Heirloom Tomato Basil Quinoa Salad

I love summertime's bounty of fresh produce! I created this recipe while visiting family in the Midwest, where you can actually find a variety of tomatoes this time of year. In the Pacific Northwest the tomatoes are not in abundance until August. Heirloom tomatoes have not been hybridized over the years and have a sweeter taste, but are also generally less resistant to disease, which is why they are not produced on a large scale. Look for them at your local food co-op or Farmer's Market in the summertime.

This salad pairs fresh tomatoes and basil along with cooked quinoa and finely diced sweet onion. Serve it as a light, nutritious lunch or share it at your next potluck picnic. For those of you not familiar with quinoa, it is a nutrient-dense grain packed with all essential amino acids, is gluten-free, and cooks up quite like couscous. It is best if the quinoa cools completely before you make this salad.

Since my children do not like fresh tomatoes, I cook up 3 cups of quinoa and remove a third of it to make a special salad just for them. In place of the tomatoes I use chopped cucumbers and they love it! Everything else stays the same.

Packing Healthy Food for Air Travel

Trying to pack up and get out the door on time to catch an airplane can be difficult as it is, but add in packing all of your own food for the day, and you have what sounds like a bit of work. I've been packing my own food for airplane trips since I was twenty years old and I can tell you, that with a little planning, it can be very simple. There are some restrictions of what is allowed through security and what is not. I hope this post will inspire you to ditch the airplane/airport food in favor of healthier options brought from home.

This past winter I took all five children on a trip to visit my family in the midwest. And I did it again this past June, though Tom met us out there part way through our trip and flew back home with us....how nice it was to have another adult helping out! On our trip in February I had everything planned, organized, and packed the day before we left, including most of our food. Getting out the door went very smoothly. On our last trip, coming back home from my parents' house, I had nothing planned which caused quite a bit of chaos right before we left for the airport!

Strawberry Salad with Candied Pumpkin Seeds

We just got back from visiting family in the midwest. This recipe is one my mom likes to make often, though I have put my own twist to it. She asked me to make it one evening for dinner, but we were out of sliced almonds, which she toasts on the stove with a little bit of honey and sprinkles over the salad. I found raw pumpkin seeds in her freezer and devised my own version of candied seeds. I made this salad again and again during our trip and everyone enjoyed it!

Since we've been back home, our children have been picking all of the juicy, ripe strawberries growing in a special 3-tiered strawberry bed we built a few years ago for our backyard. I am not sure there will ever be enough for a salad! If you don't have strawberries available, try fresh blueberries, blackberries, or raspberries instead.

Watermelon Whole Fruit Popsicles

Cool down this summer with homemade fruit popsicles! You'll save money and reduce wasteful packaging by making your own. Plus, by adding in pieces of whole fruit, these healthy treats become quite beautiful and irresistible!

I've made homemade popsicles so many ways! You can puree whole fruit and pour it into molds, use any type of freshly pressed juice, or use mixtures of coconut milk or yogurt and fresh fruit purees swirled together. The other week when we had a whole counter full of freshly picked organic strawberries, I made strawberry fruit pops by chopping up a bunch of fresh strawberries, placing them into the molds and then filling them up the rest of the way with fermented apple juice. Does anyone else ferment their apple juice or is it just me? We accidentally did it a couple of years ago by leaving the jug on the counter for a few days because there was no room in the fridge. It is so bubbly and delicious, with far less sugar! Now if I buy a glass jug of organic apple juice I always leave it out to ferment, though too long and you begin to get Hard Cider!

This recipe is acceptable to enjoy during Phase 2 and 3 of our Elimination Diet! Yes you can have healthy treats such as these lovely popsicles while on a restrictive diet!

Raw Berry Tart with a Coconut Pastry Cream (vegan, gluten-free)

I have something for you, just in time for 4th of July celebrations.....and no cooking required! I used to think that making tarts was a complicated process, but it is really quite simple. You will need a 9 or 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, which can be found on amazon.com or your local kitchen store. For this recipe I use my standard nut-date crust which is pressed into the pan. Then the filling is added and topped with whatever berries or fresh fruit you have on hand. Raw tarts come together so quickly!

For the pastry cream, I use coconut butter, which is made from both the oil and the meat. We like the brand Artisana, but you can use others. Sometimes it is labeled with different names such as coconut mana or coconut cream concentrate, but it is all the same thing.

Our New Cookbook: Nourishing Meals

Hello dear readers! We are excited to finally announce the details of our new cookbook, Nourishing Meals: Healthy Gluten-Free Recipes for the Whole Family. It has been years in the making and we much appreciate all of your emails, comments, and suggestions as it helped shape the book. The book is due out at the end of August, 2012. You can now pre-order it from our website and get a FREE e-book containing 16 of our favorite recipes from the book (more details at the bottom of this post).

Right now we are facing an epidemic of childhood diseases and disorders such as obesity, autism, ADHD, allergies, and diabetes. Many of us are searching for ways to help our children not only survive, but thrive in this world. We dug into the research and found many connections between environmental exposures, dietary habits, and the prevalence of these conditions. In Nourishing Meals you will find an overview of this information presented in an easy-to-read format.

The purpose of this book is to help you transition into a gluten-free lifestyle and also provide the tools you need to make informed dietary choices.

