Healthy Summer Recipes & Dining Out Tips | Debbie's July Cooking Class

Hi, Debbie. Hello. This is Joan. Turn your video on.

Yeah.

It is on. I don't see you.

Oh, wait a minute.

How do you get to see me? There should be that little, like, movie camera looking thing. You just gotta click on it.

I don't know.

Oh, start video.

Maybe.

Does that do it?

No.

It says Joan's iPad now. There you are. Ah, there it is.

Okay.

I'm not sure who was on the iPhone. Whoever it is ended up— they're still muted. But they're admitted, so that's good. Trying to get the camera.

Situated.

Challenge.

Well, what ends up happening is if I don't have it in a certain position, then my head gets cut off.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you can't see, but if I, when I move further back, so that's all right.

Pretty much I think it's good.

That looks pretty good. Do you have me on speaker view? So that when I talk, everything is nice and big?

Yes.

I'm gonna just shift this back just a little bit.

Okay, everybody can maybe see me. I'm not sure.

I think for right now you're the only two that are in, in, in the building. She was bored.

Brought her out.

They saw her and they just Said, hey, we dragged you in here. That's okay.

I saw that on my emails in the sauna and I said, well, I'm in the sauna, so—

Somehow I'm supposed to start to record this. So I'm moving out of the way so I can figure, because my computer's further away than where I am. Probably under more. More. Let me see. Oh, actually, guess what? We are recording. So no, never mind. Okay. Since my computer right now is not telling me what time. Oh, there we go. 12:59. It's time to get started. So I'm going to go ahead and get started.

Just so you know, this is being recorded so other people can, can watch it at another time.

I've got Joan on the recording and I've got somebody else. I'm not sure who that is, but welcome. And you all have the recipes that I'm gonna make. We're also gonna talk a little bit about going out to eat and menus and kind of what to look for and how to navigate. And if you have any questions, of course, you know, always I'm happy to try and answer them. So the 3 recipes we're going to make today are the cucumber avocado chilled soup. And I actually have a batch made.

Well, it's already chilled.

Then we're gonna make this walnut horseradish dressing that's going to go on the salad called the Wonder Woman salad. All right. The cucumber avocado chilled soup. Now, Joan, you got the recipes correct with the Zoom link? Oh, I didn't, I didn't look. I, I didn't see it. They should have been attached to that email. I mean, on my end. I, I didn't go down that far. Okay. But just know that they're there. Okay.

Yes.

And if you can't find them. Okay. I'll do it. To be admitted.

Hold on.

I'm sorry. No, I, I'll get them. That's 2 people.

Admit and admit.

Hello, everybody. I know you don't see me at the moment. All right. Hi, Gloria. And if you want to turn on your, your camera, that would be great. And then I have 54321. I don't know who that is.

Ah, there. All right.

So anyway, so the cucumber avocado chilled soup, I wrote servings 1 to 2 because it didn't give me the serving size. I'm going to show you how much it makes. Just so you can see it, it is more than 1 serving.

All right.

Tell you that. So that's a lot. Just to remind the people who are online to put me on speaker mode. And that way, when I'm— as I'm talking, I will fill up your screen instead of having a bunch of little pictures. So it does make a lot. I mean, I would say maybe 2 to 3 servings depending on if you're just doing it as a side or you're trying to make it more as part of a meal.

You think that would freeze well? No.

No, the coleslaw doesn't freeze, so I don't think—

Well, there's no cucumber in the dressing. I'm talking about the dressing.

No, she's talking— Oh, this is the— This is the—

I'm looking at it, but that's a lot of dressing. Yeah. No, this is a cucumber avocado chilled soup. And I don't know for those who just popped up, I made this yesterday. So I had it chilled for those people who are in-house.

Yes.

Had a chance to taste it. So I wanted to make sure that it was cold and I didn't know if, if by the time I made it to the end, If it would be cold enough.

