Feel Good Guru

Happy New Year! You’ve resolved to eat more greens in 2012, knowing how green leafies make your body vibrate with beautiful cosmic energy and your skin glow like an intergalactic light being… (I’ll have what that cosmically attuned inner/outer beauty is having!)

Everyone has his or her fave way to get their greens. Here in the FGG kitch, our daily dose is in the form of a Supergreenfood Smoothie – one full litre sipped throughout the day. It’s become a true grooved-in habit, good medicine, a mason jar of fuel that not only gets us through the day, but supports a super busy lifestyle and keeps us (and our clients) aging backwards;) Here’s our secret formula: (more…)

A messilicious meal tossed together with farmers’ market freshness. Kelp noodles, a veggie pate, and miso ginger dressing turn Naked Lettuce Wraps into a cleaner greener leaner gourmet lunch to live for.

As with most FGG recipes, this is more an easy assemblage than an exact science. Get your just-picked market veggies and grate them into a large pocket-shaped lettuce leaf – big kale or chard leafs work just as well. The addition of mineral-rich kelp noodles gives it great texture and added nutrition, and a thick slab of veggie pate brings the whole naked heap together with great substance.

Lettuce leaves are less absorbent than wonderbread, so sauce will spill. Be free and pour it on! (more…)

Never underestimate the power of a Green Smoothie! Our ancient ancestors ate up to six pounds of immune-boosting greens per day, just picking and eating leaves as they walked from place to place.

You know greens are the absolute best thing you can put in your body for energy and concentrated nutrition, but the last green thing you ate was the basil garnish on your take-out pasta. If you’re like a lot of people, who eat less than the recommended three cups of dark green veggies per week, try getting your greens with this “Gateway Greens Smoothie.” The sweetness of the mango and banana balance any bitterness, the coconut water fuels it with life, and the avocado completely blends through, giving your greens a creamy, smooth drinkability.  So. Good. So. Good. For. You. (more…)

Rockin the hyper-local, super-awesome lunchtime neighborhood soup delivery service, too busy to post recipes, but peeps are asking, so here’s a quick down ‘n dirty version of today’s offering, maple-roasted root veggie. I filled a 37-litre pot, so just guestimating quantities for a normal family-sized soup pot.

A good soup is all about the ingredients. If you have good quality food, it speaks for itself and barely needs to be doctored in any way. We’re lucky to have Uncle Jorge supplying us with all our amazing local organic winter veggies. The beauty of this soup is it makes itself in the oven. Roasting the veggies creates a beautiful rich flavor, and the maple syrup caramelizes and brings out the sweetness of the root veggies. Y-ommm. (more…)

It’s officially soup season in Toronto! Two days ago, a cold rain accompanied by a bitter wind brought most of the remaining leaves down, leaving the city enshrouded in its blanket of a million shades of grey. There’s always that turning point, right around mid-November, when we must acknowledge the cold reality of impending months of bitter winds, blowing snow, fierce storms and soggy slush. I prefer to see it, more happily, as soup season;)

When the weather outside turns cold, it’s time to turn our internal heat on, bring the sun into our bellies, and nothing does that better than a big warm bowl of homemade Curried Yam, Fennel & Butternut Squash Soup. This potage is delish. Whip it up in 15 minutes, then leave it on the stove for a couple of days of heart-melting, body-warming sustenance. (more…)

Squash of all ilk are perfect autumn super foods. So revered were they by Native North Americans, they would bury squash with their dead so they would have great nourishment on their next journey. They’re at their best right now all over North America, so it’s only natural we’d add them to Feel Good Fast.

Squash are highly nutrient dense, containing excellent amounts of vitamins A and C, beta carotene, fiber, and omega 3 fatty acids. Squash can promote lung health, prevent heart disease, and protect colon cells from cancer growth. Get your autumnal sweet nutty buttery plant-powered butternut sage risotto on! (more…)

Clinging to summer by an angel hair with gorgeous market heirloom tomatoes, the last of them, some crisp, spicy watercress and fresh, aromatic basil. The rest, finely spiraled zucchini and beets, elevated to their highest possible state of nourishment and nurturing with a simple squeeze of lemon, some coarse sea salt and a drizzle of olive oil, tasted like the best energy that’s ever crossed my lips.

