Category: Raw Veggies: Make Raw Veggies Interesting

  • Experience Nutrition: Farm-to-Table Spring Avocado Tartare

    Experience Nutrition: Farm-to-Table Spring Avocado Tartare

    By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author

    I love avocados, and often when I buy several at a time I love making Avocado Tartare with the avocados and local Arizona farmers’ produce and fresh herbs. As part of my mindfulness in cooking, I love having fun creativity plating the dishes differently every time I make Avocado Tartare.

    I invite you to use the ingredients in the recipe as a guide and then have fun creating your own Avocado Tartare with your local farmers produce.

    A few key base ingredients include: a ripe avocado, citrus such as lemon or lime, a few fresh herbs like basil or oregano, a pinch of sea salt to balance the acid of the citrus and fat of the avocado.

    Avocado Tartare Recipe

    Serves 1

    Simple Ingredients

    • 1 ripe avocado
    • 6-8 Romanesco florets (Blue Sky Organic Farm)
    • 6-8 Purple cauliflower florets (Blue Sky Organic Farm)
    • 3-4 Carrots, rough chopped (Blue Sky Organic Farm, Steadfast Farm)
    • 3 orange lunchbox sweet peppers, rough chopped
    • 5-6 chrysanthemum leaves (Soil & Seed Garden at The Farm at South Mountain)
    • 3-5 stems fresh oregano (Soil & Seed Garden at The Farm at South Mountain)
    • 1 fresh lime, juiced
    • ¼ tsp capers
    • 2 tbsp Kalamata olives
    • Pinch sea salt
    • Day 2: 6-8 Purple Snap Peas (Soil & Seed Garden at The Farm at South Mountain)
    • Garnish: 1 small bunch baby spinach, edible flowers, fresh oregano, dehydrated tomatoes (Day 2)
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    Avocado Tartare: Farm-to-Table Ingredients

    Simple Steps

    • Chop all veggies.
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    Avocado Tartare: Veggies Chopped

    • Place all ingredients, except garnish, in a bowl.
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    Avocado Tartare: Ready to Gently Mix all the Veggies

    • Gently mix with a fork.
    • Add additional sea salt or lime, to suit your taste.
    • Plate, using a ring mold, if desired.
    • Garnish with edible flowers, fresh herbs, dehydrated tomatoes, fresh baby spinach.
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    Avocado Tartare: Plating Mise en Place

    Let’s take a look a the plating video…


    Now, the final Spring Avocado Tartare, featuring baby spinach.

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    Simple Beauty: Arizona Spring Avocado Tartare

    Another look at the Spring Avocado Tartare…in my 1-week old Elevated Edible Garden.

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    Farm-to-Table Avocado Tartare, enjoying the Edible Garden.

    Spring Avocado Tartare Day 2: Simple Farm-to-Table Ingredients

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    Avocado Tartare Day 2: Farm-to-Table Fresh Ingredients.

    Simple Steps

    • Chop all veggies.
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    Mindfully chop all veggies.

    • Place all ingredients, except garnish, in a bowl.

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    For Avocado Tartare, place veggies in bowl to gently mix.

    • Gently mix with a fork.
    • Add additional sea salt or lime, to suit your taste.
    • Plate and garnish.

    All set: Plating Mise en Place

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    Avocado Tartare Day 2: Plating Mise en Place. Always mindful.

    Enjoy the Day 2 plating…different every time.

    Food Art: A look at the Day 2 Avocado Tartare elegant plate…

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    Food Art. Avocado Tartare.

    Pause and enjoy your plating. Another beautiful view of the Day 2 Avocado Tartare.

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    Farm-to-Table Avocado Tartare Day 2: Pause and enjoy the beauty.

    Fun. Taking the Avocado Tartare to the tropics…

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    Avocado Tartare Tropics, for my friends in Barbados.

    Interested in learning simple, easy plant-based cooking techniques and enjoy self-care in Fall 2019 (September 13-16, 2019) in the beauty of Sedona? Click to learn more.

