St. Helena's Communal Meal Prep 10/26/19

This time the theme was leafy greens.

Eating leafy greens, either raw or cooked 4-6 times a day is the standard recommendation of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn for it will keep your arteries flexible. Chewing the leafy greens will convert nitrate and with the enzymes from your saliva ultimately it will produce the nitric oxide that helps your bloodvessel stay limber.

Some of the best foods for this are:

1. Beets
2. Garlic
3. Leafy greens
4. Pomegranate
5. Nuts and seeds (but.. we want to go light on those because of the high oil content).

Two Salads

Green Salad

• 1 Green lettuce
• 3 Vine tomatoes
• a can of black-eyed peas (or whatever beans or peas you can find)
• some quinoa
• yellow, red, green peppers
• a can of sliced beets
• a carrot sliced thin (we skipped this because we already had the veggie spaghetti salad with carrot)
• capers
• olives
• a red onion, cut up.
• a pomegranate
• 1/2/3 dressing: 1 measure maple syrup, 2 measures Dijon Mustard, 3 measures Balsamic Vinegar, and lemon and lime juice to taste
• add milled flax seed and/or chia seeds for Omega-3's

Endless variations on the above are possible, and depending on the addition of quinoa and beans, you can make this a meal salad.

 

 Veggie Spaghetti Salad

We made this with a mandolin, but you could use a spiralizer of some sort. Taste is the same, but the long spaghetti strands present better - maybe.

For a dressing we used some 1/2/3 dressing with thyme and some Veggie Mayo (see below).

• Shredded Zucchini
• Shredded Daikon
• Shredded Green Papaya
• Shredded Carrot

Veggie Mayo

• 1 package of Silken Tofu
• 1 tbsp maple syrup (or date sugar)
• 1 tpsp red wine vinegar or fresh lemon juice
• 1 tbsp of Dijon Mustard

 Drain the tofu on a paper towel, and mix the ingredients with an immersion blender.

Leafy Greens Galore

It was Khokon, the owner of Neerob Restaurant, who taught me to make a medley of green leafy vegetables.

The message is that you can make either pure spinach, or Malabar spinach (poi leaf for the Bangladeshis), or Swiss chard, or any other green leafy vegetables by itself, or you can make a medley.

You can create a simple and delicious flavor with caramelized onions and garlic, some turmeric (preferably fresh) and perhaps Panch Puran or other spices.

 The way to build it up is to caramelize the onions first:

• cut up the onions finely
• optionally: cut up some chilis
• roast dry for 5 minutes - just until the onions start turning brown and sticking to the bottom of the pan.
• mince some garlic
• mince turmeric
• 1/2 cup of veggie broth 
• now stir-fry for five minutes, keeping it liquid with the broth.

• meanwhile cut up the stems of your leafy greens if they have heavy stems.
• now stir-fry another 5-7 minutes with the stems.
• cut up the leaves into 1-1/2" strips and add
• cook on medium until the leaves are al dente

The above is just perfect for making green leafies as a side dish. Alternatively, you can make dal, as follows:

• after stir-frying with the stems, you add more water and red lentils (hulled red lentils) in about 2:1 proportions water to lentils, let it cook about 10 mins then add the green leaves and let it cook for five minutes.

In other words, you start the same way for making green leafies as a side dish or the dal with green vegetables.

Butternut Squash

The last thing we made was butternut squash. We cut one in half lengthwise and put two garlic cloves in the hollow, and filled it up about half-way with veggie stock.
30-40 minutes in the oven at 400F, until soft.

Desert was grapes, which were also delicious.

It seemed everyone enjoyed the meal.

From the money dept

We had eight people, or $120 in funds, and we spent $87.31. In short, we are donating $32.69 to St. Helena's. There was plenty of food, even considering that two people did not show up.