When getting together with family or friends, I always try to bring a dish to share that is family friendly really meaning the adults will like it and the kids will like it, too. I am the one in particular in the family that is also known for being super health conscious and particular about food choices. I love when I bring dishes that are loved by all.
To me, the fruit salad is one of the best choices in the world. It is easy to throw together, can be made with so much variety, what is on sale or wild and exotic and everyone around the table loves it.
Be creative and think in season and see what you can find that is fresh and local. In the summer, you can make a lovely red white and blue salad with organic strawberries, organic blueberries and chunks of apple. Or go for a more tropical bowl of mango, banana, papaya and kiwi. It is also fun to hollow out a watermelon and fill it with fruit when it is in season. In the fall, go for the plums, pears and grapes with apple. In the winter, I slow down on the fruit salad since there is not much in season but you could do a melon, banana, apple type dish.
Today we are going to visit family and I am bringing the fruit bowl. I cut up cantaloupe and tossed it with small oranges and grapes. I added mint cut chiffanode and a drizzle of honey. Of course, I taste tested along the way and can’t wait until later when I can have a whole bowl full.
Adding the mint is another area you can be quite creative. Mint is a favorite of mine for fruit salad but again you can vary this depending on what is growing in the garden and what fruits you have in your salad. Seeds like hemp, poppy and sesame also add a new twist.
Any leftover fruit and herbs can be put in the blender and whizzed up for a smoothie or freeze the fruit whole and take out for frozen little snacks. There is really no way you can go wrong with the fruit salad and I just know it will be enjoyed by everyone.
It’s Easter! Around here that means an ‘egg’stavaganza of egg coloring. This year we used 3 colors. Turmeric for yellow, paprika for red and chlorophyll for green. Last year we had also boiled red cabbage for a blu-ish color and beets for red.
To make the dyes, we added boiling water to our color with a couple teaspoons of vinegar which helps the color set on the egg. For colors with foods like onion, cabbage and beets, you would boil the veggie until the water is colored and then pour off the liquid and add the vinegar.
The color of the eggs are fantastic! They are mellow and earthy and I never feel bad if some of the dye seeps in through a crack unlike when we used to use the chemical dyes. There is something to be said for the process as well. My kids (and me) love making the colors themselves and knowing what it came from. Gatlin enjoyed smelling the turmeric and paprika to see what “flavor” they were.
Good things can not be rushed. I will say, the natural dyes do take time to set. It is not wham bam done but that is part of the fun for us. It is an event of egg dying not a two second project.
So boil those local farm fresh eggs and hop to it! Have fun and happy Easter!
One of our favorites was always pasta with marinara sauce. I used to love pasta night because it was quick and easy. When we started adjusting our diet years back, I switched over from wheat to rice pasta and still good ‘ole faithful marinara sauce. Well, time for more change led us to a new twist on our old fave! We still have pasta marinara but the sauce is raw and our noodles are spiralized zucchini, carrot, summer squash or other veggies we can create twisties with!
I have tried several marinara sauces but I must say my absolute favorite and the biggest crowd-pleaser is from Living On live Food which is Alissa Cohen’s fantastic raw recipe book. It is easy to make and reaches all the taste buds with a bang!
To prepare the veggies you will use a spiralizer. Get the kids in on this one! They love doing this part. Spiralizers (you can get one in the Bodega) are a fairly inexpensive kitchen gadget and can add a great deal to your ability to make raw pasta. If you do not have one yet, you can use your vegetable peeler to make wide noodles.
Marinara Sauce
2 1/2 c. tomatoes
12 sundried tomatoes, soaked
3 dates, pitted and soaked
1/4 c. olive oil
4 cloves garlic
2 TBS parsley
1 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp cayenne
Put all ingredients in food processor and blend until smooth.
Pour sauce over you noodles and eat!
You can also marinate the zucchini after spiralizing it in lightly salted water. This will soften the noodles and release some of the water of the vegetable. It is not necessary to do this but is a nice thing to try.
I like to vary the sauce as well. Adding fresh basil or other fresh herbs I have and I do prefer to add a few more dates. Other than that I stick fairly close to Alissa’s recipe.
