Here is a simple recipe for a healthy summer breakfast. A quick and balanced breakfast for one.
My excellently smart and organized VA Kate Tilton likes simple recipes. She’d prefer three ingredients, but Kate, this one’s for you and I hope you like it. Four ingredients, ten minutes (with plenty of cut-up cantaloupe to spare), a lovely balance of protein, healthful fat and fruit fiber, and the acid from the lime enhances the absorption of the antioxidants (like vitamin C) to boot.
When choosing a ripe cantaloupe (aka musk) melon at the grocery, find one that smells fresh and oh so slightly gives to the firm touch – you can smell and touch at the stem-end. If the stem area is mushy it may be over-ripe. The outside should be a rosy dusky tan, and a bit of green may mean best if you let it ripen on the counter a couple days before using (which is how I use musk and honeydew melons – let them rest for a bit). If the skin has indentations in it, you are fine until you see dark moldy spots which eventually reach into the meat, then you’ve let it hang around too long or chosen an older specimen than you intended. Fresh cantaloupe will keep in the fridge for 3 or 4 days once you slice it. Cantaloupe is a great source of vitamins A and C. More on recent studies and details of cantaloupe nutrition.
Cantaloupe Walnut and Cilantro with Lime Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup ripe cantaloupe, sliced and cut into pieces
- 1/2 cup raw walnuts
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro
- Juice of 1/2 lime
Directions
Place the cut cantaloupe in a serving bowl, add the nuts and cilantro and give a toss with your clean hands or a spoon. Squeeze fresh lime juice over, toss and eat.
The flower topping this breakfast is actually a cilantro flower from my garden. Just the gifts of the garden available at the moment!
Enjoy the day, enjoy the season.
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Summertime!
While we may be having a little taste of what I call winter-summer (it has been freaking freezing this week…I remember we had a summer-winter in the Shire last year), I trust that warm weather is on the way. This is one of my favorite recipes – light, tasty, spicy and perfect for the season. I serve it as a side or main dish, with my current passion – sprouted corn tortillas warmed with a bit of cheese between, quesadilla style.
Summer Black Bean Salsa Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 can (16 oz) black beans (I used Eden brand)
- 1 cup frozen corn
- Juice of 2 limes
- Two or three slices of red onion, chopped, makes about 1/4 cup
- 1/4 red pepper, chopped
- 1/2 cup fresh cilantro
- 1/2 tsp tobasco sauce
- 1/3 cup cold-pressed EVOO
- Plenty of salt and pepper (to taste)
Directions
Could not be easier. Toss and enjoy (this is a recipe that while delicious, can be better the second day due to marinating).
Enjoy!
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Food fresh from the garden doesn’t need much help to taste great and nourish you deeply. Our fresh peas often don’t make it into the kitchen because we snack away right in the garden. Here’s a simple recipe for snow peas with mint.
Minted Snow Pea Recipe
Ingredients
- Snow peas or fresh spring peas – about 2 cups, cleaned
- Fresh mint, cleaned and chopped
- High-quality olive oil (like CA organic cold-pressed)
- Squeeze of fresh lemon
- Salt and pepper to taste.
Directions
- Grow peas! Or, locate fresh snow or sweet peas at a farmer’s market or grocery. They are an easy grow, and I love that they are best planted just as soon as the earth is thawed enough to work. So, either pick your own or you can get them at a farmer’s market or grocery (…growing your own is cheaper though more time-intensive, but the benefits are manyfold).
- Place a medium skillet over medium-high heat, add olive oil and peas, sauté 2-3 minutes.
- Add chopped mint & a squeeze of fresh lemon. Saute another minute.
- Dress with salt and pepper and enjoy.
Tip: the key is not to overcook the peas…literally sauté for just a minute or two to keep that lovely sweetness and crispness. Enjoy!
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Here’s a nice thick nutrient-packed vegan red lentil stew or soup for a warm winter infusion of tasty goodness. Coconut and tahini make this rich & satisfying.
