So Healthy It'll Make You... Healthy

I love love love greens! This is actually something I discovered after becoming veggie. We ate our fair amount of veggies growing up, but my family never really ate greens. Well, I am doing what I can to make up for lost time!

Sauteed Greens

This is simply white chard from my CSA sauteed over high heat with a few squirts of non-stick spray and tossed around. It is my favorite way to cook leafy greens. Get your skillet good and hot, spray with non-stick spray or a little bit of oil and pile in the greens. The key is to press the greens down a bit at first to maximize contact with the pan and get the wilting action going. I like doing it over high heat because the liquid the greens give off doesn't hang around, and I get some spotty color on them (the only thing I can think of to describe the taste is popcorn, but that's not quite right). I sprinkle a bit of kosher salt and fresh ground pepper over right at the end.

While I am perfectly happy to eat them just like that, I also enjoy them with the Tahini Miso Citrus sauce from Veganomicon, which is what you see here. It keeps really well in the fridge and is an excellent foil for the slightly bitter greens. Yum yum yum. And totally healthy (especially when I cut the amount of tahini in half).


My Favorite Chopped Salad

I make this salad at least once a week in summer. I absolutely love it and it could not be better for you.
The best part is - you can totally customize it. Do you have veggies coming out of your ears? Make this.
The key is to chop everything pretty small so you are getting lots of different flavors in each bite, and make sure you use some "wet" ingredients. Those would include cucumber, tomato, avocado, etc and a good handful or two of your favorite chopped herbs. These almost create a dressing for the salad. In fact, I only sprinkle this with salt and pepper and maybe a little lemon juice just before serving. I never eat it with any other dressing, it doesn't need it.
This one had lettuce, cabbage, zucchini, tomatoes, red bell pepper, carrots, celery, cauliflower, broccoli, avocado, cucumbers, rinsed and drained kidney beans, shallots, Italian parsley, cilantro, and thyme.
Other things I regularly add: frozen corn kernels (straight from freezer), spinach, chickpeas, anything I have on hand really.
You want to use more or less equal amounts of each veggie except lettuce, so nothing dominates. Salt and pepper and sprinkle lemon juice on each serving individually just before eating. As long as you do that this salad keeps exceptionally well in the fridge for several days. I make a huge one and then take really big portions (guilt free!) to work for lunch.