Nourishing Meals contains over 300 new whole foods recipes, as well as detailed information about health particularly relating to nutrition for conception, pregnancy, and childhood. You'll learn about the nutrients needed and how to best obtain them, as well as factors that can affect health during these critical stages, such as environmental exposure to chemicals. We also covered many of the causes of food allergies and sensitivities, and what you can do to help prevent them. And because raising a healthy child also involves making sure they actually eat nourishing food, we provided detailed information on raising healthy eaters from pregnancy onwards (yes, healthy eating habits actually begin in the womb!).

Before each recipe chapter you'll find information pertaining to that chapter and "10 Tips." For example, in the Salads and Vegetables chapter you'll find information on the vital phytochemicals in plants as well as ways to get your children to eat more vegetables. There are then 10 Tips for adding more vegetables to your child's diet. In the Dessert chapter we discussed alternatives to refined sugar and offered 10 Tips for using natural sweeteners. We hope that this will make the book more practical for you.

The book consists of vegan, vegetarian, meat-based, grain-based, grain-free, nut-free, nut-based recipes...pretty much the whole spectrum of eating....because there is no one way nor one perfect diet for everyone. Additionally, speckled throughout the recipes, you will find detailed nutrition tips to help you understand exactly why certain foods are beneficial for health!

Here are some of the Recipes:

Apple Cider Baked Beans, Spicy Lentils and Rice in Cabbage Leaves, Raw Burritos with a Spicy Mole Sauce, Grain-Free Chicken Nuggets, Apricot Glazed Chicken, Tandoori Salmon, Sloppy Joes, Grain-Free Zucchini Lasagna with Pine Nut Ricotta, Sweet Potato Falafels, Quinoa Tabouli, Coconut Brown Rice, Spicy Coconut Quinoa Amaranth Casserole, Dairy-Free Fettuccini Alfredo, Chicken and Chard Chili, Hot and Sour Soup, Moroccan Lentil and Cabbage Soup, Cream of Broccoli Soup, Raw Breakfast Tacos, Baby Green Smoothie, Blueberry Cherry Smoothie, Kale and Egg Scramble, Winter Vegetable Hash, Coconut Banana Breakfast Cake, Overnight Quinoa Hot Cakes, Sourdough Buckwheat Crepes, Homemade Gluten-Free Tortillas, Grain-Free Coconut Flour Biscuits, Yeast-Free Seed Bread, Sourdough Teff Bread, Everyday Sandwich Bread, Burger Buns, Kale Apple Walnut Salad, Picnic Coleslaw, Pecan Crusted Chicken and Apple Salad, Smoked Salmon Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing, Kale Chips, Creamed Kale, Rutabaga Fries, Roasted Cauliflower, Berry Parfaits with Orange Cashew Cream, Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, Vegan Maple Pecan Pie, Grain-Free Vegan Chocolate Sunbutter Cookies, Grain-Free Carrot Spice Cupcakes with Coconut Buttercream Frosting, Oat-Free Fruit Crisps, Frozen Banana Coconut Cream Pie, Homemade Coconut Kefir, Cashew Sour Cream, Lacto-Fermented Dilly Radishes, Vanilla Plum Butter, Kale-Herb Seaweed Sprinkle....and so much more!

Here is the Chapter Outline:

Preface
Introduction
Part 1: Foundations of Health
   1. Why Whole Foods?
   2. Why Gluten-Free?
   3. Why the Rise in Food Allergies and Sensitivities?
Part 2: Raising Healthy Children
   4. 7 Ways to Help your Child THRIVE!
   5. Nourishing your Growing Child
   6. Packing a Healthy School Lunch
Part 3: The Recipes
   7. Getting Started
   8. Smoothies
   9. Breakfast
 10. Breads and Muffins
 11. Soups and Stews
 12. Salads and Vegetables
 13. Whole Grains and Noodles
 14. Main Meals
 15. Dressings, Dips, and Sauces
 16. Wraps and Rolls
 17. Snacks and Treats
 18. Desserts
 19. Beverages
 20. Preserving the Harvest
Part 4: Appendix
 21. Resources and Recommendations
 22. References
Index

We bet by now you are really wishing you had a copy in your hands! You can pre-order the book from our website and when you do we are offering a FREE e-book containing 16 of our favorite recipes, with full color photos of each recipe, so you don't have to wait until August to get a taste of what Nourishing Meals offers (okay, they are all our favorites, but we think you'll like these!). If you don't care for the e-book, you can also pre-order the book from amazon.com.

Here are the recipes you'll get in the e-book:
 1. Blueberry Cherry (Chia) Smoothie (vegan)
 2. Basil Zucchini Frittata
 3. Gluten-Free "Wheat Bread" (vegan)
 4. Yeast-Free, Gluten-free Pita Bread (vegan)
 5. Apple Almond Muffins (vegan)
 6. Creamy Tomato Asparagus Soup (dairy-free)
 7. Spicy Greens Salad with Blueberry Vinaigrette (vegan)
 8. Cucumber Arame Salad (vegan)
 9. Picnic Coleslaw (vegan)
10. Dilled Quinoa and Pea Salad (vegan)
11. Apple Cider Baked Beans (vegan)
12. Grain-Free Chicken Nuggets (egg-free and dairy-free)
13. Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (vegan)
14. Ginger Macadamia Nut Energy Bars (vegan)
15. Apricot Almond Snack Cake (grain-free, dairy-free, no sweeteners)
16. Chili-Garlic Fermented Green Beans (dairy-free - no whey needed)

It is our hope that this book will support your family in health for years to come! Happy Cooking and Healthy Eating! ~Ali & Tom


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