Posts filed under ‘Fruits and Veggies’
Crazy For Costco
We LOVE Costco. We are very sad when there is no Costco nearby…because we do the bulk of our shopping there. If you eat a diet that is high in fruits and veggies, Costco should be a very close friend. No, not everything is organic…but several things are, and they are adding more all the time. I wish we could eat a 100% organic diet…our budget would be through the roof! I do try to focus on the items I know to be very high in pesticides that we eat on a daily basis, like spinach and apples. Items like avocados and broccoli are not heavily sprayed crops, so I’m not as concerned. For more info on the “dirty dozen”, click here.
Here are a few of the items we buy there:
- Organic spinach (1 lb): This is the number one “best buy” for us at Costco. It ranges in price from $2.99 – $3.99….which is a far cry from $6.99-$7.99 at Whole Foods.
- Romaine lettuce: Who can beat that deal? 6 pack for $2.99. They are the BEST. Perfect for salads and juicing.
- Avocados: Costco has the best. Hands down. The biggest, creamiest, yummiest…at a good price.
- Watermelon: Oooooh, just typing that word makes me happy. We LIVE on these in the summer…and Costco has consistently provided me with yummy, red, and juicy specimens. It’s pretty rare that I get a bad one, but if I do, they have a 100% guarantee on everything they sell. I’m thinking of calling up the local produce manager and finding out when they are going to be stocking these so I can be camped outside their door in my tent that morning.
- Broccoli/Brussels/Asparagus: Yum.
- Medjool dates: Again, best quality I’ve found…but WAY cheaper than other places.
- Apples: Not all Costcos have organic apples, but when we find them, we stock up. Their organic red delicious variety is 89 cents per pound right now at the Austin, TX location.
- Blueberries/Strawberries/Raspberries: We buy blueberries on a regular basis and the others once in a while.
- Oranges: We buy the 25 lbs.box for $8.99.
- Grape tomatoes – “Cherubs”: These are pesticide-free and delicious.
- Bananas: $1.29 per bunch.
- Nuts: Almonds, walnuts, pecans, and pine nuts. These are priced VERY competitively. This is the only place I will buy nuts.
- Pineapples: Not too much cheaper, but they are always big and ripe.
- Frozen fruit: Their Spectrum Blend is my favorite smoothie mix….you get double the amount that you can get anywhere else for the same price.
- Pure maple syrup: Great price/large container.
- Organic corn chips: Big cheap bag.
- Bread: Organic and/or whole wheat. 2 loaves for $5.99 or so. They also have bakery loaves of crusty bread for soup, etc.
- Silk soy milk: If you drink soy milk, it’s a great buy. You can get a 3 pack of 1/2 gallons for $5.99.
- Organic bean/cheese frozen burritos: Matt and Bella love these. Much cheaper than buying individually.
- Other items we occasionally buy: Organic quiche, frozen OJ, Starbucks coffee…I know I’m forgetting other stuff.
What are your Costco favorites?
Pineapple Guava
Last weekend we went with our friends to the farmer’s market near Santa Cruz, CA and realized why everyone loves living here. They have farmer’s markets year round!! Not fair.
This particular day was even more fun because I tried a fruit that I’ve never tried before. BEHOLD — The Pineapple Guava!! Oh my. So delicious. And to show you how to eat these little gems…I made a video for you 🙂
Beautiful Beets
My midwife, Rebecca, encouraged me to eat beets during my pregnancy…so I promptly went to the coop and bought 2 different varieties, but they sat uneaten in the back of my fridge for weeks. Finally, upon seeing them, I had a craving and decided to cook them up. I do love beets…I grew up eating them fresh from my parent’s garden, but I didn’t know of (or care about) the awesome health benefits back then! 🙂
Beets are super high in folate, which is essential when you’re growing a baby! It also has a decent level of iron and tons of other nutrients. There are several different ways to eat beets:
- Roast or boil until tender…season with lemon juice, olive oil, herbs, etc.
- Grate raw beets over your salads (I love this!)
- Juice them!
- Marinate/steam the greens just like you would with mustard or collard greens.
This particular variety of beets has a striped pink and white flesh and is called a “chioggia” beet. Aren’t they so beautiful? It was such a surprise when I cut into it! It’s a pre-1840 Italian heirloom garden beet and I had never seen it before. But the coop had a bunch of kinds, so I thought I should mix it up! I will definitely be buying more. Yum.