So I don't know. I just have never frozen a cucumber or when I, yeah, when they've gotten too cold, they don't seem to be that good because they start to get kind of mushy.

The only problem is that since it's been pureed, that you might be able to do that. It's really worth like putting a few of them in an ice cube tray.

Yeah.

And seeing what happens after you thought and go from there.

But I do freeze cucumber because I slice up all the different stuff, put them in individual packages and freeze it for my smoothie. And cucumber is part of that. I mean, it's like you're putting it in a smoothie. So it's not like a—

I'm sorry, I'm letting some more people in.

You were doing it like that, but it shouldn't be any problem. Yeah, it's like Debbie said, it's not a little— All right.

I'm so far away from my computer that I can't see.

I'm gonna close this. It should get cooler in here. I'm trying to cool down this room. So we'll see.

All right. So those of you who just came in, I'm gonna go ahead and start with the cucumber avocado chilled soup. And again, those of you who got the link should They've gotten the recipes in that email with the link. So the first, everything is that I'm gonna do for the soup literally gets put right into this blender. Okay? So the first thing we have to do is we have to peel it.

So, English, English.

I chose to do the English cucumbers because they don't have the seeds. Oh, and a lot of people, you know, can't do seeds. Now, the original recipe did say 2 large cucumbers. I used 2 big ones of these. So you might be able to— it might be a little bit thicker, maybe if you only used one. My hands have been washed.

I know I've been touching my computer, but I try to keep that clean too.

I got those alcohol wipes all over the place.

So, Debbie, what would it be like if you didn't peel the cucumbers and used the peel in the soup? Do you think it would change it a lot?

Well, I don't, I think you would taste some of the skin. I have made smoothies and I have left the cucumber on and I haven't had a problem. We could try it. I cannot peel that one. I'm just asking the question.

Some people are into peel the carrot, peel the cucumber.

And I think there's nutrients in it.

Yeah, but it does change the taste.

So it was a worthy question of, you know, what would it—

I don't know.

I think I'm going to try it because, hey, it will save, save steps. So I just, so you guys can see over there. I'm just cutting this into large, like, 4 chunks. You can see. Literally just putting them in there. I'm gonna, I'm, I'm not gonna peel. I like to experiment.

Yeah.

Seriously. Just curious to see.

Yeah.

I mean, I have the other soup. You have the other one to taste test.

Yeah, we'll taste test. So I can make room for this to get down in there. Let's face it, we all grew up with peeling everything. All right.

The next thing is a ripe avocado that goes in there. Now it says peeled and diced. I don't know really why it has to be Dice, dice. I just squish it in there. It's all going to get blended together. Why take the time to—

Just get the seed out. While you're taking the seed out, how do you know? I don't like cucumbers, but I'm trying to appreciate them. How do you know if it's ripe when you buy it?

An avocado? An avocado?

Yeah.

Well, that's an excellent question.

Yeah, but how hard? How soft? I mean, on a general—

cucumber?

Avocado. Avocado. Sorry.

I, depending on when I'm gonna use it. So if I'm buying a bag of them, as an example, I probably would get them where they're just starting to maybe, you know, have a little indentation, but not like soft. In our climate, you put these out on the counter overnight. I mean, they, within a day, they're, they're ready to go.

So, there's some good fruit. Um, all right.

I am going to— All right. The juice of 1 lime.

And I'm gonna just cut it in half and use my little trusty juicer. That's nice. Rather than always using your big giant automatic juicer just for 1 lime.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And what's nice about this one is that it catches the seeds.

You know, yeah.

So it has holes for the juice, but the holes are not large enough that the seeds fall through. Now in this case, they would get all grounded up anyway.

I mean, I probably could just squeeze the grape in there. Put that in there.

Can you guys see okay online? Fine.

Okay.

All right.

Half a cup of fresh basil leaves. So this is about half a cup, one of these little containers. Since I made it the other day, I don't put the stems in there for this.

