Tarragon Chicken salad in Endive boats

Recently I made appetizers for my dear friend, Erica's party at her beautiful boutique spa on Sacramento Street, Tre Balm.  (side note, for the next month, she's offering 40% off treatments, so y'all might want to get on that...)

The menu was:

Tarragon Chicken Salad in Endive Boats

Prosciutto-Cantelope Sticks

Caprese Sticks

Garlic Shrimp

Lots of Champagne, and lots of Vodka. 

So, my chicken salad: the basics are pretty much the same across the board for most of my salads -- cut the mayo in half and use greek yogurt (or maybe 1/4 mayo, 3/4 greek yogurt).  Honestly, you just need a little bit of that mayo flavor and then the greek yogurt will add lots of light fluffiness without adding to the fat content. Its important to use plain, non fat, bc any other flavor of yogurt would taste super weird. If you don't want to use mayo at all, use greek yogurt and lemon juice. Its really amazing.

For these endive boats, I tried to replicate a rather expensive, heavy chicken salad from Whole Foods: the tarragon chicken salad.  To make enough boats for 20-30 people, here's what you need:

-- 5 or 6 endive bulbs

-- One roasted chicken, pulled apart (save the carcass to make a broth if you want, or use some of the chicken for dinner if you don't need a lot of salad) OR load up a whole foods salad container with the roasted chicken in the salad bar -- maybe about 3/4 lb or 1 lb.. that way its already roasted and cold. Chop it into small pieces on a cutting board, and put into a big bowl.

At $8/lb at the salad bar vs. $14/lb of the prepared chicken salad, you're looking pretty good on costs so far. It would have been about $150 to buy as much chicken salad as I needed, but all the ingredients combined cost about $50. 

Combine: 

-- 3 TB white wine vinegar

-- 2 TB dried tarragon (or fresh if you can find it... I actually found some that was dehydrated instead of dried, so that the vinegar sort of "brought it back to life")

-- 1/4 cup dijon mustard

-- 1/4 cup mayonnaise

-- 1/5 cup non fat plain greek yogurt

-- salt & pepper

-- 4 stalks of celery, sliced long and thin, then chopped 

-- 4 scallions, trimmed and finely chopped

-- 1-2 teaspoon agave or honey

You might need more of the above, depending on how much chicken you have, but this roughly the right quantitates/ratios. If it doesn't feel moist enough when you're stirring it all together, start by adding a little more greek yogurt, or maybe some lemon juice. 

Take the outer leaves off the endives and arrange them on a big platter, and carefully spoon the chicken salad into each.  I also served a platter of chicken salad on pop chips in case people didn't like the slightly bitter taste of endive, but the pop chips got soggy... so you could do regular Cape Cod potato chips which hold up better, or crackers, etc... This salad is also really great ON an arugula or other salad. 

Healthy Taco Salads

Tonight, Michael and I collaborated on dinner. He grilled the chicken and I compiled the salads.

I used:
Romain lettuce, chopped
Red cabbage, shredded
Avocado
Roasted onions, red pepper and zucchini (roasted at 400 for 20 minutes while I prepped the rest)
Jalapeños, minced
Parmesan and pepperjack cheese
Fresh tomatoes
Cilantro and basil

Lunch a la The Plant - how to Make Dino Kale Salad with Cumin-Lemon dressing

Inspired by The Plant's fabulous Dino Kale Salad, I made my own, without the quinoa in honor of my raw reset this week. You could easily add a quarter cup of cooked red quinoa to bulk this up a bit, but I promise it will fill you up even without the quinoa. Kale is super filling due to its high fiber content, and if you prepare it correctly it wont taste grassy or raw at all.

First, to make the dressing, combine 2 Tb evoo with 2 Tb fresh lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoon of cumin, salt & pepper, and whisk with a fork in a large bowl.

