A couple days ago we said “Goodbye!” to the autumn with Thanksgiving celebrations and pumpkin pies. We can still enjoy this most generous gift of Mother Nature. As we all know, pumpkin has become famous in the form of the pumpkin pie, but there is so much more we can do with this squash that is harvested in the coolness of the fall. 

Fresh from the field, plump and friendly pumpkins can find smart use in our kitchens till New Year’s Day. Please don’t say that you can have your pumpkin pie in May, August or February. It’ll be a pie made with Libby’s canned pumpkins. You cannot compare it in taste with a pie baked with fresh pumpkins.

So many delicious meals can be created with fresh squashes. In summer time zucchini are my favorites. They are the most versatile and most loved of all squashes. These vegetables are easy to cook. They are tender, have delicate flavor, and are available all year through in stores. The winter squashes, such as acorn squash, kahocha, and onion squash are available only in season.  

So, if you love zucchini the most, buy only locally grown that are sold by farmers from mid to late summer. In summer you can make zuchini pancakes with fresh dill, stuffed zucchini with walnuts, feta cheese and basil, and zucchini with walnuts, fresh parsley and cheese gratin–all from fresh vegetables according to the season. Now don’t miss an opportunity to cook with fresh pumpkins and other winter squashes.

The winter is upon us, and nutritious pumpkins and other winter squashes are the vegetables of a day.  Pumpkins are  the most popular of the winter squashes. These pleasing vegetables are bright in color, huge in size, smooth in skin and sweet in taste. As sources say, pumpkins are originated in America and found thousands of devoted homes and creative cooks there. However, other nations also adapted pumpkins from a culinary point of view, and came up with different deliciouis and healthy meals.

I grew up in a family in southeastern Europe that passed from generation to generation basic principles of eating the healthy way. Fresh vegetables were very important part in our menu, including cucurbita, tikva (pumpkins). My grandmother created lots of fabulous appetizers, soups, side dishes and desserts with fresh pumpkins growing in our garden.  

All these meals looked so colorful, thanks to the pumpkin’s bright and happy orange  color, which gave me a feeling of a special food holiday every time I came to the dinner table and there was a dish with this vegetable. What is better than the simple pleasure to make and enjoy home-cooked, natural  foods with the whole family around the large table? This approach is the most beneficial to our health, and cannot be compared with going out and eating any restaurant food. 

We may have excuses that we don’t have Grandmas cooking for us, that we live stressful lives  and struggle day by day trying to meet all our commitments. We can complain that we don’t have a chance to slow down and don’t have time to give our bodies enough of physical activity. Instead, we ’save” ourselves with  fast food and expansive medical medicines. Don’t you realize that all drugs have side-effects, and all foods we take out are highly processed and stripped out of natural ingredients? Is it really a better, happier and healthier lifestyle we dream about?

Read our next post, Soup Is Undisputable Champion of Comfort Foods, Part 3

References: Text by Svetlana Konnikova, Photo “Pumpkins” by Petr Kratochvil Copyright 2009.

Both nourishing foods have a long shelf life, if properly stored; are safe, especially when compared to the risk you take with prescription drugs provoking serious side effects. Considering these facts, organic apple cider vinegar and organic honey are your buddies, and can help to resolve seemingly unrelated health problems.  So, if you want to stay healthy, start with cleaning up your body from toxins transfered from the  foods you consumed during a previous day.

When you wake up in the morning,

• warm up a glass of spring water,
• add one teaspoon organic  apple cider vinegar,
• add one teaspoon organic honey,
• mix all three ingredients and drink it,
• do it every day before breakfast.

Watch this video. It will help you to start on a right path.

“Honey, garlic and vinegar are very special “prescriptions” from Nature’s pharmacy to get you on the road to optimal health,” said Patrick Quillin, PhD, RD, CNS in his bestselling book, Amazing Honey, Garlic & Vinegar Home Remedies and Recipes, The People’s Guide to Nature’s Wonder Medicines, “Using these foods in the context of a complete healthy lifestyle will provide you with more energy, more mental alertness, more living out of your years, and more years out of your living.”