Rainbow In My Bowl
I love color. I have colorful clothes. A colorful home. Colorful things in my hair. A very colorful daughter. Color just makes me really happy. 🙂 It’s no wonder I LOVE eating raw foods so much…they just add to the happiness. If you’re wondering how to be really healthy and live for a long time…just try to eat every color of the rainbow, every day. In this particular salad, I had:
- mixed greens
- spinach
- red, yellow, and orange peppers
- grated beets (my new favorite…thanks Em!)
- heirloom grape tomatoes (red, yellow, and green)
- sprout mix (sunflower seed, pea, lentil, alfalfa)
- cucumbers
- red/purple cabbage (oh how I LOVE the crunchiness!)
Yum! Chopping up the ingredients for a huge salad is very meditative for me…and eating it brings great delight. I eat at least one large salad a day, and I look forward to it with anticipation without ever getting tired of it.
Here is some interesting info from Prevention Magazine describing the benefits of each color. This is what they have to say:
The more colorful your diet, the more antioxidants you get. These compounds reduce overall cellular damage and prevent the hardening of the arteries that can lead to heart disease, stroke, even memory loss. “Every hue — green, yellow, orange, red, purple, and even white — signifies a different class of nutrients, each of which offers a unique benefit…”
1. Yellow/Orange
Sweet potatoes, carrots, pumpkin, mango, corn, and melon all contain a variety of carotenoids, which reduce the risk of developing cancer.2. Green
Vegetables such as spinach and broccoli are high in lutein, which keeps your vision sharp and clear.3. Blue/Purple
Blueberries and blackberries are chock-full of anthocyanins, which prevent tumors from forming and suppress their growth.4. Red
Tomatoes and watermelon are loaded with lycopene, which may protect against cancer and heart disease.5. White
Cauliflower offers the same cancer-fighting benefits as broccoli, its cruciferous cousin, and potatoes are a good source of vitamin C.
Even within this list, I believe that dark leafy GREENS (kale, spinach, collards, etc) are the most important thing to focus on. If you’re not taking in lots of greens each day…start working to make a change. Add one green salad to lunch or supper. Add a green smoothie…just get your greens wherever you can! Eating more greens will stop cravings dead in their tracks…and will actually cause you to want MORE greens. The more greens you eat, the more you want! Check out Green For Life for more information on why your body can’t go without the greens.
*For those of you who love a great bargain…I found my this amazing orange bamboo bowl at a Goodwill near San Diego for $9.00! The tags were still on it…and this exact bowl retails for $40+! Woo hoo! When Matt and I turned the corner into housewares that day, we GASPED out loud and grabbed it as fast as we could. Because…and you’ll never believe this…I’ve really been wanting a big salad bowl, and he was going to buy me the smaller one just like this at Whole Foods for $25 for Mother’s Day. What a sweet blessing. Yay!
Fruity
When you’re eating raw foods, it’s crucial to keep lots and lots of fresh fruit available so that you always have a quick snack available. This is a peek at our fruit baskets…just waiting to be devoured! We found these oranges while we were on Tybee Island…they were 10 for $1.00!! We bought 30. Yum. We don’t normally eat a lot of oranges, but that was too good to pass up! We’ve been juicing them a lot for green smoothies…it adds a great little kick.
Our banana stash was rather low in this photo…we usually have about 6 bunches on hand at a time (and more in the freezer for smoothies), all in different stages of ripeness. The challenge in the RV is where to put all of the fruit! I would have more if I had somewhere to put them. We’re working on making a fruit hammock to hang from under one of our counters…yay!
Oh, and no…the wheat grass is not real 🙂 It fools everyone who walks into the RV, but it’s just a great replica. Although, I am wanting to start growing herbs in the front window as we drive…it’s so nice and bright up there!
Kumquats and Other Good Things
This weekend I met a good friend of mine in St. Cloud and after she left, I went to check out the Good Earth Coop. I can’t ever pass up a chance to check out a new coop! And I wasn’t disappointed. As soon as I stepped in the door, I saw them. Like beautiful little jewels amidst the other produce…the bright orange kumquats called to me. I tried to hide my excitement as I quickly grabbed a bag and filled it with a bunch of these little goodies. If you’ve never experienced a kumquat, it’s quite unusual. You eat the entire thing…rind and all. The rind is sweet and the inside flesh is sour. A sweet and sour little candy…made in nature! I had these for the first time about 5 years ago in Lincoln, Nebraska…and have only had them maybe once a year since then.