To properly prepare kale, you need to follow these steps:

- strip the leaves off the center vein and put it all in a colander in your sink

- wash it thoroughly, wringing with your hands several times

- break it up into bite-sized pieces and put them into the bowl with your dressing

- kneed the dressing into the kale pieces, massaging it with your fingers for several minutes, this will break down some of the fiber and make it more digestible and more enjoyable to eat. 

Add arugula, chopped euro cucumber, thinly sliced (or julianned) carrots - I use a mandolin - 1/2 an avocado, 1/2 a tomato or a handful of cherry tomatoes (thats what The Plant uses), and 2 Tb chopped raw or toasted almonds. You can serve it as I did, all sectioned off and then mixed with a knife and fork, or mix it all together before serving. Enjoy!

Day 5... To infinity and beyond!

One peach, half a pear, half a banana, lemon wedge squeeze, mint & coconut

Dinner out - making it work

Char and I had an event at 7p, so we did what every smart savvy diva should do: get a kale salad first.

Here are two delicious Dino Kale Salads from The Plant on Steiner. Yes there is cooked quinoa in there, but in the grand scheme of things we are doing great.

Lunch is a such a silly word

I mean, I eat lunch but I also eat two breakfasts... So some people could just say I eat two breakfasts and two dinners. I like to eat at 8, 11, 3 and 7. Either 11 or 3 is the biggest meal, and the 7 is always the smallest. I learned that in Spain. And anything past noon should have booze. But I digress.

Here is lunch on day 4 of my raw reset:

- arugula, chopped carrots, one tomato, half an avocado, pumpkin seeds, ginger-carrot (no oil) dressing, fresh dill & basil. It actually looks like one of my normal salads, except I would normally make a more interesting dressing with Greek yogurt & olive oil, and maybe have some feta on here....those were the days...

hey you raw snack

Who knew that pickled onions, raw cashews, cucumber & celery could be so delicious?!

Breakfast day 4

Last night Char and I talked about doing a raw til 4 lifestyle, potentially. We decided that mornings are easy, lunch is medium, and dinner is hard. We aren't the only ones who feel this way, considering there is already a #rawtil4 movement for people like us who a) have a life, and b) actually like food. A lot.

So here's my post-workout breakfast on day 4:

- half a cantaloupe, one perfectly ripe peach, a kiwi, raw coconut flakes, lemon wedge squeeze & fresh mint. It's delightful.

Dinner raw raw raw

For dinner tonight, I kept it simple since I by accident (not) ate some raw (not) crab at lunch. This salad was so good I totally forgot it was a special salad until I smelled Michael's nachos and leftover lasagne. 

- arugula, mixed greens, shredded red cabbage (using the mandolin slicer in the picture), chopped Euro cucumber, carrots, 1/4 of an avocado, chopped snap peas, basil, mint, raw pumpkin seeds, dried currants and lemon juice, salt & pepper.  

Lunch might have crabs...

So for mom's final lunch in San Francisco I took her to The Ramp because it has pretty harbor views and great seafood. I knew it might be challenging for me, but honestly, her experience was way more important to me than mine.  

I ordered a Crab Louie salad because thats the only thing that had raw anything... and as soon as it arrived and took off the egg, the dressing and gave some crab to mom. She insisted that I eat some of it, and honestly, whats the big deal. So I had some crab. I used lemon juice for dressing and it was delicious. I even ate the raw onions, which everyone knows I normally hate.  Really, I wanted to challenge myself and see how this works in the real world, not in my raw-sheltered-life of Whole Foods salad bars and my own fully-stocked kitchen. It was a good experience for me -- seeing how I normally eat and how much more extreme the Raw lifestyle is. I thought being gluten-free and totally OCD about fresh whole foods was enough, but no... raw is a whole new pole up your butt. 

Day 3 - 5am and Feeling Grand

I'm off to teach early sessions at Bodyrok, but before I go it's time to fruitup on

-one banana, half a pear, half a nectarine, a few dried currants, raw coconut flakes

Dinner on day 2!