Do you wash it before, honey? I never knew about washing it.

I do. I do.

I wash all this. And then do you dry it a bit before you put it like in salads and stuff?

Yeah, I mean, I take a paper towel and just kind of, you know, or just leave it on the counter. Now, basil, really, you shouldn't refrigerate. I know in the store you'll find it refrigerated, but it's a plant. It doesn't have to be refrigerated. So when I was in Sprouts the other day, I'm looking at all, you know, where all the refrigerated ones are and I'm looking and I go, okay, because most stores will refrigerate the basil. Yeah. And I said to the guy, I said, where is the, you know, the basil? He goes, over there. I said, oh, you keep it where it's supposed to be. All right.

Publix has a big bag of it. It's not organic, but they have a big bag of basil. Actually, it is organic. It right up by the tomatoes in the Publix. So it's not refrigerated and in front of the tomatoes for like the caprese salad thing. Yeah, a big bag of it.

I'll see.

All right. I am adding a half a cup of coconut yogurt. You could use almond yogurt. I'm just using a non-dairy yogurt. For those people who can do dairy, you know, and do a little bit of dairy, like organic Greek grass-fed Greek yogurt would be great in there as well. And then it just says a half a teaspoon of sea salt. I'm just gonna do a few turns. And I always believe that once something is made, taste it, then choose if you need really any salt. All right. For those of you online, this is gonna be a little loud. So just to let you know, and this literally, this is all we do. We just put it in there. I'm gonna blend it.

Maybe.

Got a cucumber that's caught. Just gonna push down anything that's on the side. Probably doing this a little longer just because we did put the skin in there. So I just wanted to make sure that— Okay, so I'm gonna just literally put this in the refrigerator. Okay, any questions on how to make that? I'm gonna show you the finished product in a bowl. I feel bad that you guys can't taste it, but you're going to get to hear how it is. And you know what? I'm going to ask Wanda if you could just go and ask them to get me some spoons.

I hope they will listen.

You can do that and then I can serve this out. But I'm gonna go up closer to the computer so people can see what this looks like. So it's a chilled soup, kind of like gazpacho, you know, that type of thing. Now, when I tasted it, I liked it. What's nice about the cucumbers, it's very hydrating. And in the summertime, that's, you know, good. So now you've got hydration with the avocado. You've got fiber. You've got some vitamin C. Healthy fats. Healthy fats. You know, and probiotics. The basil leaves. I mean, you can't go wrong with all your spices and the lime. Again, more vitamin C, the citrus.

Debbie, don't give me one. I prefer things raw. So don't give me. You can't have anything raw. Okay. I'm just a little bit because I'm afraid. Okay, Dad. I'm afraid because it's cold soup, which I have a thing in my brain about that. And I'm not a fan of avocado, but I'm really anxious to try this because I'm trying to like avocado. And I love everything else that's in there. So I'm very excited.

So you can, you know, with soups and any other kind of soups, like people who have problems digesting, like say cruciferous vegetables. No spoons?

She's looking for them. Okay.

Otherwise, just, just go ahead and scoop. Oh, all right. You guys have any questions online? Okay, no questions.

We got a picture taken. Right.

So next up, we're going to make the salad dressing for the salad. This, it's walnut horseradish dressing. And I was— horseradish for some people, like, might be too spicy, that kind of thing. But I felt this was less like you have that just little taste of the horseradish, but not like it's not a hot and spicy horseradish. And interesting. When I went searching, this is by Bubbies, and I've talked about Bubbies pickles and sauerkraut. All of the, the, oh God.

Well, let's do, yeah, sorry. Can you do it or no? I'm okay just drinking it up, sipping it out of the bowl.

Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing.

