Pomegranate Pear Salad Recipe with Maple Nut Dressing

- by Totally Healthy Recipes

When most people decide they want to eat better, they don’t know where to start.

If you’re coming from a place where you think a good meal features meat with a side of meat, then you maaaaaay not be ready to consider a raw food diet just yet.

Gradual changes are generally the best way to guarantee your long-term success!

You also need to find some ridiculously yummy recipes to get you off the path of burgers and towards the path of butter lettuce.  One of our January 21-Day Green Smoothie Detox participants, the lovely, McKenna Davis Gordon, has put together some delicious and healthy recipes that are perfect for those who are starting a transition towards healthier eating!

We are thrilled to feature a recipe from her website, Totally Healthy Recipes!

She tells us, “My mother is an event planner and recently had a caterer pull a no-show on her. Her and her team had to whip a dinner together FAST for a small group of about 25 people. She chose this salad and everyone there was asking for the recipe!”

Enjoy her fabulous creation and visit her for more transitional recipe ideas! Read more »

The Power of Pomegranates…

by Joyce Wiatroski

I have a vague, distant memory of eating pomegranate as a kid. Bittersweet hard little red seeds and rivulets of red juice running down my arms as I tried to pop the seeds into my mouth without getting any of the white pith. That has to be over 60 years ago. It’s no wonder my memory of the incident is vague. Pomegranates were not a frequent visitor to the fruit bowl when I was a kid. Nor have they been part of my adult life.

The health benefits and high anti-oxidant content of pomegranates has been highly touted by the food industry of late. Rather amusing, as by the time the food giants get done with their processing, I can’t imagine there is a single nutrient left. Not to mention that the processing has changed the molecular structure enough not only to remove all beneficial aspects, but has changed its profile to a product completely devoid of nutrition.

Yet another processed food promoting weight gain and ill health, while contributing significantly to the corporate bottom line. What a shame.

Eating live foods, in their natural form, meaning as found in nature, with no processing, is the only way to derive the benefits each has to offer. Once a fruit or vegetable has been processed: heated, cooked, canned, it has lost its life giving benefits.
Pomegranates are in season and on sale at my local supermarket this week. How could I resist bringing home a couple of red beauties. But how best to peel and de-seed them?

Ah, the benefits of the 21st century technology. I simply turned to the Internet and queried “how to eat a pomegranate”. Wow, lots of advice, written, pictorial tutorials and even several YouTube entertaining spots.

After perusing several, I chose to use the advice from MidEast Foods. Check out the step by step tutorial for ease, efficiency and a no mess method of retrieving those dandy little red seeds!

Cut slices from top and bottom and then score around the fruit. Place pieces in a large bowl of cold water and let them rest for 10 to 15 minutes. The heavy seeds will fall to the bottom of the bowl, the white pith floats on the top. Scoop out the white pieces then retrieve the nutritious seeds.
Use caution: the juice stains easily.

Seeds from one pomegranate, ready to scoop into the mouth by the spoonful, or to use in smoothies or tossed with fruit salads. Make your own pomegranate juice, without heating or adding synthetic chemicals. Get the nutrition that Nature intended. It’s quick, easy and good!

**Joyce Wiatroski is the wit and wisdom found on the foodiefumblings blog. You can watch for her contributions on the Diva blog on Tuesdays.

A Girl’s Night Out Green Cocktail (pomegranate, medjool date and spinach)

Every now and then I think it is healthy and fun for women to get together for a girl’s night out. We spend so much time taking care of our friends and family and if you are anything like me, we put everything and everyone first, and by the time we are ready to do something for ourselves, we’re too tired.

Well as divas, let’s make a change to do something special for ourselves at least once a month. If you can squeeze in more time for yourself, I say go for it. I thought I would make a special cocktail for my friends who plan to come over for dinner and drinks.

I remember watching Oprah some time ago and one of her favorite cocktails was a pomegranate martini, I thought to myself, I’m going to make a virgin variation one day. Well I love pomegranates and what better time than during the holidays to make this festive cocktail.

Pomegranate

The pomegranate (Punica granatum L. Punicaceae) is an autumn harvest fruit which grows in Mediterranean climates as well as California and Arizona. The pomegranate originated in Persia and has been cultivated in Georgia, Armenia and the Mediterranean region for several millennia. The pomegranate was originally native from Iran into the Himalayas, and then spread throughout the Mediterranean region, spreading into Southeast Asia and Africa.

The pomegranate has become a very popular super-fruit in recent years due to its high anti-oxidant capacity.Pomegranates which are high in vitamin C and potassium are a good source of fiber and contain three different types of polyphenols, a potent form of antioxidants. Antioxidants help protect the body against the damaging effects of free radicals, and the antioxidants found in whole foods have been linked with protection against almost every major modern disease.

