EAT YOURSELF WELL

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COVID Has Reminded Us: Health REALLY Matters

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I’d say I’m fairly aware of the value of my health … how it’s the basis of everything else in my life: the ability to move, spend time with friends, spend time with family – literally, everything else. But still, watching people grapple with COVID has made it far more vivid to me: you either stay healthy, or live at increased risk … and literally every food choice I make is either moving me towards health, or away from it.

Leave it to Emerson (below) to say it in words WAY better than I can! But I can say it in food 🙂 … the bean salad below is a mix of everything I had sitting in my pantry/fridge: white beans, garbanzo beans, limas, black beans, corn, carrots, green beans, diced asparagus, riced cauliflower, red peppers, diced tiny cherry tomatoes … tossed with a simple tarragon vinaigrette and topped with half an avocado. We enjoyed it for two days!

Stay healthy, safe, and strong through this Covid crisis, and beyond – Jennifer

Amazing and Easy Banana Bread

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I’m not really a baker … I’m not even a big eater of baked goods (other than an amazing long-fermented sourdough bread made by a local baker at the farmer’s market, YUM). However, after the holidays, when the weather is a little dreary, I sometimes want something warm and sweet in the oven, and this banana-forward loaf (also great as muffins) does the trick!

BananaBreadMontage

Jennifer’s Banana Bread
Makes two large loaves – feel free to halve the recipe if you like, but it’s great to have an extra loaf to freeze or share!
Ingredients
• 6 medium overripe bananas (freeze ones as they get really brown and use any time!)
• 2/3 cup high quality maple syrup
• 1/2 cup organic brown sugar
• ½ to 2/3 cup avocado oil (or your favorite baking oil)
• 4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking soda (make sure it’s fresh)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 cup toasted pecans (or walnuts or chocolate chips or whatever you like – go crazy here!)
For Topping
• Up to ½ cup (to taste – depends how sweet you want it) mix of organic brown sugar and maple syrup – or one or the other if you only have one.

To make:
1. Preheat oven to 350°. Drop parchment paper into your pan (or oil the pan, but parchment is SO easy) or use muffin pans.
2. Toast pecans lightly in a pan – just drop them in and let them toast until lightly brown and fragrant, tossing regularly.
3. Mash bananas with a fork or potato masher. I sometimes just leave them lumpy and then use an immersion blender after adding the other wet ingredients (next step).
4. Add maple syrup, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla. Stir until really well-mixed – or use an immersion blender to get a little smoother – don’t liquefy though.
5. Toss the dry ingredients (except toasted pecans) well in a separate bowl.
6. Add the dry ingredients to the banana mix and stir everything together until just mixed. Don’t overmix or the bread will be chewy (ugh). The batter will be thicker than you think.
7. Fold in the pecans (or whatever you’re adding).
8. Place the batter into the pan and smooth out with the back of a spoon.
9. Combine the topping ingredients and immediately spread over the top. Don’t let the sugar dissolve into the syrup, you want the texture.
10. Bake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
11. Remove the pan from the oven put it on a cooling rack. Allow it to cool for at least 15 minutes before removing it from the pan.
12. Slice and serve.

Seriously Craveworthy Carrots

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IMG_8343I was shooting for a quick, healthy way to cook a bag of organic baby carrots … and, OH did I come up with one! Can’t wait to hear if your family loves this as much as I do!

Grab a bag of baby carrots … and cut each one in half lengthwise (so they stay long, but are just thinner). I hear you groaning, but this takes about 4 minutes and gives you way more surface area, which you’re going to want.

Meanwhile (while you’re chopping the carrots), heat a large cast iron skillet up on medium high to high heat – as high as it can take. When it’s hot, add 1 tbsp of coconut oil and let it melt.

When melted, add the sliced carrots (see, that was fast, right?) to the pan and push them around so they are as much in a single layer as possible. Now the important part – DO NOT MOVE them for at least 3-4 minutes, or until you see charred bits developing on some of the bottoms. Really important – it’s the charring that makes a difference. Once the bottoms develop a char, stir them around a bit, let them char some more, and repeat until you’re starting to worry if you’ve cooked these carrots too much (you haven’t). At that point, turn off the heat, sprinkle the carrots with sea salt to taste, and cover. Leave covered for about 3-5 minutes, or until the carrots are fork-tender.

