Sabado es para ensalata!

While many of my friends are watching the snow fall during the blizzard of 2013 in coastal Maine, scheming their  snow forts and all of the shoveling to come while hot soup and warm tea simmers on the stove- here is a taste of the tropics for you and anyone else who needs it. This is a glimpse at our food lives and part of our reasons for moving south- wonderful fresh veggies year round!

For lunch today I have made a huge salad, all with local organic vegetables from our produce man (named "Kayle") who sells his harvest that is grown on his farm just 8 km away in the town of Pescadero. We buy our food from him 2-3 times per week, depending on how much we consume as the days go on. There are always leftovers, and whatever we don't eat right away, I blend up for our dogs and they eat it (yes, our dogs eat very well and are extremely healthy too). Nothing gets wasted.

So for today's salad I looked in the vegetable drawers of our fridge (which are stuffed full as we just got some more veggies from Kayle yesterday). I put in some yellow pepper, cauliflower, sugar snap peas, pak choi, spinach, cilantro, sunflower sprouts, mixed lettuce (variety of salad greens- reds, dark green, light green lettuces), and jicama (a crunchy, sweet, juicy, bulbous root). For the dressing I used my blender and combined one starfruit, cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a small amount of agave syrup. The starfruit makes the dressing really creamy, adds a bit of tang, but tastes so perfect! I use a ratio of about 4:1 for the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I don't have exact measurements, as I prefer to eyeball it and then taste for flavor as I go, as each starfruit can end up tasting much different, and amounts of ingredients to compliment can change. I sometimes make a double batch of this dressing to have on hand for another occasion, but today I used all of what I made and am letting the salad sit and marinate in the fridge while the kids nap and we'll eat it later this afternoon. This salad is raw, vegan and delicious!

That is my little taste of the tropics for today- fresh, local, organic greens with a simple yet delicious dressing. I love that we can get fresh veggies year round here, and I know it is all grown only a few miles away! We have also harvested a huge bag of pomegranates from the trees in our garden and I plan to make a big pitcher of pomegranate juice later. I've learned that adding water makes the juice less intense, but still nice and tasty, making it last much longer.

Happy day to all and remember to shovel from your core!