Remember the toppings. We are talking about pasta here so, add some nutritional yeast for your parmesan, top with minced sundried tomatoes, capers, minced yellow pepper and a spring of fresh parsley or basil. Voila!
I picked a couple great books by Kristen Suzanne and am very pleased with them. Her recipes are easy to make and taste great. Her blog is also interesting right now because she is tracking her pregnancy and raw diet.
I have tried a lot of ranch dressing recipes as that was one of my kids favorite dressings before we cut dairy and I wanted them to be able to enjoy a healthy nutritious version. This is the only one for us!
This will make about 1 1/2 cups of dressing. I also find it to be very thick. I leave it that way to have as a dip and just whisk in some water if I want it thinner for topping my salad.
Herbin’ Ranch Dip
1/2 c. raw cashews, unsoaked
1/2 c. raw pine nuts, unsoaked
1 zuchinni, peeled and roughly chopped
1 TBS extra virgin coconut oil
3 TBS fresh lemon juice
1 clove garlic
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. tarragon
1/8 tsp. white pepper
1/4 c. fresh basil, not packed
1/4 c. fresh dill, not packed
Blend all the ingredients except the dill and basil until creamy and smooth. Pulse in the basil and dill. This dip also freezes well.
When I do not have fresh herbs on hand I add dried basil and dill. I also like to throw in some oregano. You can really play around with the herbs to vary the dressing. Try adding a fresh chunk of onion instead of onion powder. It will add a little liquid to make a nice consistency. Enjoy!
Inspired by the rave reviews of a few friends, I decided to take the plunge and place an order with CT Farm Fresh Express (CTFFE). Deb Marsden started CTFFE to connect Connecticut farms with the customers who don’t have the means to travel to farms for food each week. Farm fresh food delivered to your door — what more can you ask for? Their website has a lovely, easy-to-use online store. In addition to a description of each item, you can learn more about the farms or artisan who sell their products through CTFFE, as well as listening to some of the media outlets Deb has appeared on highlighting CTFFE. They carry everything from soaps and cleaning products to gluten-free baked foods to maple syrup, greens, sprouts, meats and cheeses and more. In the summer, you can get a wider range of vegetables than what’s available in early March in CT when I ordered.
You can order until Tuesday, she contacts the farms on Wednesday to let them know what she needs, she picks up at the farms on Thursday and Deb, her husband and 3 other drivers delivers to you on Friday. She operates out of East Haddam, so the delivery charge is based on your town’s proximity to EH, and ranges from $5-$15. She communicates very well via email about what you can expect and what you need to do — which is basically leave a cooler big enough for your order near your door, and a check to cover the invoice that was emailed to you on Thursday.
I placed my order before arranging the Aiki Farms field trip, so the first item I put in my cart was the Aiki Pea Shoot 8oz bag (big bag at far right of picture). Oh my gosh, we LOVED these. I did the usual things with them like top my salads or just dress with some oil and vinegar, but Luke found some creative ways to use them, putting chopped sprouts into the eggs he made for Lucia. They are crunchy and juicy and LOVELY to eat.
We also ordered microgreens from Two Guys from Woodbridge (small plastic box in center of pic), not having tried them before. These have a light peppery flavor and again, I loved the added dimension they gave to my salads. Given large quantities (I only ordered 1oz) I could find myriad uses for these little greens with the small bite. Microgreens are densely nutritious and have a much more delicate flavor than their full-grown counterparts.
Next were the greens, which were all intensely flavored and blew anything I’ve gotten from the grocery store out of the water. The lettuces (romaine next to pea shoots going counterclockwise, then Shisho, Lettuce Bouquet, Sorrel, lastly arugula with a generous wad of fresh cilantro in the bag just under the microgreens) were more flavorful and less like iceberg than the romaine I get at shaws or even whole foods. There is a sense of fragility to these leaves, in that I don’t think they would travel 2000 miles very well like their counterparts in the stores, but since the farmers don’t have to concentrate on shelf life, flavor is the priority and it shows. We made a simple green salad with just the romaine, pea shoots and slivered onions with a splash of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Great flavor, simple food. Doesn’t get much better than that!
