Iron bomb salad

Once, I bragged about my hemoglobin levels on my facebook and a (very distant) friend of mine, who runs a McDonald branch (I really hardly talk to her, she's just someone I know from university) complained that she can't understand how mine is so high and she's been anemic all these years while shoving red meat left right and center. Ever since then, my hemoglobin has become a source of hubris for me. I keep my iron sources and my calcium sources saparated almost religionsly and would suffer noddin off for hours after an iron-y meal, just because I can't drink anything caffinated yet.

My main source of iron (other than legume sprouts and leafy greens) is spirulina, which I'm getting from a lovely family in the Galile (I think) who ship 250gr bags in recycled breakfast cereals boxes. 250gr last me about three months, and since it's not even that expensive with shipping, I've got a pretty good deal. To any Israelis out there this is the website.

But the best way to make yourself absorb iron is eat it with a source of vitamin C, so that's where the salad comes in. It's a fruit salad, with at least two citrus fruits (very easy, now that it's winter time and they're in season) and this season there's also kiwifruit. Lately, I've perfected it and added some leafy greens to reel in the iron and amp the ntritional value. Here's the recipe:



Iron Bomb Salad:

1 apple
1 tangerine
1 orange/grapefruit
1 kiwifruit
1 banana
1 persimmon
2 lightly-boiled chard leafs, diced
1 celery stem, diced
leafs from 3-4 mint stems
1 hefty tablespoon raw sprirulina powder
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Dice ingredients and mix in a bowl. Ravish, yum yum. I usually have this for dinner, to top off the day.

Choco-Cranny-Nutty cookies

Hello!!
Again, long time no post. I'm currently brewing something up but it's a three months' project so be patient :)

Anyway, I work in an alternative medicine college now and recently we've had an open day - a day candidates come to the college to hear about the various stuff we teach etc. So, the boss and other workers got all kinds of food lined up afor the buffet - fruits, vegetables, crackers and super-processed-food-cakes . I thought 'hang on, one of our majore diplomas are in healthy nutrition and here we are with these lumps of white flour and processed sugars? Nah!' so I made cookies, to balance it off.

I used a recipie for chocolate chip cookies I found on the net, changed the spicing and reduced the amount on chocolate chips to a third, replacing it with walnuts and cranberries to make it healthier. Here's what came out:



Choco-Cranny-Nutty cookies:

Pre-heat oven to 180c

Ingredients:
2 cups whole flour
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
0.5 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon coffee hawaij
1 cup brown sugar
0.5 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
0.25 cup water
1 handful of crushed walnuts
1 handful unsweetened dry cranberries
1 handful vegan chocolate chips

How to:

Easy peasy - mix dry ingredients (minus the chocolate, crannies and nuts) in one bowl, mix wet ingredients in another. Make a well in the middle of the dry bowl and slowely pour the wet ingredients in. Work the whole mixture together until it becomes a moist dark dough. Add yummies and keep stirring.
Thoroughly clean a large square of your cooking work station and flour it lightly (you can also use a sheet of cooking paper instead, I did as my roomates are extremely unhygenic in the kitchen). Plop the dough on it and flatten it with a roller. Use a cookiecutter (don't they look cheerful?) and place cookies on a baking sheet.
Now here's the tricky part. All I've got in my rented flat's kitchen (which is rather big, I'll give it that) is a toaster-oven with a heating coil on the top of the over and another on the bottom. What I did was switch the two baking rakes' places after five minutes so the cookies will get a baking from bottom to top for another six minutes. If you have a proper oven you don't need to do that. Around ten to twelve minutes would get the job done.
Take out the baking sheet and let the cookies cool before moving them to a box, plate or tummy.

P.S: sorry I haven't got any more pictures, I forgot to take some of the finished product :)