Experience Nutrition

Tag: avocado salsa

  • Experience Nutrition: Simple Avocado Salsa, as Featured in Natural Awakenings Magazine, Arizona

    Experience Nutrition: Simple Avocado Salsa, as Featured in Natural Awakenings Magazine, Arizona

    It is again such an honor to create recipe articles for the Natural Awakenings Magazine, Phoenix and Northern Arizona during the last few years. And, I am humbled to contribute to the important May 2020 issue during the Coronavirus Pandemic, to bring a little joy to our lives, with beautiful food. –  Melanie Albert

    Recipes in the Natural Awakenings, May 2020 article include: Three Beautiful, Simple Plant-Based Recipes

    Enjoy mindfully and intuitively creating these simple dishes. Take time to appreciate the beauty of the food, the mindfulness of the cooking process, and the final food art of your culinary creations.

    Simple Avocado Salsa

    I hope you are inspired by this simple to-prepare, tasty avocado salsa, along with “food art.”

    Enjoy the video with the steps to prepare and plate your own avocado salsa.

    Serves 1

    Have fun intuitively creating your own avocado salsa with the veggies grown by our local farmers and available right in your own refrigerator. With the avocado as a base, add in your choice of aromatics (onion, garlic), citrus (lemon or lime), favorite veggies, such as carrots, green or red peppers, radishes, cauliflower, tomatoes), and a fresh herb (basil, cilantro, marjoram).

    Thanks to my Arizona farmer friends for the beautiful produce in this Avocado Salsa.

    • Blue Sky Organic Farms, Litchfield Park: Grafitti (purple) Cauliflower, Green Onions
    • Pinnacle Farms Phoenix: Mini-Carrots, Spring Garlic
    • Melanie’s Edible Garden: Fresh Basil, Mini-Tomatoes

    Simple Ingredients

    • 1 soft, ripe avocado
    • 4-5 mini carrots, chopped
    • 1 green onion, chopped
    • 3-4 clove raw garlic, minced
    • 4-5 cauliflower florets, chopped
    • ½ lemon, juiced and zested
    • 4-5 basil leaves, chiffonade
    • Pinch sea salt
    • Garnish: Basil leaves and flowers, mini-tomatoes
    • Pinch sea salt
    AP-IMG_2065-avoingr
    Simple Avocado Salsa: Beautiful Arizona farmers ingredients.

    Simple Steps

    • Chop all ingredients.
    • Place avocado in a bowl and mix with a fork.
    • Add all other ingredients to the bowl and gently mix all ingredients.
    AP-IMG_2109-avomise
    Simple Avocado Salsa: Mise en Place

    Simple Plating

    • Place ring mold onto plate or bowl.
    • Scoop avocado salsa into the ring mold.
    • OPTION: If you do not have a ring mold, place a mound of the avocado salsa onto the plate.
    • Garnish with basil leaves and mini-tomatoes.
    • Enjoy!

    Stay in touch with us on www.facebook.com/ExperienceNutritionAZ and Instagram @experiencenturitionaz and tag us #experiencenutrition on your plant-based culinary creations.

    I’m feeling that very soon we will ease out of our Coronavirus Stay-at-Home, so if you or your organization is looking for a live in-person hands-on interactive plant-based cooking experience, I’m happy to chat with you to explore opportunities.  Feel free to call (602.615.2486) or e-mail (Mel@MelanieAlbert.com) – Melanie

    By Melanie Albert, Plant-Based Culinary Leader, Founder & CEO, Experience Nutrition in Phoenix, Arizona. Award-winning cookbook author, speaker, corporate wellness, team building, retreat leader, and caterer.