    To learn more, feel free to call 602.615.2486 or e-mail Mel@MelanieAlbert.com 

     

     

  • A New View of Healthy Eating: Mung Bean Heirloom Tomato Salad & How to Easily Slice Tomatoes

    By Melanie A. Albert, intuitive cooking expert, author, and speaker. Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition Group, LLC

    The home-grown sprouted mung beans that were ready to eat yesterday , along with a beautiful organic heirloom tomato inspired this simple, fresh summer salad.

    I am always so excited to have fresh sprouts to play with in my meals and love eating them raw or even in a quick stir-fry. Enjoy this beautiful salad and have fun creating your own salad with your home-grown sprouts. Remember, it only takes 7 days to sprout mung beans.

    Today’s salad is a practice in mindfulness and I offer you a culinary tip to make slicing tomatoes very easy.

    Choose your veggies mindfully. When you choose your ingredients for a salad, pause and choose a variety of colors and textures, such as this beautiful heirloom tomato, little local Arizona sweet pepper, yellow carrot, the mung beans, and a few extras, such as olives and capers.

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    Pause and enjoy the beauty of food. I intentionally purchased this beautiful organic heirloom tomato and am still in awe of its natural palette of color.

    Excerpt from A NewView of Healthy Eating

    Serrated Tomato Knife. To easily cut tomatoes, use a small serrated knife with an up-and-down cutting motion. Years ago I did not at all enjoy cutting tomatoes, but now with my little 5-inch serrated knife, I cut them quickly and smoothly, without the juice of the tomato squirting out.

    Pause Again. While you are preparing your salad, pause and enjoy the moment. Enjoy the mindfulness of the beautiful colors, textures, and beauty of food.

    Enjoy. Mindfully plate your salad and simply enjoy. Today I plated the salad on a large collard green and then added one of my favorite extras, goat cheese. Yumm…

    I invite you to come on over to our Facebook page and share your creations inspired by home-grown sprouts. www.facebook.com/NewViewHealthyEating

    For easy reference, here are the links to learn how to sprout your own mung beans

  • A New View of Healthy Eating: Experience Nutrition Organic Avocado Salsa

    By Melanie A. Albert, Intuitive Cooking Expert, Author and Speaker, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition Group, LLC

    Today was one of the most exciting days for me, as the first printing of my new book, A New View of Healthy Eating arrived.

    The book has been a labor of love and I am so honored to share my philosophies, simple culinary techniques, and recipe guides to encourage you to enjoy shopping for, cooking and eating beautiful healthy food.

    Today, I committed to create one of the recipes in the book every day and to post a blog for you. My goal is to inspire you to create a simple, healthy dish and share your creation on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/NewViewHealthyEating

    First, I am honored to share a few images of the book with you.

    Now, my recipe today was a simple Avocado Salsa, inspired by a huge organic Reed avocado. Reed avocados only grow a few months out of the year and have more of the healthy monounsaturated fat in them, so they are really rich and creamy.

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    Today’s Avocado Salsa was intuitively created with:

    • 1 organic Reed avocado
    • Peppers from Maya’s Farm in Phoenix
    • A few tomatoes from Abby’s Farm, about 4 miles from my home
    • Fresh lemon basil from Maya’s Farm, just a mile from my home
    • Garlic from the Community Exchange
    • Fresh lemon and sea salt
    • Ezekiel wrap

    The intuitive Avocado Salsa, as salad and then as a wrap.

    I’ll be placing the second order for A New View of Healthy Eating in about a week, after we review for any minor edits. Pre-order today if you’d like to order a copy and be one of the first to experiment with the culinary skills and recipes in the book. You’ll also receive my Top 5 Favorite Recipes & Culinary Tips.

    Step 1: Buy the Book

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     Step 2: Join our list to receive the Top 5 Favorite Recipes & Culinary Tips