Strawberry Mango Spring Delight

Spring is in the air!  I can actually smell it.

It’s that time of year here…where there isn’t a patch of snow left on brown lawns, and we don’t know what weather to expect from day to day.

Is it going to be sunny, warm and gorgeous?  Is it going to be grey, damp and drizzly? Or will it be absolutely blustery, like today, with the sun playing hide and seek behind the clouds?

Either way, a strawberry mango smoothie is in order.   Maybe if we act like it’s spring; all floral, pale pink, pretty and warm, it will manifest itself quicker!  Sounds like an idea…

It’s simple, sweet, and makes me think of the warm weather soon to come.  The tangy/sweet/creamy combo might just make this a new favourite.

Strawberry Mango Smoothie

• 1 ripe banana
• 1 mango (fresh or frozen)
• 1 cup strawberries (fresh or frozen)
• 1 cup almond milk (or less, if you like it thicker)
• 1 spoonful raw honey or other sweetener
• 1 tbsp bee pollen (optional)

Blend all ingredients in your blender.  Garnish with pale pink flowers or a straw.  Sit with drink in hand, summer dress and flip flops optional.  Sip away and enjoy!  Simple.

We don’t make enough carrot salad

An antioxidant-rich diet is all about putting color onto your plate.  Gabriel Cousens gets it right in Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine.  The title says it all.

Today, we’re getting extra beta-carotene – vitamin A – with carrots.  Dill weed packs an extra cancer-fighting punch with antioxidants like eugenol and limonene.  Cranberry (yum – polyphenols) and lemon (mmm…flavonoids) are bursting at the seems with antioxidants.  Eat em up!

This salad takes a good it of manual labor…and it is very rewarding. (Really though, it’s simple )

Normally a salad like this serves two or three people, or even more as just a side salad.  I think I just might polish it off by myself – it’s a carrot kind of day.

Ingredients:

• 2 carrots
• 1/2 cup dill weed
• 1/2 cup sliced or whole filberts (hazelnuts)
• Handful of dried or fresh whole cranberries
• Splash of fresh squeezed lemon juice or vinegar
• Splash of olive oil
• Himalayan rock salt to taste

Procedure:

• Grate the two carrots (this is the hard manual labour part).
• Add the cranberries and a splash of lemon juice.

• 
• Chop the dill weed.

• Add this and the hazelnuts to the salad, drizzling with olive oil and sprinkiing with salt.
• Now stir your beautiful creation and serve.

And for dessert…

(Tip: I like to have my dessert first.  If it’s fruit – it sits in my tummy better.)

Fresh Homemade Apple Sauce

• Chopped and cored apples (use whatever quanitity you desire)
• Unpaseurized honey or agave nectar (again, use to taste)
• A good dash of cinammon (I like mine extra cinammon-y)

Blend all the ingredients in a food processor until you get a good smooth consistency.  Spoon into bowls and enjoy!  I garnished mine with some fresh cranberries and a slice of lemon.

Check out more healthy recipes on This Mama Cooks! Healthy Food Blog Carnival

Sweet n’ Crunchy Cabbage Salad

It’s great to eat local when you can – and that means eating what’s in season.   Red cabbage is winter food staple – and unusually high in antioxidants.

Consider red cabbage a super food, and delicious.  It contains anthocyanins, more phytonutrients, and 6-8 times more vitamin C than green cabbage!   Red cabbage help you detoxify, so it’s on the must eat list if you’re doing a New Year’s cleanse.

Fresh lunch for a winter day

Cabbage contains sulforaphane, which stimulates the production of glutathione, the body’s most important internally produced antioxidant.

