My (almost!) three-year-old daughter, Alba really loves doing kitchen projects with me. We do a baking or cooking project a couple times a week and we usually use it as an opportunity to learn something else – like the time we made Fairy Tea Cookies using edible flowers. This time it was all about pretending to be squirrels and storing food for the winter.

Every time I am in the kitchen, she comes in and says: “Mommy, I want to help you”, and more and more I find that there is always something for her to do. She is a total natural at cracking eggs and one of her favorite cooking activities is mixing.

In my last post I discussed some “best practices” for bartering and how I turned diapers into blackberries and maple syrup. So I wanted to follow up that post with one of the things we did with the blackberries and syrup – making homemade jam!

Since I was cooking with a toddler, I made sure there would be several steps she could easily do, making it a good experience for both of us. With a little research you can find some good recipes that make cooking with your toddler fun for both of you.

Here are some Tips for Having a Successful Cooking Project with Your Toddler:

1) Short and Sweet – using a short and with only a few ingredients is a good place to start – toddlers don’t have huge attention spans. Baking recipes are great because there is a lot they can do with their hands.
2) Easy Peasy – toddlers are easily frustrated, so make sure the recipe you choose has lots of easy steps where they can participate.
3) Setting the Stage – measure as much as you can before hand and pour the measured ingredients into containers that are easy for your child to handle and pour- and ones that are big enough to keep mess to a minimum (toddlers can be very exuberant about mixing and stirring).
4) Dress For Success – My daughter has her own apron, so when we are going to do a project together, I always put her apron on (I have one too!) and that gets her excited and lets her know she is going to help.
5) Get Ready to Play! – As I mentioned my daughter loves mixing, so I make sure that each recipe we make has a mixing component, and I let her mix as long as she wants to with her favorite wooden spoon. Having props for the kids, like their own apron, or a favorite spoon for mixing makes them feel special and really helps to get them engaged. It’s like playing dress up and using a favorite toy all at once.

For our jam, we used a wonderful chia jam recipe from The Kitchn , one of my favorite sources for simple recipes. This recipe is simple and delicious and you could use any fruit of your choice. We used our delicious maple syrup instead of honey.

5.0 from 2 reviews

Wild Blackberry Chia Jam

 

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This is a great recipe for making jam with a child - the instructions are easy to follow and there are only a few ingredients!

Author: The Kitchn

Recipe type: Jam/ Condiment

Ingredients

• 1 cup blackberries
• 1 medium nectarine or peach, peeled, cored and cut into cubes
• 1½ tablespoons lemon juice, from half a lemon
• 1 to 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons chia seeds

Instructions

1. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the blackberries, cubed nectarine, and lemon juice. As the fruit heats up and the juices bubble and boil, smash the fruit using the back of a fork until they break down. This should take 3 to 5 minutes.
2. Sweeten the mashed fruit with 1 to 2 tablespoons of honey, to your liking. Add the chia seeds and stir once. Remove from the heat and let the jam set for about 5 minutes to thicken. Cool and transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate.
3. This jam will keep for 2 weeks in the fridge.

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UP THE YUM: You can use any fruits you like or flavor it anyway you like. Because the chia seeds “set” the jam, there is no chemistry involved, making this “fool proof”.

FEED YOUR CHAKRAS: Root, 1st – both the color of the jam plus the fact that this is a preserved food recipe and therefore linked to basic survival, makes this recipe a root chakra recipe.

The other day, using modern alchemy, I turned diapers into Maple Syrup + Blackberries. It’s All About The Barter Baby!

I have recently found a love for bartering. We are going through a major purge at home, something I will discuss in a later post – how to do it, why to do it, etc. But suffice to say that right now we are getting rid of things that no longer serve us as a family.

In this post I will share with you how to find people to barter with and 3 tips for how to make a good trade.

I love a good purge, but what I have found that I love even more is replacing unnecessary things, with necessary ones. Like in this case, where I traded physical goods for food – something that is always needed, but won’t take up space forever.

Recently my life has become frequent trips to random parking lots in surrounding towns, meeting new people and exchanging goods for cash and sometimes exchanging goods for goods.