  • Experience Nutrition: Your Recipe Guide for a Quick & Simple Avocado Salsa With What’s in Your Refrigerator

    Experience Nutrition: Your Recipe Guide for a Quick & Simple Avocado Salsa With What’s in Your Refrigerator

    During our coronavirus stay-at-home, a simple to prepare lunch, breakfast or snack, is an “avocado tartare.” You might call it avocado salsa with a few extra veggies. I hope this avocado recipe guide inspires you to create your own beautiful, delicious avocado tartare with whatever vegetables are in your kitchen. – Melanie Albert

    Avocado Tartare Key Ingredients

    The 5 base ingredients for avocado tartare are:

    1. A ripe avocado
    2. Citrus: lemon, lime, grapefruit, Meyer lemon
    3. Sea salt
    4. Aromatic: onion, garlic, shallot
    5. Fresh herb: parsley, basil, cilantro, marjoram, lemon balm

    Avocado Tartare: The Add-in Veggies

    To these base ingredients, add in a few veggies – any kind – available at your local farmers’ markets, local farmers, or grocery stores. Some ideas: Broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, celery, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives.

    The plant-based cooking video guides you through the simple step-by-step process to prepare the avocado salsa. And, for reference, you can printout the recipe.

    Avocado Salsa Recipe Guide

    Use this recipe as a guide for Avocado Salsa with whatever veggies are in your refrigerator. This is a great recipe to experiment with intuitive cooking, where we choose a few vegetables, herbs, and aromatics we are attracted to and enjoy our creation.

    Serves 1

    Simple Ingredients

    • 1 avocado
    • 2 tbsp green onions
    • 2 tbsp fresh parsley, minced
    • 1 tsp Meyer lemon juice
    • Pinch sea salt
    • 1 carrot, sliced
    • 3-4 cauliflower florets
    • Optional garnish: few broccoli stems
    AP-IMG_9705-avoingre
    Avocado Tartare: Simple Ingredients

    Simple Steps

    • Chop all ingredients
    • Toss all ingredients into a bowl.
    • Mix avocado with a fork.
    • Add Meyer lemon juice and sea salt to the avocado.
    • Mix all ingredients with a fork.
    • Mindfully plate.
    • Enjoy
    AP-IMG_9770-platingMise
    Aocado Tartare: Plating Mise en Place

    Since I love Avocado Tartare’s so much, I’ll continue to share some of my intuitively created dishes with you, to give you more ideas on how you an mix-and-match veggies, herbs, aromatics, and citrus.

    Stay in touch with us on www.facebook.com/ExperienceNutritionAZ and Instagram @experiencenturitionaz and tag us #experiencenutrition on your plant-based culinary creations.

    By Melanie Albert, Plant-Based Cooking Leader, Founder & CEO, Experience Nutrition in Phoenix, Arizona. Award-winning cookbook author, speaker, corporate wellness, team building, retreat leader, and caterer.

    www.ExperienceNutrition.com

    AP-IMG_9785-avoside

  • EXPERIENCE NUTRITION: Food & Lifestyle Tip of the Day: 5 Steps to Cook Intuitively During our Stay-at-Home. Avocado Salsa Recipe

    EXPERIENCE NUTRITION: Food & Lifestyle Tip of the Day: 5 Steps to Cook Intuitively During our Stay-at-Home. Avocado Salsa Recipe

    Now that nearly everyone around the world is staying at home to help flatten the Coronavirus Curve, I will be sharing simple Food & Lifestyle Tips of the Day. The intention of the tips is to give you ideas that you could incorporate easily into your day-by-day activities around living a healthy lifestyle while we are all at home. And, in the long run implement tips that resonate with you to positively affect your life. — Melanie Albert

    Some of the tips will be around plant-based food, cooking, and eating with recipes, culinary (cooking) techniques, and even food art. Other tips will focus on positivity, mindfulness, and self-care.

    Meet Melanie Albert

    As a little background for those of you who do not know me, a few highlights. I am the founder & CEO of Experience Nutrition in Phoenix, Arizona, and award-winning cookbook author.