“Each patient carries his own doctor inside him. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within a chance to go to work.”– Albert Schweitzer, MD, medical missionary, 1940

Source: Honey, Garlic & Vinegar Home Remedies and Recipes, The people’s Guide to Wonder Medicines by Dr. Patrick Guillin, The Leader Co., Inc, 1996, p. 7; http://www.youtube.com

• It can be a centerpiece of the most sophisticated holiday lunch or dinner
• It can be served as a first course
• It can accompany a principal dish
• It can be a main course
• It can make a colorful point to any meal

Here are my family recipes of fresh, appetizing summer salads with health-giving qualities. Each is nutritious,  quick and easy to prepare. These original dishes with Eastern European flair can suit the busy women, Moms, cooks who like to save time, and with a little effort create natural meals for all tastes and occasions.

Summer Rainbow Salad

1 red onion, chopped; Capcicums: 1 large red bell pepper, chopped; 1 large orange bell pepper, chopped; 1 large yellow bell pepper, chopped; 2-3 medium size tomatoes, chopped; 2-3 cucumbers, skinned and cut thin,; 1 tablespoon Italian parsley; 1 tablespoon dill; 2 tablespoons cold pressed olive oil, 1 lemon, squeezed, sea salt.

Put all prepared vegetables and herbs in a big glass bowl. Your salad looks colorful and joyful. Serve: 4-6 people. Preparation time: 15 minutes. 

 Add a pinch of sea salt and pour your homemade olive-lemon dressing on a top.  You can use this natural dressing for almost all salads you make.   

Brassica Salad

Cabbage is the main ingredient in this salad. In our family we gave it a fancy name, Brassica because it comes from the Latin name Brassica oleracea for cabbage.  This nutritious vegetable was cultivated in the West since at least 400 B.C. Since Dioscorides’ time cabbage was used in salads, as a digestive remedy, a joint tonic, and for fevers and skin problems. Over-indulgent Romans used to eat raw cabbage to prevent drunkenness.

1 lb (500 g) cabbage, chopped; 1 lb (500 g) carrots, peeled; 1 big green Granny Smith apple, chopped; a bunch of fresh green onions, cut small, Italian parsley and dill, sea salt.

Coarsely grate carrots into a bowl, add cabbage, green apple, green onions, parsley and dill. Pour olive-lemon dressing over vegetable and  mix well. Your tasteful, natural medicinal salad is ready to serve 4-6 people. Preparation time: 15 minutes.

Have a healthy, happy, safe and joyful Independence Day Weekend!

CHEERS!

Source: Photos of Summer Rainbow Salad and Brassica Salad, and recipes by Svetlana Konnikova. Copyright 2009.

by Svetlana Konnikova

Avocado is a vegetable fruit or a New World fruit native to Mexico. It has been known as butter pear because of its consistency, but in Spain it got the name–alligator pear, maybe because of its knobbly skin reminding an alligator’s leathery skin. Even it was discovered by Old World explorers long ago, it did not become a popular food in Europe until 1950s. But farmers in California started to grow avocados in the middle of the nineteeth century. The climate there is beneficial to do that, but the main reason to grow these unusual superfoods was in its rather remarkable properties.

The avocado is nutritious fruit, high in protein and carbohydrate, rich in potassium, Vitamin C, B, and E. It is one of the few fruits containing fat in form of oils, particularly vitamin E. It means that the avocado is not only useful as food, but it is good for our hair and skin. These facts were well known to the Aztecs and Incas a thousand years ago.

