I love this recipe because it goes together quickly, the flavors are complex and it has great CHEW; everything that factors into a staple around our house. I can’t tell you how often we have this treat.
SPINACH SALAD
Throw chopped red bell pepper, cucumber and raisins on pre-washed spinach. Then slather with the following:
ROSEMARY RANCH DRESSING and DIP*
1 ¼ cups water
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
1 large clove garlic
1 rounded cup cashews, unsoaked
1/3 cup macadamia nuts, unsoaked
¾ tsp salt
1 tsp onion powder
¾ tsp celery seed
3 TBSP fresh rosemary, chopped
Throw all of the above (except the rosemary) in the Vitamix and have at it. Pulse in the rosemary. Once this spinach salad is dressed, I love to sprinkle with sea vegetables to up the flavor and nutrition. We have Maine Coast Organic Dulse Granules and Organic Kelp Granules on hand, right next to our salt and pepper shakers. You will grow to love them. A future blog on the importance of Iodine will reinforce that love.
I also like to go half-baked raw with this to the delight of team Duggan. I make scrambled eggs with lots of sautéed veggies and maybe some dollops of goat cheese. I fill half the plate with the scrambled eggs and half the plate with slathered spinach salad. It really pumps up traditional breakfast into a super substantial meal and helps to keep you away from the sugary sides like gluten free toast.
Enjoy!
Regarding the *.
Remember, sometimes we like to have our broccoli salad with baked potatoes. I am not so sure on the value of potatoes. Okay, I think they are a problem because they cause inflammation. But it’s hard to have this many folks of Irish heritage gathered around the table and not occasionally serve them. Here’s my compromise: instead of butter and sour cream, we slather them with the ROSEMARY RANCH Dressing. Divine.
Re: Dip. Make the crudite just as you would normally. Swap out the Hidden Valley Ranch with ROSEMARY RANCH. There’s no going back.
I got this recipe from Kristen Suzanne’s Easy Raw Vegan Holidays and I have tweaked it just a bit. But, KS is such an incredible raw goddess that I know she will forgive me. Don’t let the title scare you. Carnivores will love the boldness of this salad. It can be combined with an entrée, or be the entrée. In the summer I make deviled eggs to serve along side as team Duggan loves that little bit of 1950s picnic.
I mean really, I couldn’t stand it. There was not enough butter and lemon in the world to make me like broccoli. The following raw foods recipe is what healed my broccoli hate. I now eat broccoli all the time and enjoy it immensely. When I am really righteous I eat this recipe alone or with: sliced tomatoes, a pepper stuffed with nut pate, a cup of raw soup or jicama sticks.
Broccoli with boiled potatoes
When I am sharing my meal with someone just leaning into raw, or flirting with raw; okay, it’s silly how we try to talk about all of this. When I am eating this with someone who wants a little warmth on the plate, I boil up a bag of those wonderful small organic heirloom potatoes that are so colorful some are even purple. Then I toss them in a bowl with salt pepper chopped parsley and butter; again for the righteous flax oil would be way yummy and much healthier. This is now a plateful of wonderful. My family loves it. Yours will too, I promise.
When I say I am a worrier, I mean if my 16-year-old cat is curled up, blissfully enjoying a sunbeam, I stare long and hard to make sure he is still breathing. I take the very ingredients of a peaceful existence and wrap worry around them. When I say good-bye as you head out the door, I mean don’t die in transit. When I say good night, I mean please wake up in the morning. When I say have fun, I mean come home from the carnival in one piece. When I say worry, I am talking layered.
Layer one: never let someone’s age or maturity deter you.
My nephew is 24-years-old. On Tuesdays he works 9-5 for us, followed by an hours long editorial meeting at his other job. I worry about him having enough nourishment to sustain him on such long days. So, I try on Tuesdays to get our dinner ready early so I can pack some for him to take to his evening meeting.
Layer two: inspire others to worry as well.
I have gotten Annie invested in this if we don’t feed him he’ll keel over on the El tracks program. She now syncs up with me in the kitchen on Tuesdays. Our nephew is a good sport about our largely raw lifestyle, but we really enjoy auntie-spoiling him on occasion too. He is a true foodie, a super conscious eater and (more…)
The Duggan Sisters brought green smoothies, a vital component of our wellness message, to Destination Kohler this March. Yes, as you may have noticed, your deodorant makers like to talk to you about your GI tract too. The Women’s Wellness Weekend participants are now among the thousands that the Sisters have urged to make the brain-gut connection by incorporating living foods into their diets, what we call the move from pharmacopia to cornucopia.
Green Smoothie Revolution by Victoria Boutenko
Equally important as our embrace of the living foods movement is our commitment to a judgment-free living foods lifestyle, which is why we find green smoothies to be the perfect addition to busy lifestyles. Several years ago as my aunts made the transition to be 100 percent raw, I was struck by the health transformations I saw in them. It seemed great – for them. Even though I knew how tasty living foods could be from my aunts’ wonderful raw creations, it didn’t seem practical as a young adult making plans with friends, ideally over tacos. Thus they encouraged me to give green smoothies a go, gifting me several Victoria Boutenko books for college graduation. (more…)
If you read one book this spring, I strongly encourage you to make it Wheat Belly. A New York Times Bestseller, written by Wisconsin cardiologist Dr. William Davis, it will forever change the way you look at pastries, pizzas, and all the superficial delights of the gluten world.
Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis
We had been a gluten-free family for many years, as it was part of getting Annie well. I went along for the ride but I was decidedly haphazard in my approach. It was Annie’s problem and she had the gastro intestinal turmoil to prove it. In solidarity I munched on gluten-free crackers and drizzled gluten-free pancakes with pure maple syrup and I had to agree – they were way more delicious than their gluten rich counterparts. But I was never averse to preceding a selection from the gluten-free menu in restaurants with a few buttered slices of the house baguette. Strictly gluten-free was Annie’s cursed state. I never fell victim to gluten’s deadly effects. Or so I thought! (more…)
I can’t go anywhere without encountering people suffering with psoriasis; oftentimes the people are small children. Folks with psoriasis are always wondering if I have anything to help them – a bath soak, a skin cream, or a special soap. I know that our soaps and soaks can provide temporary relief; and I have sourced some wonderful oils that I am working up into a healing soak for psoriasis sufferers, but none of that will cure psoriasis. What I do have to offer are a few suggestions:
Admit that what you are doing for your psoriasis is not working.
Admit that the suggestions of your well-meaning physicians have done little to relieve your suffering.
Demand better than creams that thin the skin, drugs that cause bone spurs or damage the liver, or light treatments that increase the likelihood of skin cancer.
Don’t play the genetics victim role. Make a decision to be smarter and more powerful than the stroke of bad luck genetics that predisposed you to psoriasis.
Consider the possibility that psoriasis is the best thing that has ever happened to you.
Don’t wait for the crippling pain of psoriatic arthritis before you listen to your skin.
LISTEN TO YOUR SKIN?
Yep, if you work it right, PSORIASIS COULD BE THE BEST THING TO EVER HAPPENED TO YOU. (more…)
Have you considered going raw but your family won’t take the plunge? Our Half-Baked Raw™ series can help. Join the Duggan Sisters in the kitchen as they explore how to go raw — whether that be 100 percent, 30 percent or 80 percent. It’s all about progress — not perfection.
Everyone seems to be buzzing about a story in the Los Angeles Times entitled, “Access to grocers doesn’t improve diets, study finds.” It references a study that confirms what I have long said about healthy eating – access to grocery stores is not enough. Yes, food deserts are immoral and problematic. Yes, economics figure largely into obesity. But, apparently from the results of this substantive study, proximity to fast food seems to be the big determinant in being too big. If it’s there and it’s cheap and it’s fast and it’s delicious who can say no to fast food. WHY? Because fast food is addictive, just like cigarettes, and so we need to call this bad boy by its real name DRUGS, and JUST SAY NO! (more…)
I just love Jamie Oliver. There are so many voices in the discussion about food; and I admire what many of them are contributing to our national debate. But nobody does it better than Jamie Oliver when it comes to taking it from discourse to the main course. Check out this Jamie O quote from a recent and fascinating Los Angeles Times article entitled, “Access to grocers doesn’t improve diets, study finds.”:
“If you go into most grocery stores across America, the majority of the store is chock-full of processed food calling out to you from the packages, ‘Pick me! I’m tastier and more convenient. And ringed around all this are good old veggies, with no instructions.”
I couldn’t agree more. I hear this CALL FOR INSTRUCTIONS all the time from sincere folks who really want to eat healthier and go to the produce aisle only to be overwhelmed by the wide array of fruits and vegetables available (more…)
Victoria, thank you so much for this article. I think this is such an important concept for the raw foods community to embrace. I maintained a 100% raw lifestyle for 22 months, lost 65 pounds and experienced extraordinary improvements in my health. I was inspired to do this as I had seen my sister Annie saving her own life with a strict raw regimen. By the end of 22 months we were in high demand to teach others how to make the same changes in their life with raw foods – so we added raw foods classes to our already rigorous work schedule. It was rewarding and completely exhausting. And then we crashed. Why?
Eight Good Years
Friday, March 9th, 2012by Mary Duggan
If you read one book this spring, I strongly encourage you to make it Wheat Belly. A New York Times Bestseller, written by Wisconsin cardiologist Dr. William Davis, it will forever change the way you look at pastries, pizzas, and all the superficial delights of the gluten world.
Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis
We had been a gluten-free family for many years, as it was part of getting Annie well. I went along for the ride but I was decidedly haphazard in my approach. It was Annie’s problem and she had the gastro intestinal turmoil to prove it. In solidarity I munched on gluten-free crackers and drizzled gluten-free pancakes with pure maple syrup and I had to agree – they were way more delicious than their gluten rich counterparts. But I was never averse to preceding a selection from the gluten-free menu in restaurants with a few buttered slices of the house baguette. Strictly gluten-free was Annie’s cursed state. I never fell victim to gluten’s deadly effects. Or so I thought! (more…)
Tags: book commentary, Dr. William Davis, Gluten-free living, Wheat Belly, William Davis M.D.
Posted in Book Suggestions, Eating with the Sisters, Gluten-free living, Life at the Rose Cottage, Raw & Living Foods, Stories from the Rose Cottage | 7 Comments »