dried cranberries, about 1/2 cup. You can really add any dried fruit, in any amount. Mix it in, go crazy!

Once your granola is completely cooled, store it in airtight containers. Give some away, freeze extra. You’ll be so glad you did!

NOTE: You can use any nut, seed or dried fruit. If you like a nuttier granola – add more nuts. Prefer a more oat-filled granola? Up the rolled oats. I usually add a little fresh grated nutmeg and it’s lovely in this recipe. Follow your own likes and use what you have on hand. I have 4 pecan trees so I always have pecans, but you can use walnuts or whatever you prefer! It’s going to be granola-licious!

Spinach Salad

Often, in this life, it’s all about the simple things. Spinach salad is one of those lovely, simple things. There are a zillion different versions out there, but this basic one can get you started.

2 cups washed baby spinach

8-10 bite-sized mozzarella balls

2 Tbsp. pomegranate arils

drizzle of olive oil

drizzle of balsamic vinegar

salt & pepper to taste

I found these in the grocery store and was thrilled to find arils without the work! Try them. You can eat the whole thing AND they’re completely delicious.

pom arils

Yes… we eat salads, too!

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

Our little 3 1/2 year old niece calls this “sauce sauce”. We all think it’s crazy good.

And, it’s simple to make. Just come with me.

Take a large roasting pan and line it with heavy duty foil. Into this, place the following:

1 1/2 lbs. tomatillos, papery skins removed, then washed

4-5 poblano peppers, whole, washed

4-5 Anaheim peppers, whole, washed

1-2 jalapeno peppers, whole, washed

1 sweet bell pepper (any color – but, you know me! RED rules) yeah, yeah – whole, washed

1 red onion, quartered

1 head garlic, outer papery skin removed, then cut in half, longitudinally

1 lime, washed and halved

Turn on your broiler and slide this crazy, Mexican deliciousness into the oven on a low rack. The skin from the peppers is going to blister and blacken. That’s cool! Every 5 minutes or so, take your tongs and turn the peppers to expose other sides of the peppers. You can flip the tomatillos but just leave the garlic, onion and lime alone – they’ll be fine.

Once the peppers are softened and have released their juicy love (about 30 minutes oventime) use your tongs to remove the peppers and place them into an airtight container. Slap the lid on and wait while the pepper skins steam loose. At this point I just turn off the oven and let the tomatillos, garlic, lime and onion continue to break down slowly. After about 10 minutes, remove the lid on the pepper container and peel off the blackened skins. Remove and discard stems and large sections of seeds. Place the flesh of the peppers into a large bowl. Don’t worry about some seeds going in but, I do like to take out the biggest masses of them. And, I should mention here, not all the skin is going to come off. Just remove the black and easy-to-peel-off parts. Some skin, some seeds, just go with however it seems to feel right. You can’t mess this up. Squeeze the garlic out of the head, squeeze the lime pulp out into the bowl with the pepper flesh. Add the tomatillos, onion and all the liquid from the roasting pan and pour it all into the large bowl. You now want to transfer this to a food processor. A blender or immersion blender will probably work, as well. Work in batches to keep from overloading. I add about 1 tsp. salt and 1 tsp. smoked cumin. That’s it! Taste it – add anything that’s missing. My notes say “Good on everything.” You can use this sauce on eggs, enchiladas, tostados, beans — OH! make huevos rancheros with this – you will thank me later!

Roasted Veggies

How can you make almost any vegetable sweeter and more delicious? Through the magic of oven roasting!! There is nothing easier. I put these quartered sweet potatoes and broccoli on time bake and had hot, fresh sides walking in the door last night. Broil some salmon and in 10 minutes, you have a fabulous meal. All you do is wash and cut your vegetables into desired sizes. I line the baking pan with aluminum foil to make cleanup a snap. Drizzle on olive oil (butter or coconut oil work great, too), sprinkle with sea salt and Voila! You can do this process with almost any vegetable, varying the cooking times. For potatoes and starchy or very firm veggies, roast at 400 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour. For squash and zucchini shorten the cooking time to 30 minutes or so. The broccoli gets a little dark in places but we ♥ it that way. Try Brussels sprouts! We love ’em!

Cucumber Avocado Salad

Want fresh? And delicious? We got it! I don’t know why it took me til this year to make this. It’s crunchy and citrus-y goodness. And simple. Did I mention SIMPLE?

Ingredients:

4 small English cucumbers (about 4 -5 inches in length) if the little gourmet ones aren’t available, substitute 1 large English cucumber.

1/4 red onion, sliced thin then chopped

1 large, ripe avocado

1 lemon or lime

salt

extra virgin olive oil

Cut the cukes in half, and then quarters, lengthwise. Then chop the long quarters into small quartermoon shapes. Dice up the onion slices. Then, halve your avocado. Keeping it in the shell, use a small paring knife to dice the avocado, scoring all the way to the skin. Then, use a spoon to scoop out the diced up avocado. Everything goes into your bowl. Add salt to taste (for us, about 1 tsp. Himalayan pink salt). Squeeze the lemon or lime juice into your bowl. Drizzle a circle of extra virgin olive oil into and gently fold it all together (to keep from destroying the avocado). And, there you have it! You can thank me later!

Down Dog, Salty Dog

Peace, Love and Astaxanthin

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