Last night I made the Hoppin’ John salad recipe from the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine’S (PCRM’s) 21-day Vegan Kickstart program, and I’m here to tell you it’s a winner.  Easy, filling, nourishing food– just the kind of thing I look for in a family week-night recipe.

It’s a rice salad with black-eyed peas (why don’t I use these more?), chopped scallions, celery, parsley and chopped tomatoes, with a garlicky, lemony dressing.

The 21-day kickstart started Monday, but it’s not too late to join.  Each week, you’ll receive menus and recipes– and that’s why I joined, for the infusion of new, tried and true recipes.  One does get tired of ones own cooking from time to time.

Join the 21-day kickstart.

Get the Hoppin’ John Salad recipe.

Enjoy!

For me (and everyone’s different, which is pretty wonderful), green smoothies are the perfect start to a day. They taste like liquid sunshine, and make me feel strong and energized all morning.

Here are a week’s worth of photos and recipes to get you started.  You’ll note the occasional profusion of jars– a sign that my whole family is hopping on board this smoothie thing.  My oldest son (he who does not like vegetables) is up to one quart a day.  And if you are getting the idea they are delicious, you are absolutely correct.

Recipes below.  A couple of basics:  vary your greens, so you don’t O.D. on too much oxalic acid in spinach, for instance.  All plants have protective devices– too much is too much.  Rotate with kale, parsley, romaine lettuce, chard, and so on.  Too thick?  Add more water.  Or, you can add coconut water, like our faculty member Derek Neal did in our previous post (see ‘smoothies’).  For convenience and cost savings, organic frozen fruit is a great option.  Freeze bananas that are getting too soft, to add to future smoothies.  Add ripe avocados for delectable smoothness. You get the idea.

1.  Kale & Cantaloupe (Monday)
1/2 organic cantaloupe, kale (ribs removed), water
2.  Pinneapple & Spinach (Tuesday)
1/2 fresh pineapple, spinach, handful of parsley, water
3.  Peach Raspberry (Wednesday)
Frozen peaches, 1/4 pint raspberries, banana. small head of lettuce  & some mint leaves for zin
4.  Blueberry Fig (Thursday)
4 Brown Turkey figs, 1/4 pint blueberries, banana, lacinato (aka dino) kale (ribs removed), water
5.  Alex’s Minty Mango (Friday)
Frozen or fresh mango, spinach, mint leaves, water
6.  Parsley Passion (Saturday)
1/2 bunch parsley, 1/2 cucumber, peeled, 1 apple, 1/2 ripe banana, 1 cup water
7.  Strawberry Nectarine (Sunday)
Nectarine, handful of strawberries, banana, frozen pineapple, lacinato kale

More resources:  I highly recommend Victoria Boutenko’s books Green for Life and The Green Smoothie Revolution along with her family’s terrific blog (see ‘favorite sites’) for zillions of recipes, how to introduce smoothies to babies and children, and more.

Enjoy!

In her book The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen, from whence this recipe cometh, Rebecca Katz says, “…I set out to create the most colorful salad I could, using purple beets, orange carrots, and fresh mint.  If I’d had a vegetable crisper instead of a box of crayons as a kid, this salad would have been the result.”

And not only beautiful, but brimming with antioxidants.  We all know we’re supposed to be tracking those down and including them in our diets like crazy, right?  Turns out, as Rebecca says, “Generally speaking, the right way to go is to cast a wide net instead of focusing on a single antioxidant.”

This is one stunning combo.  As you see, the Capital Hilton kitchen did the colors side-by-side, and they are equally gorgeous tossed, with the green flecks of mint dancing amidst the shredded orange and burgundy.  A great choice if you are looking for that wow factor for a healthy lunch or dinner dish.  And beets and carrots are in season, in local farm markets (at least in the mid-Atlantic region), right now.

Photographs of Food As Medicine 2010 by Erin Goldstein

Shredded Carrot and Beet Salad

Serves 4
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup peeled and shredded carrot
1 cup peeled and shredded red beet
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

Whisk the orange juice, lemon juice, olive oil, ginger, and salt together
until thoroughly combined. Put the carrots in a mixing bowl, drizzle
with half of the dressing, and toss until evenly coated. Place the carrots
on one side of a shallow serving bowl. Put the beets in the mixing
bowl, drizzle with the remaining dressing, and toss until evenly
coated. Place the beets in the serving bowl next to the carrots for a
beautiful contrast of red and orange. Top with the chopped mint before
serving.

From Rebecca Katz with Mat Edelson, The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen, Celestial Arts, 2009.

Rebecca is a core faculty member and our Executive Chef for Food As Medicine, and designs all our food for the program.  OMG.  Eating like this for 4 days is SUCH a treat!

Thank you for sharing, Rebecca!

I know this from my professional life and my own personal challenges with emotional eating:  all the information in the world about the “right” things to eat or the “right” diet won’t help if you don’t find another way to navigate life without turning to food to cope.

First, discover the difference between physical and emotional hunger and how to feed each of them in the right way. Once food finds its rightful place, to feed the hunger of the physical body, then the next piece is to discover how to feed the emotional hunger; how to express your feelings appropriately and get your underlying needs met.

It begins with a readiness to change and a vision of what you want.  It’s not a number on a scale; it’s how you want to feel in your body – alive, energetic, healthy, whatever.