Bottom line: include more cabbage in your diet to stay healthy, disease-free, and live longer.  Try to eat it raw when you can, or even drink raw cabbage juice to solve any stomach problems.  On to the Cabbage Salad Recipe…

Sweet n’ Crunchy Cabbage Salad

• 1 cup grated red cabbage
• Large handful of baby carrots, chopped into rounds
• 1/2 yellow pepper, chopped
• Sunflower sprouts (or soaked, hulled sunflower seeds)

Sweet Carrot Dressing

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 2 tbsp raw honey
• 2 tbsp miso or 1 tsp salt
• 1 inch chunk peeled ginger
• 1 large carrot, grated or chopped

Blend all the dressing ingredients in a high-powered blender.  Mix the vegetables with some of the dressing in a large bowl.  Store the leftover dressing in a jar in the fridge (will last for about a week).  Garnish with a celery top and serve!

Healthy Comfort Food

When I’ve just come in from the cold and my hands and feet are nearly numb, and the tip of my nose and cheeks are rosy…I’m craving healthy comfort food.

This sprouted lentil soup is sweet, salty, hot… fast to prepare, and hits the spot.

Ingredients:

• 1 sweet potato, cubed and peeled
• 1 cup lentil sprouts
• 1 small onion, peeled and chopped
• Himalayan rock salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil or your favourtie oil
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary, to garnish

In a small pot of boiling water, boil the sweet potato with the onion until soft (about 5-10 minutes).

Add the lentil sprouts and turn the heat down to low, or off.  Cook for a few minutes until the sprouts become tender.

Add the salt to your taste, the rosemary, and finish off with the oil.  Serve warm and enjoy!

How to Grow Your Own Sprouts

Delicious fresh and crunchy sprouts.  They are high in phytochemicals, and have the highest conecntration of nutrients per calorie of any food.

There is more than a meter of snow outside in my backyard and I am growing fresh green food on my kitchen counter!  That’s the beauty of sprouts.

The sprout comes from a seed which has all the information and resources to grow a mature plant.  After the addition of water, it comes to life for the first time, and releases all it’s goodness into a tiny flavourful shoot of plant material.  This includes essential protein, vitamins, minerals and enzymes.

You can be sure you are getting the best nutrition by growing your sprouts at home.  It is easy and you can do it year round with minimal materials and space.

What can you sprout?  Well just about any seed, legume or grain, and even nuts.  Use special sprouting seeds for surefire results, or just dried raw seeds from the bulk section of your grocery store.  I like to use dried lentils and chickpeas.

Cheap, Easy Sprout Method

Materials you will need:

• Glass Jar
• Sprouting seeds (I used dried lentils in this example)
• Small square of cheese/muslin cloth
• Rubber band
• Pure water

Step 1.

Get a glass jar (re-use a jar of pickles, etc).  Fill it about 1/3 full with your seeds.  Pour double or triple the amount of water into it.  Secure the muslin cloth over the mouth of the jar with a rubber band.

Step 2.

Leave it until the next day.  After 12-24 hours your seeds will soak up the water and double or even triple in size (depending on the seed).  Now drain all the water by tipping it upside down (make sure the rubber band is on really tight – I double wrap mine).

Step 3.

Now leave it alone, and let the magic happen.  You will be surprise how quickly they grow (in the picture above, I have already removed 1/2 the sprouts from the jar.) Rinse the seeds every day and make sure to drain the water each time – just to keep them moist.

After even 2 days, your sprouts can be eaten.  You can tell because they form little tails.  The longer you let the tails get, the more nutritious your sprouts become! They are at the peak of nutrition content at 5-7 days of growth.

Every day, I take out a big handful, and by the next day the jar is full again.  As long as you keep rinsing, the sprouts will keep growing. 

Enjoy your sprouts in sandwiches, wraps, salads and soups!

• Lentil sprout soup recipe
  

Sesame Bars

Did you know sesame seeds can warm your body up when it’s cold?  Even after digestion both black and white sesame seeds generate heat.   It is common practice to massage the body with sesame oil in Ayurveda, especially in the winter months.

