Persian Cucumber Salad

Summer is finishing up with a fury here in San Diego, so I made a big heat-reducing salad to go with Friday’s picnic of Thai noodles and curry.  Inspiration came from Stephanie Weaver, of Recipe Renovator, who invited me for lunch last week and served, along with a colorful grated beet salad, a fresh green salad of zucchini, snap beans and cilantro. It was refreshing, and a delicious reminder of how lucky I am to have food blogger friends!

I hope you won’t be put off by the extra ingredients in this. It makes for a complete meal in itself, and once your potatoes are cooked, comes together rather quickly. Take your time, though, preparing the vegetables. Small, bite-sized pieces are the key to elegance and forkability.

The value of slowing down to prepare your meals cannot be overstated. It becomes its own kind of meditation, a  hearth-loving version of Chop wood, carry water…  We might even call it, Chop food, boil water? 

Enjoy.

Persian Cucumber Salad
Serves 6-8 

10-12 purple majesty and fingerling potatoes (substitute with sweet potato for paleo)
2 quarts water
1 T rock salt (pink or grey salt)
4 medium sized persian cucumbers
2 large handfuls fresh green beans, ends removed
1 hefty handful arugula
1/2 head of romaine lettuce
1 bunch spring onions
1 cup cooked red quinoa
1 bunch dill
1 copious handful cilantro
4-5 leaves basil
1 lime
1 t apple cider vinegar
2 T extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

In a large pot, combine salt, water, and potatoes and bring to a boil. Cook until the potatoes are fork-tender, approximately 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from the pot and drain. Let it sit in your colander for 5 minutes. Refrigerate.

Chop the rest of the vegetables into small bite-sized pieces, except the arugula which can be tossed in as is. Layer into a large salad bowl and stir in the quinoa. Once your potatoes are cool, slice, quarter, and add them to your salad. Juice the lime and sprinkle with the apple cider vinegar over your salad. Lightly toss. Finely chop the herbs and add. Finally, drizzle in your olive oil and gently fluff. Taste and adjust your oil-vinegar-lime balance. Season with salt and pepper.

Made it again, sans quinoa, for our Yoga Teacher Training Graduation Celebration Sunday.

This is such good medicine that I’ll be featuring it in our upcoming Autumn Cleanse, which I want to offer you as a giveaway. Just comment below to be included, and we will randomly choose one person on Friday, in time for our free Introductory Call this Saturday.

Thanks to Vegenista Devi Melissa Martin for asking if the recipe is on my blog, inspring me to post it. Congratulations to Kelli and Bridget who will receive the Happy Belly and Hot Belly books offered in last week’s post. 

Namaste!

P.S.  Congratulations to Jenny Melford who receives the Autumn Cleanse! Thank you friends.

Nadya’s Happy Belly Kale + Book

Ah… it feels good to turn the corner on summer and find welcome moments to settle into these quiet, waning days. As I take time to be with today’s present and consider tomorrow’s possibility, I thought I’d share with you a bit of what’s stirring.

1. My Autumn Ayurvedic Cleanse. Time for a reset? The Autumn Equinox is a perfect time to align with nature and restore for balance, wellness and peace. Learn more and register here.

2. Our upcoming Yoga Therapy Training. This is perhaps my favorite of our Deep Yoga Trainings, because it is so intimate, connected, and empowering. The best part of all is cooking a healing lunch together on our final day.

3. Bhakti Fest: Music, Yoga, Ayurvedis – it’s a bliss fest. I love visiting friends at Organic India + Bhakti Chai + Imlak’esh + The OM Collection + Ancient Organics whose Rose Lassi impressed me so much last year I blogged about it here. We just got back, and I have a great post for you for next week.

4. Dr. Suhas’ new book The Hot Belly Diet: A 30-Day Ayurvedic Plan to Reset Your Metabolism, Lose Weight and Restore your Body’s Natural Balance to Heal Itself. I have a copy for one of my readers. Will it be you? I hope so. Suhas is an original! Details below.