From this point, your choices are:
– Eat them exactly as they are (yeah, I’ve eaten them straight out of the pan, too :-))
– Sprinkle with your favorite vinegar or squeeze of lemon for acidity (my favorite – I LOVE the vinegar – kind of like smoky Salt/Vinegar chips, only clean eating!)
– Toss them in a bit of curry powder, and lime if you like
– Toss in hot sauce and honey

Real Food … the Easy Way to Health

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This is one of my favorite bits of real food inspiration … because it has the potential to stop us in our well-worn tracks of thinking of food – particuarly healthy food – as time-consuming and complicated.

Real Food

REAL FOOD

– Real food is a beautiful apple, sliced with love, and eaten one gorgeous slice at a time.

– Real food is a couple of farmer’s market carrots sliced into dimes and sizzled in a bit of olive oil until they caramelize.

– Real food is broccoli roasted until it’s crisp and brown, with simple sprinkle of salt.

– Real food is a half of an avocado, maybe with a squeeze of lime and a twist of black pepper … or not.

– Real food is parsley and mint, tossed with quinoa.

– Real food is a tomato, freshly picked from the vine and eaten while still warm with the summer sun.

– Real food is a mash of warm white beans, with a bit of roasted garlic.

Real food is simple, beautiful, and soul-warming. It can be mixed with other foods, but it is also complete unto itself. It demands to be eaten artfully and with attention, and returns this favor with flavor and health. Big thanks to the great Jamie Oliver for the reminder!

Homemade Tomato Jam Crostini – with Lemon Ricotta

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My favorite season? Easy, tomato season. I wait for this all year … and when it hits, I’m the first to the Farmer’s market to buy beautiful slicing heirlooms, and then the last to the Farmer’s Market to buy up the scratched/dented/bruised tomatoes for sauces and jams, at a discount. Actually, I owe a shout out to the nice folks at Crystal Organic Farms who are nice enough to set aside their “seconds” for me each week now!

Last week, I decided to turn the bumper crop of beautiful Black Krims into a homemade tomato jam. I made a few different batches to play around with the ingredients and ratios, and this one produced the hands-down favorite!

Tomato Jam Crostini

Lemon Ricotta and Homemade Tomato Jam Crostini

Fresh bread – whole wheat baguette or sourdough are my favorites – thinly sliced on the bias for 4-6 large slices
Fresh whole-milk ricotta – about 1/2 lb
Fine zest of 1 organic lemon
Homemade tomato jam (see recipe, below)
tiny pinch of salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Fresh basil, washed and torn by hand

Zest the lemon into the ricotta, add pinch of salt, and stir. If you can, let sit for 30 minutes or so to let the ricotta come to room temp and to give the lemon a chance to flavor the cheese.

Turn on broiler to start warming. On the stove in a seasoned cast iron pan, grill the thin bread slices on both sides (sure, you can just use a toaster, but grilling is tastier and just as easy!)

Spread the ricotta onto the bread slices and put under the broiler for a few minutes to let it warm and slightly brown. Remove from oven and spread the homemade tomato jam over the ricotta. Top with fresh ground pepper and torn basil to taste, and serve.

Homemade Tomato Jam

About 6 pounds of Black Krim tomatoes, with the cores and seeds removed (NOTES: I do this by coring the tomatoes and then squeezing them – some of the seed are left and I’m OK with that. Also peel them if you’re a purist – I usually just pull the skins out while cooking, and am not bothered if a skin or two is left.)
1 cup cider vinegar
5 garlic cloves, peeled and pressed
4 tablespoons grated fresh turmeric (substitute ginger if you don’t have fresh turmeric)
1/4 cup raw sugar
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon (be sure to use organic since you’re using the peel)
½ teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon Kosher salt

Put all ingredients into a large pot (do not use uncoated cast iron). Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat then reduce to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally (more often as it reduces), until jammy. Depending on how well you squeezed the tomatoes, this can take 3-5 hours.

To can the jam: ladle the jam into 3 hot sterilized canning jars, leaving ½ inch of headroom. Seal with hot lids and process the jars for at least 10 minutes.

