Raw salmon salad

It entertains me to no end when I say that I'm going to make a raw salmon salad, and I get a funny face from the person I am talking to.  It's as if the sushi fish is not the same as raw fish in a salad.  The good news is that after they try it, they end up in my ballpark.

This salad is super delicious, looks amazing, and it's so quick to prepare that it happens to be a good one if a bunch of friends drop by to play poker at your house.

In a bowl, mix together baby greens, spicy sprouts, dried cranberries, and colorful sesame seeds, finely sliced onions rings, and walnuts.

In a little cup, mix some olive oil with a bunch of sesame seeds, raspberry vinaigrette.  

Alternate version: olive oil, salt, pepper, and italian seasoning.

Alternate version #2: olive oil, rice vinegar, salt, pepper, italian seasoning.

And you can just keep making up your own, including any of the sushi style dressings.

Pour what you just made on top of of the greens and mix it all together by hand.

Place the greens onto a plate and cut up a piece of raw salmon (from a reputable store like Whole Foods, and always ask for them to get it from the back so that it hasn't touched other fish... tell them you'll eat it raw... that way you'll be sure it's fresh.  I usually don't eat farm raised fish, but in this case I will, and only from Whole Foods.  Never, ever would I eat a fish like this from any of the other chain stores like Albertsons.) Always smell the fish before you purchase it... there should be absolutely no fishy smell... if there is, do not buy it.

Place the salmon chunks on top of the greens and mush up some avocado and place on top of the fish.  Finally, put some spicy sprouts on top of the entire dish and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Voila!

Salt doesn't kill you, but table salt does

There are things in this world which are common sense, and this one made perfect sense to me.

It goes something like this:

Salt is an essence of life, because in order for a human body to function, it is entirely dependent upon its conductivity and the ability to transmit information electrically.

Now, here's what we all are taught: Too much salt = cholesterol will kill you.  But, is that really true?

Your body needs salt and all the trace minerals in it, but now take table salt... the good stuff, trace minerals, are removed.  Also, table salt is not only salt, it contains all sorts of pesky stuff like little sharp sand pieces.

Those little sharp particles swim in your arteries and create little nicks all over them, at which point the body freaks out and sends cholesterol to correct the issue.  But, you keep getting cut up, what ever patches, has to be re-patched, and so on.  Now imagine what the inside of your arteries look like if you eat a lot of table salt?  The cholesterol just keeps trying to fix the issue, more and more gathers around the issue and finally closes up your arteries.

You end up killing yourself with table salt.

So. I do believe that salt is good for you, and table salt kills you.

Another note... with Fukushima spewing out tons of radioactive material every second of every day, and with what we have done to our oceans with the toxic junk we spill into it on daily basis, plus the oils spills, and I don't quite trust sea salt at this point.  I guess we're left with Himalayan salt, which is taken out of places that humans have not destroyed yet... and even that is a catch 22.

Stuffed Poblano Peppers

White rice may not be the best thing for your health, and in fact it absolutely isn't, but once in a while even you can be bad.

I like to buy organic poblano peppers, simply because the conventional ones are loaded with chemicals. All conventional fruits and veggies are loaded with all sorts of chemicals, but the ones with thin skins are especially nasty.

First, cook your rice on the stove; never in the microwave.  I know it's quicker, but if you don't believe how bad the microwave is for you, do yourself a favor and boil some water in there, let it get cold and then purchase some plants from the store.  Divide up the plants into three pots, place them in the same area of the house (next to a window), and water one with the microwaved water, the other one with rain water, and the last one with tap water.  The plant watered with rain water will produce the best looking plant, the tap water one will produce an okay looking plant (better off if you let the water stand for a day before you water the plant), but the microwave water will kill your plant.  Now, why would you put that in your body?

If the directions say 1cup of rice per 2 cups of water, make it a little bit less then 2 cups... that way the rice cooks almost all the way, but you stop cooking it before it gets soft.  The reason you want your rice to not be soft is because it will cook a bit more in the pepper, and you don't want it mushy.  Let it sit there and cool down.

While that is happening, have an equal amount of ground beef waiting for you to deal with... it's best to go purchase a chunk of grass fed, organic beef, or bison, because they have to be grass fed.  Cows are not meant to eat the diet that they eat and they're definitely not meant to constantly be fed antibiotics of all sorts... it all ends up on your plate as an unhealthy piece of meat.  Also, thanks to the growing number people who have bugged our government about this due to more and more education about what's on our plates, it looks like there may be a new law in place soon; no more antibiotic filled meat!  Finally!

Anyhow, instead of buying already ground beef, buy a chunk and have the people at the store grind it for you, or just have a grinder at home.  It's the only way to figure out what is actually in the meat, because apparently the already ground meat is allowed to be bathed in all sorts of junk like ammonia, and also to have different nasty fillers, and none of it has to be labeled.

