Grapefruit Season

We have a tree in our back yard which gives us these delicious white grapefruits all year around. However, since my family and I spend most of the winter cursing at seagulls and catching rain water from the skylights - we only bother to pick them when it's warm.

And picked they were.

I ate all the unhappiest ones first.

My mother went on a frenzy. Soon our kitchen was filled with more grapefruits than anyone knew what to do with - stacked in bowls, in boxes, all over the counters. A Mecca of organic citrus. We ate them for breakfast, we drank the juice, I used them in my tea when we ran out of lemons. We gave them away to friends. We even marinated fish with some. I woke up naked on the roof of the community center - mouth sore, and partially blinded by juice - with a grapefruit spoon in one hand and a double barrel shotgun in the other. Oh God. Who did I kill?

It was out of control.

Needless to say, we picked them all. It is only now that I am in my right mind again that I can return to normal life activities like blogging.

Can't wait for next year.

-♥A.H.

Spicy Ginger Spinach Couscous

1/2 cup vegetable broth (I use Cadia, which uses carrot juice instead of a tomato base) 1/4 cup Lundberg brown rice couscous 1/4 of a yellow bell pepper 1/2 clove of garlic, minced 1 tsp dried ginger root A pinch of sea salt 1 cup frozen peas A handful of fresh baby spinach 1. Combine broth, peppers, garlic, ginger and salt in a saucepan and bring to a low boil. 2. Add rice couscous, cover, lower heat to simmer. Set kitchen timer for 13 minutes. 3. With about 6 minutes left, uncover to add peas and enough spinach to fill up the saucepan. Cover again. 4. At the end of the 13 minutes, stir the spinach and peas down into the mix, cover again and wait another 2-3 minutes. Stir again if necessary. 5. Eat.

I love rice couscous. It's essentially just brown rice ground into granules, but I prefer the texture of it to plain rice. A handful of gluten-free alternatives are not up to the challenge of being as good as their wheat laden counterparts, but I think rice couscous is a very viable substitute - if you can find it.

I normally take the time to put more fresh ingredients in, but I wasn't feeling very well when I made this. It is also very spicy! I would suggest accompanying this dish with a glass of soy or hemp milk, or some manner of garlic bread. If you are not good with spicy things, you may want to use half as much ginger. Personally, I like a lot of ginger.

I also like to eat all my rice-veggie dishes out of my favorite bowl. It has a giraffe on it. I named him Bogart.

Holds onto all my food and doesn't even like it. What a jerk.

-♥A.H.

Green Drank

Perhaps you've heard of the infamous green drink. "SUPERFOODS" is a great buzzword traveling around these days, and green drinks are supposedly full of 'em.

1 scoop Green Vibrance ½ cup unsweetened soy milk 7 drops liquid stevia extract Vanilla extract to taste 6-8 oz distilled water Lots of ice

If you haven't had a green drink before, it's pretty understandable. Vegetable juices never held much appeal for me. I started reading about the possible benefits of green drinks for someone with my particular health concerns, and was sold on the idea but not the taste. Finally, health food store employees managed to trick me into thinking I liked it by adding apple juice to their samples and forgetting to mention it. Sneaky.

So I went ahead and bought the $50 jar of green stuff, determined to make it taste drinkable, if it was truly going to be as wonderful as all the hippies made it out to be. Turns out they are onto something. My insides are definitely happier when I drink it every day than when I don't at all. Two a day makes me start to feel like a decent human again, but honestly, I just can't afford that. So periodically I treat myself to a week or so of slightly improved health before I turn back into a broke, bedridden pumpkin.

Something about those superfoods makes it truly super. I highly recommend having a green drink every day, for anyone who wants to be healthy, and especially for anyone who is sick. For me it really seems to help.

Green Drink! AWAY!

-♥A.H.

Apology Salad

No one likes likes to apologize, but sometimes you just gotta know when to man up and do it. After yesterday's bacon episode I felt pretty yucky, so I made this.

Sliced cucumber topped with sherry vinegar and Bragg sprinkle

Give yourself a hug.

-♥A.H.

Enthusiam Salad

Like any skinny cultureless white lady, I love me some salad. In fact, this is exactly what I look like every time it (salad) happens.

"Um? Carol's had like six distilled waters since we got here. Maybe we should cut her off."

When I tell anyone that I'm embarking on a diet which restricts sugar, wheat, dairy, eggs, pork, peanuts, shellfish and most fruit... A common question pops up: "What can you eat?"

The answer? Salad. Lots of it.

A handful of bagged baby lettuce mix A handful of bagged baby spinach 2 mini sweet peppers Part of an English cucumber A handful of raw sunflower seeds Top with combination of olive oil, lemon juice, sherry vinegar, salt, pepper Consume. With enthusiasm!

I typically also like to crumble a rice cake or Sunshine patty over the top for a little more substance, or add avocado if there happens to be one in the kitchen. Hella good.

Go have a salad! Fatty.
-♥A.H.

Yogurt. Simple.

Whole plain cream-top yogurt, sweetened with liquid stevia and vanilla extract to taste. Toss in some fresh berries and nom.

Where better to start a food blog than at breakfast? So I took this shot of what I ate this morning. That Cassius. What a riot. Anyway...

Brown Cow is not an organic yogurt, but whatever they do to theirs makes it better than any I've tasted. Of the plain yogurts I've tried, it is the least bitter, and the cream on top cuts even more away from that bitterness you'd expect.

I see a lot of PR for low fat dairy as a part of a healthy diet, but I think it may be wise to consider it's more in the market's better interest than ours. Fat that has been removed from milk can be used to make butter and other dairy products, which is overall better for the industry's bottom line, but maybe not so good for your heart.

Here's an article with an interesting take on breakfast in general (milk included): http://www.westonaprice.org/modern-foods/567-dirty-secrets-of-the-food-processing-industry

I hope you like text!

Also, I'd be wary of the latest "probiotic" craze. Yes, live cultures are good for you. No, putting them in every crap food product doesn't magically transform it into something healthy. A good plain whole fat yogurt, acidophilus supplement, or kombucha tea is probably best for happy guts.

Idontknowhowtoendblogs,
-♥A.H.