To store for <1 month (it doesn't last anywhere near that long in my house): store in a covered glass jar in the fridge. Other usage ideas for jam:

Serve over warmed brie, feta, or pretty much any other cheese
Serve over quick-sauteed spinach, swiss chard, or kale
Serve alongside pretty much any egg dish, like quiche or omelettes
Serve on toast in the morning – delicious!
Stir into pan-sauteed fresh corn
Eat straight out of the jar (seriously)

The Power of the Plate

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The Power the PlateResearchers spend hundreds of millions of dollars on medications and other medical interventions for diseases that your body is already fighting every single day. To quote from one of my favorite Ted Talks, William Li, “Can we eat to starve cancer?“:”Autopsy studies from people who died in car accidents have shown that about 40 percent of women between the ages of 40 and 50 actually have microscopic cancers in their breasts, about 50 percent of men in their 50s and 60s have microscopic prostate cancers, and virtually 100 percent of us, by the time we reach our 70s, will have microscopic cancers growing in our thyroid. Yet, without a blood supply, most of these cancers will never become dangerous. Dr. Judah Folkman, who was my mentor and who was the pioneer of the angiogenesis field, once called this ‘cancer without disease.'”

For the most part, our bodies can handle foreign invaders and internal threats, as long as:

1. They are identifiable as an invader – meaning they aren’t some new bacteria/virus/compound that the body can’t identify, or to which it hasn’t developed a response. This is why new chemicals, GMOs, and such have the potential to be so problematic.

2. The body isn’t already so compromised from dealing with known invaders, injuries, etc. that it is too taxed to fight back. This is why it is important to maintain a healthy lifestyle, including clean foods, regular exercise, stress management, etc.

Right this very minute, probably the best thing you can do to support – and thank! – the amazing systems that keep your body healthy is to go find the darkest, greenest, leafiest organic vegetable around, and eat it. Then in an hour, do it again – and throw in some cooked tomatoes – and blueberries for dessert. The beautiful thing is that you have 3-4 opportunities to do this every day, and every one can be health-supporting, beautiful, and absolutely delicious!

All of the Fig – None of the Newton – Bars!

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All of the Fig, None of the Newton, Bars - Eat Yourself Well

Sometimes you – or your kids – want something sweet, which can wind up being a mess for your healthy, whole-food diet. Recently, Food Babe posted about one sandwich bar that we used to think was healthy, but has a dizzying (sometimes literally) array of unnecessary chemicals in the ingredients.

That inspired me to grab the simple fig paste I’d made yesterday out of the fridge and try an easy, healthy, replacement for my less-healthy childhood treat. It turned out to be even easier than I’d thought – check this out!

Simple, Healthy Fig Bars

Ingredients

  • 1 cup ground dried organic figs, ground to a paste (instructions for grinding, below)
  • 1/2 cup organic hemp seed
  • 1/2 cup salted pumpkin seeds, ground – I used sprouted, salted (I used Go Raw brand)

    • Cut the figs into smallish pieces and process by pulsing in a strong food processor. If you do not cut them up into bits, they will gum up in your processor, and possibly burn out the motor – trust me on this one :-). Once the processor is running easily, leave it in the “on” position until the fig bits gather into a ball, about 1 minute.

    Take about 1 cup of the fig paste on put on a large plastic cutting board or silicone baking mat. Press with your hands or a rolling pin into a disk about 1/4 inch thin.

    Sprinkle a mix of the hemp seed and pumpkin seeds over the disk and press in with your hands. Flip the disk and repeat. Do this a few more times until the figs are holding as much of the seed as they can.

    IMG_1463Start cutting the disk into rectangular strips that when folded over (see pic) form a sandwich bar square.

    Store in fridge, if they aren’t all grabbed up right then!

    From Jennifer Silverberg at www.EatYourselfWell.com and facebook.com/eatyourselfwell Please maintain link as you copy and share recipe with others!

    Love those Vibrant Veggies!

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    Light and Vibrant Health

    This weekend, when I was walking around my Farmer’s market, and then later around my local Whole Foods, it occurred to me that when I looked at fresh, local, farm produce, it nearly vibrated with light and vibrant health.  Early tomatoes glowed, eggplant shimmered, and cabbage was jumping out of its skin … and I immediately understood that they would have a similar effect on my health, the visible (skin, hair, energy) and the invisible parts (disease-fighting, hormonal balance, etc).

    In contrast, nothing in a package even winked, they just kind of sat there.   Seemed kind of dead and desolate by comparison.

    I know what I’m eating these days!  Check out my Vibrant Health Recipes page for vibrant veggie cooking inspiration!

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