Summer Bounty

109 today, with thunder on the horizon but no rain. Just the hot heavy breath of Summer, who always leads with his tongue. Okay, that's an obscure private joke you may not understand, but here's something cool, good and simple to ease your First Day of Summer.

Featuring all the bumper crops we know and love with a few cheats like avocado, lime, and pumpkin seeds to tart it up, it's a seasonal, vegan, raw, and nutritious full-meal salad.




Zucchini, Sweet Corn and Tomato Salad

It's a salad, so measurements are absolutely unwarranted. Chop, slice and squeeze until it looks right to you.

fresh sweet corn, cut from the cob*
cucumbers, diced
red ripe tomatoes, wedges
zucchini, sliced into ribbons or other noodle shapes
avocado, diced
as much cilantro as you want
some baby spinach or other tender greens
fresh squeezed lime juice to taste
a little salt
sprinkle of pumpkins seeds
drizzle of olive oil if you're feeling it

I hope you have some nice hoppy beer or a grassy little Chardonnay, really cold, to go with.

Incandescent Mango Cashew Cream

It doesn't have to be a lot of work to eat raw. It's true there's some daily or weekly maintenance to accomplish: soak your seeds for sprouting, rinse the sprouts, stick a a batch of seed bread or some tomatoes in the dehydrator. Today's lunch is a great example of how a little planning can result in a terrific meal in just a few minutes.
Sprouts take a few days to grow, and then you can keep them in the frig for a week or more, ready when you are. Romaine is a staple these days, always on hand. I scored a couple dangerously ripe mangoes yesterday, and used one to blend up a staggeringly great sauce to pour over the day's Monkey Nuggets, concocted this morning: carrot, celery, apple, cucumber, and ginger pulp mixed with the usual coconut oil, dulse, and salt plus shredded coconut and curry powder.

Incandescent Mango Cashew Cream

1 very ripe mango
a generous chunk of ginger
juice of 1/2 a lime
1 small handful cashews (15-20)
pinch of Himalayan salt
fresh habanero chilies, to taste

Blend it up, smooth and luscious. And so hot it will make you cry. For joy, of course.

Monkey Nuggets

Or, What to Do with All That Juicer Pulp.

I got this idea from one of Dan the Man’s “Healthy on a Budget” episodes. See the original video here.

I like to use the pulp from celery, kale, carrots, citrus, cucumber, spinach, ginger, etc. to mix up these tasty nuggets, and add nuts or seeds to take it up a level. Kale, cucumber, and celery are the heart of this—so healthful as juices, and their pulp provides a rich green background for the flavors you’ll add. Vary the mix to get different tastes. Imagine…dandelion, cucumber, garlic, and red chilies, with lemon. Kale, tart apples, walnuts, and celery. Carrots with poppy seeds and hemp.

Having done this once, I now find it hard to toss my daily juicer pulp out to the hens. Taste the pulp to see if it will be good dressed up. Your body will appreciate the fiber, and you’ll have instantly created two or three meals out of one.

Basic recipe:

(adjust all quantities to suit your purposes)

1-2 cups juicer pulp (from green vegetable juice)

½ tbsp coconut oil

¼ tsp sea salt

A few leaves of dulse, torn up

Fresh onion to taste (don’t be scared…use a whole onion!)

1 or 2 tbsp nuts or seeds (your choice)

My food processor is elderly and small, so I do this in two stages. If yours is larger or more vigorous, you can process all the ingredients together.

First, chop the onions, dulse, and nuts in the food processor. You may also add fresh herbs, hot peppers, or some spinach leaves at this point.

In a separate bowl, combine the juicer pulp with coconut oil and salt. Begin with small amounts—you can always add more, but you can’t take it out. Massage it all together, then add the onion-nuts-dulse-mixture.

Taste the mixture. Is it good? does it need more salt, a little spice? Fix it up to your taste.

Form the mixture into patties or “cakes” and enjoy with tomatoes, lettuce, cashew-miso mayo, etc. Or use it as a filling for mushrooms, peppers, chard rollies, etc. Flavors will develop if you refrigerate it an hour or two—just bring it back to room temp to serve.

Now then…additions & variations:

Cheery (not crabby) Cakes: Stir in extra dulse, and add some seafood seasoning or crab boil spices.

Cozumel: Make sure there’s some lime in the juicer pulp, use pumpkin seeds and chili peppers, and season with a little cumin and cilantro.

Thai: Cashews, garlic, chilies, basil, and cilantro.

Icaria: Lemon, sprouted lentils, sesame seeds, a couple oil cured olives, oregano, a smidge of olive oil.

Waldorf: Granny smith apples, parsley, and walnuts.

Tu-not: nori or wakame flakes instead of dulse, black sesame seeds, a bit of miso paste, nutritional yeast. Serve with pickled ginger and a schmear of wasabi!

Island: orange and lime pulp, shredded coconut, jerk seasoning.

Carrot Cake: make juice with carrots, apples, celery, lemon, and ginger. Blend the pulp with coconut oil, cinnamon, more ginger, one or two dates, currants and walnuts. Form into little cakes and roll in shredded coconut.

Two Hundred & Thirty Five Fires

Ugh, this WEATHER. I don't make it a habit to complain about our weather here in the environs of the Sanctuary. In fact, it's against my policy. I mean, sure it gets hot. It's humid. The winters can be absurdly cold for Florida. But let me just say, we have not been laid flat by tornadoes, crumbled by earthquakes, washed away by flooding, or buried under six consecutive blizzards. Most of the time, we have fabulous weather other sad locations can only dream of. But right now, and check out this map if you don't believe me, Florida is burning. We haven't had rain to speak of in I don't even know how long. The air is filled with dust...and smoke...and it's pretty dang hot. We're looking at 100 degrees tomorrow.

So, ugh. Limerock dust hanging in the air every time someone passes down a dirt road. Don't get me started about the moron who picked a windy day to disc his field of cowpeas. Smoke. Heat. Dirt. Yellowish, grody fog in the mornings....who wants to eat in such weather?
I do, naturally. So here's what sounded good today, or, How to Make a Meal from Three Leaves of Kale, an Avocado, and a Cucumber.

Lemony Cucumber and Avocado Soup
with Green-stuffed Mushrooms

3 nice big kale leaves (feel free to sub spinach)
1 medium organic cucumber
1 lemon, peeled
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 big thumb of ginger
2 tbsp raw cashews
1 ripe avocado
sea salt to taste

Juice the kale, cucumber, lemon, garlic, and ginger. My darling old Champion Juicer has a screen with bigger holes that yields thicker juice with more pulp, so I used that. Whatever you have will work. Save the veggie pulp.
In your blender, combine the vegetable juice with the cashews. Blend until smooth, then add the avocado and season to taste. You may wish to add a little more lemon juice, or some hot peppers.
That's the soup...cool, soft, thick, creamy, garlicky, salty, lemony.
Now for the fun part...Get out your food processor. In it, chop 1/2 a red onion and a couple pieces of dulse with a dash of tamari, a squeeze of lemon, and a tablespoon or so of coconut oil. Add the the kale-cucumber-lemon-garlic-ginger juicer pulp and grind it all together. Taste for seasoning, then use the pulp filling to stuff mushrooms (or tomatoes, or small peppers, or whatever you have). Enjoy!
P.S. I know you're skeptical, but honestly this juicer pulp trick is one of the best things ever. I'll post more about it tomorrow.