Quick Chew Your Smoothie Salad

My English teacher during my sophomore year in high school once told me in exasperation that I was an “agitator.” Perhaps she is right. But it wasn’t until I was in grad school that a close friend of mine described my style of “agitating” to a tee. Her description went like this: “Maria, it’s as if there’s a whole ballroom of people waltzing away in gowns having a grand time. You are standing at the entrance, and without any of the dancers noticing, you deftly knock a crochet ball through the door and across the hardwood floor. No one knows where it came from, but suddenly everyone is out of step trying to negotiate the croquet balls you send in, one at a time. . .”

Well, I have to admit, I liked that description of how I stir up trouble. So just think of this quick chew-your-smoothie salad as a tasty croquet ball.

It’s not that I am going to preach the no smoothies sermon. In fact I got the idea for this simple little salad when I had the flu and saw this  Naked Turmeric Tonic drink from Naked Magazine. Orange food cheers and warms me up when I am sick or low, so I decided to make it.

There’s just one problem: there’s no high speed blender in my kitchen to whir this up into a creamy orange drink. And beyond thatthere’s a bigger glitch: I’d rather chew my food. I have to be pretty sick to want to drink it instead.

Long long before Dr. Esselstyn and others began to say it’s better to chew the food we eat, little old foodie me had figured out that if I drank my breakfast I felt robbed of the pleasure of chewing. And I was often still hungry. So I’ve long thought it was in my best interest to make sure I got to chomp on most everything I consume in a day.  You may call a goat. I am, after all, a Capricorn. Or a horse. The chewing profile of both animals suits me nicely and I have the astrological chart to prove it.

When I was sick I chose a middle path. I whirred the ingredients for the naked turmeric tonic up in my regular blender on “chop” or “grate.” This gave me sort of vegetable-fruit-turmeric “frosty” I could eat-slurp with a spoon that still had little tiny pieces of carrot and orange pulp to chew on, which I considered the best of both worlds. I sprinkled the top with cinnamon and ginger, and drizzled a little lemon or lime juice over it.

my naked turmeric tonic “frosty style” made in a not so high speed blender

But once the fever was over and I was well on the mend, I couldn’t resist adding some greens, onion, and bell pepper and making this into a little salad. Just to see. And to chew.

If you like to waltz through your breakfast each morning with a smoothie as all or part of it, well, you have my blessing. Just step over this little “croquet ball” of a salad and keep right on with your splendid Vitamix. But if you’d also like to chew the ingredients of this turmeric tonic along with some greens, then give this little sweet-tart-crunchy easy salad a try.

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Either way you take this tonic, it’s a big help when you’re feeling congested, achy or just plain under the weather. Thanks to the folks at Naked Magazine.  I raise my glass–and also my fork–to however you decide to try it. Happy waltzing through the options.