I’ve got some sorrel seeds to sow this year, and while I’m familiar with wild varieties of this plant, I haven’t tasted the cultivated forms. OH MY! Run to your computer or local farm and get your hands on a head of this absolutely fantabulous lemony green. Succulent and sweetly sour, it was gone in minutes. What I hadn’t added to the salad, that is. And the lemony tartness sent our green salad to heretofore unattained heights. If you come across sorrel, definitely pick it up and try it.
The arugula was as tasty as that we grew in our yard last year, so it’s lovely to have an off-season source until we build a greenhouse. The shiso was a new flavor, and its deep purple leaves looked pretty admist the sea of green, tho they all seem to have gotten tossed beneath in the picture. Quoting Dante upon taste-testing a leaf “This tastes like nothing I’ve ever had before”. It’s in the mint family, and the purple shiso is used to dye umeboshi red. High in calcium and iron, this “green” is definitely worth a try. It can be used whole or cut into strips in salads or stir fry.
We also ordered a bag of potatoes, but had some that needed using up first, so I stashed them in the basement and will be bustin into the bag this week. Organic and local — gotta love that!
We have tasted the Two Guys from Woodbridge mesclun and pea shoots at a friend’s who kindly fed us between acrobatics and skating this past weekend (Thanks, Marcella!) and the pea shoots from there were very different, so I recommend trying both.
Food starts to lose nutrients and flavor shortly after harvest, so it makes sense that this option for local food is a good thing. And CTFFE makes it as easy as pie! Have you tried CTFEE or a similar service? How was your experience?
Today we’re heading back to the garden for some more seed-starting ideas. Specifically, making plant labels from aluminum cans. Recycling AND making something you can reuse again and again. Perfect!
It was harder than I expected to lop off the top and bottom of the can with scissors, so I used the tin snips to make it a little easier. Perhaps your scissors would be up to the task, but alas, not so mine.
Cutting a ring around the top, then straight down one side of the can and another ring around the bottom left some rough edges, which I was easily able to trim off with my lame-ish scissors.
The metal was still fairly curled, holding fast to memories of its previous incarnation as a can, so I rolled them the other way and had rubber bands hold them this way for 20 minutes or so. Not a necessary step, but this did make it easier for me to do the rest of the cutting, etc. Once I unrolled one, I folded it in half, making two 4-inch long pieces of metal, which I then cut into four 4-inch by almost 1-inch wide strips.
Since the kids help with these, I trimmed most of the top edges into a rounded shape. But you can see that I experimented with alternatives to this as well. I also folded the opposite end as you would starting some paper airplane folds to make a pointed, reinforced edge to stick into the soil.
The last step is writing in the plant names. I did it both ways, with the “Tomato ‘Sioux’ ” sample being written directly on the silver side of the marker. I also tried the alternative (says “Tomato ’sweet pea’ ” which, for me, involved writing the words backwards on a piece of paper, and then copying the backwards letters onto the printed side of the can. This gives an embossed appearance to the letters. After doing a few and getting my brain into the backwards letter mode, I didn’t have to write them out on paper first, but it did take a few attempts before I was in the ‘zone’.
I can’t say I do this for seed starting, I like my popsicle sticks with a sharpie jes’ fine for the many labels I need. But I would consider labeling the many new herbs we’ve decided to grow this year with these more weatherproof markers. I probably won’t limit myself to the small, utilitarian labels above, but make bigger labels with some decorative touches like scrollwork, etc. as well.
I found details for this idea at little house in the suburbs, and I love the herb label they ended with and plan to make something along these lines for our own until we’re more familiar with them and can identify them in the blink of an eye.
One of the first raw books I ever purchased was Living On live Food by Alissa Cohen. At a friend’s party I couldn’t get enough of a dip she had made and had no idea it was even raw! Turns out it was the Mock Salmon Pate in Alissa’s book. It is still a favorite. Alissa did it again with her Pesto Stuffed Mushrooms. These little morsels are amazing and you would never know they weren’t cooked. Serving them right out of the dehydrator, they are warm and divine with their bready stuffing. I would double this recipe if you are sharing!
You will need 18-22 button mushrooms, washed and stemmed. Save the stems for an upcoming recipe!
Stuffing
1 cup walnuts
1/2 cup pine nuts
2 cups fresh basil
1/2 cup olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp sea salt
Blend all stuffing ingredients in food processor until smooth.