5. Nadya Andreeva’s book, Happy Belly: A Woman’s Guide to Feeling Vibrant, Light and Balanced: Nadya is a blossoming Ayurvedi, whose book Happy Belly is a resource for women to improve digestive health, prevent bloating and eliminate discomfort.

Nadya has generously offered us the recipe for her Happy Belly Kale Salad, as well as a free copy of her book for one lucky winner. Keep reading: details are also below.

On her blog, Nadya celebrates the power of kale with a post, “What you don’t know about kale but should!” Writes Nadya, “I used to consider kale hard to digest for my belly but once I learned how to make it properly it is one of my favorite things. It’s a fantastic source of vitamins and minerals and tastes great in various dishes!”

This is a delicious salad, and for those of you who like me, found this summer to be especially hot, you might find this helps your interior self cool down and flow with ease into balance.

Nadya’s Happy Belly Kale Salad
by Nadya Andreeva, author of The Happy Belly
Serves 2

Ingredients

• 4 handfuls of kale
• 1 avocado
• 1/4 cup pine nuts or sunflower seeds
• 1 diced and sauteed onion
• 1 large grated carrot
• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• a handful of goji berries (optional)

Dressing

• 2 tablespoons tahini
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• juice of 1 lime
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon tamari (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon chipotle powder
• 1-2 tablespoons water, or until the desired consistency is reached

Method

Add all the ingredients for the dressing except the water to a small bowl and season with salt and pepper.  Stir until combined before adding a tablespoon of water at a time until you get the right consistency.  Remember you still want it to maintain a fairly thick consistency to keep the salad nice and creamy.  I recommend adding roughly 2 tablespoons. Add the kale to a mixing bowl removing any large stalks and pour the dressing over.  Then using your hands (by far the best way to break down the kale) rub the dressing into it, squeezing it so it breaks down and becomes easier to eat. Massaging kale helps to break it down and make it easier to digest.

Chop the avocado into bite size pieces and add to the salad along with sauteed onions, cooked quinoa, goji berries, pine nuts or sunflower seeds, and grated carrot.  Toss the whole thing and enjoy!

My note: This is more delicious than you can imagine, and only took ten minutes to pull together. I did pour hot water on the gojis and let them soak 5 minutes before draining and tossing in. As for quantity – I’d say it serves closer to 3-4. 

What makes your belly hot or happy? Let us know below, and we will put your name in the hat to win a signed copy of Dr. Suhas’s Hot Belly or Nadya’s Happy Belly. Let me know which you prefer.

~

Thank you Nadya. Thank you Suhas. Thank you dear friends. Namaste! 

Rounds, Roots and Shoots: A Vernal Salad

A quick post to share what I am looking forward to once our Spring Cleanse is complete: Baby New Potato & Asparagus Salad with Marcona Almonds and Micro Greens. It’s crunchy, salty, moist, hearty yet light and fresh, and sweet in an Ayurvedic way. As any meal should, it inspires all the senses, incorporates all six tastes and harmonizes the best of a local harvest.

Baby New Potato & Asparagus Salad with Marcona Almonds & Micro Greens

Salad
8-10 Baby New Potatoes
10-12 very fresh Asparagus Stalks
1 Zucchini
3-4 Spring Onions
1/2 c chopped Dill
1 c Marcona Almonds (Trader Joe’s sells them roasted with Rosemary)
1/2 c Microgreens

Dressing
1 clove Garlic
1 t Dijon
1 T Mayo (can be Vegan)
2-3 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Lemon juiced
1 T Apple Cider Vinegar
a dusting of Red Pepper (my favorite is a gift from my sister: Aleppo Chile Pepper from The Spice House)
Black pepper, to taste
Himalayan Salt, to taste

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the potatoes and cook about 15-20 minutes, until a fork easily slides through the middle. Meanwhile, if you have a double cooker or a steamer, put that on top of the boiling potatoes and blanch the asparagus for a 3-4 minutes only. Otherwise you can drop them into boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Rinse the asparagus immediately with cold water and place in a bowl of ice water. When the potatoes are done, drain and put them in a bowl of ice water too.