Put the meat in a bowl, and add one egg...  mix the entire thing, adding salt and pepper for taste.  I've tasted raw meat like that on my tongue many times to make sure it's salty enough and have never ever gotten sick, I have even made tar-tar a bunch of times and have never gotten sick, but I always made sure that the meat came from a reputable place and again, have never gotten sick, however, I must say it's your own risk.

Do you have one of those little food choppers?  It's perfect for what you're about to do next.  Take some mushrooms (however many you'd like... I end up using 2-3 packs) and dice them up into little pieces.

Throw the mushrooms into the meat and blend everything together with your hand.

Also, wash your peppers and carve off the tops and remove the seeds.  Save the caps you carved off, because you will use them to close the peppers.

By now, your rice should be cool enough to handle, so throw it into the mix and carefully, so that you don't mush up the rice, blend all that together with your hand.

Your stuffing is done.

All that's left to do is to stuff the peppers and use the caps to close the goodies inside.

At the bottom of the pot, or an oven safe casserole dish, you'll use for baking the peppers, put a spoonful of coconut oil or drizzle some olive oil, and add like 4 tablespoonfuls of water.  That's just so the bottom does not burn.

Arrange the peppers so that the tops are facing the top instead of the bottom, and cover the pot with a lid.

You'll bake the peppers in the oven at about 400 degrees for about an hour.  The cooking time will vary, depending on your dish and your oven.  So about 1/2 hr later, check if the peppers are soggy looking with the skin falling off.... that's when they're ready.

Enjoy!

Wild mushroom, string bean, and veggie soup

Most people in the US are not familiar with how delicious wild mushrooms can be, but since I was raised in Europe, I can verify; it's true.

If you are lucky enough to have a Polish or Russian store in your neighborhood, drop by there and buy a package of dried wild mushrooms.  When you get home, take them out and rinse them well, then warm up some filtered water.  The mushrooms need to be rehydrated, so they'll sit in that water for about an hour while you take care of other stuff around the house or put your feet up and read a good book.  Trust me, it's worth the wait.  Otherwise, just get some regular portobello or other mushrooms; no wait time, but also no extravagant flavor.

When the mushrooms are done soaking, cut them into strips and turn on the stove.  You'll cook them for a while in the water they were soaking in, so don't throw it away... when they're nice and cooked through, you'll use the liquid for the base for your soup.  If you're into meat, throw some chicken into the soup, but if you're not, a good option is to take a spoonful of raw, unrefined, coconut oil and put it right in; tastes great and no worries, you won't have any weird coconut taste to deal with.

The less ingredients in this one, the better, so get like 3 organic carrots, a handful of string beans (snip off the tops, and cut them up into little inch or two pieces, if you don't have string beans, no worries, just skip them all together) and grab a handful of italian parsley (just throw it in; you'll remove it and throw it out when the soup is done cooking).  Allow all these things to cook until all the ingredients are soft and cooked through.

As soon as the soup is cooked, add some salt and pepper to taste, and start sautéing your onions.  I wrote a quick blog entry on how to do that pretty quickly and without issues.

As soon as your onions are caramelized, get out your garbanzo flour and dump about three or four spoonfuls in with the onions and start mixing everything together so that the flour is soaked through with the oil and onions.  Keep moving things around so nothing burns, and at the same time, take some of that hot water from the pot and start slowly mixing it in with the flour and keep breaking it up, until you end up with something that looks quite mushy.  As soon as that happens, throw the mush into the soup mix and mix it until it all dissipates into the soup.

It's best to buy organic garbanzo flour from the refrigerated section of a store like Natural Grocers.  The reason?  If it sits on the shelf, it's likely filled with some junk so that it can sit on the shelf.  When you buy from the refrigerated section, and check the label, it should be organic, and nothing else should be in there.  When you get home, you can keep it in the fridge or freezer; that way it's always fresh.

Cook for another 10 minutes or so and you're done.

Keep tasting and see if it needs a bit more salt or pepper.

That's it.

Bone Appetite! 

Raw, organic, chocolate, nut, and oatmeal balls

As most of you know, I am the biggest chocoholic on planet earth, while Laimis is the biggest oatmeal cookieholic, so... I have decided to combine the two... and in a healthy way.

This recipe is as easy as it gets and takes no time what so ever.

I purchased some organic rolled oats, raw almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds and hazelnuts and dried powdered dates instead of sugar.
Also, a bar of really good dark chocolate with orange peel and a carton of something similar to soy-milk (which is really bad for you because it messes with your hormones), so instead a hazelnut drink.

I put the nuts and oats into the blender and blended all of them a bit until everything was pretty constant, but not too blended, because you don't want to end up with flour. You can decide how much you'd like to end up with... all together I used about a cup of ingredients.

A bit of neat info about nuts... raw is always better then roasted, and organic is always better then the pesticide filled conventional nuts; almost everyone knows this, but, did you know that if you spend the extra cash on raw nuts, like almonds, you should really make sure that they are in fact raw?  That's right, from a whole, living food perspective, these are mislabeled for sure; the enzymes, which is what we really need, are absolutely destroyed during the processing.  Unfortunately, the government says that it's okay to do this.  If you'd like to see difference for yourself, just click here.