Our little son Rollo is growing at a much faster rate than his older sister did when she was a wee baby, so we found ourselves in excess of small diapers that he can no longer fit into. I was able to sell some for cash, but the last packages just weren’t moving, until someone on Facebook reached out to me and asked me if I would be interested in bartering for maple syrup and blackberries – and was I ever!

I felt like a kid on Christmas morning when we exchanged our goods at a local fire department parking lot and she looked well pleased also getting diapers she will need when she has her baby in a few months.

We were both so happy with the trade; she said she would love to barter with me again, when I said I’d like that too, she said “great! This is our life, we love bartering”.

Here’s how you can learn to love bartering too!

Bartering 101: 3 Tips for Making a Good Trade

The key to a good trade is that both parties leave feeling they got a great deal. Here’s how to ensure that:

1) Make sure you are honest about what you are trading. If there are any defects, wonkiness or anything else worth mentioning to your potential trade buddy, definitely disclose it. Bartering is a bit like the honor system and nothing sours a trade like getting something you weren’t prepared for.
2) Agree on a value before the trade. Do your research and make sure you know what your product is worth. To be sure you are getting something of similar value in return, find out what the other person’s goods are valued at so it can be as close to an even trade as possible.
3) Meet in the middle. Find somewhere to meet that is as close to equal distance for both parties. Gas can be expensive and you don’t want to cost someone else more gas, especially in a barter situation where you are trying to keep things as even as possible.

Now some things like collectibles or appliances are of great value and you may want to sell them for cash. It is good that while you are taking stock of what you need to get rid of that you decide before hand those items you want to sell and which are better for trading.

Items that lend themselves well to trading are: things you really don’t need and want to get off your hands fast, food items or other perishables that you have in excess and need to offload quickly, older items or lots of small items that you can package together that just won’t get a lot of cash value sold individually, items that may need some repair(remember rule #1 to disclose this) or kid items that have been well loved.

Another reason I love bartering is because it is a transaction between two people, no banks involved and it is a great way to keep this ancient practice and subculture of your local economy alive.

Tips for finding Barter Partners: 

There are lots of great Facebook groups that are in my local area for bartering and trading (and I am sure your area has them too) – search Facebook for the words : “Swap” or “Trade” plus your state or town or the county you live in. Once I found one, Facebook suggested other similar pages for me to join. Each one is a little different, and you’ll learn which groups are better for trading whatever items you have.

Craig’s List also has a special section for bartering and trading, so check out your local Craig’s List.

Front Porch Forum is another great website- each town has it’s own newsletter where people post about all kinds of local things, and there is a lot of selling, bartering and trading that goes on.

So don’t let stuff you aren’t using clutter up your house! See if you can trade it for things you really need and help your local bartering economy!

I wanted to celebrate this “new lease on life” with my 2 (almost 3!!!) year old daughter, Alba. She has become very interested in helping in the kitchen and in my herb garden. So I decided to marry the two interests (part of our new homeschooling adventure together) by baking cookies with edible flowers for a fairy tea party. I found a really simple recipe, added our own spin on it, decorated it with edible flowers that we harvested from our herb garden, then shared some, in offering to the fairies (land spirits). We talked about giving back to the land to thank it for our food, and for beautiful soft grass to enjoy picnics, for the bees and the birds that pollinate the herbs and plants in our gardens. I am not sure how much of it she got, but she listened with interest.

Then we enjoyed some cookies ourselves. This is a really easy recipe to make with kids  – there are only 4 main ingredients and the dough comes together like a dream and is really easy to work with; perfect for little hands. Plus, they are very delicious and you can embellish them with your favorite toppings or mix-ins.

I hope you enjoy my modified recipe (you can find the original here).

Fairy Tea Cookies

 

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Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

12 mins

Total time

22 mins

 

Marrying my toddler's current interests of cooking/baking and herbs, we had fun making these simple cookies that are easy to modify to your own tastes and decorate to your fancy!