Slice the zucchini thin and cut the rounds into quarters, so they are mini bite-size. Slice the spring onions all the way up into the green. Add the zucchini, spring onions, almonds and dill to a salad bowl and set aside.

Mix up the dressing by mincing the garlic. I always make my dressings in a jar because with a lid on tight, you can really give it a good shake and prove to the world that even oil and vinegar can sometimes mix. So put your garlic into a small jar with the juice of half the lemon and the rest of the ingredients. Shake until it is creamy. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Drain and dry the potatoes and asparagus and cut into small bite size pieces. Toss together with the zucchini, spring onions and dill. Give the dressing a good vigorous blend and pour onto the salad. Taste and adjust. I found mine needed the juice of the entire lemon.

Serve on a bed of lettuce with a carefree sprinkling of microgreens.

Options: Chopped, hard-boiled egg; avocado slices; sun-dried tomatoes for that bit of sour; sunflower seeds for added crunch; garden-fresh snap peas for even more sweet green; basil, cilantro, or mint for more savory zing. This salad is really happy company to just about any of Spring’s edible delights so let your garden or your local farmer inspire your whims.

My husband likes it, and I hope you like it, too!

 

What you are looking forward to now that Spring is here?

Namaste!

Avocado Dressing

Green Goddess-y Goodness

Last week I promised you an Avocado Dressing that goes especially well with  refreshing salads loaded with purifying bitters like arugula, radicchio, spinach and radishes. This dressing provides prefect harmony thanks to what I call the Mary Poppins Principle, which holds that sweet balances bitter, as every good Nanny knows. “Just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down… “

Avocado is not exactly the sugar Mary Poppins was referring to, but it is considered sweet according to Ayurveda. Its qualities are heavy, wet, cold and it is strengthening, tonifying, nourishing. In summer, when days heat up, Avocado has the cooling, hydrating affect your body seeks. Plus, it lovingly embraces those important bitters in your salad, tricking your body into wholeheartedly accepting these medicinal roots and shoots.

Summer’s Green Dressing

This dressing is inspired by the outrageously talented cooks at the Zen Mountain Center, near Idyllwild, where we lead a Yoga Retreat every September. Last year, their Avocado Dressing was a favorite. I’ve pared it down to make it simpler and offer both versions below.

Zen Dressing

2 Cups Olive Oil

1/2 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar

1/2 Cup Cilantro

1/2 Cup Cashew

1/4 Pumpkin Seeds

1 Lemons squeezed

1/4 Cup Honey

1 Avocado

~

My version:

Green Dressing
1 Avocado
1 Lemon, juiced
1 Clove Garlic
1 Handful Raw Sesame Seeds
1 T Dijon Mustard
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper, to taste

Put everything in the Cuisinart and blend until it is smooth, adding enough olive oil to bring it to the desired consistency. Mine are rough measurements. Please adjust to your own taste.

Avocado “Soufflé” dresses the Greens

“In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.
You find the fun and, Snap!, the job’s a game.
And every task you undertake, becomes a piece of cake,
a lark, a spree, it is very clear to see….”
~ Robert Sherman, Mary Poppins, 1964

Namaste!

Lebanese Summer Salad

When the world seems like it’s coming apart, friendship and food can be inspiring comfort ~ and our Summer Ayurveda Class on Sunday was just that.

We sipped Watermelon Smoothies while talking about Ayurveda, Nutrition, Doshas, Summer needs and Summer foods, moved to Cucumber Soup as an Interlude, then whipped up a round-the-world fiesta, with salads and dishes from Asia, Lebanon, Mexico and India, for our Sunday lunch.

What united these foods from so many regions?

It was all made by such beautiful, loving women…

And you could taste the ancient wisdom embedded in all of these dishes with flavors as old as nature herself.

There is a thread of oneness that runs through it all…

Lemons, limes, cilantro and seeds, vibrant color and texture, and the tastes of sweet, bitter, astringent are shared in summer dishes from around the world ~ just as liberté, égalité, fraternité are human ideals recurrent in all sustainable world cultures. It is reassuring to remember and something to celebrate when we gather.

