Mediterranean Salad

Mediterranean Salad

Presenting the Mediterranean Salad. We ate it for brunch this Sunday morning. This whim, plus my grandmother's recipe for hummus, made our day. 

It took some time to figure out what salad we wanted. So we googled it. We googled Mediterranean salad. We googled cucumber salad. We googled cucumber parsley salad. (We have TONS of parsley we needed to use.) We could not find what we envisioned. 

So I made it. 

It serves two -- very intimate. Here is the refreshing, glorious recipe. I mean, just look at it. (This is probably the most refreshing thing you'll ever eat, so listen up.)

SALAD:

1 cucumber, peeled and diced

1 large tomato, diced

1/4 onion, diced

1/2 cup parsley, chopped

1 tsp. RealSalt  

Toss the salad, and serve with hummus, the recipe of which follows. 

HUMMUS ba Tahini:

2 cans garbanzo beans

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup warm water

juice of 3 lemons

1/2 cup tahini

3-4 garlic cloves (pressed before)

1 1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. cumin, ground

pepper to taste

This makes quite a lot of hummus, but it's always gone within a few days at my house. I found this recipe on a scrap piece of paper in my grandmother's Joy of Cooking. It is the best hummus recipe I have ever made, so please enjoy! 

Snowy Day Snow Cone

Snow Flakes

by Emily Dickinson

I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town,
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down.
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig,
And ten of my once stately toes

Are marshalled for a jig!

This recipe calls for fresh snow, which we don't get in Texas too often. Luckily (or perhaps not so luckily, because all our pipes froze) it got ridiculously cold here for days and days and days, and then it snowed.

Mostly people want snow cones in the summer, so they stand in long, long lines in the hot sun for that cup of mashed up ice with sweet, colored juice squirted on it. Then of course, one must gobble up the snow cone as fast as possible, or it will become a cone full of strangely-flavored water, which for some reason is not as appetizing.

But real snow comes down from snowy clouds, and if the ground is cold enough, as it was here some weeks ago, it stays on the ground and every surface in sight, and you harvest it and eat it. 

The uncivilized way to eat snow is to scoop it up in mittened hands and eat it right then and there. Or, one could pack it into an elegant glass and color the top with several drops of chlorophyll.

Here is the recipe. 

Recipe for Natural, Natural Snow Cones

(All organic)

Ingredients:

Snow

Chlorophyll

Directions:

Wait for about two weeks of super cold weather, then snow flurries, then when you wake up in the morning and the world is all white and beautiful, get your equipment and get outside before it melts. Gather as much as possible of clean snow. Distribute it carefully into elegant glasses, administer several drops of chlorophyll to the snow, and serve immediately.

 

Christmas Breakfast

What could I eat on Christmas morning so I can keep up my energy to visit three families and say Merry Christmas ten thousand times? The answer: The traditional Californian breakfast, minus the avocado, because we forgot the avocados when we went out of town, plus a bell pepper and pecans. It works, because grapefruits and pecans are gloriously Texan Christmas food gifts and are always on hand, and I never say no to a cucumber. Bell pepper is wonderfully boatish and keeps the pecans from any funny business on those very, very flat hotel plates. 

The light from the hotel window, which looked out on an outlandishly empty city, illuminates the food and makes it seem like the energy from the sun is soaking into the food to give energy to us . . . I think the solstice inspired all that. 

Did I mention that this breakfast takes 5 minutes to make? Peel the cucumber, slice cucumber, peel grapefruit, cut and seed bell pepper - edible! Do bring a cucumber peeler on travels, though, if you intend to peel cucumbers in a hotel. Knives might work for potatoes, but they compromise too much deliciousness on a cucumber. 

Merry Christmas!  

Maya's Specialty: Boca Salad

This salad is simple and delicious. I wish its creator were at home so I could eat it right now. I also wish Boca Burgers lived longer in our house. That is to say - they're always consumed with remarkable rapidity. Usually going into this lovely recipe. 

Ingredients - Feeds One:
1 Boca Burger (Original Vegan)
1 handful of spinach
1 tomato
1 slice of onion 
1 dash of Italian seasoning
Plenty of Flax oil 
Himalayan Fire Salt, to taste  


The Boca Burger will probably be frozen. Bake it on 350 to thaw and cook it. It should take about ten minutes, but that will vary.


While the burger is cooking, prepare the salad: Lay a circle of spinach and tomatoes with the center empty and ready for the burger. When the burger is cooked, place in the middle of the salad, top with onion, oil, Italian seasoning, and salt.  


Partake with pleasure.

Pasta!

This is a "pinches and handfuls" recipe because I made it so long ago - and I didn't stop to write down exactly what went in here because the combined aromas of Italian herbs were making me so, so hungry I had to eat! (I am craving this dish right now as I type this.) Why? Well.......

