Aren’t these hibiscus margaritas gorgeous? Wait till you sip one. With 100% agave tequila, lime juice and a dash of orange liqueur, it’s the color that really says WOW–and the sour-sweet flavor that comes with the crimson color!
Roasted Garlic is THE best casual appetizer. The preparation is so stinking easy. You just lop the top from a bulb, or five, and drizzle on a bit of olive oil. Cover and bake. Serve with crackers. That’s it.
Decorate crisp romaine lettuce salad with crunchy heart-shape jicama cutouts, juicy pink grapefruit sections, and red grape tomatoes. Give it a drizzle of cumin lime dressing and you’ve got a heart-healthy valentine like no other!
Get out your cookie cutters we’re making healthy valentines–this romaine lettuce and jicama heart salad with cumin lime dressing!
What is Jicama?
Jicama (HEE-kah-ma) is a crunchy vegetable with rough brown skin and crisp juicy sweet white flesh. One might say it looks like a large oval potato.
Packed with important minerals and vitamins, jicama is an excellent source of Vitamin C and boasts a significant amount of fiber, including gut-healthy prebiotic fiber. It has about zero calories too. Jicama is a healthy food to include in our diets.
White fleshed jicama is available year-round in supermarket produce sections. Avoid blemished or bruised jicama, and if the jicama flesh is yellow with brown spots, it is not going to be juicy crisp. Jicamas keep unpeeled in the refrigerator for more than a week.
Show jicama some love–cut it in heart shapes:
Cut a slice off the bottom and top. Then slice off the brown skin and the woodier part following the jicama’s curves.
Cut the peeled oval in half and place cut side down on the cutting board. Carefully slice into 1/8-inch thick slices.
Use a 2-inch heart-shape cookie cutter to cut out hearts.
You’ll have plenty of extra jicama from around the cutouts–munch on them now or later.
What to serve with your jicama heart salad with cumin lime dressing:
Romaine Lettuce Salad with Jicama Hearts and Cumin Lime Dressing
Cut crispy juicy jicama into any shape you want. Tangy cumin lime vinaigrette marries the grapefruit citrus, crunchy lettuce, and baby tomatoes with the jicama. It's one of my favorite salads!
In a medium bowl, whisk the lime juice, agave syrup or honey, garlic, salt and mustard. Continue whisking and slowly drizzle in the oil. Whisk in the cumin and cayenne.
Remove the peel from the jicamas. Slice 1/8- to ¼-inch thick. Cut out hearts with a small heart-shape cutter. Toss with some of the dressing and set aside to marinate.
Arrange mounds of the lettuce onto individual chilled plates. Decorate with the jicama hearts, grapefruit and tomatoes. Drizzle more dressing over the salads. Garnish with the cilantro.
Notes
Use Key limes or Mexican limes if you can find them. They are sweeter than the larger green ones. To section a grapefruit–using a sharp knife, slice off the top and bottom of the grapefruit, then remove the peel and white pith: with the grapefruit standing on its cut bottom, slice down the sides, following the fruit’s contour, completely removing the outside white pith as well as the peel. Hold the grapefruit in your hand and remove the segments by cutting between the fruit and the membrane. Lift out each segment in one piece. Very thinly sliced red onion adds a pleasant optional bite when mixed into the lettuce. Since you are cutting out the hearts, there will be plenty of jicama scraps. Marinate them to add to another salad.
Salty, creamy, and easy to make, tamari deviled eggs topped with tamari-roasted almonds are the best! The devil here is mellow-sharp Dijon mustard and fiery cayenne, the divine is the umami tamari soy sauce which makes these deviled eggs ever so hard to pass up. Like deviled eggs weren’t aready addictive. Bet you can’t eat just one!
Her skin bristles when someone calls her granola head. It feels derisive, even though she probably fits the description—she’s a vegetarian with leftist leanings, her hair is un-dyed grey, she doesn’t wear a lot of makeup, and yes, she inhaled. She makes apple juice and maple syrup sweetened healthy homemade granola –does that make her a granola head?
Apple juice and maple syrup sweeten this nutty granola–a recipe I got from my friend Abhilasha. Abhilasha and her husband Pujari offer retreats in the mountains of southern Utah–she cooks incredible vegetarian meals and he teaches yoga and meditation to their guests. Naturally sweetened, and with a strong ratio of nuts to oats, –you will be keeping a jar of Abhilasha’s homemade granola on hand at all times–it’s the best!
Hello and welcome!
I’m Letty.
Here you'll discover healthy meatless and plant-based recipes made with seasonal whole foods, all with the goal to inspire your cooking!
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