Jicama and Roasted Red Pepper Salad with Cilantro

I love jicama, it’s is so crunchy and refreshing!  This salad has remained a favorite of mine for a few decades now,

1 medium sized jicama
1 medium Spanish or Vidalia onion
1 12-ounce jar of roasted red peppers
1/2 cup cilantro
1 avocado
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon garlic granules 
4 Tablespoons of the juice from the roasted red peppers
3 Tablespoons olive oil
3 Tablespoons Lime juice
zest from one lime
1 teaspoon honey
salt and fresh ground pepper

1) The easiest way to cut a jicama is to cut it in half, lay the flat end down and slice it in 1/2 inch thick slices.  Then lay each slice down and cut the small amount of peel off.   Then cut into matchsticks.  Place in bowl.

2)  Using scissors cut the roasted red peppers into matchsticks, add to jicama.  Slice the onion in paper-thin half moons.

3)  Chop cilantro, add to bowl.  Slice avocado and place in bowl.  In a separate bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients.  Add to bowl and toss together.  Marinate for a few hours and enjoy!

Great Website on Paleo Diet

It’s obvious to anyone that our diets ‘control’ the way we look and as most of you know if you either don’t get your morning coffee or your ‘snack’ for lunch you feel like crap all day.  This correlation holds true even more intrinsically with the way your body processes, stores, and heals itself from what you eat and drink.  Not so much an immediate change like coffee or your sugary snack at lunch but down the road it will catch up to you.  Keep eating that snack everyday and soon you’ll find yourself in the doctor’s office trying to find out why you’re having problems.

I came across Mark’s Daily Apple a while back and have been on this ‘lifestyle’ for a while now (with a couple of in and out times where I ate stuff I shouldn’t have) and it’s been great.  I have a friend on Facebook who is in a bit of trouble because he beat his diabetes with a Paleo-like diet.  His blog is here.  I’ve read a ton of information about how our current agricultural diets affect our health and wellness but I wanted to take this opportunity to share what I have found as an elaboration.

FULL POST….

Citrus Collards with Raisins Redux

2 large bunches collard greens, ribs removed, cut into a chiffonade, rinsed and drained 
2 tablespoon butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
2/3 cup raisins 
1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

1)  In a medium-size sauté pan, combine the butter and the garlic and raise the heat to medium. Sauté for 1 minute. In another pot, or in a saucier, reduce orange juice in half, add raisins, cover and let simmer slowly for about 10 minutes. Pour sauce into larger pot, add butter and garlic, add 1/2 teaspoon salt

2)  While the sauce is reducing; In a large pot over high heat, bring 3 quarts of water to a boil and add 1 tablespoon salt. Add the collards and cook, uncovered, for 8 to 10 minutes, until softened. Meanwhile, prepare a large bowl of ice water to cool the collards.

Remove the collards from the heat, drain, and plunge them into the bowl of cold water to stop cooking and set the color of the greens. Drain by gently pressing the greens against a colander.

4) Add to sauce and let heat through.  Serve immediately.

Eating Organic Economically; How I Eat and Cook all Week

1 whole organic chicken 12.00
1 pound grass-fed hamburger 7.99
18 eggs- local market, local eggs- 3.99
1 pound turkey bacon 4.79
½ pound salmon 4.99
1 pound butter 4.99
1 pound carrots 2.99
3 large onions 3.25
1 pound coffee 7.99- delivered once a month form Green Mountain Coffee
3 beefsteak tomatoes 3.00
Garlic bulb .30
2 limes .99
2 lemons 1.10
3 green peppers bell peppers 2.99
1 bag celery 1.99
1 pint blueberries 3.99
1 bunch kale 3.99
3 white potatoes- 3.00
3 large sweet potatoes 2.99
~ 71.26~ grocery cost
16.52 minus the items I grow
TOTAL-   54.74

The items in red are the things I grow in sub-irrigated containers; I used 5 gallon buckets, soil, perlite and made sub-irrigated containers. Growing from seed is cheap. I also grow beet greens, scallions, Swiss chard, kale, basil, thyme, broccoli, Malabar spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes (cherry, Roma and beefsteak), dill. 

If you have a backyard, or a deck for container gardening, or grow lights indoors, you can save further in ways that processed food eaters can’t: Almost all year I grow salad greens, herbs, braising greens of some kind and cucumbers and tomatoes. (The salad herbs oregano, thyme, mint, basil, cilantro and parsley never quit here in any season!)