But you're gonna have salad, so. So a lot of the prepared horseradish I found was made with soybean oil, was made with— some had eggs, you know, and I know everyone has sensitivities. I'm trying to find— and what I did end up doing is I looked on the Yucca app. And for those of you who don't know what that is, it's an app you can put up on your phone. And you can put down like, I want things that are gluten-free, you know, egg-free, whatever it may be. And this is what is in here. It's horseradish, water, distilled vinegar. They say sugar, but there's no carbs in here. And then mustard oil, salt and mustard oil.

Wow, that's clean.

Really clean. And Bubbies—

smells good.

Sprout, Sprouts. Yeah. And then they told me that I could get it at Sprouts. And I go, oh, thank you. So it smells great. All right. So this is what I'm going to actually make in my blender cup for my salad dressing. And it says a half a cup of raw walnut pieces. So that was probably a little bit more than a half a cup, but threw it all in there. Okay, 1.5 tablespoons of the apple cider, not the apple cider, it's the horseradish that we're talking about. But it's so important. I mean, it really taught me a lesson, like, and I try to do this when I do my grocery shopping tours. Is that it's not always about you can't have what you're used to having. It's about finding the same thing, but a cleaner version of that. And boy, you look up horseradish, you'll see the diversity. And some of them had chemicals. I mean, all kinds of stuff. Okay, 2 teaspoons of the apple cider vinegar. And a little bit of a teaspoon of yellow mustard. Salmon dressings are one of the easiest things to make and When we go to the restaurants, we were going to talk about menus. None, even if they say oil and vinegar. No. The oil is, or even if they say olive oil, it's probably an olive oil blend.

Yeah.

It's not. And the easiest thing is, is to have salad dressing, whether it's Primal Kitchen salad dressing or you know, whatever, and bring it, bring it with you. I just take one of those little condiment cups and I put it in a little Ziploc because those covers don't stay on real well. And I just bring it with, and then I know that my dressing is clean. Obviously, the vegetables aren't organic, but we have to live. I mean, we can't, you know, everything can't be perfect. Now it says water is optional. I am going to put a little water in here because this is gonna be pretty thick.

So let me just put a little bit to start.

Probably put maybe a teaspoon and a half.

So you leave out the maple syrup.

Oh, did I miss the maple syrup? I missed the maple syrup. Thank you. No, I don't really want the maple syrup. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 2 teaspoons. That would have a whole different taste to it, wouldn't it?

Which brand of maple syrup do you use?

This is a GreenWise brand.

Okay.

It's organic.

Yeah. 100% pure, it says.

Right.

Thank you.

Thank you for reminding me of that.

Appreciate it.

Can work, can work. All right, probably will need to add a little bit more.

I'm gonna just pulse this, get started.

Gonna need a little bit more. You just add This is gonna smell so good.

And I also find that once it's refrigerated, they also, you know, everything gets thicker. The same with the soup when I made it. It got much thicker.

Yeah. Take a little bit out for you to see. And I'll just keep it in the refrigerator until we're ready.

It's probably even still a little thicker than what I want, but it's a consistency I mean, it should be the consistency of like a Caesar dressing, so it should be pretty thick. But I think I'm gonna, I am gonna just get just a little bit more water. I don't think I've got the 1/4 cup yet.

I'm curious if you use a little good extra virgin olive oil in it.

What do you think that would, you know, somewhat, I think, I think add a little bit of the healthy fats and that kind of stuff. I think that's an excellent idea.

Okay.

Just, you guys, can you guys hear the questions that are being asked? Yes.

Okay.

So I, I think that's an excellent idea actually. We'll check on this after this salad. So you see how simple salad dressing is to make? So a lot of people choose to make salad dressing for the week. And that's certainly, I mean, you don't really need more than 2 tablespoons of salad dressing on your salad. So you make one for the week and then you can get a whole new flavor going the next week. Now, what I didn't ask you, the people who are here, what did the soup taste like?

I really liked the soup. I had, again, I have like a mental block on cold soup. I don't know why, but I actually would put a little bit more water in it and then just literally drink it like a smoothie because it was really, it's very tasty. I don't taste avocado. I'm not, and it was really good. I'm definitely gonna make it. Okay.

