Delightfully Fresh Strawberry Spinach Salad

I stumbled upon this simple, but delightful combination at Torque Moto Cafe, a woman-owned space that seems to have been one of the local small business losses coming out of this pandemic. Although it’s bittersweet to share this ‘recipe’, this fresh and nourishing dish helps lift my spirits! Here’s my flexible take for you do what you’d like with it—

INGREDIENTS

strawberries

spinach (any mix of salad greens is equally delightful here!)

salt and pepper to taste

Make it a super healthy meal by adding your protein of choice—Try any combination of lightly roasted pecans, walnuts, pepitas, sunflower seeds, roasted garbanzos, edamame or even feta cheese.

I love this just as is, but if you’re a dressing-on-your-salad person, try a vinaigrette.

Refreshing Radish Grapefruit Salad

Alright, I’m excited about this one! I had a collection of radish from the last couple of weeks and I often struggle to get through this healthy root veggie. I had been tending to just drizzle them in olive oil and roast them up with salt and pepper, but deep down my gut (and my reading about the importance of prebiotics to our gut microbiome and overall resilience) tells me that eating them raw gets me the maximum benefits. So, today, I decided to go for it and make a radish-based salad with grapefruit. I think my radish avoidance comes from the idea that the radish taste is overwhelming. However, upon first taste of this salad, I realized that idea is mostly in my head and that the crisp of the radish was quite delicious in this mix. It helps that the grapefruit also has a strong flavor. Plus the nut and spice blend just makes it beautifully flavorful. To my surprise, both my kids also liked the radish doused in the Dukkah nut and spice blend. The grapefruit is a different story! Ok, here’s the simple recipe—

radish (maybe 8 to 10 smallish ones)

grapefruit

lettuce or salad mix

salt

Trader Joe’s Dukkah Nut and Spice Blend (contains almonds, sesame seeds, fennel seeds, coriander, anise seeds & salt)

INSTRUCTIONS

Thinly slice the radish.

Peel and chop the grapefruit.

Toss and sprinkle with a little salt and a generous amount of the Dukkah nut and spice blend.

Serve over a bed of lettuce and enjoy feeling all clean and tangy inside!

Roasted Delicata and Beet Salad

This flexible recipe was inspired by this beautiful one! My modification simplifies it (I don’t see when or why I should remove the skin from my beets!) and suggests orange juice or honey instead of agave nectar for the sweetener.

Use this week’s veggies to make this flexible salad. Here are some ideas for different directions you can take it!

INGREDIENTS

1 delicata squash

1 large beet or a few smaller ones

olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

1/3 cup feta cheese or sunflower seeds for a vegan version

salad mix

microgreens

For the Dressing—

1/4 cup red wine or balsamic vinegar

1 tsp dijon mustard (optional)

juice of one orange or 1 tsp honey

1/2 tsp rosemary or thyme or oregano

salt and pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Slice the delicata in half, remove the seeds and then slice into 1/2 inch slices

Slice beet in half and then slice each half into 1/2 inch slices

Put on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, sprinkle with salt, pepper and drizzle with olive oil.

Roast at 400 degrees until cooked through and slightly crisped.

Toss with salad, feta or sunflower seeds and dressing. Top with microgreens and enjoy!

Daikon Carrot Salad

If you’re looking to an introduction to this awesome root, check out this article.

Daikon, just like any other radish, was something I just didn’t know what to do with beyond using it as a topping for pozole. When we committed to our first CSA with Solidarity Farm, all of a sudden we had radish diversity and I was determined to figure out how to use them. To my delight, I learned about daikon carrot salad and have loved it ever since! Plus, it’s perfect during the cold season, especially this year, because of its strong anti-inflammatory and immune boosting properties. My next challenge is figuring out a second dish to make with it. But for now, I will share this one! It’s addictive. (C:)

INGREDIENTS

1 or 2 daikon radish roots, grated into long ribbons (I use a potato peeler), or a box or two of daikon microgreens!

4 to 6 carrots, grated into long ribbons (again, a potato peeler does the trick)

juice of ½ lemon

juice of 1 tangerine or orange

2 tsp brown sugar (optional, try leaving this out and doubling the orange juice!) 

6 tbs rice vinegar

2 tbs sesame oil

salt

pepper

toasted sesame seeds (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

Mix all ingredients (except microgreens and roasted sesame seeds, if using) in a large bowl and let soak (a.k.a. quick pickle) for 10 to 30 minutes. You can skip this step if you’re really hungry (I’ve done it) and it’s still yummy—it just gets better if you have the patience to wait!

 If using daikon microgreens instead of daikon root, toss microgreens in just before serving. Then sprinkle roasted sesame seeds over the top.

