Crudites

CRUDITES
( pronounced kroo-di-TAYZ )

Cut raw vegetables, such as carrot sticks and pepper strips, served often with a dip as an appetizer.

I love Crudites (forgive me for not putting the accnet mark an the e, as one should do when writing French properly. I do not know how to get that symbol in my typing yet.

Having crudites on the table before your meal is a good way to ...

#1. Assure you family or guests that yes, indeed, you are soon going to have a meal on the table but I know you are all hungry so you can nibble on these while I put the finishing touches on dinner.

#2. Incorporate raw foods into your diet. And they say ("they" are the raw foodists) that if you are going to eat cooked food at your meal, first eat some raw food. It is better that way because it gets digested quicker, etc.

#3. Add beauty and color to your table. Let's face it: Raw veggies all cut up and rinsed off simply look good! I love looking at bright orange carrot sticks and light green celery sticks and shiny dark green strips of bell pepper, etc...don't you?

#4. Express your creativity. Try some new things like jicama, or rounds of sliced zucchini.

#5. Practice your French pronunciation.

Au Revoir! A bientot! (Good-bye! See you later!) ~~Joan

A great site!

I found this site today that has a video about healthy pizza. Here is the link....for you to cut and paste into your browser..good luck. I d not yet know how to put hyper-links on my blog.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0702-healthier_pizza.htm

Really Red !!!!

The other day I juiced a fresh raw beet along with some carrots and a small piece of ginger. Wow! The color of this raw juice was dazzling and the taste was exciting. After I drank it (I made some for John and Kelsy, too), my body tingled with a happy energy. Kelsy got a kick out of how it made her tongue so red.

Easy Tomato Rice Soup

I love this soup! First I take some time to cook up some medium grain white rice..which takes about 15 minutes. Then I get a jar of spaghetti sauce (Bertolli's or Ragu or Prego)and dump it into a saucepan and heat it up and add a few scoops of rice into it.
Stir and serve in bowls and top it with grated Parmesan cheese. Mmmm. You can add finely chopped sweet onion and/or finely chopped green pepper for more texture and some pizazz.

Grapefruit Season !

I love living here in Southern California where the produce is inexpensive. I went to a nearby Mexican supermarket, King Ranch, because ruby red grapefruits were advertized for 4/ $1.00. I picked out some good ones and then made my way around the corner of the aisle and there was a shopping cart loaded with more grapefruit. These were a tiny bit smaller than the four for a dollar ones and they were going for 8 for a dollar. As Larissa would say: "Woo Hoo!" I came home that day with about 28 grapefruit and gave about 10 of them to my friend Renon who loves them. John doesn't really care for them but I have been having one a day for 2 weeks now.
I had to line these up around the inside of our mini-tramp and take a picture! By the way, bouncing on a mini-trampoline is very good low impact exercise that revs up and gets your lymph system working better. I love the brandname of this mini trampoline...ExerCera...because my maiden name is Cera.

A Satisfying Meal !

Tostada Supper

I was craving pico de gallo and refried beans. I love making the pico de gallo! It means, in Spanish, "beak of the rooster" because the onions and tomatoes are chopped up in uniI could eat them every day and not get tired of them! By the way, I wanted to order a T-shirt that said "I Love Beans". My husband said he would wear a T shirt that said "I Love Bean-O". If any of you suffer from gas from beans and haven't tried Bean-O yet..please do! It works!

Basic Pico de Gallo

5 ripe roma tomatoes, diced
1/2 large white onion, diced
(you can use yellow onion or sweet onion if you want)
2 cloves garlic, minced fine
3/4 bunch cilantro, chopped
Remove long stems first, and leave the stems that is closer to the leaf. The stems are tender, so you can cut them up with theleaf.
1 lime, juiced
1/2 medium to small size jalepeno pepper, seeded and ribs removed, chopped as fine as you can.
Twist of black pepper

OK...now put all ingredients in your favorite bowl and set on the table. Put spoon in so those around the table can serve themselves.

We had whole wheat tortillas that I crisped up in my iron skillet, one at a time. I had a thin layer of olive oil in the pan and I used medium heat. I cooked the tortlla on both sides. Sometimes, they puff up...it is fun to watch!

I opened a can of Rosarita refried beans and heated them in a small saucepan.

So...we spread the beans on the tortillas and topped them with the pico de gallo. Voila! Supper! Notice we did not use grated cheddar cheese. We are phasing cheese out of our diet...only have it once in a while (Why? High fat!... and the dairy industry uses hormones and this is not good to ingest if you want to fight the cancer you have or prevent getting cancer.) These tostadas were fine without it. In restrospect, it would have been fun to have a little crumbled queso fresca on them. That is fresh white Mexican cheese.