Obstacle Course

Easy soup: chick peas and pinto beans, mushrooms, onions, celery, carrot, and broccoli. Plus miso, cracked pepper, and dulse flakes at the table.

I add the broccoli separately, each time I reheat the soup, so that it stays green and fresh.

Chop, chop, chop...

Yesterday, after a long two weeks of overwork in which I somehow managed to stock my refrigerator with vegetables but couldn't be bothered to prepare anything but cereal and nuts and dried fruit and power bars, I hit the wall. There comes a point when feeling less than healthy is just not good enough. I needed to eat better and I needed to make it easy to do so.

In spite of looming deadlines and a stack of dirty dishes in the sink, I wiped down my kitchen counters and went to work. Every vegetable got its turn on the cutting board, some added to a salad, a slaw, a soup, some simply stored for future steaming or stir frying. While I chopped, I listened to Amy Purdy at TedxOrangeCoast tell her amazing survival story, reminding me eloquently that obstacles on our paths can do two things: stop us in our tracks, or force us to get creative.

Sometimes, I might add, the creativity need not involve reinventing the wheel.

Cabbage is my go to green when it comes to food prep in advance. Try it sometime: shred some cabbage and some carrots together. Dress with lemon juice or vinegar, salt, a little agave and olive oil perhaps, some raisins, and whole caraway, cumin, or dill seeds if you're feeling fancy. The wonder of this healthy slaw is that it gets tastier over time, hitting its peak about four days after preparation. The salt draws the moisture out of the vegetables, enriching the dressing and leaving the normally firm veggies limp, chewy, and succulent. The raisins get plump and soft, and the seeds add a unique and addictive flavor accent.