Avocado is a great product for babies because of its valuable vitamin and protein content. Kids love it, if it’s prepared right. Here are my recipes:

Baby’s Green Butter Pear (Avocado) Puree

• Prepare one perfect avocado. It should be ripe with clean, unblemished skin and without any brown or black patches. Peel the skin. Cut on two halves. Remove the stone. Sprinkle with lemon juice to prevent flesh to discolor once exposed to the air. Then blend green part in a blender. It makes very tender puree that small children love for its creamy texture and pleasant flavor. You can add 1/4 of a teaspoon honey to add aroma of wild flowers to it.

I improved Classic Guacamole taste. It is easy and fast, and you have absolutely fabulous, healthy meal for your family or guests.

                                       Green-Red Guacamole

• Put one pack of Mexican Classic Wholly Guacamole in a glass bowl. Add red onion cut small, and one can of Organic Diced Tomatoes and chopped Italian Parsley. Mix all ingredients well. In 10 minutes you have absolutely delicious and juicy appetizer or snack. Avocado can get darker and loose its bright green color. Squeeze 1/2-1 lemon. It will not discolor (into brown) and stay green until you’ll eat it all. Serve for 4-5 people. The rest keep in fridge.

Gourmet Avocado-Cheese Sandwiches

Eat this delicious guacamole with blue corn chips or with gourmet European cheese. If you don’t want to eat chips or bread, substitute them  with thin sliced good quality cheese like you see on my photo. No worry that cheese has some saturated fat, you balance it with avocados that are loaded with unsaturated fats. It’ll make very special gourmet sandwiches that everybody will eat with great pleasure.   

• Mama’s Homemade Guacamole:

3 ripe Haas avocados and juice of one lemon, 

1/2 red onion cut small  and a bunch of Italian parsley and dill chopped

Slice avocados around lenghtwise. Open and remove a hard seed and scoop out green avocado “flesh’ into a large bowl. Then mash it. Add lemon juice fast to prevent ozidizing. Add red onion, parsley, dill, and a pinch of organic sea salt. Mix well together until mixture is smooth and creamy.

Gourmet Three Colors Avocado-Bell Peppers Sandwiches

Wash and cut red, green, yellow or orange bell peppers on 4 slices. Clean from seeds. Then put your Mama’s homemade guacamole  on the internal side of each slice and you have four colors delicious sandwiches. It can make very fancy and colorful plate for your holiday parties, too.

Source: California Avocado Commission; http://www.avocado.org

Photos: Green Avocados (public domain); Bowl with Fresh Guacamole and Gourmet Cheese by Svetlana Konnikova; Three Colors by Petr Kratochvil

For many centuries humans have developed a close contact with the world of plants, but even so we have strayed far from Mother Nature. Increasingly, as time goes by, we lose this valuable connection with the perfect world of trees and herbs. More and more our precious rain forests with their abundance of healing plants are being destroyed by the bulldozer’s bite. Each day we inhale the toxic fumes of gasoline and other chemicals and the living aromas of natural plants disappear from our homes in exchange for the so-called beauty of silk flowers.                                                        

Less and less we breathe in the marvelous natural scents of trees, earth, and snow that bring us health and energy. When I was a little girl, we always had plants, such as eucalyptus, or a branch of a coniferous tree in our home. Near our house grew a proud pine which we knew always gave us energy and oxygen. In our garden Grandma cultivated mint and lavender; the modest, but fragrant chamonile; oregano; and King’s clover or thyme. She sewed by hand small pretty cotton sachets, which she stuffed with fresh herbs and hung in our closets and on nails throughout our house. They emitted an intense aroma that made us feel as if we had come to change our clothes in a fragrant garden.

Now we have a great solution to get close to nature: Stream Garden.  Read my next post about it. You’ll learn how to start a real, green garden in your home or in your office. You can plant there so many herbs, berries, fruits and vegetables and save lots of money on expensive organics, start eating healthier, and go green with your environment.  Look at these pictures of the garden. Don’t you want to have the same or even better?!   

 Source: Mama’s Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Living by Svetlana Konnikova, page 211. Aurora Publishers

Photos: Tiny Daffodills by Petr Kratochvil; Promenade in the Forest by Peter Griffin