One of the beauties helping us celebrate was the Lebanese Salad which, on most summer days when you are not circumnavigating the globe in the comfort of your own kitchen, would be a meal, a world, unto itself.

We used the softest, creamiest goat’s cheese, and a raw, sprouted chickpea hummus that made it feel as if you were tasting sunlight streaking through Lebanon’s ancient Cedar Forests.

LEBANESE SALAD
Serves: 2, generously

1 carton organic mesclun greens
1 cube of Feta Cheese
1 ear raw corn, kernels removed
1/2 cup hummus
1 cup sugar snap peas, ends trimmed
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1 large lemon
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Fresh Mint
Sumac, thyme, oregano, pine nuts

Combine mesclun leaves, corn, snap peas, cherry tomatoes and feta into a large salad bowl. Toss well. Add the herbs, juice from one large lemon and the olive oil. Toss again. Divide the salad between two bowls and scoop 1/4 cup of hummus on top of each salad.

The next day I tossed the salad over warm Thai noodles. Lebanon & Thailand? What do they have in common? Warm, wise, beautiful people!

Besides, the flavors of the salad had grown into each other and, because the weather had turned cold, it was perfect with the sweet comfort of warm noodles.

Thank you all who attended Sunday’s class. You are all so wise, intelligent, healthy, knowledgable and lovely to be with. Even you “troublemakers” ~

Urban Food & Gourmet, at the corner of Fern and 30th, opens this week. They will be carrying my Ayurvedic line of specialty foods: Maha Shakti Detox (Vegan) Protein Powder, Rejuvenating Jam (my twist on Chyavanprash), Organic Split Mung Beans, Seasonal Masalas,  Brahmi Bark (a Brain Tonic Chocolate Bar) and eventually Moksha Pies – Moksha means free and these pies are gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, bake-free, and utterly liberating in every way.

I will have these products online soon! Will let you know.

With love ~

Namaste!

Spring Clean | Cilantro Detox Pesto

Imagine sunflowers floating on rafts on a pond. Then imagine that there are many ponds ~ sunflower rafts as far as your eye can see.

Then imagine these sunflowers are growing on rafts in ponds that surround the Chernobyl nuclear site in the Ukraine. Odd? Beautiful? Gesture of Peace?

If you attended my Spring Ayurveda Nutrition & Cooking Class, you’ll know about Mother Nature’s remarkable ability to cleanse, purify, renew and restore her own earth body ~ and our human bodies, too. My last post, “21 Day Challenge,” was dedicated to those gifts of the Earth that emerge in Springtime to naturally and very efficiently help us detoxify body and mind.

A field of blooming sunflowers in the Ukraine

But as talk these days turns to Japan’s nuclear problems and the prevailing westerlies carrying waste on the wind and  radioactivity with the rain, I think even more about this self-regulating, self-restorative, self-renewing intelligence of nature, and specifically about something my brother-in-law, Daniel Goldfarb, a soil restoration expert, told us recently about sunflowers.

In Chernobyl, floating rafts of sunflowers are being used to clean up water contaminated as a result of the 1986 disaster at their Nuclear Plant. Sunflowers remove up to 95% of the radioactivity below ground by pulling contaminants out of the water and up into their root system. This technique, known as phytoremediation, got its roots, so to speak, there in Chernobyl, where the sunflowers outperformed all expectations.

Sunflower Seeds & Soil

So, as an experiment, I sprouted sunflower seeds, tossed them liberally onto our garden, watered, mulched and waited.

In the meantime, we are eating copious amounts of sunflower seeds and sprouts ourselves, because, I wondered, if they remove radioactive toxins from the body of the earth, could they do the same for our human bodies?

I began researching this, looking at the western and the Ayurvedic literature, and along the way came across this recipe for a Sunflower Seed & Cilantro Pesto that harnesses not only sunflower power, but also cilantro for its super scour muscularity in eviscerating heavy metals and toxic waste.

Surprisingly, for something so green, so clean, so good for you ~ this is outrageously delicious.