I shared this insanely simple assemblage with a dear one recently, and yes, all the flavors in the universe were there, and then some. You’d pay big bucks for this at a raw restaurant. Do it for yourself for pennies. (more…)

I took this to a recent dinner party, a little unsure whether anyone would go for it, wondering if I should tell my friends it’s a “raw carrot pate” which sounds so…healthy. I was in the middle of my late summer cleanse, and wanted to take a dish that would demonstrate through the taste buds how awesomely delish vegan cleansing could be.

One bite in, and everyone was going back for more, with accompanying mmm’s and oooh-what-is-this’s. I take delicious pleasure in watching non-cleansing, non-vegan, non-healthy-eating peeps enjoy really really healthy food. This recipe is easy-shmeasy, uses simple ingredients, and has been tested on a tough crowd for taste-worthiness. Enjoy! Oh, and if you have a sexier name for it, please shout it out – open to suggestions! (more…)

In Northern California at this time of year, black mission figs, ripe and luscious, are dropping from trees. If you’re close enough to pluck one, break into one straight from the sticky branch, you’ll understand why they’ve played a role since the beginning of life on earth in Greek and Roman mythology and religious lore.

Sweet, pink, and flesh-like on the inside, with crunchy seeds arranged around an unmistakably feminine center, fragile, juicy, rich, complex, ethereal, and a gorgeous taste that transports you back in time, eons to eden, or some idyllic garden where two people or a whole civilization could live under and of this tree’s sacred bounty. Yes, inside the fig’s delicate deep purple outer skin could be the entire universe and all our ancient desires. Consume with reverence. (more…)

Beautiful on a summer table as a main course or as a tasty side, this ancient quinoa salad has it all going on: substance, crunch, flavor, beauty, and pizazz!

Quinoa, a mildly nutty-flavored, nutritious, gluten-free seed, contains an almost-perfect balance of all eight essential amino acids required by our cells. It cooks up in minutes for a low-maintenance grain-like meal that goes with almost anything.

For this light summer salad, I combined black and white quinoa with meaty shiitakes and eggplant in tamari and maple syrup, then added some crisp summer market veggies and organic greens, and drizzled the whole bowl in a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Easy-shmeasy. (more…)

My favorite thing about southern California is not celebrities, or the weather, nor is it surfer boys, skateboard dogs, or even Urth’s sustainable shade-grown organic fair-trade coffee. No, my absolute favorite thing about southern California is the magnificent avocado. Creamy dreamy avocados that show up – miraculously ripe – almost year-round, fresh-picked within a hundred miles, at the local farmers’ markets, in six or seven different varieties, each with its own unique sun-soaked avocado-y characteristics.

The variety out in force at the moment happens to be the Reed. These babies are large and full, much moreso than the Haas. They’re rich and smooth, with a decadent creamy taste, and absolutely perfect for guacamole. As cosmic intelligence would have it, August Pride Peaches also happen to be dropping from local trees. I believe that nature intended these two magical fruits to be together… (more…)

Mmmm… Drinking in the mellow goodness of summer with this thick and creamy smoothie that refreshingly fills the gap between meals – or even replaces one… I had this before a workout and was fully energized without feeling full.

Cantaloupe is at its ripest and juiciest right now, and offers us a powerhouse of immune system-boosting nutrients with few calories. Avocados are at their summer best, as well, and deliver high quality essential fatty acids, great for the skin and hair. Coconut water, among its many miraculous health benefits, balances the body’s water content and helps lubricate the digestive system. Peaches give the drink a boost of sweet vitamin C, and bananas add a calming creaminess. Whip it up in seconds and do yourself a world of good.

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If you have a spiral slicer, your summer veggies like squash, yams, zucchini and beets, can be instantly transformed into gourmet raw angel hair “pasta.” Globe zucchinis work best – they’re the perfect size and shape for the slicer, and are soft, which means they’re easily sliced through into beautiful thin linguini “noodles.”

Tonight I tried a golden heirloom beet in the slicer. Though much denser, and a little harder to twist through, it turned out perfectly, and made the most gorgeous golden angel hair pasta bed for some juicy heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, and Whole Foods’ famous curried vegan chik’n salad. Ready in 5 minutes. (more…)

Summertime and the livin’ is easy… Nothing defines summer better than the cool, clean taste of lemonade, and nothing gourmets up your homemade lemonade easier than some fresh organic market strawberries added for a divine blend of sweet and sour.