I have people do three drawings:  their relationship with food, their biggest problem, and how they would like to be.  I use imagery to help them embody the third drawing, so this feeling, this vision, becomes what they are choosing towards each time they want to eat.

Many people who have been on diets look to external authority to answer the question, what should I eat? It is never as simple as eat this, don’t eat that for those who have learned to use food to anaesthetize and edit life.

I help people listen to their own body’s needs through guided imagery.  For example, I have each person imagine a wise being, a helpful guide, that can answer the question, what is one thing I need to remove from my diet or bring into my diet to help me move towards the vision of how I want to be and feel in my body?

Through this process of asking, each person discovers their own voice and begins to right their relationship with food in a way that reflects their own preferences, their body chemistry and their cultural and personal history. This inquiry and practice allows for a true transformation of their relationship to food that is sustainable for a lifetime.

Read more about Jerrol on the Center’s website. She lives and sees clients in San Francisco, CA, and via phone around the country.

Here you go:  Arran’s guacamole.  In 5 minutes, you can have it on the table.  He wanted me to make a video to show you how quick it is, but I’m not that adept– yet.  Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, here is a quick slide show to prove the point and entice you.  Chop, chop, and you’re done.

He makes it in a molacajete, a large  mortar and pestle dating back several thousand years to Mesoamerica.  Its rough stone surface makes smooshing up the avocados a snap, and it makes a truly beautiful serving container, too.

2 ripe avocados
1 tablespoon finely diced red onion
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Sea salt & cumin, to taste
Optional: finely diced tomato, chopped cilantro

¡ A su salud !

James Joseph, PhD, was a highly distinguished research scientist– Director of the Neuroscience Laboratory, USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, at Tufts University– and he was also our friend.  He passed away just days before Food As Medicine this June.  My 18 year old son, attending Food As Medicine for the second time and who had heard Jim speak before, said the same thing I did on hearing of his passing: “No, no, no! Not Jim!”  The thing about Jim was he was not only brilliant but endearing, and laugh-out-loud funny.  What better way to convey the science than to have ‘em rolling in the aisles?

He always said that because of his USDA funding, we couldn’t sell the recordings of his talks, but that we could give them away.  So it is with great pleasure that we offer you this treasure– a video of Jim Joseph’s lecture recorded at Food As Medicine in Baltimore in 2008.

Please do share!

Dr. James Joseph – Nutrition and the Aging Brain

Thank you, Jim, for a wonderful ride.

My solution last evening:  a rainbow salad.  Everything organic, nearly everything purchased at our local farm market the evening before.  Nothing much to it:  two kinds of lettuce, blueberries, strawberries, pine nuts roasted with just a little ground coriander (my son Arran who is a chef teaches me these haute cuisine tricks), sliced carrots, and a little finely sliced peppermint, tossed with a tad of high quality olive oil and fresh lemon juice.  Ta-da!  As quick as it sounds and as delicious as it looks.

Summer’s harvest is rolling in!  See the riches we plundered at the Farm Market on Saturday, including the first corn of the season (white), and little orange ‘Sundrop’ tomatoes, organic strawberries, black raspberries, and small plums (well, everything we purchased is organic), and mountains of greens (kale, chard, dandelion, arugula, baby spinach, Boston lettuce), herbs (peppermint, parsley)…  This rainbow cornucopia inspired our first summer feast:  steamed corn (several of us thought it so rich and succulent it didn’t require butter or any other spread), green beans with a spritz of lemon and a pinch of fleur de sel, quinoa salad (details below), soft boiled fresh farm eggs and sliced plums with black raspberries.

A simple recipe for the quinoa salad:  Start with 2 cups of quinoa, well and repeatedly washed to remove the bitter saponins and cook on stove top or in rice cooker with 4 cups water.  Meanwhile, prepare the following:  toast 1/2 cup pine nuts in a heavy pan over a flame– shaking to keep from browning too much, and adding a pinch of coriander.  Chop a handful each of washed mint leaves and washed parsley.  Saute a few cloves of garlic, minced, in olive oil.  When the quinoa has finished cooking, squeeze in juice from half a lemon and drizzle in some olive oil.  Stir in all the other ingredients, along with 1/2 cup of dried cranberries.  I made this up as I went along, and it’s really nice– very subtle.  It was particularly delicious slightly warm, but Alex enjoyed a taste cold at the office on Monday.

It’s such fun to experiment this time of year, with a glorious palette of possibilities!

ps– I’ll have a wonderful slide show and some other goodies from Food As Medicine shortly.

Teaism, with 3 locations in downtown DC, is always a great choice for a light but special lunch.  Chef Rebecca Katz and I stopped by the Lafayette Park location yesterday, and I chose this colorful salad and their lentil soup.  ”Lentil soup” doesn’t even begin to conjure.  I insisted Chef Katz try a bite of mine, and the next thing I knew, she was back in line getting her own bowl.  That lady doesn’t mess around!

The lentil soup is pureed, and we’re guessing contains cumin, coriander, cayenne… perhaps a garam masala, for that depth of flavor… some celery…. a garnish of cilantro for sure.  We’ll never guess their recipe, but honestly, it’s worth  a visit to Teaism for this soup.

The cuisine is a lovely Asian / American fusion, the decor in each location is imaginative (I’m especially partial to the original Teasism at Dupont, but Penn Quarter does have the koi pond…).  They do a nice breakfast, too (the ginger scones are legendary) and it’s rather a nice place to meet for tea.