YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Pickled Cabbage Salad (Curtido)

When I was a little girl, I used to “help” my Grandma Rosie pickle cucumbers, green tomatoes, and even garlic, which sometimes developed an interesting blue color as it fermented in the pickling juice. We loved her homemade pickles, and we still do. This post is also a shoutout to longstanding and devoted YHIOYP reader Joe G, who absolutely loves Grandma Rosie’s pickles and has made them on many occasions since I first wrote about them.

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YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Two Israeli Fennel Salads

By the time you read this I’ll be in Israel visiting my son and daughter-in-law, and celebrating the first birthday of my beautiful grandson. The next few weeks will be inspired by the delicious meals and celebrations for which Israelis are famous! First up are a couple of salads using the vegetable fennel.  

Fennel is a very special bulb of a vegetable, with the faintest sweet taste of…what?…licorice(!)…but very faint, so don’t be put off. To me it tastes more like the bergamot that gives Earl Grey tea its characteristic flavor and aroma. If you’ve never eaten fennel before, these recipes are a perfect introduction. Continue reading


YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Luscious Lentil Salad To Go

Here’s a wonderful recipe for you to try! Especially after weekends of the kinds of food extravaganzas that the coming weeks are sure to bring, this salad will be a great choice for helping your digestive system to get back on track. Lentils are a very special food. Not only are they a fantastic source of protein, but they are also rich in fiber. There are only a few categories of foods that can make that claim. Not just that, but they are delicious, especially as prepared in this recipe. Continue reading


Commercial Salad Dressings Are Not What You Think

Many, if not most, commercial salad dressings drown your fresh, delicious, nourishing vegetables in water and corn syrup. These products are not food, and they do not nourish you. Instead, they waste your money, and they markedly reduce the nutritional value of your salad. A while back I decided to stop at the supermarket to check the ingredient lists on four popular salad dressing brands. I think you will be very interested in what I discovered. Continue reading


Salads To Go

Today we are making a trip to visit our family on the East Coast, a trip we’ve made so many times over the decades. But this time it’s for such an extra-special wonderfully-wonderful reason. By the time you read this we’ll be getting dressed for our niece’s wedding! In point of fact the festivities will have begun on Friday night, and that’s why we headed out on on Friday morning.

I used to go over to the Wellness store at work and buy a bunch of snacks for the road. But I didn’t have time yesterday, and anyway those snacks are starting to get a little less inspiring to me than they used to be. I was going to say they’re getting a little stale, but not in the “sell by” sort of way. So i thought I’d try something new — I packed up two salads in Ball jars early this morning, and when we get hungry we’ll empty them out into a couple of bowls, stir, and dig in! Continue reading


YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Cucumber Gazpacho

This is the time of year for gazpacho, so get ready! I’m going to post some of my favorite traditional tomato gazpacho recipes in the coming weeks, but we’re starting with something a little different — cucumber gazpacho. Salad in a soup. I made a slightly different version of this gazpacho last night, and the avocado gave it a super creamy texture. Such a great way to get your veggies, to start your day with leftover gazpacho for a slightly unorthodox breakfast, and to fill your waiting belly with a pile of phytonutrients! Continue reading


YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: French Lentil Salad

If you like lentils as much as I do, this simple recipe is probably looking pretty good to you. I would not have thought of mixing a classic dijon vinaigrette with lentils, but it works oh-so-deliciously. These lentils are exactly the kind of thing I love to find in the refrigerator when I don’t know what I’m looking for. To make this recipe easier (pandemic style), feel free to skip the bay leaf, substitute 1/2 tsp. garlic powder for the garlic, and use some kind of halfway decent Italian dressing instead of the olive oil, vinegar, mustard, and spices. Then if you can get yourself or someone else to peel and slice a carrot and onion, the whole recipe will come together. Good enough. Continue reading


YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Joe Gardewin’s Spicy Cucumber Salad

I am proud to share a recipe from my friend and major YHIOYP fan Joe Gardewin, who loves food (especially when it’s Korean!) and has been actively contributing to the conversation here for a long, long time. This is such a great recipe, and I love the technique, the marinating, the kick, the bite, the sweetness, all of it. Thank you, Joe, for sharing your spicy cucumber salad with the readers of YHIOYP. Continue reading


YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Parsley Salad(s)!

There is an incredibly warm and cozy spot in my heart where the parsley goes. Parsley doesn’t usually get you riled up the same way that basil, thyme, and oregano do, but, if you ask me, it is absolutely its own kind of wonderful. What’s different about these recipes is that the parsley here serves as the green, the herb, the main event, the everything. It’s not a decoration or an herbal sprinkle or a garnish, it’s just the parsley, and it’s definitely meant to be eaten this way. No competition, no second fiddle. Continue reading