Most days I am a cheerleader for plant foods in their simplest form.  I believe kale’s hype and I think too much turmeric is a good thing.  But I warned you that this was coming.  We are going to take a brief break from carrots and millet to celebrate the day of chocolate.  I mean the day of love for chocolate.  I mean the day of love.  Which should include chocolate.
I recently received a copy of  Bowls of Plenty: Recipes for Healthy and Delicious Whole Grain Meals by Carolynn Carreño. It’s no secret I’m a cookbook junkie.  I even have a Pinterest board labeled just that.  And it’s no secret I am obsessed with meals in bowls.  Often I will set the dinner table with a bowl for me and a plate for everyone else.  Silly, but I really love eating all my food together and having all the flavors in one bite.  As opposed to Mr. Picky who couldn’t imagine anything worse!
I was watching “The Kitchen” this morning while I was working out, because don’t we all watch cooking shows while we’re trying to burn calories? Â I have a theory that combining the two makes me even more hungry than I would have been just exercising and watching CNN. The struggle.
We are big football fans in this house and we actually root for a few teams. Â I’ll share a little secret if you promise that it won’t affect our relationship. Â Ok, good. Â I am a lifelong NY Giants fan and my husband is a diehard Pittsburgh Steelers fan. Â So you might guess that we both had a pretty fun season since both our teams made it to the playoffs. Â But no matter how far your team goes, unless there’s a Super Bowl ring at the end of that journey, it always ends in disappointment. I am not trying to be negative, but it’s not “an honor to be nominated,” if you know what I mean.
You might think I wake up every morning and pull together a magazine-worthy breakfast spread for my family, but that would not be the case.  Weekends I can make a little effort and I will gladly pull together a casserole or a frittata with a fruit salad.  But on weekday mornings, we eat a lot of oatmeal, scrambled eggs and toast, yogurt and granola, smoothies, loaded toast, and pancakes (because I make the batter the night before.)  But these no-bake breakfast bars have changed my life.
I am so frustrated that my website has been having difficulties the last few days. Â Thank you for your patience! Â To reiterate what I’ve been saying on social media, the site is not down, but just reeeallllly slow. Â Keep trying to refresh the page you want and it will load eventually. Â I am doing my best to get the issue resolved. Â In the meantime, let’s have some fruit crisp!
Soup is good food. Â I always teach a soup in my winter classes and it’s on my family’s dinner planner every week. Â The body craves warm foods when the weather is cold and soup is also very digestible. Plus my family loves soup!
Whereas I do not detox or Whole 30 or fast or juice myself silly beginning on January 1, I do put the breaks on the runaway train of bread, alcohol, sugar and general excess before it gets too far. Â I definitely indulge a bit over the holidays and I am now at an age where I feel it afterwards. Â And it’s not good! Â One of my favorite quotes I ever posted on my Instagram page is below. Â No big deal, but I am always eager to back to the kind of eating that makes me feel great.
I originally created this big salad for my friends who started Pressed Juicery and their book, Juice:  Recipes for Juicing, Cleansing, and Living Well. But it has also turned out to the be the salad or meal I crave when I need some nutrients and an overall reset.  It’s fresh, vitamin- and mineral-rich and packs a detoxifying punch.  I will admit, it’s not a salad that is very kid-friendly due to the number of bitter ingredients and overall lack of sweetness, but that’s kind of the point.
Dandelion greens, which I see regularly at Whole Foods and my farmers market, help detoxify and cleanse the liver, kidneys, and digestive system,  They are loaded with nutrients.  Radishes, a very under appreciated vegetable, are also detoxifying, a diuretic, and contain sulforaphane, an anti-cancer compound. Radishes are related to cabbage and kale, which also contain sulforaphane as well as loads of other nutrients.  Sprouts contain an exceptional amount of enzymes which aid the various metabolic processes and chemical reactions within the body, especially digestion. Parsley is also one of the most cleansing and purifying herbs.  I love throwing parsley leaves into many salads for a fresh, clean flavor. And this dressing with fresh lemon juice and raw garlic is both supportive to the liver as well as antibacterial and immune-boosting.
If you wanted to make this salad more of a meal, I would add cooked lentils or poached wild salmon.  You can make the dressing a few days ahead and store it in the refrigerator.  And you can mix the whole salad and keep that in the fridge without dressing for a few days, as well. Sometimes I chop up all the ingredients very finely for a “chopped salad.”  It would be great to take to work or to have as a quick dinner to make sure don’t give in to something less than nutritious.
Whatever you do, please don’t beat yourself up if you overdid it during the holidays.  Whatever.  You probably derived a lot of pleasure from that indulgence.  I know I did!  My thought process now is that I prefer to feel light and energetic and to fit in my jeans again, so back to a way of eating that supports that.  It’s easy during this time of year to stay on that path of overeating, but all it takes is a few days of some clean food to help you reset and redirect you to the path where you feel best.
