Archive for May, 2010

24 May Catherine’s Springtime Salad

Closing in on the last week of my cleanse and this hearty salad, courtesy of my friend Catherine, was a perfect, fresh way to mix things up. It’s full of cleansing foods: healthy, satisfying monounsaturated fats from avocado, sunflower seeds, and olives; healing chlorophyl from the dark leafy greens, plus a ton of vitamins and minerals; vitamin C from the lime and radishes — these are just a few of the attributes of this creamy, crunchy bowl of goodness.

One of the things I like best about this salad is that you can make it ahead of time (usually, dressing a salad early in your meal prep will give you a soggy mess) and left-overs hold up really well (again, a regular dressed salad = soggy mess left-0vers).

Catherine’s Springtime Salad

1/2 bunch swiss chard (cherry pick the most tender leaves)

1 C arugula

1 lime

1 avocado

1 handful sunflower seeds

1 handful radishes

1 handful olives

salt, to taste

Discard any tough stems from the chard, stack chard and arugula leaves, roll tightly and slice (a.k.a. chiffonade). Place in large bowl (big enough for a lot of tossing). Add lime juice and diced avocado. Mix thoroughly with tongs, until avocado really breaks down to coat the greens. Roughly chop radishes and olives, add to the mixed greens.

Finely chop or grind the sunflower seeds (it really doesn’t take too long to chop them by hand — the finer you can do it, the better the pieces will stick to the greens) and add to greens.

With tongs, toss, toss, toss, until all ingredients are thoroughly mixed.

Et, voila!

16 May Roasted Thumbelina Carrots

Have you ever tasted a roasted carrot so sweet that you started to crave it more than candy or chocolate? That, after innocently picking up a small piece with your fingers, you forgot both your fork and your dignity and gorged yourself sick on a plateful? Well, now’s your chance. Today I brought home a bunch of Eatwell‘s Thumbelina carrots from the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, and the darling, stubby little roots vegetables – plenty delicious as a raw snack – knocked my socks off once I got them out of the oven. This recipe – just regular roasted vegetable protocol – is so simple, I’m slightly embarrassed to to post it, but I can’t not sing and shout about the Thumbelinas. It’s fresh, organic produce like this that makes a month-long cleanse easy peasy. Thank you, California.

Roasted Thumbelina Carrots

1 bunch Thumbelina carrots

2 bunches spring onions

handful of fresh herbs (chef’s choice)

olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut onions into large chunks (you can stick with the white parts, or go father up into the light green stems, which should be pretty tender) and place in a large bowl. Scrub and trim tops off of carrots. I leave the root tails on as they crisp up nicely. Slice larger carrots in half lengthwise, and leave smaller carrots (the ones about the size of your thumb) whole. Add to onions. Drizzle with olive oil (maybe three turns of the bottle), sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Grab a handful of your favorite fresh herbs (I just walked into my garden and snipped some thyme, rosemary, sage and parsley) and chop fine-ish (I kept the parsley separate to add later). Add to the onions and carrots and toss with a wooden spoon until everything is coated with the olive oil.

Spread out onto a large, rimmed baking sheet (the veggies should have enough room to move about when you give the sheet a couple of light shakes). Bake for 30 minutes, check in around 15 minutes and shake things up a bit.  Pierce largest carrots with a fork to test for tenderness when done (everything should be nicely browned and some of the onions should be fairly caramelized). Plate and sprinkle with parsley, if you have any on hand. And, ahem, be sure to grab a fork before you taste test, or you may find yourself in a slightly embarrassing and messing situation (as alluded to above).

06 May Tofu in Garlic Thyme Vinaigrette

On Saturday, May 1st, I started my annual month-long cleanse. I do this in the spring to clean house, if you will, by giving my body a break from the foods that clog it up, slow it down, and disconnect me from how I feel and what my body needs. Each year the cleanse focus is a little different and, at the risk of TMI, this time I decided to clean up my gut flora by following an anti-Candida regimen (Candida is a yeast that lives in your gut, among other, beneficial bacteria. When Candida outnumbers the “good” bacteria, you can develop mild to very serious digestive problems. More here. A common way to restore balance is through diet), which means no glutenous grains (including wheat), no sugar (including most fruit and natural sweeteners, and no alcohol), no caffeine, no dairy and a few other specific foods (vinegar, peanuts, mushrooms) – basically anything that will feed the yeast or introduce other undesirable organisms (molds, fungi, etc). Sounds fun, huh?

Now, I admit this seems a little drastic and, frankly, I’m not a drastic person. In fact, I’m a huge fan of transition, which is why I spent the first week of this cleanse transitioning to an anti-Candida diet (ack! I hate typing that word, it’s not a “diet”, it’s more of a … perspective, but that’s another discussion). So, I cut out the biggies (gluten, dairy, refined sugar, alcohol, caffeine), but cut myself some slack on the little things, such as slowly weaning myself off of fruit for breakfast and letting the vinegar slide for the first few days. Which leads me to the real subject of this post: Tofu in Garlic Thyme Vinaigrette.

The spirit of transition was the perfect impetus to finally try this recipe from Peter Berley’s The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen, with just a couple of modifications. Berley characterizes this as a “Mediterranean-style marinade” and while that description didn’t really resonate with me (the bay leaves just seemed so strong), it was quite tasty. I added the tofu to a simple saute of orange bell pepper and fresh sugar snap peas from the farmers market.

Tofu in Garlic Thyme Vinaigrette

2 T olive oil

2 T red wine vinegar or 1 T balsamic

2 T lemon juice

2 large cloves garlic, pressed or minced

2 t fresh thyme (1 t dried)

1 1/2 t sea salt

2 bay leaves, crushed fine

pinch hot red pepper flakes

1 lbs firm tofu, rinsed patted dry and sliced into 1 – 1 1/2 inch cubes

1 orange bell pepper

2 big handfuls of sugar snap peas

olive oil

juice of half a lemon

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl whisk together oil, vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, thyme, sea salt, bay leaves (really try to crush or grind these fine as you won’t be fishing them out later and large chunks taste too woody and bitter) and red pepper flakes. Place tofu in a small, shallow baking dish so the pieces fit fairly firmly together. Pour vinaigrette over tofu. Bake for 45-60 mins, until tofu has absorbed most of the vinaigrette and is nicely browned. (I reduced the amount of oil and vinegar in Bersley’s original recipe as I found the full amount too much for the tofu to absorb in a reasonable amount of time and too oily overall.)

When done, remove tofu from oven and let rest.

In a large pan, saute bell pepper and snap peas in a little olive oil, over medium-high heat (salt and pepper to taste). I start with the peppers to get them a little softer without overcooking the snap peas.

When veggies are bright, use a slotted spoon to transfer tofu to vegetables (you can always add some of the remaining vinaigrette, if desired. Toss a few times to incorporate flavors, then remove from heat and serve.

Tofu in garlic thyme vinaigrette with sugar snap peas and bell pepper and organic roasted buckwheat – not a bad way to kick off a cleanse, if I do say so myself.