The three types of antioxidants – tannins, anthocyanins, and ellagic acid – are present in many fruits, but pomegranate juice contains high amounts of all three. Recent studies suggest that pomegranate juice can slow the progression of prostate cancer, improve blood flow in patients with heart disease, and prevent the hardening of arteries.

I have to admit that it does take some patience in removing the edible seeds, but they are so worth it and once you taste the mouth watering sweet tart flavor, you will forget the work that went into removing them from the inner membranes and rind which are not generally eaten due to high tannic acid content.

Before you start to remove the edible seeds, beware that the seeds will stain so it is a good idea to work close to the sink and wear an old shirt. To remove the edible seeds from the fruit:

• with a chef’s knife, make a cut through the crown of the pomegranate half-way through the fruit,
• open the pomegranate with your fingers, and
• working over a bowl of water, soak the pomegranate and use your fingers to pry away the seeds from the peel and membranes.

The seeds are considered good roughage to help cleanse the body. Once you remove the seeds add them to the following recipe.

Pomegrante Green Smoothie Recipe

Green Smoothie Note: If you have a high speed blender, you may add entire seed to the blender, but if you have a blender that may not have a powerful motor, then juice the seeds and add them to your smoothie.

• · 1 cup pomegranate seeds
• · 1 to 2 medjool dates (optional)
• · ½ to 1 cup baby spinach – I really love the color of the pomegranate seeds so I don’t use as much leafy greens as I usually do.
• · 1 cup water

Blend and Enjoy!

Tracy

Mom-and-Son Obstacle Course

“On your mark, get set, go!” my son called out to me as I stood in a slightly bent position in anticipation of an obstacle course he had just created along a pier. The calm river was my audience.

This activity took place last weekend after Caleb and I rode our bikes a few miles to a lovely boardwalk and pier that overlooks the St. Johns River. This new nature haven of mine is located so close to home, yet I just learned about it when my neighbor and I were out walking the day before my adventure with Caleb.

After Caleb and I peddled across the pier shown in the picture, he hopped off his bike and said, “I’ve got to explore” as he began browsing the many sections of the pier while noticing lots of spider webs.

Because the location is such a perfect spot for doing yoga, I suggested we do that, to which Caleb replied: “All you want to do is yoga,” assuming I was merely talking about some general yoga stretches (and I was)! However, it was clear that he wanted to exert tremendous energy right from the get-go! I guess the bike ride to the pier was enough of a warm-up for him.

I, therefore, suggested an obstacle course — (which, as I’m typing, has given me the idea to do Obstacle-course yoga in one of my upcoming children’s classes or next time we’re out on the pier). Caleb ended up creating the majority of the course after telling me I was lacking imagination at the time. The nerve of him! Does he not realize I was the one who added the component to his obstacle course that turned out to be the most challenging part of all?

When Caleb demonstrated the course, for one part he hopped up on a bench and ran across it before running down to a plank and hopping across with one foot. “Instead of just running across the bench, let’s jump up like this,” I suggested as I showed how we could hop up on the bench with two feet (which calls for more leg strength) and then jump down and up again, etc. It would turn out to be about five sets of jumps!

It all sounded good at first, but after having to do it five times, well, that ended up being the part of the course that ate up most of my time as Caleb counted, “….five Mississippi, six Mississippi, seven Mississippi….,” and so on. Of course, athletic Caleb could just instantly hop up with two feet, repeating each up-and-down jump five times as if he was simply gulping a glass of water. However, I had to do a little double bounce with my feet prior to each take-off for added momentum. “I knew I should have had more than a few sips of that green smoothie earlier this morning,” I thought as I approached one of the jumps.

Although I didn’t do the jump portion of the obstacle course as quickly as my son (since it was a competition), turns out, that little drill sargeant of mine was still quite impressed with Mommy’s gross motor skills. “Good job,” Sargeant Caleb said to me as he embraced my hand with a high-five upon completing the drills, twice. He ran the obstacle course a few more times than I did….merely out of a desire to set a new record for himself each time.

As we exited the boardwalk on our bikes, I pointed out a tree in the shape of a cross that I had noticed the day before. The moss that hung from it made the tree look as if it was enrobed, and the branches on the top of it were clearly shaped like a crown of thorns. That tree has now become quite special to me.

At “my Jesus tree” I read a poem, aloud, from Maya Angelou’s book, On the Pulse of Morning. As synchronicity goes, my hand had landed on this book and specific poem before we left home that morning. I figured we’d blend some reading into our pier outing. And, next to that tree that morning, this was the perfect poem to read! (Thanks, Maya Angelou!)

“Here root yourselves beside me.

I am that Tree planted by the River,

Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I, the River, I, the Tree

I am yours–your passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need

For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,

Cannot be unlived, but if faced

With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes

Upon this day breaking for you.

Give birth again

To the dream.”

Peace & Love,

Penny