Final note: I like to make this a meal by serving it over a bed of vermicelli rice noodles (cooked according to package instructions) and topped with 2 boxes tofu, sliced and placed in a single layer on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, drizzled with sesame oil and sprinkled with garlic powder, cumin, paprika and salt.

Citrus Strawberry Cabbage Salad

Here’s a quick and easy salad using this week’s fruit and veggie rainbow. Adjust the ingredient proportions to your liking and enjoy alone as a refreshing snack or as a side to a hearty meal.

Ingredients:

Lettuce (this week, we’ve got red romaine)

and/or

Kale

Cabbage (this week it’s red cabbage, which is really more purple)

strawberries (sliced)

microgreens (this week, it’s tatsoi and kale mix!)

citrus (orange, tangelo or tangerine will do! peeled and cut in wedges)

vinegar (balsamic or apple cider)

olive oil

salt and pepper

nuts (optional to add protein—Use whatever you’ve got around—try almonds, pistachio, pepitas, walnuts or pecans)

Instructions:

Just rinse, chop and mix or layer ingredients. Save the olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper to drizzle and sprinkle over the top. Feel good about the mountain of vitamins and flavor you’re putting into your body.

Indulgent Quick Pickle Beet Salad

Ingredients:

Once Harvard Medical School’s Vegetable of the Month, this article highlights a few the nutritional and medicinal benefits of beets (high in vitamin B and manganese and contributes to lower blood pressure). Also, they find that you gotta make it sound indulgent if you want people to eat more of it.

1 to 2 cups beets (thinly sliced— try shaving it with a potato peeler) Option to do half carrots, also shaved with a peeler

1/4 to 1/2 cup vinegar (try red wine vinegar, rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar)

1/2 to 1 1/2 tbs sugar (or not, people make sugar out of beets so they’re already pretty sweet…you decide how much to indulge!)

1/2 to 1 tsp salt (again, you decide how much)

lettuce or other salad greens—use what you’ve got!

olive oil

microgreens (this week, we’ve got purple kohlrabi!)

other optional toppings: nuts (try pistachios!) and/or seeds (maybe sesame, sunflower or pepitas)

Instructions:

In a small pot, heat vinegar, salt and sugar until boiling then remove from heat and add beets (and carrots if you’re using them). Let sit and cool or at least 10 minutes.

In a salad bowl, toss lettuce (or salad greens) with a little olive oil, salt, pepper and a dash of lemon.

Add cooled quick pickled beets (and carrots, if using)

Top with a generous handful of microgreens and other optional nuts and/or seeds.

Brainstorming Kale--A Summary for Many Moods

Check out this Types of Kale art print by Marcella Kriebel.

Not counting, but it’s been many days of staying in and as much as I enjoy my home life and the freedom to create daily rhythms with my two kids as I see fit—I might be feeling a little stir crazy. I am confident this is the worst of it since the cold weather is on its way out and today’s sunshine, alone, has done wonders for my spirit. Anyway, this is the backdrop to my approach to this week’s recipe. I feel disconnected from the outside world and, as such, I’m not sure what type of recipe to share with all of you, given you may be going through any assortment of situations and feelings amidst this moment in history. So, I’ve decided to share my brainstorm and a summary of my findings rather than a single recipe. Here goes:

COMFORT Sweet Tooth and Chocolate-Fixes-Everything KALE

If you’re also feeling in a pit when it comes time to approach your kale of the week, maybe it’s time to make Kale Brownies. Based on my research, I think you can pretty much add 1 to 3 cups kale to your favorite brownie recipe. Raw and finely chopped is the way I’d go, but a more refined approach could also be to steam the kale until bright green and just wilted, then blend it up before adding it to your brownie batter. If you’ve got any floppy carrots that you didn’t get around to eating last week, you can steam one or two and mash it in, as well.

GREEN JUICE Keeps the Blues Away KALE

If you’re feeling good and want to eat light and clean (no added sugar, please), then maybe juice is the way to go. Slow juicers are fancy and nice, but you can also just use a blender and add kale, lettuce, any other veggies you want to consume—last week’s chard, and/or a stick or two of celery which gives it a yummy saltiness, a dash of lemon or orange juice. After a glass of green juice, I always feel more grounded and ready to make the best of my day.

BED OF KALE—A Foundation for Balance

If you’re wanting to keep a balance in your life through healthy, hearty and complete foods, you might feel good starting with a bed of kale as the foundation for your meal. What to put on your kale bed? Root veggies (try roasting the radish along with sweet potato with olive oil, salt & pepper), your protein (roasted garbanzos! eggs…or glazed walnuts or any other nut or seed, think pecans or pepitas), pasta or quinoa…Just chop and steam the kale, salt and season to taste, and top your bed of kale with whatever you like. Here’s a simple recipe for tilapia on a bed of kale you might want to try.

