fruit of the month: Strawberries

[via a sweet spoonful]

As summer fades into late September, I find myself eating strawberries like they're going out of style season. In my area, the price hasn't completely spiked back to totally-out-of-season-you-shouldn't-be-buying-this range, so I'm taking advantage while I can.

As with most fruit, and particularly berries, buying local increases the flavor about 100 fold. No joke. If you don't believe me, I bet you've never owned a strawberry plant. When I was little, my friend's mom got one and I remember when I first tasted the non-conventional form of these amazing red juice-bombs - I couldn't believe it. That, I thought, is what strawberries are supposed to taste like? I felt robbed! The difference was like flavored cardboard and melting chocolate.

Besides that they are wonderful to eat by themselves by the handful, there are all sorts of lovely things you cook/bake/create with strawberries. A few ideas:

Strawberries and Cream Popsicles [via damn delicious]

Strawberry Crepes [via barbara bakes]

How cute are these?!? [via the capitol baker]

Chocolate Strawberry Waffles [via malibu kitchen]

You don't have to stick to sweets, either.

Goat Cheese Crostini with Strawberry Bruschetta [via dishing gormet]

Strawberry Basil Sparkler [via two tarts]

Balsamic Strawberry Pizza with Chicken [via closet cooking]

Strawberries are great sources of dietary fiber, vitamin C, folate, and potassium. Because of the dietary fiber, they're also a great thing to eat after you've eaten too much - they settle the stomach and, shall we say, get things moving in your digestive tract. That, plus some water, equals a much happier belly!

Plus, come on, who doesn't like strawberries?

Thai food & fall colors

Been inspired lately by all the fall themed clothing and smells and weather. And it's all mixed in with the day dreams I'm having more and more frequently about visiting Thailand.

Waterfalls near Chiang Mai

Stumptown Coffee - Portland, OR

Red Wine Caramel Apples

Thai red curry chicken

veggie of the week: Spinach

In the Raw

Strawberry Spinach Salad

Spinach is my favorite leafy green thing. This is probably because it was the only leafy green thing I could manage to down in large quantities (besides romaine) when my friends suddenly started ordering salads instead of burgers in high school. Suddenly, veggies weren't annoying things your parents pushed at you, they were sophisticated. Who knew?

Depsite my rough start, I taught myself to love spinach, and soon many salad staples in general.

My favorite easy-to-make salad is as follows:

• Spinach
• Dried cranberries
• Walnuts
• Raspberry vinaigrette (like Annie's)
• (Apple chunks sometimes)

There are all kinds of variations you can do on this basic recipe, like the above picture with strawberries and slivered almonds. And of course, spinach doesn't have to be confined to salads - making other stuff with it is pretty awesome too.

Spinach Lasagna

Spinach Pesto

Baked Eggs with Spinach

Spinach Banana Smoothie

Reasons to love spinach:

• It is high in dietary fiber, protein, vitamins A, B6, C, E, and K, folate, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, and a whole lot more. AKA a definite super food.
• It is 7 calories for one cup raw (natural, whole, QUALITY calories)!
• It is anti-inflammatory (kind to your stomach).
• It is linked to cancer prevention (surprise)!
• It is really yummy!

And remember to pick it up organic, as spinach is one of the infamous dirty dozen otherwise.

Happy eating!

veggie of the week: Broccoli

Broccoli is one of the few vegetables I would eat as a kid. Ridiculously healthy, and easy to prepare. Most people will tell you to avoid boiling it at all costs, for two reasons: 1) Broccoli falls apart/gets overcooked easily and 2) it is especially prone to leaching out all its vitamins into the water, if left for too long. 

So for the most part, steaming or sauteing is best, but last night I threw some broccoli and mushrooms in with a boiling pot of water and quinoa and it cooked up just fine. I think the trick is to only leave them in for a few minutes and make something that uses all the water in the pan (like soup, or quinoa, which soaks up the water it is cooked with). That way, if vitamins are leaching out, you're still eating them anyway!

Topped it off with pesto, and I had a unique little healthy dinner!

Broccoli is high in fiber, vitamins A, C, K, B6, folate, potassium, manganese, protein and a slew of other nutrients. As if that's not enough, research is also linking it with cancer prevention, along with having detoxing and anti-inflammatory benefits. All in all, a pretty awesome veggie.

[Indie moment: I liked nutritiondata.com before it was bought out by SELF and had all the pretty pictures. It's still a pretty awesome resource though. I guess.]

More pretty pictures of broccoli!

Lovely recipes associated with above pictures here, here, here, and here. 

Photo Credits: kalynskitchen.com, (me), onceuponacuttingboard.com, angryasiancreations.com, lapetitegigi.blogspot.com