So for dinner I made everyone else a delicious grass-fed beef lasagna (gluten free of course, for my mom and sister), and served it with an Italian salad and fruit & cheese plate. Thats how I normally eat. But tonight I'm raw, so Char and I made this deliciousness:

Gazpacho made from 66 Square Feet, raw lettuce wraps drizzled with a delicious dressing that we made with 1/4 cup almond butter, 2 tablespoons of lime juice, a dash of raw agave and a dash of soy sauce.  We also made two little adorable salads with sesame seeds and WFM Carrot-Ginger dressing.

After a long yoga & swim session...

Those delicious wraps didn't entirely hit the spot, so I dipped an apple in raw almond butter and now I'm feeling grand.

Lunch!

Hey hey!
So I found these delicious wraps from whole foods, and thought the wrapper was cabbage but upon further inspection I realized it's rice paper, so I carefully pealed it off and ate each little morsel with chop sticks. It was super fun. I also dipped them in a little almond butter that I blended with a dash of siracha and raw coconut milk. So delicious!

Second breakie

After teaching all morning I made a beautiful second breakfast of

- sauerkraut, raw cashews, and a salad with a small carrot, half an avocado, cucumber, chopped peas, dill & basil with lemon juice.

Day 2!

This is fantastic so far. Unlike the juices where I felt angry and low, this feels fun because we actually get to make food!

Here's breakfast:

- half a pineapple, one plum, one small grapefruit, one kiwi, mint, lemon juice & raw coconut flakes.

Dinner out on RR

Dining out on a raw reset is kinda tough... But I made it work! I ordered two salads, one that had beans (which I avoided) and the other had cooked beats (of which I ate some). I had some wine because I love wine and it technically is raw, but I just had one glass.

WFM

part of our first haul

Lunch yum yum

After yoga (which was amazing) Char and I went to Whole Foods where we wandered around for over and hour, reading labels and asking each other various healthy raw questions. We decided that guacamole is in, and wine is out. We also decided that avocado oil is out, but coconut oil is in. Then we realized we couldn't use the oil to cook anything, so we didn't get it.

We hauled everything home, up three flights, and then enjoyed our salads from the salad bar:

- Spinach, arugula, radish, celery, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, cucumber, sun flower seeds, guacamole & lemon juice.

Driving to yoga

While driving to yoga, Journey blasting, I feel amazing*

*Sudafed is raw

Margot // Sent from my iPhone

Raw Food Reset

Hi guys!
Because it's the middle of the year, the new moon is in Capricorn, and we've been partying like maniacs at weddings all month, Char and I have decided to do a 5-day raw reset. We'd like to call it a "cleanse" or "diet" so that you can all understand what we're going through, but those words terrify us. So RESET it is.

Over the weekend on our drive up to Tahoe for the Fourth of July, I got a little crazy and actually told Michael that I was considering using our joint credit card to purchase a vitamix blender so that I could be a rock star on my raw reset... I hadn't told him about the plan, so as long as he wasn't going to have to eat rabbit food for a week he told me to go ahead. I was thrilled. A few minutes later he asked how much it would cost and I mumbled $600, whereupon he pulled over and said that if a vitamix is "really important to me" and it's truly what my "heart desires" than we'll have to turn around because that's the cost of our cabin for the weekend and I can't have both.

So we went to Tahoe and I'll have to blend things by hand or with the cheap magic bullet that one of his darling sweet old roommates got after a late night of infomercials.

So, day one, July 7th. Here's breakfast at 8am, after 4 8-oz glasses of plain water for 2 hours.

- half a pinapple, one apple, half a pint of blueberries, half a squeezed lemon and 1 oz chopped raw almonds. Yummy and sweet.

For second breakfast, around 11am, I made:

- one carrot, half an avocado, one tomato, 2 stalks of celery, fresh dill, lemon juice, salt & pepper.

Now off to the yoga and then whole foods to stock up! Shout out to Healthy Holistic Krista for being our guide through this.