    • My passion is plant-based farm-to-table culinary, and I’ve led hundreds of cooking experiences, courses and retreats. I’m trained with 610 hours of plant-based culinary training.
    • 2007 graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition / Certified International Health Coach
    • 9 years marketing, branding, and licensing consultant with Weil Lifestyle, LLC/Andrew Weil, MD
    • 5 years nutrition and cooking with former NFL players, catering and events at Super Bowls, and official Health & Wellness Partner of the NFL Alumni Association in 2011.
    • 200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher and nearly 20 years practicing yoga.
    • For decades, I’ve lived my passion around healthy lifestyle, cooking, and eating, and am happy to share ideas with you.
    • I’ve been a work-from-home entrepreneur for 25 years; thus I have decades of personal experience with being at home, and enjoying it.

    I hope you are inspired by some of the motivational food and lifestyle tips I share with you.

    Experience Nutrition: Food & Lifestyle Tip of the Day: Cook Intuitively…with what’s in Your Refrigerator.

    What is Intuitive Cooking?

    With Intuitive Cooking, we pay attention to food. We notice the shapes, colors, flavors, and aromatherapy. By listening to our heart or gut, we choose a few foods we wish to purchase (at local farmers markets, if possible). When it’s time to cook, we pay attention to our bodies. What are we craving. Which foods are we visually attracted to. Then we cook with those foods and enjoy our meals.

    During our stay-at-home, it is also important to cook with our intuition. We listen to our bodies and senses. And, we cook with what’s available in our kitchens during these days when our food options may be limited.

    5 Simple Steps to Get Started with Intuitive Cooking

    1. Learn basic culinary (or cooking) skills or techniques and then use those skills to intuitively create dishes and meals with ease and confidence.
    2. Cook with what’s in your kitchen.
    3. Use a recipe as a guide.
    4. Substitute ingredients in the recipe with what you have in your refrigerator.
    5. Have fun experimenting and enjoy your creation.

    Intuitive Cooking Avocado Salsa Recipe

    Today, with intuitive cooking in mind, I created a very simple Avocado Salsa with what was in my refrigerator and little edible garden. This is a quick and easy lunch or snack. You’ll need an avocado, an aromatic (any onion), garlic (if you have it), a small tomato, citrus (lemon or lime), a fresh herb (parsley, basil, cilantro, marjoram), and sea salt. Plus, include optional ingredients for plating (such as broccoli or cauliflower).

    Use this recipe as a guide for Avocado Salsa with whatever veggies are in your refrigerator. Some ideas: Green or red bell peppers, carrots, celery, cucumbers, olives.

    A-IMG_0655-avocado-salsa-ingaredients

    Serves 1

    Simple Ingredients

    • 1 avocado
    • 2 tbsp onions
    • ½ tsp garlic cloves, minced
    • 1 small tomato or ½ cup mini tomatoes
    • ½ tsp lemon juice
    • ½ tsp lemon zest
    • 1 tbsp fresh herbs, such as basil, cilantro, or marjoram
    • Pinch sea salt
    • Optional: few broccoli stems

    Simple Steps

    • Chop ingredients.
    A-IMG_0667-avo-ingredients-chopped
    Avocado Salsa: Ingredients Chopped & Ready
    • Toss all ingredients into a bowl.
    • Mix with a fork.
    • Mindfully plate.
    • Enjoy.

    Please share your Avocado Salsa creations with us on Instagram @nutritionauthor #experiencenutrition and let me know if you have any cooking questions.

    A-IMG_0697-avosalsa-final

     

  • A New View of Healthy Eating: Daily Healthy Recipes by Melanie Albert: Super Bowl Recipe: Avocado Tartare

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

    I’m always a little reflective during Super Bowl week, and realized it was 10 years ago that my company was first involved with the Super Bowl. That first year, we created three healthy lifestyle products with the Super Bowl XLII logo: a zen clock, soy candle collection, and matcha tea kit. For the next two Super Bowls, we catered at the Super Bowl VIP Tailgate Party with Tropical Trail Mix in Tampa, and then Hummus and Cold Soup in Miami.

     

     

    Over the years, we learned about the serious health issues of the former NFL players when they retire,  taught former players how to cook healthy meals, created a healthy eating program, and in 2011, my company became the Official Health & Wellness Partner of the NFL Alumni Association.

