Peppered Pineapple & Cucumber Salad

This is a quick simple salad for those of you with a sweet tooth. Choose a nice ripe pineapple. Look for one that is yellower on the outside and smells fragrant. If it’s still quite green it will be tart and can burn your mouth. Unfortunately most fruit we buy from the supermarket is picked before is has fully ripened to extend the shelf life. However, you can sit your pineapple on the shelf for a few days to ripen if there are no ripe ones available. Eating fully ripened fruit is important. The fruit has properly developed and has just the right amount of enzymes to help you to digest it properly.

 

Peppered Pineapple & Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

1 Pineapple

1 Telegraph Cucumber

About 2 Handfuls of Spinach

About 1/2 Handful of Fresh Mint

Juice of 1 Lime

Cracked Black Pepper

 

Assembly

Slice the skin off the pineapple, quarter and core. Dice into small chunks and place in a mixing bowl.

Quarter the cucumber lengthways and dice into small chunks. Add to the pineapple.

Roll the spinach and slice finely to create thin ribbons and add to the bowl.

Chop the mint very finely and add to the bowl.

Finally add the lime juice and a generous amount of cracked black pepper and mix well.

The Lunch Bunch: Salad Flax Wraps

A few people have asked me to post the types of things that I take for lunch. I am fortunate enough to work in an office with a modest kitchen, so I can quite easily assemble salads and things with produce I keep in the work fridge or that I grab from the supermarket over the road. I’m not really into eating a lot of  fats anymore, I’m close to 80/10/10 but I’m not strict about it, I just try to keep it low-fat with lots of fruits and vegetables. So with these wraps I try to keep the amounts of flax seeds quite low and bulk them up with celery and psyllium instead. The amounts are very approximate so use what you have on hand and they’ll probably still turn out fine. I’ll write it down properly with the next batch.

Salad Flax Wraps

Flax Wraps

1 large zucchini

3 large stalks of celery

1 Red Pepper/Capsicum

1/2 cup ground flax seeds

1-2 tsp psyllium husk powder

About 3 cups of water

Blend everything in a high speed blender until smooth. You may want to add the water gradually. The psyllium and flax will absorb the water and make a thick gel like mixture, so you can always add more water if you think it is too thick.

Spread the mixture out into circles about 3-4mm thick on dehydrator mats. Make sure not to have any spots that are too thin.

Dehydrate for about 4 hours. Check as you go that they are not getting too dry. They should still be pliable.

Flip them over and dehydrate another 2-4 hours.

Store in a ziplock bag or container.

Tip: If you over dehydrate and end up with large thin crackers instead, you can take a spray bottle filled with water and finely mist them. Lay them between damp paper or tea towels and they will become bendy again.

Fillings

You can pretty much use anything you would normally have in a salad sandwich. For these I had lettuce, cucumber, tomato and grated carrot with a squeeze of lemon juice and a wee bit of sea salt. A small amount of avocado would go down well in the mix too. I find that grated veges are more juicy so I don’t have the need for a dressing or dip which keeps things nice and simple.

Cauliflower Rice

We’ve been getting a lot of Cauliflower in our organic vege box recently. It’s the poor cousin to broccoli who always gets picked first. So we have to come up with creative ways to let that cauli-wall-flower shine through. This cauliflower salad is reminiscent of stir fried rice. You basically just need a base of cauliflower and the sesame oil and tamari dressing, then you’re free to change up the other vegetables in this dish to make your own variations. Here’s the combination I whipped up the other night.

Ingredients

1 small head cauliflower

2 carrots

1 large stalk celery

1 stalk spring onion

1 red bell pepper

1/2 cup sprouted sunflower seeds

1 tbsp tamari

2 tbsp cold-pressed sesame oil

juice of 1 lemon

Method:

Chop the cauliflower into florets and place a few at a time into the food processor or blender. Pulse until it looks about the size of grains of rice and place in a large bowl.

Chop the carrots and do the same as with the cauliflower.

Dice the bell pepper, celery and spring onion and combine with the remaining ingredients in the bowl.

This should keep for a few days in the fridge.

Cauliflower is a member of club cruciferous, just like Kale, Broccoli and Cabbage. These types of vegetables promote liver detoxification and help to prevent cancer. The phytonutrients contained in Cauliflower tell your genes to make more of the enzymes that are involved in detoxification which is why cruciferous vegetables are shown to be more effective in fighting cancer. If that wasn’t enough, Cauliflower is also very high in Vitamin C, it has more than oranges. These facts, figures and more are available over at World’s Healthiest Foods.

Florence Fennel & Strawberry Salad

Strawberries have just arrived at Commonsense Organics! To celebrate the onset of summer produce I threw these few ingredients together for lunch today and it turned out great. It just tastes like summer. And because all the ingredients are really juicy you don’t even need a dressing. I found it perfect just as is.

3-4 Large Strawberries

1/2 a Lebanese Cucumber

1 Small Fennel Bulb

A Handful of Fennel Fronds

2 Cups Chopped Lettuce

1/2 Avocado

Slice the strawberries, cucumber and fennel bulb with a mandoline. Finely chop the lettuce and the fennel fronds and dice the avocado into thin pieces. Combine everything in a bowl to serve. Easy.

Strawberries are the one of the most popular berries in the world. Not only do they taste and look great but they are also full of anti-oxidants. They are also heart-protective, anti-cancer fruit, and anti-inflammatory.

Nutrient-wise, strawberries are an excellent source of vitamin C and manganese. They’re also pretty high in fibre and a good organic source of iodine.

You can read more about the big red berries here

Red Cabbage, Fennel and Mandarin Salad

This is a fantastic winter salad with amazing colour and a good sweet/savory balance. It’s full of vitamin C to keep away colds in the chilly months. It’s good to use a mandoline to help you to slice things finely which brings out the flavour more. Always try to use organic ingredients where possible.

Serves 1-2

Ingredients

1/4 of a red cabbage

1 fennel bulb

4-5 mandarins

1 lemon

1 orange

a good splash of cold-pressed olive oil

a sprinkling of himalayan salt

Method

Using a mandoline, shred the cabbage and fennel. If you don’t have a mandoline you could use a food processor or slice finely with a knife.

Halve the orange and slice a few pieces off with the mandoline to save as a garnish. Juice the rest of the orange and the lemon.

Peel the mandarins and break into segments.

Combine all ingredients in a bowl to serve.

Optional Extra: This is also great with some chunks of avocado mushed into the salad. It combines nicely with the juices.

Enjoy!