Scoop small amount of stuffing into each mushroom cap.
Dehydrate at 105 for 5-6 hours or until soft.
As they dehydrate, the mushroom caps absorb some of the oil and give a cooked appearance as well as softening the caps.
I usually have extra pesto leftover that I can then add water to for a dressing or I will also use it to mix with steamed veggies for the kids for dinner. Myself, I love pesto, so I eat it right off the spoon as well!
I think my favorite part of this whole recipe is seeing Gatlin sneaking into the pantry and reaching way up high (for him) into the dehydrator for a mushroom. River is not as big of a fan but does love pesto on veggies. My husband, Dan loves these almost as much as Gatlin!
Well, the new moon is on March 15, so we’re in a big rush this week to get our newspaper pots up and running by then. We’re experimenting with various garden techniques this year, and lunar gardening is one of them. I read some interesting info, having noticed that the Farmer’s Almanac includes “planting by the moon” information on their calendar. Many studies have been done to validate the folk observations of the effects of the moon on plant growth, and I figure I could use all the help I can get growing more of our food and herbs. I found several books on the subject via ILL at the library, and a website called gardeningbythemoon.com.
Last year we made newspaper pots to house our seedlings until they were ready for the garden. Definitely more time consuming than buying seed trays, but you can plant the entire thing in the ground making transplanting much less traumatic. And I imagine the newspaper disintegrates faster than peat pots since it’s so much thinner. Plus we’re keeping materials out of the waste stream rather than purchasing a single-use piece of plastic, with all the environmental burden that carries, or the peat pots, another non-renewable resource. Needless to say, it eliminates the need to sterilize seedling pots, a task I detest. AND we have well-read seedlings, up on the latest town politics. Either way, it’s a win-win, n’est-ce pas?
So, first step. I took the local paper that comes each Friday (smaller than a NYT type paper, so if you’ve got one like that you might have to adjust or use a bigger form), opened it and cut along the center crease. Then I turned it 90 degrees and cut along the fold. Lucia took some shots to illustrate.
I now had what I needed to make one pot. I turned it so the shorter side was near my stomach, and folded that up about 1.5 inches. After creasing that fold, I brought the opposite short edge under the one I’d previously folded, not coming all the way to the fold, but perhaps a half inch or so back from it.
Next, with the smaller fold folded over the bottom fold, and keeping this thinner fold toward the top of the jar, I wrapped it, folds inside, around the jar, leaving a little less than half the newspaper hanging off the bottom of the jar. Can I say fold a few more times and confuse you? Fold down the larger fold, fold the shorter fold over it, keep that nearest the top of the jar. Phew!
Turning the jar on it’s lid, I folded the newspaper down to cover the bottom. For these small jars (Bionaturae glass jars, though cans work as well, just give a bigger pot), I had to fold it down in 3 sections.
Done folding down the bottom, I turned it over and slid the jar out. Now it’s time to tuck the part of the top that wraps around into the slit created by the first fold.
You need to keep pushing down at the same time to keep the bottom folds from popping up and destroying the pot. I found that it took a couple of tries to get the hang of it and then it was pretty easy.
Voila! Ready to fill with potting soil and put in the container. Definitely fill it as soon as you fold it, because I didn’t and half of them came undone when I picked them up to fill a while later.
One way to boost the nutrition of your smoothies is to use an herbal infusion in place of any other liquid (water, juice, coconut water, etc). Listening to Susun Weed’s interview on the Raw Mom Summit last year, I learned how beneficial herbal infusions are, and that they are significantly more nutritious than herbal teas.
Infusions are super easy to make. Fill a quart jar (8 cups) with 1 oz. by weight (about a cup by volume) of the herb of your choice at night, fill the jar with boiling water, cover to retain the essential oils that would otherwise escape on the steam, and let it sit 4-10 hours. I usually make mine at night so it’s ready when I get up. Strain (I pour the infusion into my french press to make straining easy and mess-free), and drink 1 cup, refrigerating the remainder to avoid spoilage. It is best to drink 2-4 cups a day, so adding some to your smoothie can help accomplish this. The taste will vary depending on the herb of course.
