Healthy recipes for picnics

In the past few weeks I have been on a couple of picnics in which I brought all of the food as a thank you to a couple of my friends for all that they have done for me. It is so much fun to sit out on the grass amongst nature eating real food.

Here are a couple of the recipes from my picnics and ones that will be in my first e-book.

AVOCADO VEGETABLE DIP

Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado, peeled & pitted
1 tsp. onion, finely minced
1 stalk of celery, finely chopped
1 – 2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tomato, chopped
Nori & Dsulse seaweed flakes to taste

Directions:
1. Mash avocado.
2. Add onion, celery and lemon juice and mix in well.
3. Gently mix in chopped tomato.
4. Serve with corn chips or slices of vegetables.

HEALTHY POTATO SALAD

Ingredients:
3 potatoes (cooked and diced)
2 stalks of celery or ½ green pepper (finely chopped)
1 carrot, chopped
Chives or chopped green onions to taste
Hand full of fresh parsley or dill weed
3/4 cup mayonnaise
3 tsp mustard
3 tsp lemon juice 

Directions:
1. Once sliced keep aside as well as some parsley.
2. Mix mayonnaise, mustard and lemon juice together to make the dressing.
3. Mix all ingredients together with dressing.
4. Decorate the top with parsley.

Have you been on any picnics lately and what kinds of healthy foods do you put in your picnic basket???

Share on Facebook

OK, so maybe I went a little overboard with my 'Dandelion Madness', ….not with last week’s article – but with eating dandelions themselves!  It happened because I was out at the farm where the plants are so much bigger and there are SO many of them.  Instead of spending 5 minutes digging up a few young plants– I can go out with a knife and in 10 seconds gather a shopping cart of mature leaves.  After throwing a large bunch into the blender, and forgetting my article advise to just make the dandelions a small addition, I drank my supercharged mixture.

No I didn’t collapse, or even throw up. In fact I finished the whole thing.  Those last few mouthfuls were getting very very strong though. I normally clean out the last few drops from the blender (Did I mention I was thrifty?) but this time I was glad to wash it down the sink.

I wanted therefore, to EMPHASIZE the part about moderation and add a few other smoothie hints and facts.  They are as follows:

1.  Keep the taste agreeable. This is not just an obvious statement that only madmen (like myself) might ignore but touches on a safely concern that some hard core raw food enthusiasts take seriously (see Below).  If your body loses its attraction for a particular food that you have been eating a lot of,  just ease off.  You don’t know specifically what your body is telling you but it’s a good thing to follow anyway.  This is one of the main principles of regeneration – to keep in touch with your body.

2.  Apples are IN, Mangoes are OUT. This could be an entirely subjective preference but again there is some logic behind this choice.  I’ve seen many people demonstrate green smoothes with mangoes and sometime bemoaned the fact that its hard to find good mangoes in Canada.  Recently the mango season was ON in Edmonton so I got a chance to try out some really good ones but they just don’t work that well with greens in my opinion; Mangos seem just too sweet.

3.  Salty Smoothie Soup. Trish Holder doesn’t like any kind of fruit so she substitutes apples with raw ONIONS  and sometimes a clove of GARLIC.  Since this is the ingredients for vegetable soup she then adds a tablespoon of salty MISO plus celery.  She also makes sure her soup is warm enough by using quite warm water.  I can’t testify to the taste of this mixture because I can’t handle raw onions or garlic but Trish is one smart lady who has helped a lot of people with her knowledge of food. 4.  Add some Zing with Ginger. At Real Food for Life we have promoted the benefits of ginger many times.  Here’s a chance to add some zing to your smoothie and beef up your digestion at the same time. Even one tablespoon of raw ginger is plenty.

When are greens TOO much?

Leafy green vegetables contain along with their abundance of minerals the possibility of traces of organic substances called alkaloids.  There are many different kinds of plant alkaloids but the famous ones are nicotine, cocaine, morphine, and caffeine. As you might notice these compounds have STRONG effects on the body and because of this they tend to give this class of compounds a bad reputation. Used properly alkaloids can have good effects but most people would rather not take chances.  Different plants produce different kinds of alkaloids. Therefore if you are eating a LOT of greens (as in ONE TO TWO POUNDS A DAY  as some raw foodists do) you are recommended to ROTATE your greens so you don’t get too much of any particular alkaloid.  Those large tubs of spinach are just one pound so you only have to concern yourself with this if you are going through at least one of those a day …which would be 4-8 smoothies.   Rather than concern yourself with all these small risk factors you can easily stay safe JUST by noticing your bodies reaction,  and as we stated above, IF you start not wanting a particular food than back off.

Share YOUR favorite smoothie!

I'm sure you have your own unique ingredients with smoothies.  Feel free to share them below in the comment section.  Also, feel free to share this article with anyone you feel might enjoy it!

Share on Facebook