So Wanda, what about you?

Well, I think it's an acquired taste to have. I enjoyed it, but—

What would you add to it? What would I add to it?

What would I add to it?

I mean, I know what I would add to it.

Well, I like vinegar, so I'd probably add some vinegar too.

So, okay. So I always say a recipe is a guide. Make it your own. I might just choose to put a little garlic in there. I didn't do it, you know, for here. I wanted to do it by the recipe. But a little garlic, maybe, you know, even a little olive oil in there might be fine, you know, or avocado oil, vinegar, you know, other spices, maybe a little bit more lime juice, maybe a little less pepper, cracked pepper, maybe a little less of a cucumber. You know, I, you know, use 2 long English cucumbers, you know, maybe the 2 large cucumbers, you know, we're talking about regular cucumbers. I chose the English cucumbers without the seeds. So again, make it, taste it, then add whatever else more you think that your taste buds like. I mean, you can add other spices to it besides garlic. I mean, I mean, it's your own. It's whatever you want it to be. So just, just remember that with any recipe, like, you sometimes you just really dislike it, get rid of it. But other times it's like, this is good, but, but what, what, you know, think about what do you think might make that better for your taste buds and add it.

Aesthetically, what I'm thinking is that You know, the way you serve it is maybe putting a dollop of the Greek or the coconut yogurt on top and then taking a very thin slice of the cucumber, put it in half, and then kind of make that on top, right? So that would make it more, you know, if you were having it for dinner. Right.

So if you were serving that for company, they said take a little extra of the yogurt put that on top, then maybe take a slice of cucumber or half a slice, put that in the yogurt so that it's served. And gazpacho, I believe sour cream is added to the top.

So it's— Well, I was thinking instead of adding sour cream, that just by putting a little dollop of yogurt on top would take its place. Yeah. Yeah.

I have other cooks here besides me. I love it. I love it. All right, we're gonna go ahead and make the salad. So I have a whole head of romaine. And isn't that beautiful? I got all this at Sprouts Monday night. Kale. This is the Laccanto kale. You could use curly kale. You know, there's different kinds of kale. I think there's red kale, you could use that as well.

Did you have to take and massage the kale or bruise it or anything?

No, not in this recipe. So I'm gonna go in.

I don't know what that even means. What does that mean? Well, so go ahead.

I was gonna say sometimes kale is just real difficult. And so what you do is you kind of like take the the main stems out and you just massage it with your fingers. Or you can cut it up and then you massage it with your fingers. It just softens it. It makes it more, uh, palatable.

Yeah. So kale can be a little, sometimes people feel it's a little bitter. Um, so you can take olive oil and like lemon juice and pour a little bit on there and, you know, after it's chopped up and just massage literally with your hands, massage it. This is going to have the dressing on it. So we've already, you know, kept other ingredients that we'll mix in there.

Strip it of the stem.

And I am going to strip it of the stem.

All right.

So I'm just taking this big stem, and I'm literally just cutting through it. And you can see I'm getting these nice beautiful little pieces. Doesn't take very long. And I've washed all this ahead of time.

And what kind of kale?

Sorry, Debbie. What kind of kale was that you got?

It was lacanto. L-A-C-O-N-T-O. Almost like Encanto from the movie. Alright, hoping this bowl is gonna be big enough.

Pretty bowl.

Got it at the, you know, when they have those craft fairs.

What kind of cookie sheets are those?

I mean, titanium.

Titanium?

Yeah, like cutting boards?

Yeah.

They were asking about these cutting boards. They're titanium cutting boards. I just totally got away from the plastic and the wooden because I'm just stuck this in them and I'm not gonna take the time to oil them. Look, I've got somebody who wants to come in.

Hold on.

I wonder how long that's been there for.

Okay.