Pasta Ingredients:
Spaghetti Squash

Sauce ingredients: 
10 Tomatoes
1 Onion
8 garlic cloves
1 bunch Basil
1 Tbs. Dried Italian Seasoning
1 tsp. Salt 
1/2 cup Olive Oil (when sauce is off heat) 
Almonds, pine nuts, pecans, hemp seeds, to garnish.

To cook the squash: 
Cut in half and place inside-down in glass baking dish in about one inch of water. Cook on 350 degrees for about 1 hour, or until squash is soft. When cooked, scoop out the insides with a spoon or a fork - it should be stringy and light like pasta. 

To cook the sauce:
Remember to absolutely treat the amounts as guidelines. I like really garlicky sauce, so I add more garlic. You might prefer more of a "tomato basil" flavor. Put more tomatoes in if you like, or less. Use a wooden spoon and taste frequently, tossing in a bit more of this and that. Follow your taste buds. They will guide you.

Actual instructions to cook the pasta sauce:
Saute the garlic and the onion with water (not oil). Add chopped tomatoes. Cook on medium heat or less until hot. Add seasonings. Remove from heat and add olive oil. Increase salt to taste. (Increase anything to taste.) 
You can blend the sauce or leave it chunky. For a heartier sauce, add chopped almonds, pecans, pine nuts, or seeds like hemp and sunflower. 

Combine cooked spaghetti squash and sauce and toss. Enjoy!  

Cream of Asparagus Soup

This soup is so delicious, I can't stand it. I make double batches. I make triple batches. I double my double batches. (Well, maybe not yet.) 

I have always loved asparagus. I remember picking it in the garden - picking it every other day because it grew so fast. I like it grilled, I like it bright green and crunchy. But it's love when it's in this soup. 

Recall the remark that "cream of" carries a sort of taste bud thrill. For me, I am thrilled by the fact that there is asparagus in this soup as well as almond milk. Unfortunately, I now have to relive this soup's glory a few days after its golden era - now, when there are no left-overs. Indeed, there were no left-overs that first day. There were no left-overs of that one meal. The pot was scraped clean, actually. 

Without further ado, here is the recipe:

Ingredients for the Cream of Asparagus Soup (Serves 4):

4 Tbs. vegetable broth

1/3 yellow onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 bunch of organic asparagus, chopped

3 1/2 cups vegetable broth, organic (I use Whole Foods brand or Central Market brand)

6 oz. almond milk, homemade

2 tsps. RealSalt

1 1/2 tsps. dill weed

1/2 tsp. lemon peel, grated

2 Tbs. lemon juice (fresh) 

In soup pot, heat on medium. Add onion, garlic, and asparagus and saute in small amount of veggie broth for 3 or 4 minutes. until veggies are tender. Add the rest of the veggie broth and warm for 8 to 10 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Stir in almond milk and seasonings. Warm for 5 more minutes. Serve warm.

I like to blend it, but if the vegetables are very finely chopped, that would be delicious, too. I sometimes put a little more lemon juice in, to give it a tangier flavor. 

**Recipe adapted by me from The pH Miracle for Weight Loss, by Robert O. Young, PhD and Shelley Redford Young

 

Almond Milk

Have you noticed that recipes that include “cream of” tend to be more mouthwatering? Whenever I give eaters an option such as, “Vegetable soup or cream of broccoli soup” they choose the latter, even though the vegetable soup may very well have broccoli in it. Also, soups with cream as an ingredient are just better, somehow. So here is the basic almond milk, if you haven’t got one down already. You can put more or less water, according to how thick or thin you want it. You’ll need this recipe for the soups ahead, because they’ll have milk for creaminess and pure taste bud pleasure.

(Recipe makes about 1 quart.)

Ingredients:

1 cup organic almonds (soaked in refrigerator in pure water for 12 hours, rinsed)

3 cups pure water

That’s it!

First, you soak the almonds in pure water for 12 hours or until plump and sweet. Even if you have little time, try to soak the almonds a few minutes. They’ll absorb the water and be activated (sort of put in sprouting mode) in a very short time. I soak in the fridge because the summer heat tends to make my soaking seeds, nuts, and grains spoil.

This is what the almonds will look like soaking:

In a blender, blend until smooth (blend about a minute - or more, depending on your blender) the almonds and the 3 cups pure water. It should end up white and fluffy.

Strain the almond milk through a nylon bag (some people use stockings). Try to get as much liquid out as possible.

The finished product should have two parts:

               

The almond milk in the mason jar and the meal in the bowl. The meal can be used in all sorts of ways. I’ve heard it used in dips, with flavoring like a hummus, even. But I put it in my dog’s blended food to make it heartier. I have found that it spoils quickly when left outside the refrigerator - that’s why I transferred its immediate use to the dogs.

Here is your finished product:

Now we are ready to make my favorite soup; the Cream of Asparagus soup.

Of course, you can always drink the almond milk which is infinitely better than the store-bought kind. It’s really completely different. It is sweet and fresh. I mean, you just milked it yourself. Chilled almond milk . . . oh! Divine.