Author: The Yum Queen (Jenn Campus)

Recipe type: Dessert

Cuisine: Tea Time

Serves: 12-15

Ingredients

• 2 cups finely ground almond flour
• ½ cup shredded coconut
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• ⅓ cup maple syrup
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ¼ cup organic cane sugar
• water
• edible flowers to decorate (we used borage, chamomile and mullien)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. Mix the almond flour, coconut, cinnamon and baking powder together in a medium mixing bowl.
3. Then stir in the maple syrup and vanilla. Stir until a sticky dough forms and holds together (comes together really quickly in a stand mixer).
4. Roll one tablespoon of the dough into a round ball and then place them onto the prepared baking sheet about one inch apart.
5. Then place your thumb on top of the cookie and press down to make an indentation.
6. Bake until the edges are golden brown, about 12 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool on the pan for about 3 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. Cool baking sheet between batches.
7. While cookies are baking make the simple syrup. Place the sugar in a small saucepan, then add enough water to moisten all the sugar and cook over low-medium heat until the sugar is melted.
8. Once cookies have cooled, place edible flowers on the cookies and drizzle the simple syrup on top to glue the flowers to the cookies.
9. Let set 15-20 minutes before eating.

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UP THE YUM:  Make some of these cookies with the kids in your life, or make them for yourself and celebrate life by having fun decorating them in your own whimsical way!

This is a healthy, made from scratch pancake. The nutty taste of buckwheat pairs perfectly with tangy yogurt and sweet apples to create a hearty breakfast pancake, topped with good quality butter and maple syrup, it is a treat the whole family will enjoy.

I admit it has been a while since I’ve made pancakes from scratch. King Arthur Flour brand has a deliciously convenient line of gluten free flour blends and these days their King Arthur Flour Gluten Free Pancake Mix is the one I usually turn to on Sunday mornings.

However, this week, I woke up inspired to make pancakes from scratch and when I say scratch I really mean it. Enter the Country Living Grain Mill For several years I used to grind most of my own flours to bake bread, pastries and the like. This was before children and it was when we were building up our homestead. In those days we lived very close to the land and had time to do a lot of self-sufficient activities like building fences and hay feeders, scything fresh grass and herb for our animals, etc.

Life is a little different these days and although we still homestead, things have become a lot easier because we’ve been at it for so many years and put so many systems in place to make our lives easier. That’s a good thing, because raising a family and building a new business, not to mention writing books has taken up a lot of the time we used to be able to afford to more manual chores.

I often miss those slow days, sweat on my brow, hands ragged and dirty and a stray strand or two of hay embedded into every piece of clothing. One day, I will get back to that life, but right now, I am needed in other areas.

So here I was last Sunday morning reminiscing and decided to bust out the old flourmill and begin grinding. However, being 7 months pregnant, I must admit that hubby did most of the work. But I was heartened to see our little 2 ½ year old toddler, Alba interested in learning. It was a little too hard for her this time, but in a year or so, I can see us making lots more pancakes from scratch with her taking over this job!

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup plain yogurt
1 cup of milk
3 eggs
2 TBS. coconut oil, melted
2 ½ cups buckwheat flour (pre-ground is OK!)
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups of apples, diced

To learn how to make these pancakes, please grab a copy of my book

Love in Every Bite: The Secret to Cooking Healthy Recipes with Positive Energy.

I hope you enjoy these pancakes as much as we did. Alba ate 3 pancakes herself and has been asking for them everyday. Good thing there were leftovers!

UP THE YUM: Use really good quality butter on your morning pancakes. You can taste the difference and it enhances the flavors all around. I am a fan of Kerrygold or Organic Valley.

FEED YOUR CHAKRAS: Root

If you were one of my faithful readers over at the Leftover Queen, then you probably remember me waxing poetic about my tagine at one point or another and all the things (other than tagines) that I cooked in it – it was a whole series of sorts over the years I wrote that blog, a passion you could say. The tagine is still one of my favorite cooking vessels. However, if you don’t have one, a Dutch over or other covered vessel will work just fine, buuuut…you might want to think about investing in a tagine of your very own!

Last week I celebrated the success of my new book, Love in Every Bite: The Secret to Cooking Healthy Recipes with Positive Energy with a Valentine’s Day themed giveaway. One of the prizes was that I would create a custom recipe for the winner based on 3 ingredients. One of the winners, Rachel, another writer and fellow blogger, chose this prize and gave me her three favorite ingredients: chicken, garlic and tomatoes.