Why herbal infusions instead of tea? Susan says, “A cup of nettle tea has 5 mg of calcium. A cup of nettle infusion contains 250 mg of calcium. Why waste my time with teas?” If you have made the infusion the night before you can heat it up and enjoy it as you would your favorite cup of tea and experience the great nutritional benefits as well.
I have only used infusions of nettle and horsetail at present, but you can find one of Susun’s book through your library, inter-library loan (ILL), or right here in our very own Bodega and see if she’s got something in there for what ails ya. What I like about the infusions is how rich in minerals and vitamins they are — they’re natural supplements! Nettles contain Calcium, chlorophyll, chromium, cobalt, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, protein, riboflavin, selenium, thiamine, zinc, vitamins A, C, E, K.
Drinking a nettle infusion will boost your energy, give you healthy hair and skin and help solve adrenal and urinary tract issues. Alternating with horsetail (Susun recommends getting to know each herb by drinking single-herb infusions, so consume different herbs at different times), which is high in calcium and silica, will increase the strength of your hair and nails.
During the summer, we collect these undervalued plants from our yard and use the leaves as the greens in our smoothie. I find that they have a less “green” taste than kale, collards and chard! And the best part is, they’re FREE and more nutrient-dense than many of the things I can buy at the grocery store.
stinging nettle hair
I recommend that you wear gloves to harvest them to avoid getting stung, but if you do get pricked by the tiny hypodermic needles full of chemicals, the plant itself offers the remedy! Take a leaf and roll it from base to tip and put it between your teeth. Macerate the leaf into a paste and apply this paste to the stung skin. Harvest before the seeds (yellowish wisps in the picture) appear, so that the full energy of the plant is in the leaves.
Frequent harvesting also helps keep them under control, as they will spread easily in lovely loose garden soil. We have permitted them to take over a corner of our garden, but keep them contained to that area by eating them regularly. They have appeared in some of the edges of our yard, but as these are younger patches, we haven’t started harvesting them yet so that they might expand a bit more first. You can cut down the tops once they do go to seed and place in parts of your yard where you wouldn’t mind having a patch. And they’re not limited to infusions or smoothies, either. Dante likes to saute them with salt, garlic and olive oil and serve them as greens for dinner, or put them into sandwiches. Cooking or blending neutralizes the sting, so you can eat them without fear.
I would like to get enough nettles outside to be able to harvest and dry my own as well, but I first bought them from health food stores like It’s Only Natural in Middletown, Foodworks II in Old Saybrook, and Garden of Light in Glastonbury. Now that I’ve been able to sample them, I order in bulk from Mountain Rose Herbs. I really appreciate MRH’s standards concerning the people, land and plants involved in the production of their products.
The infusion is cool by the morning when I’m ready to use it, so I just strain it and add enough to my smoothie to thin it as I would any other liquid. I do tend to cut back on the greens I add when using the infusion, otherwise I find the taste a bit too green for me. But since I’m getting the nutrition from the infusion, it’s all good.
Profusion Infusion
1 apple
1 banana
1 cup frozen cherries
1 handful of greens
up to 2 cups nettle infusion
Add fruit and greens to blender.
Pour nettle infusion over it.
Blend.
I forgot to snap the picture before I started the blender, but you can still see that the infusion doesn’t greatly alter the color. Nor with all that fruit, did I even notice the taste, which is pretty mild to begin with, at least for nettles and horsetail.
I didn’t add the chia seeds to the blender, but instead put them on top to have a different sort of crunch to our smoothie. Unless you want it to thicken considerably though, when you add chia to your smoothie either in the blender or on top, you should eat it fairly quickly. If you linger over your smoothie you will end up with more a pudding than a beverage. Not a bad idea, if you’re wanting something of that consistency, but a bit of a shock if you try to drink it, only to have it fall onto your face as a lump of pudding. You can read about the benefits of adding chia seeds to your diet and buy them in our bodega.
Watch Susun and her grandaughter make nettle infusion while you down your next smoothie:
To make the dyes, we added boiling water to our color with a couple teaspoons of vinegar which helps the color set on the egg. For colors with foods like onion, cabbage and beets, you would boil the veggie until the water is colored and then pour off the liquid and add the vinegar.
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