Sorry about that. All right, so we do take, take the kale and they've got this thick stem in there, so we do want to cut that out. So I just take long strips and just cut as close to it as I can. And then when I get it all cut, then I just kind of roll it, roll it up all together, and then I just quickly cut it. Give me just a moment and I will—

it's cut.

While I'm cutting this, let's talk about menus. So you go into a store and so I mean to a restaurant. And the first thing that I do is I ask them if they have a gluten-free menu. Because that way I've already eliminated one, one issue. Then I'll go through there and obviously some things will have dairy, some, you know, may have some nuts or whatever. But what I do is I look at everything that's on the menu, even if I don't like it, because if they can put it in one dish, they have it to put in another dish. So I will do that. I will, you know, like kind of almost make my own or just say, okay, I would like a salad, you know, plain salad, no croutons, leave off any shredded cheese. I see that you have a piece of grilled chicken. Go ahead, you know, I said, can I have that on my salad or can I order that on the side? You know, the vegetable choices. You know, or your side dishes. A lot of times they'll do like rice, you know, as one, and then you get a vegetable. So I do, "Can I have double vegetables instead of the rice?" You could do that at any restaurant. Even, I even hate to say it, but even McDonald's has a salad. They do have chicken. I'm not saying that it's the best chicken. But you can, you know, walk out of there. You might not be able to if it's something that you weren't planning on. You might not have the right dressing, but try to pick the least, you know, the least of the least. I mean, even if it's just oil, you know, oil and vinegar, it may not be the right oil, but That's okay too. I mean, you know, we're only doing the best that we can. I mean, I'd rather you have the salad. I'd rather you have the chicken. I'd rather, you know, than not have anything and go for hours without eating. I mean, McDonald's obviously wouldn't be my place to stop, but sometimes we're on the road, you know, traveling and That's like you're in the middle of nowhere and that's the only thing for miles. So you just got to do the best. And even like, even like eggs as an example, you know, again, they're not going to be pasture raised, but Hopefully. The other thing, speaking about eggs, when you're in a restaurant, like for breakfast, a lot of times restaurants will put flour in their eggs so that they puff up. So they, so always ask first because if you're going to get eggs, especially as you see them come out and they look big and puffy, chances are there's flour in there, and then that's gluten.

I had no idea there'd be that. Yep.

So just flouring.

I mean, so much stuff. I wonder if they think at certain restaurants it's a big— Hi, Mickey. Hey.

All right, I'm gonna cut a little bit more here. Any of you have any issues when you've gone to restaurants that I could help? Navigate you through? Has there been times when you've been somewhere where you just feel like everybody can eat everything but you can't?

Occasionally.

You know, I mean, that happens. The other suggestion I have when you're eating out is sit at the end of the table. So that when you're asking the waitstaff a bunch of questions, everybody who's sitting with you doesn't have to hear that conversation. You know, you're having that conversation right at the end. Everyone else is just talking, waiting for the server to come ask them what they want. And never be afraid to ask. Make them check in the kitchen. You know, what other options might they have, you know, for you? And you can even just say, like, you know, a lot of times restaurants, even though things are gluten-free, if you have celiac, you have to have a kitchen that's dedicated for only when they're cooking gluten-free. The others, even though it says gluten-free on the menu, doesn't necessarily mean that it has not been contaminated, you know, being on a surface. So just be aware of that. The other thing about on the go and in the summer, we're doing a lot of traveling. Just look at your labels. I mean, you're in a grocery store that you're not familiar with, you know, and you can't find like the brand. Obviously, GreenWise is actually in some other stores out west, my understanding, and some other stores. But, you know, if you're used to eating that, but you're not, you know, you're not going to find it necessarily in another store. Just like what I did with the horseradish. You know, use the Yucca app. Use, if it's something that you're going to make, say you're, like when I go to buy my daughter, you know, I'm, I'm in a Kroger type stores. You know, they have Better For You brands every store. Has better for you. I think there's a Simple Truth. I think Kroger, I mean, they're— Aldi has a certain name for things. But, you know, you can always, if you can't find it in the store and it's something like you're going to make for, you're there for a reunion and you want to, you're making a potluck dish or whatever. And you have time, you know, go on Amazon because they are through Whole Foods and see if there's other options because they'll show you the ingredients to see what you could purchase. And usually you can get it the next day so that you can use that in your recipe. All right, so I'm chopping up an apple. This one happens to be a Honeycrisp. There's a lot of flavors in the salad. The other thing on the go is when you are out and about and you're by a lot of people, you know, and everyone is saying, oh, come on, you can just have just this one thing. You don't have to say like, well, I've been told I shouldn't eat this. Just say, I really don't feel well when I eat that. You know, they're not going to make you eat something You know, my stomach really bothers me when I eat that. We just, you don't have to give them a whole long story about why that you're in this program and you've taken food sensitivity testing or whatever it may be.

