Colorful Massaged Kale Salads with Citrus Avocado Dressing or Lemon Ginger Dressing

View of the hot air balloons from the Temecula Half Marathon & 5K

After a fun but very tiring weekend in Temecula Wine Country, Brian and I were both feeling beat. Him probably from protesting wine country by downing as many different craft beers as possible on Saturday, followed by getting up at 6am on Sunday to win the Temecula Half Marathon with a time of 1:21:36 I believe (although his time didn't count because he didn't put his timing chip on).

Beautiful setting at one of the wineries for the race

I had a feeling that I got some cross contamination of gluten. I've read that in rare occasions, and mostly with small batches, wine can be stored in oak barrels that once contained beer (although it is usually the other way around if anything) and that they sometimes seal the old oak barrels with a flour paste - weird! I'm guessing that since we went to two small wineries, and at one we even got to taste a special batch of port straight out of the barrel, this may have been the case :(

feelin a bit sleepy but ready to run regardless

the 4:45 am wake-up call to volunteer was worth it for this sunrise view

So, needless to say, we've been trying to eat intensely nutritious dinners since Sunday to try to get us back to normal. We've gone the color approach - getting as many colors in our meals as possible to provide a variety of nutrients. This has involved Skittles, M&Ms, Fruit Loops, Gummy Bears. Just kidding ;)

greens with a side of greens on greens

Sunday night we went with the color green and had Lemon Ginger Kale Salad with fresh picked green beans and lettuce as a side salad for our salad. Why did Kermit ever think it's not easy being green? This was the simplest meal ever. Here's a brief recipe for when you need a lil green in your life, stat!

Slice a bunch of curly kale into very thin ribbons. Place in a bowl and sprinkle with about 1/2 tsp sea salt. Massage until glistening, squeezing handfuls of the kale and pushing down with your palms. After a good 1-minute massage your kale will be feeling great and looking as if it was all dressed up in a pretty marinade, but it's really just the moisture released from it's own leaves. Grate in a carrot and about 1 inch of peeled ginger. In a Magic Bullet or your blender, mix up the juice of one lemon, 2 cloves of garlic, 1/4 cup of sunflower seeds, 1 tbs honey, and 2 tbs apple cider vinegar. Blend it up to a thick dressing and mix it into the kale and carrots. I often add beets and or cabbage to this if I have some on hand, but I was feeling so tired I didn't even have the energy to go in the back yard and grab a beet! This is a really easy recipe to add or subtract ingredients based on what you have on hand.

Kale salad with tri-color bell peppers

Monday night I had about the same level of energy or less, but still no other symptoms, so I felt that the greens were helping keep any sickness at bay. I thought it would be good to continue with that therapy and simplicity of preparation, so I made Colorful Massaged Kale Salad with Citrus Avocado Dressing. I switched it up this time with dinosaur kale and more of a southwest/mexican flavoring.

surprise - it's dinner time!

Prepare the dinosaur kale just as you would in the previous method. Then dice up a red, yellow, and orange bell pepper and mix in with the kale. In a blender or magic bullet, mix up 1 avocado, juice of 1 lemon, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 spicy pepper (we had habanero but a jalapeno would be good too). Blend it up, maybe stirring or shaking it in between to get a good mix. If you need to, you can always add a little water to ease the blending and as long as you just use a little at a time, it shouldn't come out watery. Mix in the thick spicy, citrus avocado dressing in with the kale and peppers, and your done! We had this with Trader Joe's Organic Corn Dippers chips - they are kinda like frito's scoops but made with non-gmo corn! I had the baked organic blue corn chips from Trader Joe's for a lower fat option (to make up for my daily dark chocolate binges).

brian at work on his signature potatoes and peppers

And last night, we enjoyed Brian's Signature Dish - Roasted Sweet Potato Fries and Peppers. Talk about colors - orange sweet potatoes, green, yellow, and red bell peppers, and white onions and garlic make this dish burst with color. Even though this is probably the most common meal we have, I never seem to remember to take a picture before they are all gone. But here is an example of Brian at work on his masterpiece, just with purple potatoes instead.

Skittles ain't got nothin' on our colorful foods -  taste the real rainbow :)

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