Awesome Dinner!

We had such a beautiful and delicious dinner tonite, I just had to share!  Sadly, I took no pictures.  Still, I want to tell you all about it.

Let me preface this by saying that my children are not always that excited about NEW or HEALTHY recipes that are different from what we usually said.  But, what I always tell them when we are having one of *those* meals:  This is a meal for open hearts and open minds!  :)

Strawberry Pecan Salad was beautiful and the kids looooooved the dressing.  The salad basically consists of a large bowl of mixed organic salad greens, or you could go with all baby spinach.  Add in 2 cups sliced strawberries, half a cup sliced raw pecans, and a half cup sliced or diced red onions, if you like.  (I left them out.)

The dressing was made in the small food processor:
1 cup sliced strawberries
quarter-cup fresh orange juice
4 dates
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon of chia seeds

Mix it up and voila!  It's done.

3 out of 4 of the boys at my table tonite loved this salad so much that they said they would like to take some in their lunch boxes on the days when we go to our homeschool group!  THAT, my friends, is high praise coming from my kids!

I also made brown rice and kale with a peanut sauce.

For the rice, I cooked it in veggie broth, and added in Thrive freeze dried carrots, onion, and celery.

For the kale, instead of doing the usual sauté, I decided to try going oil-free and boiled it instead.  I used a large bunch of kale, chopped up, and plunged it into the boiling water, left to boil for 3 minutes.  Then drained and plunged it into cold water to preserve the color and stop it from cooking any more.  I'm not sure if I would do the cold water step in the future because it made the kale cold, and I think I would have enjoyed it even more warm.

For the sauce, again I used my small food processor and combined
2 tablespoons honey,
2 tablespoons natural peanut butter,
3 tablespoons organic shoyu (organic soy sauce, you could also use Bragg's liquid aminos),
1-2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (go easy!),
half a teaspoon ground ginger, and
 3 cloves of garlic.
Whiz it all up and done!  I mixed some of this sauce in with the kale, and saved some.

I plated the food with a generous amount of the rice, placed the kale on top of the rice, and then for those that really like the sauce, added more on top.  Mix all of that up and YUM!  It was so hearty, flavorful, and delicious.

Other than the cost of strawberries out of season ($3.99), this was a pretty economical meal, and fit with our current healthy eating goals.  It was easy to make as well. :)

I got the strawberry salad recipe from a wonderful collection of resources from Frederic and Veronica Patenaude that I would highly recommend to you if you are looking for fresh ideas for eating more delicious raw foods.  Click here to read a review.