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April 7, 2011

Fruit smoothie…er…soup

Filed under: Healing Lifestyles Blog — Tags: , , , — Healing Lifestyles & Spas Team @ 8:00 am

Fruit soup, courtesy of the Oaks at Ojai

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups mashed fresh fruits

Recommended:  strawberries, peaches, melons, mango, papaya, blueberries in any combination—preferably fruit in season (mix and match!)

1 ½ cups low fat buttermilk

Combine in a blender and process to liquefy.

This recipe is super easy and super healthy. It’s technically called a fruit soup, but it’s similar to a fruit smoothie we make every morning anyway. And let me tell you, it’s a perfect start to your day!

If you use seasonal ripe fruit, no sweetener should be needed.  We added some banana, the cornerstone of every great smoothie. I think we can afford the extra calories with this one! (there’s less than 50 in it)

Another suggestion for fresh fruit:  use fresh or frozen mango, pineapple and banana and process in your food processor until creamy—delicious with a squeeze of lemon or lime combined with it. That way, no ice is necessary for blender traction.

We added some frozen strawberries, fresh blueberries and fresh raspberries. Then I added plain greek yogurt (I normally use vanilla for a sweeter smoothie) and 2% milk.  Blend and serve…super easy.

Smoothie Time!

Other suggestions that I have for this are to substitute real juice for the milk (I stick with 100% Juicy Juice) or add natural peanut butter for some extra protein and a more filling consistency.  Also, any fruit combo will do for this but my favorites are strawberry banana peach, banana blueberry, strawberry banana pineapple, and the usual mixed berries.

The smoothie was, of course, delicious. Nice and creamy, filling and energizing.

We just wish we would have had some mint to garnish it with!

April 6, 2011

Sweet, sweet salad

Filed under: Healing Lifestyles Blog — Tags: , , , , — Healing Lifestyles & Spas Team @ 11:34 am

Salad with Figs Blueberries, Cranberries, Walnuts with Maytag Blue Cheese & Raspberry and Orange Vinaigrette

By Chef Bill Wavrin

Serves 6

Ingredients:

12 cups spring mix

24 fresh figs, quartered

1 tbs. walnut oil

2 onions, julienned

1 cup blueberries washed

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1 cup walnut halves

Raspberry and Orange Vinaigrette, recipe to follow

salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

4 tbs. blue cheese crumbled


For the vinaigrette:

Ingredients:

1 clove roasted garlic

1 roasted shallot

1 ounce Grand Mariner

2 tbs. orange rind

¼ cup citrus infused rice wine vinegar

¼ cup raspberries

¼ cup olive oil

½ tsp. truffle oil

Normally my salads are some sort of variation of the same ingredients: lettuce, tomato, cucumber, some sort of bean, maybe some grilled chicken and whatever dressing I have in the fridge. We’re not usually fruit-in-salad kind of people, but we were delightfully surprised at this recipe, which was not only super easy, but a nice and sweet change up from our normal salad routine!

First, get your lettuce in a large bowl and start adding your ingredients.   I added fresh blueberries, sliced figs, blue cheese crumbles, shelled walnuts, craisins, a few onions, fresh black pepper, and some baby spinach because we both love spinach in any salad.  Add all of these to suit your taste. There is no exact science when creating a salad, and that’s why we love making them.

Figs

Next step is to create your dressing.  This proved a more difficult task since we didnt have the exact ingredients.  First, we sauteed some onions and garlic until they were both nice and aromatic.  Next, I added a 1/4 cup of rice wine vineger, a shot of OJ, a shot of white wine vineger, a heaping 1/4 cup of fresh raspberries, the orange zest, extra virgin olive oil, and my cooked onion and garlic.  You will notice that the Grand Marnier is missing, so when blended together, it was way too tart and too much vinegar.  So we added a little sugar, a bit more oil, and a few more berries to get the mixture just right, which did the trick.  It should be a little sweet and very tangy, and a bright pink color!

Berries about to blend

The salad was so refreshing with the sweet dressing. What I loved about it was that it pulled in the flavors from the berries and figs, and was so fun to look at!

The finished product