Greens, Greens, and more Greens

Our CSA is pretty heavy on the greens and that's a good thing because I love greens! I'll happily incorporate them into my breakfast, lunch and dinner. Here's an easy, healthy, green-y breakfast:

I sauteed some swiss chard in a little olive oil with some garlic, red pepper flakes, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper and a splash of water. Once the greens were wilted I added some white beans and halved cherry tomatoes until they were heated through. I topped it with (surprise!) a sunny side up egg!

Like I said, I had this for breakfast but I've also had versions of this for lunch and dinner.

P.S. I think that "put an egg on it" is the culinary equivalent of "put a bird on it" - just sayin'.

Picnicking

A couple of weekends ago Ron and I picnicked in Redhook Brooklyn. We originally planned to picnic in Prospect Park but decided to venture a little further from Ron's apartment. We had homemade hummus, roasted vegetables with feta and shrimp salad with artichokes, olives, parsley, cherry tomatoes and lemon. Oh and little cans of Sofia champagne :)

But really we should have brought NOTHING because the Redhook ballfields are home to a ton of great food trucks. See evidence here. Everything looked and smelled great, we'll be back soon empty handed to snack on things like empanadas and pupusas.

Breaking the Fast with Zucchini Pancakes!

I'm off the juice! The 4 day Catalyst Juice Cleanse that is. I feel a little lighter, a little "cleaner" and a lot relieved that it's over. This cleanse was relatively easy - you just pick up the juices (6 a day) and drink up. I was never hungry but I did have a dull lack-of-caffeine headache for the first 2 days. The only real problem with doing a cleanse is that it's BORING, especially for people who love to cook, eat, and drink, like me! I did this Wednesday through Saturday and yesterday there was a BLOCK PARTY on my block and I had to stay inside like a hermit so not to be tempted by the booze and grub. It was a real bummer. But I'd certainly recommend a juice cleanse especially if you're finding yourself stuffing your face with too much bad-for-you food and drink.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas of last year I did the Master Cleanse - you know, that nothing but maple syrup, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper for 10 days diet? There are additional unpleasantries that I'll omit because people come here to read about food not um...poop. Anyway...the Master Cleanse is something I refuse to believe is healthy although it helped me lose about 10lbs (about 7 of them stayed off) and really set my eating habits back on track. Not because I thought I did something really healthy for my body but because I kept telling myself things like "You just didn't eat a thing for 10 days, don't screw up the results with those french fries!". The juice cleanse it WAY easier and more pleasant - I didn't love any of the juices (there is even a lemon juice, agave, cayenne one that gave me pretty scary Master Cleanse flashbacks!) but I didn't hate them either.

Now lets talk about my first solid meal in 4 days, okay?

We're doing the Greensgrow CSA again this year and I think it's started stronger than ever. Last week we got zucchini and since I didn't eat for 4 days this week I wanted to use them up today before they went bad. Zucchini and summer squash tend to get stock piled in my fridge around this time each year so I'm always searching for new recipes. This is an Ina Garten Zucchini Pancake recipe. They came together really quickly which is good because frankly, I was hungry.

I halved the recipe - 1 grated zucchini, 1 egg, 3 Tbs flour (I used whole wheat), 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 Tbs grated onion, salt & pepper.

I like to use my potato ricer to squeeze liquid out of anything that needs to be squeezed! It's the best way to dry shredded potatoes for hash browns.

I used a little spring release scoop to make all of the pancakes the same size. I'm sort of crazy about things being even - if you've ever seen me pour a glass of wine you'll know what I'm talking about! Instead of frying these in lots of oil I used nonstick olive oil spray. Flip them when the top started to bubble, just like regular pancakes.

I topped them with sour cream and halved cherry tomatoes that I had tossed with salt, pepper and a touch of red wine vinegar.

Ooh and I had coffee, too. It was delicious.