     

    Avocado Tartare Recipe for Super Bowl

    Anyway, enough reminiscing…

    Today, the eve of the Super Bowl game many people were out shopping for the perfect avocados for guacamole, so I decided to create a little more fancy version of guacamole.

    Avocado Tartare Mis en Place: So simple…avocado, tomatoes, lemon, and sea salt.

     

    Avocado Tartare Plating

     

    Enjoy your Super Bowl Day and your Avocado Guacamole and Avocado Tartare!

    Share your Super Bowl snacks with us over on Facebook: www.facebook.com/NewViewHealthyEating

    C-01-avocado-IMG_E3512

  • A New View of Healthy Eating: Daily Healthy Recipes by Melanie Albert: Get Creative with Avocado Salsa

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

    This week, I had the opportunity to lead a cooking class with Gregory’s Fresh Market in Phoenix, with the theme of good fats for heart health. One of my favorite ‘good fat’ dishes is a very simple avocado salsa. It’s so versatile. With a simple avocado, fresh lemon juice, and sea salt base, we can add all kinds of veggies and make a quick healthy lunch or snack.

    P-071-A-avocado-IMG_7985

    Excerpt from Melanie’s book, “A New View of Healthy Eating.”

    EXPERIENCE NUTRITION Signature Avocado Salsa

    Honestly, I had never eaten fresh avocados until a few years ago, and thought I didn’t like them. One of my brothers made a simple, fresh avocado salsa with his home-grown yellow pear tomatoes and fresh garlic. Since that day when I first experienced the deliciousness of creamy avocados, I loved them and have taught the simple avocado salsa recipe to hundreds of people, including kids, MDs, former NFL players, and holistic students at speaking engagements, workshops, and cooking classes.

    Teaching my then 6-year old niece, Meredith how to massage the avocado salsa. She’s now 12 years old and still making avocado salsa for a snack.

    P-076-AvocadoMeredithYoung

    Basic Avocado Salsa

    Have fun intuitively creating your own avocado salsa with the veggies available right in your own refrigerator.

    This simple-to-make avocado salsa (or guacamole) is the best. Make it for lunch, as a snack, or for tailgating parties. It’s so easy to prepare and it’s so delicious that you’ll want to eat it a few times a week. With good monounsaturated fats, fresh veggies, and a squeeze of lemon, enjoy your avocado salsa with your favorite crunchy fresh organic raw veggies.

    Simple Ingredients

    • 4 soft, ripe avocados
    • 2-3 heirloom tomatoes or 6-8 cherry tomatoes
    • 3-5 green onions
    • Handful fresh cilantro or basil
    • 2-3 cloves raw garlic, minced
    • Fresh squeezed lemon juice, to taste
    • Sea salt to taste

    Simple Steps

    • Chop and gently mix all ingredients.
    • Enjoy as a salad or in a wrap.

     “Keep an avocado in your kitchen all the time so you’re always ready to make a quick avocado salsa to enjoy as a salad or in a wrap.” – Melanie Albert

    Create Your Own Avocado Salsa

    Using the Basic Avocado Salsa Recipe as a guide, create your own with your favorite farmers’ market fresh vegetables. Experiment with carrots (orange, yellow, or purple), peppers (red, green, yellow, or purple), cucumbers (green, lemon cucumbers, or Armenian), olives, garbanzo beans, and dehydrated tomatoes.

    7 Simple Ways to Enjoy Avocados

    1. Homemade avocado salsa
    2. Fresh avocado wrap
    3. In sandwiches instead of butter or mayonnaise
    4. Sliced and added to salad
    5. With steamed vegetables
    6. In raw vegan desserts
    7. With fresh lemon or lime juice, a little sea salt, and minced garlic as a simple snack

    ACTION: I invite you to buy a few avocados and have fun adding different veggies to your ‘avocado salsa”.