Yeah.

Or you can just say, I'm allergic to it.

Period.

You know, and nobody would typically will question you. But I just say, I just really don't feel well when I eat that. And so I'd rather enjoy my time here and not feel sick. You know.

Yeah.

Makes sense. And there's so much entertaining. I mean, here in the Villages, there's always food, right? Around every activity, there's food.

All right.

We're getting there. All right. So that was the green onions. I wanted to show you how I cut a pepper because you can go really fast. I cut off the top. And I cut off the bottom. Then I can just go into the middle and grab all those seeds that are in there and just pull it right out.

See? It's gone.

Rather than cutting the pepper and then each piece. And then you can— and then I cut through one side and open it up. And then those big white, like, little sections, I'll just cut out of there. And then I can just quickly do strips and then take the strips and then dice it up. Now, it did call for a red pepper. I wanted to add more color. I mean, because I knew the apples, the apple I chose had red skin. So I went and got an orange pepper. Alright, so I'm gonna just take this. Take those clips and lace it up. A few at a time. Now, all of those little bits at the end that I'm actually tossing out. You could save those and make yourself vegetable broth. Just fill them up in a Ziploc and put them in the freezer. And when the Ziploc gets full, you can either— I put them in my Instant Pot, cover them up with water and put it on the soup setting, which goes for 2 hours. And when it's done, I have homemade vegetable broth. And you can use onion skins, you know, if you can do onions. But all those ends can all be used.

All right.

Isn't this coming beautiful so far? I have made this for company, and they loved it. All right, let me get a different cutting board.

This one's getting a little wet.

Okay, and then I just lastly, and again, I've pre-washed these. These are the cherries on the vine. I find that they're fresher than just the ones, and I'm just cutting them in half. You can dice them if you wanted to. I could have used a bigger bowl. I've already toasted the pecans. So I just put them like in— you can either do it in a pan or you can do it in like I have a small little stovetop oven. And I just maybe for like 5, 10 minutes, no longer than that. And just let them heat up. You don't want to burn them. All right, I'm going to just do a few of the orange ones because it says about a cup. So, and then the avocado. Now, you're not going to be able to eat this because it's raw. Everyone okay with avocado or you want me to leave it on the side?

You already put onions in it, so I'll just go around it.

Sorry.

No, no, no. I was not gonna tell you, Debbie, can you leave this out? I can do that.

But you know what? But that's a really good point. So I gave you guys the recipe. You can't do onions, then don't put them in. Or if a green onion isn't— because a lot of people can't do like red onions and yellow onions, but they can do green onions. So, all right, well, I'm gonna go ahead and this time I'm actually going to dice up my avocado. And then we're gonna take out that beautiful dressing. And how am I doing on time?

I don't know, it's 1:46. Good, good.

So I just scored the avocado lengthwise, and then I went going the other way, and I literally just kind of gently push it out of there.

Put this over here. Isn't that pretty?