I love creating custom recipes for people, in fact it is service I am thinking of offering here on The Yum Queen. It is a fun thing to do for someone else, and a long time ago, I used to do it on a larger scale for restaurants and cafes. It helps me as a recipe creator to water my creative juices and to think outside the box of what I might normally make and prepare something unique – thereby expanding my own culinary horizons. In that way, I think we both come out winners…and now you benefit too!

The three ingredients she chose are easily available and so I wanted to be sure to create a dish that was both easy to make but also packed a lot of flavor and punch. We enjoyed it last night and it is absolutely a dish I will be making again.

So here is the dish I created for Rachel based on her three favorite ingredients: chicken, garlic and tomatoes. I hope you enjoy it!

Chicken with Tomato and Pepper Paste Cooked in a Tagine

 

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Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

3 hours

Total time

3 hours 15 mins

 

This recipe is cooked in my favorite cooking vessel: the tagine. Slow cooking in a tagine creates tender, mouthwatering dishes, and you let the tagine do all the work. This is a custom recipe I created for a giveaway winner that includes her 3 favorite ingredients: chicken, tomatoes and garlic. The delicious sundried tomato and roasted red pepper paste pack this dish with tons of delicious sun-warming flavors. I hope you enjoy it!

Author: The Yum Queen (Jenn Campus)

Recipe type: Dinner

Cuisine: Moroccan

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• ¼ cup sundried tomatoes in oil
• ¼ cup of roasted red peppers (jarred is fine)
• 1 large clove of garlic
• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1 TBS balsamic vinegar
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 pound of chicken (I used cutlets, because that is what I had, but you can use anything)
• 4 large carrots, sliced
• 4 potatoes, cubed

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 300F.
2. In a food processor, combine the sundried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Pulse the ingredients until a thick paste is created. Set aside.
3. Place vegetables in the bottom of the tagine with some olive oil, salt and pepper, stir to coat vegetables, then add about half of the tomato-pepper paste and stir again. In a separate bowl combine the chicken with the rest of the paste and stir to coat.
4. Place chicken on top of the vegetables and place tagine in preheated oven for 3 hours.
5. Serve with some sautéed greens.

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Happy Valentine’s Day to my lovely readers! I am pretty sure everyone who reads this blog of mine would agree that we don’t need a special day to show our love, that love is something that should be freely given all year long. And I would bet that many of you share that love through food and cooking.

That is the premise behind my book, Love in Every Bite: The Secret to Cooking Healthy Recipes with Positive Energy.

To show my appreciation for you, my readers, I want to share with you another recipe from the book, that you might want to use to show that love to someone you care about, whether it is your partner, lover, mother, child, sister, friend or co-worker.

Last week I shared my recipe for Decadent Brownies with Cherries and I hosted a Valentine’s themed giveaway on The Yum Queen Facebook Page to celebrate the success of the book. There were a lot of contestants and I just posted the winners. If you missed this giveaway, don’t worry, there will be more coming up.

So for now, I hope you enjoy this spicy hot chocolate recipe inspired by one of my favorite movies about using your intention and the magic of cooking, Chocolat. 

Spicy Mayan Hot Chocolate

 

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Cook time

5 mins

Total time

5 mins

 

This is another recipe from my book Love in Every Bite: The Secret to Cooking Healthy Recipes with Positive Energy. What could be more soothing than a nice hot cup of liquid chocolate? What brings back memories of childhood better than hot chocolate? Well, this is not your mom's hot chocolate! If anyone needs to spice up their love life or wishes to give a truly decadent treat to their lover, this is the perfect recipe.This recipe is inspired by the movie Chocolat, one of my all time favorites. If you want to learn more about the concept of the energy of intention in food preparation, that is a great movie to watch!

Author: The Yum Queen (Jenn Campus)

Recipe type: Drinks

Serves: 1

Ingredients

• 8 ounces milk (cow, goat, almond, coconut, etc.)
• 2 teaspoons raw honey
• 3 TBS organic, fair trade, unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ⅛ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Instructions

1. In a small saucepan, heat the milk.
2. Add the honey, cocoa, and spices and mix until blended.
3. Serve in beautiful red mugs and garnish with a dollop of whipped cream - I also like to put a little Frangelico in mine.

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Lovely readers, sorry if I have been a bit absent, but I have a very good reason! If you have not already heard the buzz on Facebook, my first book Love in Every Bite: The Secret to Cooking Healthy Recipes with Positive Energy is now available on Amazon.