With all the dry ingredients blended together, I started on what will keep it all together; the chocolate mass. I have a tiny little pot for things like this.... it really comes in handy.

I put a little bit of liquid into the pot and started heating it up on low. Into that I broke apart almost half of the chocolate, leaving a row for tempering.
So basically, what ever amount of chocolate square you use, should be covered with the liquid, and in this case, the hazelnut drink. Keep stirring until all the chocolate is melted, and then take it off the heat and stir in another square, if it melts, add another one, and then another one... about the third one won't melt all the way, take it out and put it in your mouth:)

Now, take the warm mixture and add it to your dry mix slowly, a bit at a time, until you end up with something which is easily rolled into a ball, without falling apart.

Which brings us to the next step. Roll a bunch of balls from the mixture you just put together. You're done.

If you want, you can roll the balls in chocolate, or cacao, or coconut flakes... what ever rocks your boat. I just put a hazelnut on top of each one and sprinkled a bit of the dried dates on top.

I found this online, they're truffles, but of course you can
dress these up the same way.

The best thing about these is that as I said, A. They're really healthy., but B. They fill you up really quickly, so instead of eating an entire chocolate, you'll pretty much be done after two or three of these.

Bon Appetite!

How to sauté the perfect onions

When I first started cooking, I had the hardest time getting this right, but now that I have this all figured out, perhaps I can spare you a little bit of headache.
First, your heat setting should be on the lower end; all stoves are not made equal, so you'll just have to figure out what works for you.  I have a gas stove and do all of my cooking on like a finger away from low.  For onions, it's even lower.

First, I would love to say get a great nonstick pan, it's wroth the money, and in theory this is true, but in reality, non-stick pans are REALLY, REALLY bad for your health.  Click here to learn more.  I honestly don't understand why the government is allowing this practice of basically slowly poisoning our bodies.  The use of such harsh chemicals should be outlawed; the faster, the better.
I have purchased what I have found to be the safest cookware from here.  Don't get carried away on that site, after all, all the guy wants to do is push a bunch of products you probably don't need, but there are a few interesting things you can find on there.  Anyway... back to the onions.

Start by chopping them with a sharp knife, meanwhile your skillet should be warming up.

When you're ready, throw the onions into the skillet and pour a little bit of olive oil on top, then mix everything so that the onions become coated with the oil.  Another great option is coconut oil.  What you don't want to use are vegetable oils.

A bit about onions; most of the good stuff is right under the paper thin skin, so don't peel the next thing down or you'll loose a lot of what makes onions good for you.

Cover the onions and wait about two-three minutes, until they start getting hot.  You can then start playing around with them constantly making sure that they don't burn, or here's the trick... have some hot water handy and pour a little bit in the middle of your onions, not stirring the water in; cover the onions promptly and wait another two, three minutes.  The steam will soften your onions pretty quickly, and then it will slowly evaporate, which is what you want... now you're back to just the onions and the oil, but the onions are soft.

Take off the lid and keep moving things around so that the onions caramelize, but don't burn.

If you feel that you need to repeat, go ahead.  If you feel that the onions are just soft enough, add some salt to taste and move things around for a bit longer so that all the flavors mesh together.

(Like I said, you'll need to figure out how your stove works, but you should be able to figure that out pretty quickly.)

That's it.  Perfect sautéd onions every time.

By the way... you can slice the onions into rings as well, or however you'd like to have them look.

How to make the best steak ever... on top of the stove

If you're one of those people who think that a great steak can only be a achieved on a grill, this one may surprise you.

It happens pretty quickly, so here we go.

First, take out the steak out of the fridge and have it sitting outside until it's no longer cold.

Preferably from your garden, get a few twigs of basil, rosemary, and garlic cloves.

Crush the cloves, with the skin on and all, under a knife.

Also, have a spoonful of butter sitting around.  Here's a good way to make your own healthy butter.

And don't forget the salt and pepper.

Heat up the skillet to pretty hot but steady; we don't want to burn this, but we do want quite a bit of heat so that it sizzles.

Quickly pour some olive oil onto the skillet and place the stake onto the skillet.  It should sizzle.

After a minute, flip it, and keep flipping every minute, that way it cooks quite evenly.  I like mine medium raw, so I take it off the heat only after about 4 flips or so.

While you're doing all this flipping, throw in the spices mentioned above, but do not salt it until the very end.

When it's about to be done the way you like it, put the butter into the mix.   This is what's going to make this sooo good.

When you remove the steak from the skillet, let it sit there for a minute or two before you stick a fork into it.  You never want to stick forks into meat on a skillet because all the juices you just seared in will find a way to escape the meat.

Now you can add a salad or what ever else you'd like to add to this dish.

Here's a lamb version, which I sprinkled with the best spice on planet earth, Thai Curry, which you can find in the seafood department of Whole Foods, to which I added onions.

Try it... Yummm...