Vegalicious

My sister and one of my nieces travel a lot. And I mean A-L-O-T. When I grow up I want to be cool just like them.

Every time they go to a new country they come back with a bagful of new recipe ideas. They have become a source of cooking inspiration for me.

Now, don’t tell her this, but my niece is not big on cooking, my sister is.  So, imagine my surprise when about a year ago I was treated to my niece’s overseas travel inspired herb salad, filled with amazing detox goodness of parsley, cilantro, green onions, red onion, avocado, cucumber, tomatoes, lemon juice, sea salt, hemp seeds and raisins. It’s a nutrient power house that’s tasty and oh-so-good for weight loss!

My favorite part of the salad was that with every bite I took, when I first had it, I felt like my entire body was awakened from deep sleep.  Must be due to all that chlorophyll in parsley, cilantro and onions.

Her parsley salad left a long lasting impression on me;  and I don’t know why, maybe because it’s Spring and I feel like I am awakening back to life after a long rainy Washington winter, but it kept coming back to my mind for the last two weeks, so I sent my niece a text, begging her to share her secret recipe with me.  Now, in my family, we don’t really have recipes, not like I share them with you, we just have a list of ingredients we put in a dish, but the quantity is left up to the cook’s imagination.  And so was it in this case.  She sent me a list of what she puts in the salad, I added my twist to the mix and the result was something totally amazing. 

I loved it and Hubby loved it.  WIN! And it makes us feel like there’s Spring in our mouths!

It is great by itself, but I also loved it in a low fat (yeast and soda free) tortilla with low-fat homemade cilantro hummus. Taste bud heaven! 

I was prepping the salad yesterday to share with you, getting it recorded (yes, a step by step video is included below! no more guessing on how to make my recipes if you’re new to cooking!), and taking pictures.   Sprout got so exciting, helping her Momma, that I couldn’t help myself but to capture all of the cuteness of her soft helping hands.  Isn’t this perfect?

But, I digress.

I want to share my new salad with you (courtesy of my niece).  Here is why you should make it this week:

• it’s easy to make
• I used only simple ingredients
• it is nutrient dense
• it is detoxing
• it is waist slimming
• it stores well for a few days refrigerated
• and because every single ingredient is hand picked for a specific reason! Here are a couple to show you just how powerful this Mediterranean inspired parsley salad is.

Parsley: “The flavonoids in parsley—especially luteolin—have been shown to function as antioxidants that combine with highly reactive oxygen-containing molecules (called oxygen radicals) and help prevent oxygen-based damage to cells. In addition, extracts from parsley have been used in animal studies to help increase the antioxidant capacity of the blood.” (source)

Cilantro: Coriander (also called cilantro) contains an antibacterial compound that may prove to be a safe, natural means of fighting Salmonella, a frequent and sometimes deadly cause of foodborne illness, suggests a study published in the June 2004 issue of the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry. (source)

I love involving Sprout into cooking. She doesn’t only learn a very important life skill, she also learns the value of food and of the work we put into it, and we get to talk about what each ingredient does for our bodies.  And, of course, she gets to have fun.

Yesterday she was so excited watching me.  As I was wrapping up the shoot, I turned around to see her in action, prepping her own “shoot”–she was making me a parsley salad filled tortilla.  Messy props, messy hands–don’t care! She made me lunch! And it was most delicious at that.

Do you let your kids play in the kitchen?