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Fabulous Salad Dressings

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I love salads! They are a huge part of our weekly menu. Once I’ve prepped for the week, offering up a delightful bowl of goodness is super easy. I love to get creative with toppings too.

Dressings are a super simple way to add loads of nutrition into a meal with fabulous flavors. If I make a commitment I am ALL in! When I decided there would never be another bottle of store-bought dressing in this house I was on a mission to replace some of the hubby’s favorites.

Big Win!

I scored when I found Dr. Fuhrman’s, Eat to Live Cookbook. It opened me to the wonderful world of cooking without copious amounts of oil. These two yummy recipes for dressing are sans oil. Give them a try. Get comfortable with the ingredients and textures they create and then EXPERIMENT!

Before I get to the recipes, here is some valuable news on the importance of fat in your dressings. Yes, I said fat! Here is why. Fat-soluble carotenoids — important antioxidants like lutein, lycopene, and beta-carotene that help protect against a wide range of chronic diseases — contained in your salad aren’t absorbed as well by your body without monounsaturated fat.

The takeaway here is that your body needs at least some fat in order to get the most out of your salad. It serves no purpose to pile on the good veggies and not give your body the fuel it needs to make use of the nutrition they provide. The following recipes fit the bill, perfectly!

Nutritarian Caesar Dressing   (Serves 6)

I can’t claim this to taste like traditional Caesar … but it is so fresh and flavorful. It’s become one of our faves! Great on wraps or raw veggies too.

INGREDIENTS

½ cup raw cashews (Nuts.com has great prices)
6 ounces firm silken tofu
3 large cloves garlic, or to taste
2 medium celery stalks, chopped
½ cup water
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ teaspoon white miso (I like Eden Foods, Certified Organic Shiro Miso)
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 pitted Medjool dates or 4 Deglet Noor dates
1 teaspoon kelp granules (I like Maine Coast Sea Seasonings Kelp Granules)
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (I like Bragg Nutritional Yeast Seasoning)
Freshly ground pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Combine all ingredients in a high-powered blender and process until the mixture is the consistency of conventional Caesar dressing, adding more water or some soy milk if needed to adjust consistency. Taste and adjust seasonings and refrigerate until ready to use.

Makes about 2 ½ cups.

Orange Peanut Dressing   (Serves 4)

This hits the spot when you are going Asian! So tasty. The ginger really shines through if you add a bit more than the recipe calls for. Great on a wrap too…or by the spoonful!

INGREDIENTS

2 oranges, peeled and seeded
¼ cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons natural peanut butter or ¼ cup unsalted peanuts
¼ cup raw cashews or ¼ cup raw cashew butter (Nuts.com has great prices)
1 teaspoon Bragg Liquid Amino or low-sodium soy sauce
¼ inch piece fresh ginger, peeled (I ALWAYS add more ginger!)
Small clove of garlic

DIRECTIONS

Blend all ingredients in a high-powered blender until smooth.

 

Gratitude Journal – The Basics

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Journaling goes a long way to helping you create the life you desire. You can start with something simple like a list of 3-5 things you are thankful for each day. However, do yourself a favor once you are comfortable in this space, push it further.

Don’t just go through the motions. To reap full benefit of the gratitude journal make the conscious decision to become happier and more grateful. This isn’t a chore to scratch off your to-do list each day. It’s a gift you give yourself and it’s FREE!

Go for quality not quantity. If you have just one fabulous thing to be grateful for then write about it with gusto. Give it attention and detail as you write about it. A list of five superficial things isn’t the goal here.

Get personal. Things don’t make you warm and fuzzy. People do. Focus on people who touched you in a special way and express your gratitude in your journal (or in a hand written note to them!).

Work backwards. Instead of amassing a long list of good stuff, take a moment to imagine life without certain blessings in your life.

Celebrate surprises. Did something unexpected happen today? Document it and how it made you feel. The surprising spice of life is sometimes the thing that brings stronger feelings of gratitude to the surface.

When it comes to creating a gratitude practice, do what’s comfortable. Again, remember, it isn’t a chore to scratch off your list. Journaling your feelings of gratitude is a gift you give yourself. If you only feel “it” once a week then so be it, but make it mean something to you. Dig deep and make it quality over quantity.

Other Ideas to Practice Gratitude Daily

• Do you like to take pictures like I do? Then snap a shot of a person, place or thing you’re grateful for. Maybe start an album for just these pictures and every so often create a slideshow with music to relive the moments and memories.

• Surround yourself with positive quotes and images. I have a collection of inspiring (to me) quotes that I have shuffle through my desktop. Good mojo! Want to take it deeper? Associate specific experiences or people in your life to a quote or two.

• Love yourself. No really…I mean get a pen and paper and write a list of the top 20 most fabulous things about YOU. Don’t be shy. We are all fabulous in our own unique way.

• When you are ready to test your gratitude mettle make a list of 5 people in your life who are difficult to get along with. More than 5? Just focus on 5 at a time! For each of those people, write a list of 3-10 qualities for which you’re grateful. This one is powerful. Don’t be afraid to give it a whirl.

Let’s start today! Want to? 🙂

6 Reasons for Dry Brushing Your Skin

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Did you realize that our skin is our largest organ? Think about that for a minute. How well do you protect and give it the loving attention it needs? Our skin takes fabulous care of us! It functions as both protection and a mode of elimination. Dry brushing is a method of daily hygiene that has many benefits – below you find just a few!

Dry Brushing Benefits
  1. Removes dried, dead cells that block the pores. Daily brushing allows the skin to breathe easier and increases its ability to eliminate the waste products of your metabolism.
  2. Increases circulation of the blood and lymph vessels that lie close to the surface of the skin. The blood, fluid, and its contents are returned to the heart for redistribution or elimination.
  3. Increases the nutrients to the skin. By clearing out stagnant materials, there is an increased oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange, and other nutrients, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, etc… are brought to the area.
  4. Removes waste products of cellular metabolism through blood vessels.
  5. Decreases the workload on the rest of the body.
  6. Warms the skin.

Convinced you should add this to the daily regimen?

dry brushing tools
Always opt for natural bristled brushes.
Tips to get started dry brushing:
  •  Always use a natural bristled brush. (Just say NO to synthetic!)
  • Use a firm upward stroke. (Brushing toward your heart facilitates better blood and lymph circulation through the body, which doctors agree is important for better health.)
  • Start at your feet and work up the entire body front and back. (Concentrate on areas where lymph nodes are prominent; back of knees, inner thighs, under arms. Avoid brushing the more sensitive skin around your breast!)

Once you make this a habit, you will be rewarded with softer skin and better functioning lymph system.

Happy Brushing!