Portabello Salad

Here's a new salad combination for you: grilled portabello mushroom, with tomatoes, green onions, and goat cheese on a bed of lettuce. We have grilled portabellos fairly often in our house, as they are hardy and a great meat substitute. Just drizzle them with some olive oil and some fresh herbs, salt and pepper, and grill on medium heat for 5 minutes per side. You could also cube them up and sauté them with some coconut oil and fresh herbs, and then put them on a bed of greens. I thought this was absolutely delicious and the oil from the mushrooms acted as my salad dressing. 

It almost reminded me of a "fresh" version of a Greek salad. Last but not least, I had to throw in some cheese. Salad for me is not complete with out some sort of cheese, I guess I just have some dairy farmer genes, lol, but I have been using goat cheese more and more often over my go-to cheddar cheese. 

Stuffed Artichokes

I love my stuffed bell pepper recipe, and I seem to be on a roll of stuffing veggies with veggies: mushrooms, bell peppers, and now stuffed artichokes. I was inspired by a recipe from one of my cookbooks, but I kind of just went on my own marry way with making this. I cleaned up the stem, trimmed the tips, and chopped a little extra off the top. I boiled 2 "chokes" for about 40 minutes like I would if I were just going to eat them as an appetizer, but then I took it one step further. 

After they drained upsiude down, and dried out a little, I pulled out some of the middle of the artichoke. 

Then I sauted some sausage, onions, mushrooms, and bell peppers with some salt, pepper, and garlic. I put that mixture into the center of the artichoke. The leaves will spread open pretty easily. Then put your artichokes in a bake pan, with a low level of water, and cover them with foil. Bake for about 30 minutes at 375 and that's it.

Delicious!

Beets

Beets, a vegetable I never really thought about adding into my diet, are often paired with goat cheese, and I love cheese, so it seemed like a good path to go down. I had previous had beets out of a can, but fresh is always better. I never bought fresh beets before last week, but I picked up a few and rinised them in cold water and then boiled them for about an hour. Basically boil them, uncovered, until you can stick a fork through them. 

Then, you're going to want to make sure you work quickly, and possibly wear gloves, drain the beet water and run water at the same time so you don't stain your sink. Then under running water peel the skin of the beet off and store in some tubberware with a little bit of fresh water. 

 Once the beet is cool, you can drain any extra liquid, cut the beet up, and make a salad. You can serve the beets over a bed of spinach, or if your bowl is big enough, just add in some spinach, and feta or goat cheese, and a little balsamic vinaigrette, shake, stir, mix, and that's it. This is super tasty and simple.

On the fence about beets? Maybe I can sway you into trying them if I told you they can reduce your blood pressure, they have great anti-inflammatory benefits, and with the winter germs coming, they pack a punch of vitamin C, so perhaps a good vegetable to add into the mix.