Cilantro Pesto

In making this “Pesto” myself, I wanted to increase the fire element since greens and nuts can be hard to digest. To that end, I added ginger, asafoetida and a dash of cayenne.

I also wanted to be sure that the organs of elimination were well lubricated so toxins would definitely be removed and not just swished around the body, exchanging places and causing more damage. The original recipe had plenty of flaxseed oil to help with that but, unless you are Vegan, I suggest adding a spoonful of ghee because it both enkindles the digestive fire AND is mighty efficient at loosening toxins and carrying them away.

With Roasted Pumpkin Seeds and Sunflower Sprouts

If you tried it at my house last week, you tried a batch with three times too much flaxseed oil. Ech!  Try making this yourself with the correct proportions, as below. Or, come back over and I will make you a fresh batch. I want everyone to have some. It is Spring’s divine joy in every bite, so healing and so promising!

This is how I make it now ~

PLEASE NOTE: I now add 1 teaspoon chlorella to this recipe, because cilantro can mobilize more toxins then it can carry out of the body, and Chlorella is a potent intestinal toxin-absorbing agent necessary for efficient elimination.

Double Click for Print Version

The original recipe is a more scientifically named Coriander Chelation Pesto, and comes from the sweet souls at Essential Oils for Healing. This is how they describe its benefits ~

Delicious Chelation Pesto Recipe Removes Heavy Metals and Fallout Radiation from your Body

The main ingredient, Cilantro (aka: fresh coriander/Chinese parsley), is probably the most powerful natural chelating agent around. Besides being a renown culinary herb in Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern, and Mexican cuisines, Cilantro has a long 7000 year history as a medicinal herb. Both the fresh greenery & seeds are also resources of powerfully healing essential oils. Cilantro contains chemical compounds that bind to the heavy metals, loosening them from the tissues, blood and organs. Cilantro’s chemical compounds then aid transport of these harmful substances out of the body through channels of elimination.

This recipe combines cilantro with other ingredients that have a synergistic effect. They cleanse the tissues by increasing the urinary excretion of mercury, lead and aluminum. 

This great recipe is not only easy-to-make, but delicious on toast, baked potatoes and pasta.

Two teaspoons of this pesto daily for three weeks is purportedly enough to substantially clear these toxic metals from the body. It is recommended to repeat this cleanse as a preventative measure at least once a year for three weeks.

I like it generously spread on raw Flaxseed Crackers, which you can make at home.  Eat, Taste, Heal has a great recipe, only I find it easier to pick up a box of Savory Flackers. Let me know what you think.  

To your Good Health ~ Namaste!

Winter Greens

In Ayurveda, we seek to include all six tastes in our meals in an order that matches the process of digestion and ensures optimal breakdown, absorption, and wellness.  I have seen many clients and students overcome chronic digestive discomfort simply through the wise sequencing of the six tastes.

For balance and health, our meals begin with the sweet taste, include some salt, sour, pungent, and follow with astringent and bitter. Salad greens offer some combination of the astringent and bitter taste, so following your main course with a salad is not only trés European, it is trés Ayurveda!

Which brings me to Christmas. Our Christmas Dinner will include a Winter Greens Salad with a lovely mass of color, and delightful bursts of tangy astringent and woody bitter flavors. We will pair it with Rogue Creamery’s Oregon Blue Cheese made from raw milk drawn from grass-fed cows. It’s an update on tradition and a tasty delight.

WINTER GREENS

Mesclun of fresh Farmer’s Market Greens
4-5 Spring Onions, chopped
1 cup dried Cranberries
1/2 cup Pepitas
1/2 cup Pomegranate seeds

Toss ingredients together in a bowl and serve with Walnut Oil Vinaigrette.

WALNUT OIL VINAIGRETTE

2 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons Olive oil
3 tablespoons Walnut oil

Whisk together vinegar, garlic, mustard, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper in a bowl, then whisk in oils in a slow stream until emulsified. Toss greens with enough vinaigrette to lightly coat. Season with salt and pepper.

Christmas Salad