KALE SALAD—Keeping it Fresh for the Sunny Days Ahead

Some of us love salads. I must confess, this isn’t always me! But, with the promise of sunshine ahead (my kids were so excited about today’s sunshine, they took to running around the backyard naked for the better part of the afternoon) does make me feel better about eating cold food. A kale salad is quick, nutrient-dense, long-lasting and oh so flexible. My favorite version involves, at its simplest, chopped kale, orange and/or lemon juice, salt and a splash of balsamic or apple cider vinegar. Other ingredients might include nuts, seeds, avocado, carrots, apple, radish, and any kind of microgreens you’ve got around. Here’s a more specific Kale Salad recipe that runs along these lines.

I Need Food Now! KALE QUESADILLAS

This keeps happening, especially on days the kids and I get lost in the backyard working on projects. We hit a wall and need food NOW. Corn tortillas, cheese that melts and chopped kale (very finely chopped for the picky little ones, fat strips for me). Somehow, the kale helps me see this quick dish as more of a complete and healthy meal versus a hold-you-over junky snack. Sometimes, it’s cilantro, chard, or other leafy green instead of kale, but kale is my go-to favorite for this meal. Cholula hot sauce is my in-a-pinch salsa. I’ve switched to that over other hot sauce brands because it’s the only one I’ve found that doesn’t have a bunch of weird preservatives.

Radish, Bok Choy and Carrot Salad

Quick and raw, this is a new way for me to eat bok choy (I’ve always cooked it). And it’s exciting because I’m always looking for new and easy ways to consume radish (it’s not my soul food, but I know it’s good for me!). If you’re looking for something more complex—here’s another article with radish recipe ideas.

Ingredients: (This is a simple combination—adjust amount and proportions of each to your taste!)

radish

carrots

bok choy

red onion

microgreens

lemon

olive oil

salt

pepper

Instructions:

1. Using a potato peeler or mandolin slicer, thinly slice carrots and radish.

2. Thinly chop bok choy and onion.

3. Toss radish, carrots, bok choy and onion with microgreens.

4. Drizzle with olive oil and add lemon, salt and pepper to taste.

Kohlrabi Avocado Salad

This recipe is my partner’s answer to last week’s Kohlrabi Apple Salad Recipe, which, as I mentioned, was the first to make eating raw kohlrabi exciting for me. So, this kohlrabi avocado salad is the one that made my partner excited about kohlrabi’s raw crunch. Rather than taking (much) offense that he didn’t fall in love with my exciting recipe, I’m sharing his, here, with you. And, if you want feed our competition, let us know which one you like better! Alright, here it is—

Ingredients:

2 kohlrabi bulbs

1 large avocado

olive oil

1 or 2 limes

salt

pepper

1 cup cilantro (chopped)

chipotle or 1 fresh chile (serrano or jalapeño) optional

Instructions:

1. Use a knife to remove the thick peel from the kohlrabi bulb.

2. Chop kohlrabi bulb and the avocado into 3/4 inch chunky squares.

3. Add the juice of 1 or 2 limes (depending upon your preference), drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

4. Top with cilantro and the optional chipotle or fresh chile.

Kohlrabi Apple Salad with Microgreens

Here’s some more ideas for just what to do with kohlrabi (including how to cook the greens)!

It’s taken me years to make friends with this funky vegetable. It’s soooo good for you, though. Before this recipe (which finally makes eating raw kohlrabi exciting for me!), I could easily chop the greens into my throw-everything-together stew and all I could think of to do with the bulb was slice and roast it with olive oil, salt and pepper (which is pretty tasty, by the way). But this! I hear raw olive oil is way better for you than cooking with it. And I can finally enjoy the raw crunchiness of the kohlrabi in all its healthy glory. I hope you do, too!

Ingredients:

1 Kohlrabi

1 Apple

1/2 lemon or lime

Olive Oil

Trader Joe’s Dukkah Nut and Spice Blend (Almonds, Sesame Seeds, Fennel Seeds, Coriander, Anise Seeds, Salt)

Microgreens (we’re trying a Kale and lemony Sorrel mix this week, but any mild mix would work!)

Instructions:

1. Use a knife to remove the thick peel, then thinly slice the kohlrabi bulb. Think half-moon shapes.

2. Thinly slice apple. Half-moon again.

3. Toss kohlrabi and apple together with a squeeze of lemon or lime, drizzle with olive oil and generously sprinkle with Dukkah nut and spice blend.

4. Top with microgreens.