Baby Romaine and Arugula with Tomatoes, Blueberries and Mango

Did you know that…

• Baby romaine lettuce comes in absolutely gorgeous deep red and green leaves?
• Arugula is a cruciferous vegetable and therefore has the same anti-cancer properties as broccoli and cabbage?

This salad of Baby Romaine and Arugula with Tomatoes, Blueberries and Mango is stunningly pretty, absolutely delicious, and wonderfully HEALTHY — a great way to enjoy summer’s bounty.

BABY ROMAINE and ARUGULA with Tomatoes, Blueberries and Mango

For each serving of salad

1. Fill a dinner plate with a couple handfuls of Olivia’s Organics Baby Romaine (absolutely gorgeous green and red leaves) and one handful of Olivia’s Organics Baby Arugula.
2. Scatter 1/2 cup of each of the following over the salad greens on the plate:

• bite-size chunks of tomato
• bite-size chunks of peeled mango (I used a champagne mango.)
• fresh blueberries

3. Scatter 1 tablespoon of chopped walnuts over the salad greens.

4. Scatter 2 teaspoons of fresh thyme leaves over the salad greens. (See tips about fresh thyme leaves below.)

5. If desired, sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of Fresh Lime Salad Dressing (see recipe below) over each serving.

Ingredients – Fresh Lime Salad Dressing

To make 1 serving (about 2 tablespoons):

2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1/8 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/8 teaspoon agave nectar
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

To make 4 servings (about 2 tablespoons per serving):

2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon agave nectar
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions – Fresh Lime Salad Dressing

Place the salad dressing ingredients into a little bowl and mix with a fork or a little whisk until fully mixed.

TIPs: Fresh thyme leaves

1. If the thyme  is very tender and you are using the tips of the plant, then you really do not need to take the leaves off the stems. Just use a pair of kitchen scissors and cut the stems and the leaves into small pieces.
2. If the thyme is not that tender, then you will want to take the leaves off the woody stems. Here’s a nice trick for doing that easily!

• Wash the fresh thyme and spin dry it.
• Place the spun-dry thyme into a quart-size plastic bag for the freezer and freeze.
• When the thyme has frozen, remove the bag with the thyme from the freezer, and without opening the bag, take hold of the sprigs of thyme and rub them vigorously against each other. Very soon, almost all of the leaves of thyme will fall off the stems and end up in the bottom of the freezer bag!
• Now when you need a teaspoon of fresh thyme, just spoon it out of the freezer bag!
• Note: To be kind to the environment, re-use the plastic bag — without washing it. When you’ve used up all the thyme leaves and only the stems remain in the bag, keep the stems for your next pot of soup. Also keep the empty plastic bag, as is, in the freezer until you have some more fresh thyme to put into it.

Enjoy and be healthy!

~Leni

Why agave nectar?

Note: Before you decide to use or not use agave nectar in your diet…you might want to listen to two excellent presentations about fructose (which agave nectar is very high in).  After listening to these presentations, I no longer use agave nectar myself.

+++++++

As Dr. Servan-Schreiber says: “cancer feeds on sugar.” [page 71, Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD, David, Anticancer, A New Way of Life, 2009 edition] In other words, the less sugar, the less food for cancer cells to grow on…and that’s certainly a good thing!

When I want a little sweetness in my food, I usually use a little agave nectar, and here’s why:

• Agave nectar is three times sweeter than white sugar.

• Agave nectar has a lower glycemic index than sugar (white table sugar) or honey, which means that it doesn’t cause as much of a rise in blood sugar as sugar or honey… and that means that there’s less sugar in the blood to feed the cancer cells (that we all have in our bodies).

Agave Nectar and Other Sweeteners – Glycemic Index

Note: A food with a glycemix index of less than 55 is considered to have a LOW glycemic index.

FOOD	GLYCEMIC INDEX
Agave nectar	15-21
Honey (not including acacia honey)	60-80
Acacia honey	30
Coconut sugar (a crystalline sugar)	35
Sucrose (table sugar) – a combination of glucose and fructose	60-80
Glucose (a component of many natural sweeteners)	100

Sources for glycemic index data in table:
• Official Home of the Glycemic Index and GI Database
• page 71, Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD, David, Anticancer, A New Way of Life, 2009 edition

Agave nectar – Is it safe to consume?

Made from the sap of a desert cactus plant (the same cactus plant that’s used to make tequila), agave nectar is perfectly safe to use in small quantities. But like any other caloric sweeteners, agave nectar provides calories without any beneficial nutrients. While there are articles on the web saying that agave nectar is not safe, I feel that there is nothing to worry about. Drs. Servan-Screiber and Andrew Weil are both OK with agave nectar for the general population (but perhaps not for pregnant women).

For more about the safety of agave nectar, see Andrew Weil, MD’s website.

Where to buy agave nectar?

I’ve seen organic agave nectar at Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Costcio. It’s pretty expensive, but since you are going to use it in small quantities, so it’s not that costly.

Monamifood Recipes that use agave nectar….

The Monamifood Blueberry Muffins contain sugar and also a little agave nectar.  When I was developing this recipe, I tried to cut back on the brown sugar, while maintaining the level of sweetness that my family liked, so I added a little agave nectar. Of course, the agave nectar added a little more liquid, so I had to cut back on the skim milk. That’s the kind of juggling you can do as you take your favorite recipes and try to make them better-for-you.

For more information about the glycemic index…

• Official Home of the Glycemic Index and GI Database
• Low Glycemic Index diet (Baptist Health Systems)
• WebMD re Glycemic Index
• For an in-depth explanation of the glycemic index and glycemic load concept and calculations, see David Mendosa’s website.
• For a list of foods and their glycemic index, see another page on Mendosa’s website.

Enjoy and be healthy!

Leni