Antioxidant rich sesame seeds also boost vitamin E and produce phytic acid (to help rid the body of heavy metals).  “Sesamin” (the ingredient found in sesame oil) can inhibit the growth of cancerous tumors and lower cholesterol.

Cozy up to these sesame bars when it’s frosty outside:

· 2 cups raw walnut pieces (use as is, or grind them in a food processor with the dates until they become buttery)

· 1/4 cup mushed dates

· 1 cup raw white sesame seeds

· 1 cup dried cherries or cranberries

· 1/2 tsp sea salt or Himalayan rock salt

· 4 Tbsp raw coconut butter

Mix all ingredients by hand, press into a pan and cut, or form into balls and enjoy.

More antioxidant treats.

Antioxidants in Food

The antioxidants in foods are not constant.  Though the ORAC scores and other scientific analyses set a benchmark, the real levels of antioxidants in any given food will vary depending on a few key factors.

It’s not enough just to look at a foods “ranking” when it comes to antioxidants.  It helps to consider a few important variables that make some foods more healthful than others:

- Freshness: What do you think is better? A berry freshly picked in your backyard versus a berry picked unripe and flown in from Mexico to your grocery shelf?

- Is it live? A sprout, or something that is still growing (for instance celery with the root) is considered live.   This kind of food has a gazillion more active vitamins than most store-bought produce, which sometimes is picked days before and is exposed to oxidation.

Cooking methods such as boiling, stewing, frying or baking can destroy as much as 80% of the antioxidants.  Your best option is to eat the food raw or lightly steamed.  Another tip is to soak foods like seeds, nuts, and beans in water, which germinates them and makes them “come alive”.

- Organic or natural: Organic food is widely available in supermarkets now, but also can be a complex matter (ie: how organic is it really? what is considered USDA certified? what’s “natural”, etc?).  Bottome Line: To know your own food, you must grow your own food.  It’s not always possible (but easier than you might think!)

- Is it a Super food? Super foods are known to have high amounts of antioxidants and other important elements.  The lush and bio-diverse rainforest sure seems like the ideal spot for super foods, but in reality we don’t have to look that far.  Different super foods come from different parts of the world.  For example, maca root grows in the arid Andes mountains, mulberries grow as far north as the Tundra, olives from the Mediterranean, and goji berries can grow in just about anyone’s backyard.

- Is it from the Sea? Sea weed and sea vegetables might not be well known for their antioxidant content, but are extremely rich in vital nutrients that we can’t get from most “dry land” foods.

Apart from iron and iodine, sea plants contain trace minerals tin, zinc, boron, selenium, chromium, antimony and bismuth.  They are densely packed with full spectrum vitamins, including A, C, E and the under-consumed B12.

Learn more about Antioxidants in Foods here.

Who Doesn’t Start Their Day with Smoothies?

Well if you don’t you should try it!  Smoothies in the morning are the best way to break the fast.

A) They are easy and fast

B) They are liquid – easily digested and can pack more nutrition in than solids.

These smoothie recipes are courtesy of Oprah’s website.  To see my own creations, click here, you’ll be making refreshing smoothies and green smoothies every day of the week.

Antioxidant Smoothie Recipes

Tropical Antioxidant Smoothie

· 1 kiwi , peeled and sliced

· 1/2 cup pineapple cubes

· 1 banana (preferably frozen)

· 1/4 cup strong green tea , cooled

· 2 to 4 ice cubes

Rehydration Smoothie

· 1 cup watermelon chunks , frozen

· 1/2 cup coconut water

· 1 1/2 tsp. lime juice , from 1/2 lime

· 4 to 5 mint leaves

· 4 ice cubes

Get-Up-and-Go Protein Smoothie

· 1/4 cup brewed espresso, chilled (I recommend subbing 2 tbsp raw cacao)

· 1/2 cup vanilla soy milk, almond milk, or rice milk

· 1 Tbsp. cashew butter

· 1 large ripe banana

· 2 to 4 ice cubes

Blend and Enjoy!