Chopped Salad

CHOPPED SALAD

I woke up last week, made my coffee, and opened the computer. I read somewhere online, perhaps on a blog I follow, that someone had made a chopped salad that week. Memories of a trip to Maui came up for me.  We had eaten in a pizza place that had the best chopped salad.  Romaine and vegetables chopped into 1/2 inch bits or so.  I think this particular salad had chopped hunks of cheddar cheese in it - I was still eating dairy at the time.  I decided to attempt a vegan chopped salad. Could I make something as delicious without dairy?  Yep.  I could.

I assembled a bunch of different things on my counter in preparation for chopping -  walnuts, cucumber, olives, apple, watermelon radish, carrots, orange and red bell pepper.

Garbanzo beans are the perfect size for a chopped salad and I just happened to have some that I had sprouted that week.  Sprouting beans is easy.  Soak them for 6 hours or so, rinse, and then put into a sprouting pan or even a colander with a plate underneath it and a towel to cover.  Rinse the beans a couple times a day and in about 2 days you have sprouted beans.  Sprouting creates a "live" food and supposedly "ups" the nutritional quality of the food.  The beans are a bit crunchy and great to add to salads or stir fry.  I think they are easier to digest when sprouted.

These sprouted garbanzo beans were a fabulous addition to the chopped salad and upped the ante for protein and fiber!

I had sprouted broccoli seed too.  I buy my sprouting seeds online at Mumm's Sprouting.  The link is: http://sprouting.com

You can visit their web site for lots of information on the how's and why's of sprouting.  If you are local to Santa Cruz you can also buy an amazing array of sprouts at the local Farmer's Market.  Sprouts are super nutritious and can be added to salads, sandwiches, wraps, topping a stir fry or soup, and you can juice them or add them to smoothies.

The broccoli sprouts added a slightly spicy taste to the chopped salad I made.

Talk about beautiful... have you ever cut into a watermelon radish?  They are stunning!  I sliced and chopped these into the salad for a bit of peppery flavor. Radishes are part of the Brassicaceae family, think cruciferous.  These are really important vegetables for us to eat.  Radishes contain a wide range of vitamins and minerals and have both anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties. They are have a high water content and are full of fiber, potassium, Vitamin C, folate, and a host of other minerals. And these happen to be so pretty!

Here are the chopped vegetables/fruit in our salad before I added the 2 heads of chopped lettuce.  

The salad before it was dressed.  This was a huge salad.  We  dressed half of it and put half in an air tight container in the fridge for the next day.  

I added chopped avocado after I separated the salad into what we were eating and what we were saving.  Avocado will turn brown if it is cut and refrigerated.  I found, though, that everything else, even the chopped apple, saved very nicely for the next day.  

I dressed the salad very simply.  I poured flax oil ( 2 - 3 tablespoons ) and red wine vinegar (3 - 4 tablespoons) onto the salad and added salt and pepper.  Tossed that baby up and that was all it needed.  There were so many amazing tastes in this salad - some bitter, sweet, salty, savory.  Each bite was a bit different because there was so much in this salad.  You can be creative and add whatever you love.  Some ideas:

chopped pressed tofu

snap peas

fresh peas

chopped cabbage (purple or green or Napa)

chopped kale

celery

cherry toms

almonds

sunflower seeds

hemp seeds

edamame

cooked quinoa

We ate the salad for lunch with Potage St. Germaine (green pea soup) on Saturday and then for lunch on Sunday with Avocado/Tempeh bacon sandwiches on Ezekiel bread with local sauerkraut and pea sprouts.

This is a salad full of goodness and wonder.  You have to chew and chew which is good for your digestion and slows you down.  Patience when eating is a good thing.

The Exciting World of Phytonutrients 
and
What we ate for
Sunday Evening Dinner

Roasted Kabocha Squash

Sauteed Broccoli

Baked Potatoes with Toppings

My plate full of baked potato with topping, broccoli, and roasted kabocha squash.

I've been taking an online course on health, nutrition, and lifestyle.  This last week's topic was "Super Foods" and the lectures which caught my attention were on phytonutrients.  

Phytonutrients are constituents found in whole plant foods  which have antioxidant properties and play a role in reduction of disease.  Scientists have found and named over 2,000 phytonutrients to date and more are being discovered all the time.  