Items I make myself; almond butter made in the Champion juicer, coconut milk yogurt, mayonnaise, salad dressings. These things are very inexpensive to make, very easy to do…not much labor.

Starting on the day I shop, here’s how I eat and cook all week, very simply, but extremely healthy.

First Night; I roast a whole chicken by rubbing butter all over it, salt and peppering it, maybe some garlic or lemon juice and zest. Then roast it for 30 minutes on 450°. Then turn the oven down to 300° and bake for 30 minutes. Now turn the oven back up to 400° and roast that bird just 165°, checking for temp in the thickest part of the breast, not hitting the bone. Save the pan drippings for cooking, save the carcass for stock. Here’s a link to making stock- Chicken Stock, Beef Stock.

That is dinner the first night; a leg and thigh and some breast meat, pour pan drippings over it, using fat and gelatin in roasting pan. With some sautéed peppers and onions and a few slices of ripe tomato, here’s a great dinner.

Breakfast is usually 2 eggs, fried in butter or coconut oil, 3 slices of turkey bacon, some coconut milk yogurt and a handful of blueberries. And 6 ounces of Turkish coffee, ground and brewed each morning. Some mornings I have Ezekiel bread.

Lunch is usually whatever I’ve had for dinner the night before, or an Ezekiel bread sandwich, with meat, fresh olive oil mayonnaise, or almond butter. Maybe Ezekiel with almond butter and sauerkraut, toasted. Usually a cup of meat stock and/or coconut milk yogurt.

Second night; take the rest of the meat off of the chicken, make stock. Have a great chicken soup that night, add sautéed celery, carrots, bay leaf. Maybe some kale sautéed in chicken fat, some gelatin from chicken pan drippings, onions, mushrooms. Sliced tomatoes.

Third night; 1/3 pound hamburger patty, sautéed onions and peppers, 8 ounces chicken stock, sliced tomatoes, coconut milk yogurt.

Fourth night; fresh salmon with dill, Dijon and fresh lemon juice, sautéed peppers, mushrooms and onions, sliced tomatoes. A cup of chicken stock.

Fifth night; Chicken meat prepared however you want, sautéed kale, ½ sweet potato, sautéed mushrooms. Coconut milk Crème Brule and a few blueberries.

Sixth night; 1/3 pound hamburger patty, pan gravy, ½ sweet potato with butter, kale with onions.

Seventh Night; Rest of hamburger with peppers, onions, tomato, salsa, avocado and fresh corn tortilla.

Shop again, or have leftovers, or breakfast for dinner.

Extras I buy if I can afford them; cherries, plantains to fry, dark chocolate, steaks, roasts, Ezekiel bread, wine.

Things I always have in the kitchen; butter, Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil and their coconut cream (to use in recipes that call for heavy cream or for decadent desserts) Dijon mustard, olives, herbs and spices, an array of vinegars, olive oil, sesame oil, masa harina, coconut oil, lemons, limes, Kava tea, organic coffee, Yerba Mate Tea, quinoa, rice, teff, coconut and tapioca flours, coconut milk, curry sauces, olives.

Bear in mind that this is a very basic dinner menu, showing how to meet all of your calorie and nutrient needs affordably. These dinners reflect basic eating, by adding other ingredients I can get real fancy, and I do at times.

MARBLE POUND CAKE- Gluten and Lactose Free

Serves 8

15 tbsp. softened unsalted butter
3 tbsp.almond milk
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups sifted tapioca flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp. baking powder
½ cup dark chocolate- melted in a double boiler

1) Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 6-cup loaf pan with 2 tbsp. of the butter; set aside. Put milk, eggs, and vanilla in a bowl and beat until well combined; set aside.

2) Sift together flour, sugar, and baking powder into the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a whisk, beating on medium speed, then add remaining 13 tbsp. of butter, 1 tbsp. at a time, waiting until each is completely incorporated before adding more.

3) Slowly add milk-egg mixture, beating constantly, until batter is just mixed together. Separate batter in half, mix in melted chocolate in half. Pour batter with no chocolate into buttered loaf pan. Then pour in chocolate batter and taking two butter knives mix batter with chocolate into a swirl pattern.

4) Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, 55-65 minutes. (Lightly cover cake with a piece of buttered foil during baking if it begins to get too brown.) Allow cake to cool on a rack for 5 minutes, then unmold.