Vegan Red Lentil Stew Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 large yellow onion, chopped
- 5-6 medium carrots, cleaned and chopped
- Small bunch organic celery, chopped
- 1 c dry red lentils
- 2.5 c water
- 1/4 c turmeric
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 Tbsp coconut manna
- 3-4 thumbs-sized piece of fresh ginger, cleaned and chopped
- 1 large clove garlic, chopped
- 3 Tbsp tahini
- 1/2 c fresh parsley, chopped
Directions
Toss onions, carrot and celery into a large stock pot, add olive oil and sauté until vegetables are soft and there’s a smidgen of browning. Add remaining ingredients except parsley, and simmer on low for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in parsley and enjoy.
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When I was young I worked on Bentley’s Farm in my bucolic hometown of Lyndonville, NY. Like many kids in my town, I walked down to Bentley’s to pick apples and raspberries, hoe tomatoes and plant Brussel sprouts. I sat on a contraption with seven other women (a combination of middle school girls and migrant farmers) which was dragged behind a tractor, with a tray of seedlings in front of me. A metal arm circled up between two of us, and every other one, we set the seedlings to be planted. What I remember most clearly is the exhaust and the dirt – dirt deep in my ears, in my teeth, way up my nose – you get the picture. Too, it’s one of those heavy-equipment jobs that we didn’t really think about but modern moms would probably not allow their kids to do…too dangerous. Things did get caught in those metal arms, and it was unnerving.
While I always liked cabbage, these sort of experiences in early life tend to put one off certain foods, and Brussel sprouts were one of those for me. Not until just the last couple years have I allowed myself this particular appreciation. Perhaps the smells and the relentlessness of planting who knows how many thousands of Brussel sprout plants has faded. Happy to say I now I love ’em. One of my favorite ways of serving these little lovelies is with a seasoning of local honey and a good seeded Dijon-style mustard.
Honey Mustard Brussels Sprouts
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound Brussel sprouts, about a dozen
- 2 Tbsp grape seed oil or ghee
- 3 Tbsp Dijon-style mustard
- 1 Tbsp local honey
Directions
- First, clean the sprouts by pulling off any yellowed leaves, and trimming the base. Rinse if needed then slice into quarters.
- Heat a large heavy skillet on medium-high, and add the oil or ghee.
- Pop the Brussel sprouts into the oil and sauté for 10-15 minutes until they reach the desired texture and done-ness (I like them al dente – with some life left in them!).
- Spoon honey and mustard into the dish and toss. Heat until the well coated and yummy.
- Serve warm, and saves well for a day or two.
Here’s the incomparable George Mateljan Foundation on Brussels Sprout Nutrition.
What’s your favorite way to eat Brussels sprouts?
May you stay warm and dry and eat well this week.
New year blessings – Annie
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Welcome to 2016! May yours be the best one yet.
I admit to loving New Year’s resolutions. I just adore the divine consciousness within each and every one of us that is aspirational. We so want to get it right – do it better, move in the right direction, make a difference, life a healthy meaningful life. I say yes to that.
But as the wheel of the year turns, it’s easy to get sidetracked. Some of you have already broken those vows you made just a few short days ago. No worries! Positive change usually involves missing the mark – and in fact, close but no cigar is a really good sign – a sign that you are heading in the right direction.
The way to begin to keep the aspiration rolling is to think more in terms of intention than resolution – if you did make a promise, let’s take a deeper look at it – what were you looking to cultivate through that resolution – what is it you are heading for? For example, as you might imagine I am awash in resolutions to lose weight – it’s my job, after all. Here. In sugaropolis.
What is it you are cultivating through your resolution to lose weight – do you want to be healthier? Feel better about yourself? Often the things we are really looking for can be cultivated regardless of, in this case, the number on the scale. If you want to, for example, feel better about yourself, there are things you can do right now to do that. Aiming at what you really want is actually a wonderful strategy to make the number of the scale get in line too – more easily and happily. By getting clear on just what we really want is the first step.
Here are a couple previous posts that can help you think about setting intention.
Before you set intention, practice letting go.
Intention in action.
It’s not too late, by the way, to set intention for the year to come. May your intentions take root deep in your heart and blossom beyond your wildest dreams.
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