 Have you been hibernating this winter? Well Spring is here at last and its time to get out and enjoy everything that Mother Nature has to offer, including a new harvest of fresh fruits and veggies.
If you live in a cold weather state, you've endured several months of a gray landscape. But with the arrival of March, the world seems to burst into color. You'll find bright yellow daffodils, purple crocuses, pink hyacinth, and every shade of green imaginable as trees and bushes come back to life after a long winter's sleep.
In this issue, I'll show you how to bring some of that bright, cheerful color to your meals and snacks with recipes that focus on in-season produce and never-out-of-season kitchen staples.
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Good Reasons To Shop By Seasons
| The recipes in my books Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People and Raw for Dessert help you take seasonal fruits and vegetables to the next level, building on their naturally delicious flavors by simply adding a few ingredients.
Certain produce items can only be grown at certain times of the year in the U.S. So markets stock produce that is out-of-season and flown or trucked in from faraway places. However this produce must be picked 'green' so that it will stand up during transportation. That takes away from the fresh flavor you're looking for.
When you buy seasonally, your produce doesn't have far to travel and can be picked at the peak of ripeness. In fact, seasonal produce is often freshly picked just hours before being delivered to your market
Not sure what's in season? Just Google the phrase 'crop harvest schedule' with your location for the answer.
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Dress Your Plate in Springtime Greens
|  Lettuce is one of my favorite ingredients and it's in-season now. There are dozens of varieties: crunchy, soft, sweet, bitter, from pale to bright green, and they all make wonderful salads.
Green Leaf and Red Leaf have a delicate flavor that pairs nicely with robust salad mix-ins such as sun-dried tomatoes. (The colorful, flexible leaves also make them ideal to use for wraps.) Bibb lettuce has unique buttery flavor and soft leaves. Tender Boston lettuce is related to Bibb and has a sweet flavor. Of the 'bitter' lettuces, frisee lettuce, with its attractive curly leaves of pale green, has a mild peppery flavor that may surprise you.
The best way to wash lettuce leaves is with a salad spinner. A spinner pulls all the moisture out of your lettuce so that it doesn't water down your salad. All you need to do is tear the leaves and put them in the spinner. Fill the spinner with water and swirl the greens around using your hands. Lift out the spinner's insert and pour the water from the base bowl. Place the insert back into the bowl and spin the greens dry. (You can store the dried greens in the salad spinner for three days in the refrigerator.)
You can also wash leaves by hand. Just be sure to pat them dry with a paper towel.
Now that you know more about the different varieties of lettuce, you can put your knowledge and good taste to work preparing my raw Caesar Salad. Crisp Romaine lettuce is the customary choice for a Caesar Salad and that's what I use, too. But in my version, you leave out the egg yolks that elevate the cholesterol in a traditional Caesar and substitute a delicious vegan ranch dressing.
All Hail Caesar! Get the recipe here.
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A Sweet Taste of the Tropics
|  Pineapples are the jewel in the crown of Hawaiian fruits. Incredibly sweet and delicious, they are also exceptionally good for your health. A cup of fresh pineapple has just 78 calories and is an excellent source of soluble and insoluble dietary fiber.
The variety of pineapple known as 'Smooth Cayenne' is grown throughout Hawaii and is the most easily obtainable in U.S. grocery stores. It's cylindrical in shape with flesh that is pale yellow to yellow. It's very fragrant and smells like pineapple when it is ripe.
Pineapples may look tough, but the right knife and technique makes quick work of them. (See the sidebar story for more info)
Once you've mastered cutting up a pineapple, you make use it in many recipes. One you're sure to love is my Pineapple Green Smoothie Recipe. Pineapple allows you to increase the amount of nutritious bitter greens in this recipe (kale, collards) without sacrificing sweet flavor.
Aloha!
Click Here to Get the Pineapple Green Smoothie Recipe.
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I hope I've inspired you to shop seasonally this Spring. For more inspiration, along with motivation, information, ideas, and recipes, I hope you'll visit www.learnrawfood.com. And don't forget to 'fan' me on Facebook and share your comments and thoughts with me and PLU (People Like Us) who love raw food.
Good-bye and good eats,
Jennifer Cornbleet
Learn Raw Food |
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The Pineapple Tamer
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| Pineapples can be tough to cut if you don't have the right knife and the right technique. So let's make sure that you have both!
A good pineapple knife should be long enough to cut the fruit fairly easily, and flexible enough that you can follow the curve of the pineapple as you cut it. In my opinion a serrated bread knife works best as the serrations can help get through the rougher parts.
Step one is to cut the hard top off. You'll want to cut the fruit about half inch to an inch down from the stalk, to ensure you separate all of the hard part off. Lay the pineapple on its side to do this step, then spin it and cut the hard bottom as well.
You can now turn the pineapple upright and it will sit securely on the newly flat bottom you've just made. Look for small brown intrusions called 'eyes' at the corners of the pineapple; they will guide your cutting.
Place your knife behind one of the eyes, and cut down the length of the pineapple, following the contour of the fruit. More eyes will be exposed. Then rotate the pineapple slightly and cut a new 45 degree angle, following the newly revealed eyes. Repeat this until you've cut off all of the skin of the pineapple.
Once you've made your first pass, you'll probably notice that some 'deep set' eyes remain. You'll need to remove them as they aren't good to eat. You can remove accomplish that task in a couple of ways. One strategy is to go around the pineapple a second time and cut deeper with the knife. This will make your pineapple look pristine.
In the alternative, you can use a paring knife or end of your vegetable peeler to gouge out the eyes (it's not as violent as it sounds). This method will make your pineapple look a bit more raggedy, but you'll waste less of the tasty fruit.
You're now ready to make slices, dices, or big juicy rings of pineapple.
Enjoy!
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