Pink lemonade? Forget about flavor crystals with artificial color and evil aspartame. This simple homemade version is so light and clean, so good and so good for you, you’ll want to have a pitcher in the fridge for the rest of the summer. Cleansing, alkaline, detoxifying and delish, you can whip it up in minutes and serve it at any civilized summer afternoon garden gathering. The kids’ll love it too – especially if you let them squeeze the lemons. (more…)

When I’m in California, I eat at least one avocado a day. I eat avocados straight from the skin with a spoon, halved, sprinkled with a little Celtic sea salt and squeezed with a drop of lemon. I eat avocados mashed into a two-minute guacamole with some diced red onion, a minced clove of garlic and a squeeze of lime. I eat avocados sliced onto a salad and drizzled with a little olive oil and apple cider vinegar. I eat avocados diced onto a bed of brown rice or quinoa. I blend avocados into chocolate mousse and I blend avocados into gorgeous green smoothies. Bang for buck, there is no feel good food I can think of that comes close to the nutrient density, deliciousness, versatility, and sheer sensuousness of an avocado. What’s your favorite way to eat avocados? (more…)

You know it well – that moment when you open the cupboards and open the fridge and there is nothing to eat. No leftovers to nibble, no packages to tear into, no veggies in the crisper waiting to be tossed into a gorgeous salad, not even an overripe banana or a bag of trail mix – nothing – or so you think.

If you’re like me, you probably have a few staples in the cupboard, like brown rice, quinoa, lentils and beans. And if you’re like most people, you probably have a bag of limp carrots buried somewhere in the fridge if you dig deep enough. Perhaps a piece of an onion that’s been there since February… (more…)

Happy June! Summer’s right around the corner, and along with the hot and sultry weather come cravings for fresh, whole fruits and veggies to quench your thirst and cleanse away internal cobwebs. The live food movement is growing like a weed, way beyond gag-inducing green smoothies and stringy sprouts. Raw restaurants are popping up from Arizona to Zanzibar and we’re starting to see uncookbooks claim an entire category of their own on the bookshelves – there’s never been a better time to get your raw on!

And there’s never been a more beautiful, more accessible book to satisfy your rawvenous appetite than the brand new Ani’s Raw Food Essentials, a gorgeous new offering from Ani Phyo, who also brought us Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen and Ani’s Raw Food Desserts. She makes raw food prep easy, with simple ingredients and elegant style. She was kind enough to grace FGG with a recipe sample from her book! Yummy! (more…)

BBQ season is upon us in Toronto, and for every ten or twenty carnivores who show up at the staff picnic with their Gordon Lightfoot Burgers (mushrooms, cheese, onions) from the Healthy Butcher, there are one or two plant-powered peeps who cringe at the idea of firing up a beloved Canadian folk singer and slathering him with mustard.

Whatever your idea of good summertime eats, you’ll discover that these Curried Tempeh Burgers are a hit at any bbq party. They’re delicious, filling, protein-packed, and easy to whip up. Bake them first in the oven, then just warm them on the bbq to give’em a mild smoky aroma. Dressed with a homemade sundried tomato pesto, they’re simply irresistible. (more…)

Chilled buckwheat noodles and greens together make a wonderful salad. Add an ume-apple dressing, a ripe avocado and some toasted seeds, and you have a delish, easy-to-prepare vitamin and protein-filled 5-minute meal you’ll turn to over and over again for lunch or dinner.

Ume plums are powerfully medicinal. Despite their acidity, they have an alkalizing effect on the body, aiding digestion and settling the stomach. (I know someone who swears by umeboshi plums as a hangover cure!) They’re available in the Japanese or macrobiotic section of most health food stores. The sour flavor of the plums is nicely balanced by the sweetness of apple in this light dressing with a hint of sesame. (more…)

OOH this big fat spinach salad from “Feel Good Fast: Spring!” was so delish I wanted to share the combo with you ~ the zing from the lemon juice and spiciness from the ginger are nicely balanced with the softness of the avocado and the sweetness of the apple. The hiziki gives it a lovely subtle sea taste and the toasted pumpkin seeds add the nutty crunch.

It’s a full on mega cleansing meal loaded in antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, protein and flavour! Yum yum! Dive in and cleanse on;) (more…)