The book consists of 30 delicious, healthy and easy to prepare recipes that are naturally gluten free to bring magic into your kitchen and love into your life.

I am ecstatic to tell you that in less than 24 hours it reached the first page of results in both the Gluten Free and Consciousness & Thought categories! Making the book a bestseller almost immediately. My goal was to eventually be on the bestseller list in the categories listed and I thought it would take me a while to get there. But it happened in 24 hours thanks to the support of my readers, friends and family. I am overjoyed by the response to the book! Thank you!

If you haven’t had a chance, I wanted to take this opportunity to invite you to check it out for yourself. You can preview much of the book on Amazon to see if it catches your fancy. If you are a member of Kindle Unlimited you can read it for FREE, and if you don’t have a kindle, don’t worry, Amazon has apps available that allow you to read kindle books on any of your devices. So there is nothing stopping you!

Valentine’s Day is coming soon and although this is not strictly a Valentine’s themed book, it does dovetail nicely in with the holiday because it is all about infusing the food you cook for your loved ones with, well love of course. I believe it is important to show your love everyday. Therefore, I am going to share some love with my readers today, in two ways:

1) Today I am going to share with you a recipe from the book for Decadent Brownies with Cherries and next week, I will share another, so you can get a literal taste of what the book offers.

2) On February 11, 2016 I am going to be giving away several prizes to three lucky winners. Winners will be able to choose, on a first come, first served basis one of three options:
A) (for US based residents only) a “Buckets of Love”, Gourmet Valentine’s Gift Basket from Lake Champlain Chocolates, a local favorite of mine.
B) A custom recipe, developed by me, especially for you using your three favorite ingredients
C) An email consultation to discuss the book, or any questions you might have about how to implement the material
*3 winners will be chosen and each will have 24 hours to respond to the message, at which time another winner(s) will be chosen. I will contact winners via The Yum Queen facebook page, so please check in on the 11th so see if you’ve been chosen.

Here’s how to enter:

1) Check out Love in Every Bite
2) Post about the book on your facebook page while tagging @TheYumQueen OR Make any recipe from the book
3) If you make a recipe, share a picture of the recipe you made on your Facebook page, while linking to the book, to share with your friends and also post the picture to my Facebook page, The Yum Queen

On Thursday, February 11, I will choose 3 winners at random to be gifted with the prizes! If you are the first person to respond, you get to choose from the 3 prizes offered. If you are the second, you can choose from the two remaining and so on.

Now for the sweet treat!

Decadent Brownies with Cherries

This is a nice healthy indulgence for someone whose life you want to infuse with a little sweetness. I love adding cinnamon to anything chocolate; it adds a warming and soothing element. The cherries are a nice little surprise to find inside. These brownies take only a few minutes to put together, are packed with protein and have very little sugar. But that can be our little secret; these are so decadent, no one will ever know!

4.0 from 1 reviews

Decadent Brownies with Cherries

 

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Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

22 mins

Total time

27 mins

 

This is a nice healthy indulgence for someone whose life you want to infuse with a little sweetness. I love adding cinnamon to anything chocolate; it adds a warming and soothing element. The cherries are a nice little surprise to find inside. These brownies take only a few minutes to put together, are packed with protein and have very little sugar. But that can be our little secret; these are so decadent, no one will ever know!

Author: The Yum Queen (Jenn Campus)

Recipe type: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Serves: 10-12

Ingredients

• 1 cup almond butter
• ½ cup full fat coconut milk
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ⅓ cup cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 2 TBS raw honey
• ⅓ cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup of cherries (frozen or fresh)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Grease an 8x8 pan.
3. Mix all the ingredients together, except the chocolate chips and the cherries, once incorporated fold in the chocolate chips and cherries.
4. Pour brownie batter into pan.
5. Bake for 20-22 minutes.
6. I usually cut these a little smaller than regular brownies because they are so rich.

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I wasn’t sure about sharing this recipe, because it is against my ideals of cooking from scratch… I made this with boxed pudding…but don’t worry, it is ORGANIC!

I made this quick dessert last weekend, when we were invited to our friends’ house for dinner. She was making Thai green curry and I thought a nice coconut dessert would go well to finish off a lovely meal.