    Amazing. Take a look a the avocado tree In Cocoa Beach that my parents grew from seed…

    P-075-06-A-avocado-close-DSCF4363

    IMG_9691

  • A New View of Healthy Eating: Top Super Bowl Healthy Recipes: Wild Salmon & Avocado Salsa

    A New View of Healthy Eating: Top Super Bowl Healthy Recipes: Wild Salmon & Avocado Salsa

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

    As a continuation of yesterday’s post of my top 3 favorite healthy Super Bowl recipes, today’s recipes are wild sockeye salmon on the grill and avocado salsa.

    Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon on the Grill

    Wild salmon is a rich source of anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids, a good source of protein, and rich in Vitamin D, which is important for bone health, the immune system, and brain health.

    In 2011, as an Official Health & Wellness Partner of the NFL Association, my organization Experience Nutrition Group, LLC had the honor of serving this simple Wild Alaskan Salmon recipe at several Super Bowl XLV weekend events in Dallas. Former NFL players kept coming back for more salmon, so apparently they enjoyed it. The recipe is very easy to prepare and delicious every time. Grill or broil the wild salmon with a few spices and olive oil to create a restaurant-quality meal quickly in your home.

    Grill or broil wild Alaskan salmon using this simple recipe as a guide. Then, be creative and intuitively prepare the salmon with your favorite dried spices and herbs.

    SIMPLE INGREDIENTS

    • 4 wild Alaskan sockeye salmon fillets (4-6 oz. per person), sliced into ½-inch strips
    • ¼ cup organic extra virgin olive oil
    • 3 tbsp dried herbs and spices

    SIMPLE STEPS

    1. Defrost salmon fillets in a refrigerator for a few hours or under cold running water.
    2. Slice wild salmon into thin strips, about ½ inch wide and 1-2 inches long.
    3. Prepare salmon marinade by mixing olive oil and spices and herbs.
    4. Marinate salmon with spices and herbs in a refrigerator for 20-30 minutes, or overnight.
    5. Pre-heat grill on medium high for 15 minutes before you are ready to cook the salmon. If broiling, preheat broiler for 15 minutes.
    6. Place fillets directly on the grill or on a flat baking sheet with parchment paper for broiling.
    7. Cook each side 3-5 minutes.
    8. Remove salmon from grill right before it has completely cooked, as it will continue to cook when removed from the heat of the grill.
    9. Let salmon rest for 5 minutes.
    10. Enjoy with a veggie stir-fry, steamed vegetables, or a raw kale salad, with a side of whole grains such as quinoa or brown rice.

    Former NFL player, John Bronson, learning the simple way to grill wild Alaskan sockeye salmon.

    Basic Avocado Salsa

    Have fun intuitively creating your own avocado salsa with the veggies available right in your own refrigerator.

    This simple-to-make avocado salsa (or guacamole) is the best. Make it for lunch, as a snack, or for tailgating parties. It’s so easy to prepare and it’s so delicious that you’ll want to eat it a few times a week. With good monounsaturated fats, fresh veggies, and a squeeze of lemon, enjoy your avocado salsa with your favorite crunchy fresh organic raw veggies.

    p-071-a-avocado-img_7985

    Simple Ingredients

    • 4 soft, ripe avocados
    • 2-3 heirloom tomatoes or 6-8 cherry tomatoes
    • 3-5 green onions
    • Handful fresh cilantro or basil
    • 2-3 cloves raw garlic, minced
    • Fresh squeezed lemon juice, to taste
    • Sea salt to taste

    Simple Steps

    • Chop and gently mix all ingredients.
    • Enjoy as a salad or in a wrap.

    These recipes and more are in my new book, A New View of Healthy Eating.

    Purchase today and I’ll personalize and mail a copy to you.

    Join our e-newsletter to receive culinary tips, simple recipes, and upcoming classes and events.

    Enjoy the Super Bowl!!! And, come over to our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/NewViewHealthyEating,  and share your Super Bowl snacks.

    a-bookship-2016-0910-img_9420