Some examples of Super Foods are:

Blueberries (and other berries)

Beans

Kale and broccoli and all cruciferous vegetables

Walnuts (seeds like chia and other nuts)

Oranges and Citrus Fruit

Pumpkin (and other winter squash and yams)

Oats

Salmon

Yogurt

Quinoa

This is not a complete list and different sources list different foods as "super".  The thing about the plant based foods on these lists is that they have amazing phytonutrients in them.  For instance, orange foods like carrots, yams, winter squash and pumpkin, tomatoes and watermelon all have carotenoids and/or lycopene.  The potential benefits of these particular phytonutrients are cancer prevention, boosting immunity, and antioxidant coverage.  

These Super Foods have a function above and beyond nutrition because they have disease fighting aspects.  I think this is super cool!

Some of us are already eating a diet high in these types of food and reaping the benefits of many many phytonutrients in the food we choose and eat. I like to think of these thousands of phytonutrients as a little army of beneficial naturally occurring chemicals happily invading my body and making me a stronger vehicle for health and well being! If you don't eat a lot of these foods on a regular basis then you might consider just adding one "super food" per meal or snack so that you can begin to reap the benefits of all they contain.

Tonight's dinner was colorful and full of plant foods with lots of phytonutrients!  We had baked potatoes, sautéed broccoli, and roasted kabocha squash.

Here's the kabocha squash cut into moon shapes and coated with olive oil, sea salt, and pepper. They are in a big mixing bowl I bought this week at a yard sale - reminds me of the bowls my Grandma used in her kitchen.

 The kabocha laid out on a cookie tray lined with parchment paper.

Roasted and ready to eat.  Yum!

Roasted Kabocha Squash

1 kabocha squash sliced into moon shape slices

Olive oil

Sea salt

Ground Pepper

1.  Carefully slice the kabocha squash in half and then carve slices off, about 1/2 inch thick. This is a squash whose skin you can eat and it is delicious! Toss in a bowl with a couple tablespoons of olive oil, some sea salt, and ground pepper to taste.

2.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (this will make clean up so easy!).  Lay the moon shaped slices on the sheet and roast in the oven at 400 degrees.  Check after 15 minutes and see how the squash is doing.  It will get soft and the edges may begin to brown a bit.  It will take 20 or more minutes to roast completely.

Here are the potatoes baking!  Wash the potatoes, poke with a fork or blade of a knife.  If you are watching your fat intake and salt content then just put these bad boys into the oven at 400 degrees for about an hour.  If you are less worried about fat or salt in your diet at this point then rub the potatoes with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.  Yep, this is the way to go if you can afford the extra calories and a bit of salt.

Potatoes get a bad rap in the carbohydrate world.  Yes, it's true, a yam may have more overall benefits, but a potato is a good food.  It really is.  It's a healthy choice depending on how you cook it and what you put on it. Did you know that the average American eats 29 pounds of french fries?  Let's keep it all in perspective, folks!

This is the "cashew cheddar cheese" spread we used on our bakers.  We also had some Tofutti sour cream, chopped olives, and soy baco bits.

The "cashew cheddar cheese" recipe is from a new cookbook called "The Ayurvedic Vegan Kitchen" by Talya Lutzker.  I am going to post the recipe but I really want you to go buy this book and support my friend Talya!  Talya is a yoga and foodie friend who lives here in Santa Cruz.  You can order her book at Amazon.  Here's the link:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_20?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+ayurvedic+vegan+kitchen&sprefix=The+Ayurvedic+vegan+%2Cstripbooks%2C959

Cashew Cheddar Cheese

Recipe by Talya Lutzker

Yield: 1 1/2 cups

1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped

1/4 cup water

1 cup raw cashews

1 tablespoon raw tahini

2 tablespoons Nutritional Yeast Flakes

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2 teaspoons onion powder

2 - 4 cloves garlic, minced

juice of 1 lemon

1/8 teaspoon cayenne or ground pepper

1.  Put all ingredients in a food processor or blender.  Process until smooth, stopping to scrape down the work bowl or blender jar.  

2.  Serve as a dip, spread, or topping.

Note:  If you are sensitive to bell pepper or vegetables in the nightshade family, substitute 1/2 small jicama for the red bell pepper.