Well, the leftovers became one of my first serious pregnancy cravings! Yes, you read that right, my husband, Roberto and I are expecting our second child in early May. We don’t know the baby’s gender and we are excited to wait until the very end to find out. We like those kinds of surprises. We are planning another homebirth and so far everything has been going very well.

So back to this amazing (and super easy) pudding! I decided to use boxed pudding and jazz it up a bit. I originally got the boxed pudding during the first trimester of my pregnancy, when I was on a “bland white food diet” due to morning (or should we just be real and say ALL DAY sickness??). So I still had some in the pantry.

I added organic coconut flakes to the pudding. It was delicious that way. But when I stirred pomegranate arils to the leftovers, it became my favorite dessert and I ate it everyday for a week! This pudding is so good that after I write this post I am going to make some more.

I hope you enjoy it as much I do!

5.0 from 2 reviews

Creamy Coconut Pudding with Pomegranate Arils

 

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Prep time

90 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

1 hour 45 mins

 

Spicing up organic boxed pudding with coconut and pomegranate takes this dessert from humble to crave-able!

Author: The Yum Queen (Jenn Campus)

Recipe type: Dessert

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 box European Gourmet Bakery Organic Vanilla Pudding
• 2 cups of milk
• ½ cup coconut flakes
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• Pomegranate arils (as many as you want!)

Instructions

1. Combine pudding mix, half of the coconut flakes, cinnamon and milk in a small saucepan.
2. Whisk well to incorporate all ingredients and to dissolve mixture.
3. Cook over medium-low heat, whisking constantly.
4. Bring mixture to a boil, cook and stir for an additional minute before removing from heat.
5. Pour pudding into 4 serving dishes or into a small square glass container.
6. Sprinkle the remaining coconut over the top of the pudding.
7. Refrigerate at least 90 minutes.
8. To serve, sprinkle with as many pomegranate arils as you like.

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FEED YOUR CHAKRAS: Root

Sometimes in the dead of winter, a salad is just what you need. Not a green salad really, but a winter salad. I admit that in winter, I tend to substitute my love of salads for veggie-laden soups and stews. But there are salads that are very appropriate for the winter months, especially if you are craving that fresh crunch!

There are so many blog and social media posts a buzz this week about healthy lifestyles, and this salad definitely fits into that category, although I love it whether I am watching what I eat, or not. The ingredients are few and simple, but together they are so complementary and dare I say addictive!

This salad is really made exceptional with a few special ingredients, dried Montmorency (sour) cherries and marcona almonds, both of which I buy from Trader Joe’s. But the ingredient that really makes it special is my violet infused balsamic vinegar that I get from The Ancient Olive in Saint Augustine, Florida. It is utterly delicious and always reserved for my raw salads. The balsamic is thick and it has a rich flavor, where the violet is barely detectable, although it adds a kind of sweetness to the vinegar which pairs really well with the tart dried cherries. You can make this salad with regular balsamic vinegar and it will still be delicious. Sprinkle everything with a healthy dash of black pepper before tossing and this salad will become one of your winter favorites!

This radicchio salad is great for a (very!) quick lunch, or stands up well to a nice roast for a balanced dinner.

Radicchio Salad with Dried Montmorency Cherries and Marcona Almonds

 

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Prep time

5 mins

Total time

5 mins

 

This salad is really made exceptional with a few special ingredients, dried Montmorency (sour) cherries and marcona almonds, both of which I buy from Trader Joe’s. But the ingredient that really makes it special is violet infused balsamic vinegar!

Author: The Yum Queen (Jenn Campus)

Recipe type: Salad

Cuisine: American

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 head of radicchio, chopped
• ¼ cup of dried Montmorency cherries
• ¼ cup of Marcona almonds
• pinch of salt
• a couple dashes of ground black pepper
• drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
• drizzle of balsamic vinegar

Instructions

1. Place radicchio, dried cherries, almonds, salt and pepper into a large mixing bowl.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
3. Pour over the salad and toss together, then taste and adjust seasonings as necessary for taste.

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UP THE YUM: Use violet infused balsamic vinegar, or pomegranate balsamic in place of regular balsamic vinegar

FEED YOUR CHAKRAS: Root Chakra/ 1st Chakra