Need an antioxidant boost? This is a very quick post about a spontaneous salad I just made and had to share with you. I believe it may impart superhero powers. (Be careful). Well. I can't climb walls quite yet but it did give a distinct bounce to my step.
This salad is super simple: broccoli, fennel, and dried goji berries - all three jam-packed with antioxidants and vitamins. But you can sub dried cranberries or other dried fruit if you don't have goji berries on hand. Also feel free to use your own favourite vinaigrette on it. This blueberry vinaigrette is one I made up because I had a bit of juice from some frozen blueberries that I strained for another recipe (for an upcoming post!).
In my last post, I mentioned Jo Robinson's book Eating on The Wild Side which is such a fascinating read. And I apologize in advance because the fact that I'm so enthralled by this book at the moment means I'll be geeking-out on you for the next little while, and spewing out all kinds of little nutrition tidbits I'm learning about. So here's what I just learned about broccoli which I did not know before. The powerful cancer-fighting properties and overall super-nutritiousness of broccoli, I already knew about, but what I didn't know is that broccoli loses all those wonderful nutrients extremely fast. Sadly, by the time it has gone through storage and transport and ends up on your supermarket shelf (usually about 10 days), it has lost 80% of its glucosinolates, 75% of its flavonoids, and 50% of its vitamin C. Aka, the good stuff. So it's very important to buy broccoli directly at a farmer's market, where you can ask the farmer when it was harvested (usually the previous day!). Or even better, grow it yourself! Jo Robinson recommends you immediately put the broccoli in the fridge when you get home, and make sure to eat it within 2 to 3 days.
Enjoy your salad and have a fabulous and healthful weekend! xxx
BROCCOLI, FENNEL, AND GOJI BERRY SALAD WITH BLUEBERRY VINAIGRETTE
Salad
1 medium head of broccoli
1 medium fennel (with leaves still on it if possible)
1 tbps. chopped fennel leaves (optional)
1/4 cup goji berries
Blueberry Juice Vinaigrette
2 tbsp. unsweetened blueberry juice
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. maple syrup
1 tsp. dijon mustard
1 finely chopped clove of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Separate the broccoli head into small florets. In a medium saucepan filled with about an inch of water, steam the broccoli florets in a steaming basket for about 1 minute, 2 at the most. Remove quickly to maintain crunch, colour, and beneficial nutrients. You can also skip the steaming altogether (On the one hand, it's been said that eating raw broccoli gives you a whopping 20 times more sulforaphane than standard cooked broccoli but there are also studies showing its nutrients are more digestible when lightly steamed - I like to give mine this light steaming first, mostly as a matter of personal taste, it makes the green greener and is more tender to crunch on).
Thinly slice the fennel bulb. Place the broccoli florets and fennel in a salad bowl, and add the chopped fennel leaves and goji berries. Mix your vinaigrette (I just put everything in a mason jar and then shake for a minute), pour over salad. Toss and serve.
Did any of you out there know that beets and carrots are more nutritious when cooked?? It was news to me!
I'm reading an amazing book right now called Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson. This woman deserves an award. She looked at over 6000 studies to write this book and in the process, totally busts our traditionally-held beliefs about nutrition. It's blowing my mind a little bit. Fellow nutrition-geeks of the world, get your hands on this one.
Learning about the nutritional value of cooking carrots and beets is what inspired me to make this week's dish. Most of my life, I've been grating raw carrots and beets thinking that's the most nutritious way to eat them. I'm not going to stop because grated root veggie salads are such a delightful explosion of freshness and flavour. Plus there are some nutrients that are best eaten raw (like Vitamin C and folate which are partially destroyed when exposed to heat). But Jo Robinson's research shows that overall, when cooked whole and with their skins on, carrots and beets are more nutritious for us. She outlines four simple steps to maximize the nutritional value of carrots:
- Choose whole carrots over the store-bought "baby carrots" (baby carrots are simply big carrots that have been whittled down, removing their most nutritious part: the skin and outer layer)
- Cook them whole (chop them after they are cooked instead)
- Steam or sauté them rather than boil them (since roasting basically does the same as sautéing, I'm assuming it has the thumbs up as well)
- Serve them with oil or fat of some kind (beta-carotene is fat-soluble)
Combining these methods will give you 8 times more beta-carotene than if you munched on raw baby carrots. Cool eh?!
So that's why this week's recipe stars roasted beets and carrots. Served on French lentils with feta and an easy eggless aioli (invented by my brilliant sister), they are pure deliciousness. I've also included a half cup of fresh chopped carrot tops in this recipe because they lend such a great carrot-ey zing to the dish. So be sure to get market-fresh carrots with their tops still on for this one. And don't throw out those beet greens! According to Jo Robinson, they're one of the most nutritious leafy greens around. Steam them, add a little butter or olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper = very yum.
For the recipe, please visit my post on PBS Food. Bon appétit!
What happens when you put techno music, nettles, homemade pasta, and my kitty together? Why this latest video recipe, of course.
I had tons of fun making this video, thanks to the gorgeous track by the one and only Christian Löffler whose ethereal music I featured before in my Rye Berry Salad video.
As for the recipe. Well, you've got to be having fun when your food ends up turning this shade of green!!
To read about how I became known as the kid who ate the weirdest food on the block, and realized you don't need a pasta maker to make homemade pasta, and to get my nettle fettuccine alfredo recipe, come visit me over here on PBS Food.
PS: You can use spinach instead of nettles.