I reduced the amount of cumin in our "cheese", as well.  1/2 teaspoon seems to suit us better.  This is the kind of recipe you can play with to better suit your tastes and needs.

We cut the baked potato open and dump a bunch of dollops of this cashew yumminess on top.  We've also used this cashew cheddar cheese as topping on enchiladas, vegetables, and plain quinoa.  It's really amazing.  I am so happy Talya made this delicious spread and shared it with the world in her cookbook.

Our friends, Deb and Bryce, served us broccoli we could not stop eating!  We have learned their secret and have been cooking our broccoli like this all fall and winter.  

Sauteed and Steamed Broccoli

A big bunch of broccoli, washed, heads cut off stems

1 - 2 tablespoons oil

2 tablespoons water

small amount of sea salt

small amount of ground pepper

1.  Wash the broccoli and then cut the heads off the stems.  (you can save the stems to juice or add to smoothies)

2.  Heat a pan with 2 tablespoons of high heat oil.

3.  Add the broccoli and cover.  Cook for 2 minutes on medium high heat.

4.  Lift the cover and add the 2 tablespoons of water with the salt and pepper mixed in.  Pour over the broccoli and cover tightly.  Cook for 2 minutes.  This will stem the seared broccoli.

5.  Eat it all up.  Yum.  Yum.

Here's our dinner plate.  A big baked potato covered with the cashew cheddar cheese (it's under the olives and soy baco bits), a big pile of broccoli, and a big pile of roasted kabocha squash.  Where are the phytonutrients?  The orange squash, the green cruciferous broccoli, the potato and skin, the red bell pepper in the sauce, and the cashews in the sauce.  

Enjoy!!!

Split Pea Soup

Split Pea Soup

It's been an abnormally warm and weird winter in Santa Cruz thus far.  Although the sun has been fabulous and my garden is growing I miss rainy weekends where I feel like I have "permission" to stay inside and do some kitchen hibernating!

Saturday morning when I awoke it was cold.  Finally.  I decided that after I taught my morning class and ran errands, that part of my afternoon, even if the sun did come out, would be making a wintery warm filling soup. (and I'm glad I did because it rained today, Sunday!!!) If you follow my blog you know that I make a lot of soup and we almost always have a big pot of it in the fridge.  So, here's another one.

Split Pea Soup

with vegetables

3 cups split peas, rinsed and picked through  

3 quarts of stock or a combo of stock and water (add more if the soup becomes too thick)

1 - 2 tablespoons of oil

1 large onion, diced

4 large carrots, chopped

4 celery ribs, diced

3 large garlic cloves, minced

1 rutabaga (or parsnip, potato, etc), diced

2 - 4 cups of spinach, washed and chopped

2 bay leaves

1 tsp tarragon

1/2 teaspoon oregano

salt and pepper to taste

1.  Heat oil on low.  Add onions and saute' on low for about 3 minutes.

2.  Add chopped carrots and celery and saute' for another 3 or 4 minutes.

Did you know that your dogs love to be in the kitchen with you while you are cooking and they are happy to eat the ends of the carrots and then go back to sleep until the next tasty treat falls to the floor?

3.  Add minced garlic and saute' for another bit.  Basically, just watch your pot as you are chopping the next item and let everything saute' into a nice glistening mess.

4.  Add stock and water, split peas, rutabaga or other root vegetable, bay leaves and other spices.  Bring to a boil.  Turn the heat down and simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour or until everything is tender and mushy.

5.  Add more salt and pepper if warranted (that means if you want to!) Remove bay leaves.

6.  Take about a cup of the soup out of the pot and blend it (please be very careful to cover the top of your blender with a towel so that no HOT soup comes spurting out at you in a very dangerous way).  Add the blended soup back into the pot to make a creamier split pea.

7.  Add the spinach or other greens at this point and simmer for about 5 - 6 more minutes.  I forgot to do this but will add the spinach in today.  Never too late for more greens in your diet.

Now eat tons of it with toasted crusty bread or a big green salad! Or just by its lonesome in a big bowl by the fire (or here in Santa Cruz, on the beach)

And to prove to you that we do more than simply garden, cook, and eat (although those are all amazing things to do with one's time!), here's a photo of my husband's weekend project.  He took the chainsaw out to a big piece of redwood and made us a bear!

How cute is that??????