The kumquats weren’t the only excitement for the day. Oh no. 🙂 They had lacinado kale, which I had been unable to find while we’ve been staying here. They had satsuma tangerines…which were completely amazing and juicy. They had Pink Lady and Spartan apple varieties…which made me giddy with excitement. But the BEST FIND of all…even better than the kumquats…were the little bags of dayri dates (a new variety for me) and medjool dates I found. Seriously. I’m smiling just sitting here writing about them. They were like no other date I’ve ever had before. They were sooooo soft and creamy…they were moist. Like eating fresh fruit. I was in date heaven. They are by far my most favorite fruit at the moment 🙂
So it was a good day. I ate dates all the way home…intermingled with bites of my delicious crunchy apples…in a deliriously happy state 🙂 Fruit rocks my world.
Collard Wrap Up
More GREENS! I’ve written about my love for collards before, but I wanted to reiterate it 🙂 You can replace your corn/flour tortilla with a much healthier option! Collards are very mild tasting and have HUGE leaves…perfect to wrap anything and everything in. This time around, we added hummus, avocado, tomato, and sprouts. Then, we wrapped it up and stuck a toothpick in it:
Your options are endless…these look beautiful with long julienned strips of carrots, cucumber, peppers, etc. in it. Just stuff it full of whatever veggies you have on hand, top with hummus or another dip and voila! These are also great with raw mock tuna or raw zucchini hummus. The great thing is…Bella liked it! It really is mild enough that she didn’t mind the raw greens in whole form. The only thing I will say is that because the leaves are so big, they do take up a lot of space in the fridge. You might consider cutting off the stems before you store them. They keep for a long time too…I’ve had ours for 2 weeks now and they are still good. Collard greens are widely available…so run out and get yours today!
TIP: When you lay it out and before you fill it…use your thumb to press down hard on the center “vein” to break it/crush it from end to end. If you don’t you’ll have a really hard time rolling it. Crushing the vein will soften it enough to roll.
Raw Kale Avocado Salad
Kale is an amazing food. You should eat lots and lots and lots of it. We’ve been eating it daily here…in the form of juice, smoothies, and salads. You can check out its awesome benefits and nutritional content here. Anytime you can avoid cooking something…it’s better. However, kale tends to be rather tough and stringy when raw. One of the most common raw recipes you’ll see out there is the raw kale and avocado salad. The mixture of salt and lemon juice essentially “cooks” the leaves and breaks them down enough to make it a delicious salad.
I first saw this recipe in Alissa Cohen’s cookbook, Living on Live Food…but you can find so many different versions of this salad across the web. I’ve adjusted the ingredients to my taste, but as always…tweak it to YOURS!
- 1 head kale, shredded (I prefer the taste of curly kale for this one)
- 1 cup tomato, chopped (fresh salsa is also delicious!)
- 1/2 avocado
- 1-2 tablespoons olive oil or hemp seed oil (go for less if you can)
- Juice from 1/2 lemon
- Celtic or Himalayan sea salt, to taste (1/4 – 1/2 t)
- 1/8 teaspoon cayenne (optional)
- For extra yummy…add 1-2 sheets untoasted nori (snip up with scissors into little bits)
- Optional toppings: raisins, pine nuts, hemp seed nuts, sesame seeds
Preparation
In mixing bowl, toss all ingredients together. Mush everything together (with hands) to created marinated/wilted effect on kale. This makes it much tastier and easier to digest.
Here is a great video by the raw food coach, Karen Knowler…demonstrating how to make this salad:
The Butterfly
Here is a fun way to present the marvelous apple + date combination to your kids. I saw this somewhere online, and I thought it was a fun idea. Also, in place of the dates, you could drizzle almond butter down the middle for the body/antennae and then put raisins on it’s body for decoration. Bella LOVES eating her butterflies 🙂
Apples + Dates
We have been experimenting with different snacks and “treats” around here. Being that we cut out all the processed snacky food, so there is no more grabbing a box of something. We have to get creative and our latest favorite is apples and dates. Did you know that apples + dates = caramel apples! Yes…it’s true!
Get some medjool dates…or any other creamy type of date. Now, take one bite of apple, and one bite of date…and enjoy 🙂 It’s like heaven. It does taste just like a carameled apple. If you want to get fancy, you can soak 8-10 dates in water, and then blend them to make a caramel sauce to dip in. Bella likes them cut into little “rings”. I think dates might be my new favorite thing!! They are addicting though, so I have to limit myself to a few, lest I overdo it!
Happy Foody 