Isn't that gorgeous? Needs a picture.

Yeah, I need that.

It's time, time for Christie to come back and take a picture.

All right.

I just find that, I mean, I love salads, but I don't, you know, I don't like to eat real heavy in the especially the heat we've been having here. And then, of course, you add whatever protein you want to this, you know, or it's a side salad. But I want to bring this up close to the camera. I think I got everything. Oh, I didn't put the pecans in there.

Hold on. Wait, wait, wait.

Everyone okay with pecans? Sprinkle some of those on there. I should take a picture of this before we dive into it.

Seriously.

Do you want me to take a picture with my phone, Debbie?

You can take it. Well, I mean, or do you have your phone?

It's hidden. So what do you think?

Oh, pretty.

Whoops.

Isn't that beautiful?

Yes.

I mean, just, and it says serve 6, but that's 6 really nice servings of 6. But we did serve it for company and we were 4 people and we had another 2 servings because they took more. Well, they took more than one serving. So what I'm gonna do is we're gonna take that dressing back out and I'm gonna pour the dressing maybe like just in this measuring cup and I'll let you just put on as much dressing as you want.

And the bowl just makes it too good. I know, bowl is beautiful.

Oh, you know, it's all in the presentation. It is. I think I'm, now that it's cold, I'm gonna add a little bit more water to it. Because right now it's at the consistency of it being more, what I would say, paste-like. And we need it to be a little bit, that didn't make sense. We need it to be a little creamier. So, and it's very possible because I put in, obviously, probably a few extra walnuts than what I should have.

So I sent the pictures to Megan and Diane. Oh, great.

So does anybody have any questions, like, um, you know, life in motion, being traveling, going here and there, that I can maybe help answer or navigate for you? You guys are very quiet online.

There we go.

You can— it's pourable now. So that's more like what we said, more like a Caesar dressing consistency. And I think we could just—

let's see.

I'll use this.

Alright.

So we're gonna see what everyone thinks about this salad.

Did you put mustard in the dressing?

I think I put mustard in the—

Yeah, okay.

No, what I was saying is you could easily take this salad and leave out the tomatoes and the onion and the red pepper and some blueberries and some, you know, some fruit. And then I was looking at the dressing thinking that—

Well, just a tiny bit for me, Debbie. I mean, not like a giant bowl. Please, I'm sorry.

It was very—

I'm gonna go work out with Bobby, so I don't want to like—

I wanted to just make sure that we got all the different flavors. Think about it. I mean, we've got peppers, tomatoes, apple, the pecans.

That's sweet.

Yeah, there's just—

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, that you could take and make it just savory.

Okay, I'm going to try the fruity. I'm trying to pick out some of the green ones.

Oh, don't worry about it, Terry. Really, mostly I'm anxious to see about eating avocado in there and seeing what happens. Oh, okay.

I'm gonna put a little avocado in there, make sure that it's in there.

Can you taste the dressing? Although not, no, got raw stuff in it, right?

So we're gonna see what they think.

I'm picking out my herbs.

First, what do you think of the taste of the dressing? Like, is it too horseradishy for you? No, it has like, it's very mild.

I think I would recommend massaging the kale.

Well, what they do is they tell you to actually toss the salad with the dressing.

Yeah.

You know, so I would have made this like in a big bowl, put the dressing in and then mixed it up.

Yeah.

But I liked— I always feel that people overdress a salad. And so I just thought I'd let them decide how much they want on there. I should turn the camera so they can see me.

But I do think that the kale is just a little bit— still, still a little crunchy, but I think that massaging it would make it just a little bit more smoother, blend in better with the—

well, you know, I pretty much stopped eating kale because it's just so bitter. Yeah. Just so I just don't bother with it.

But now I'm going to go buy some stuff.

Now I'm going to try this massaging and— yeah.

I don't know if I've ever cut the And you don't need a whole, but yeah, you got to cut the stems off.

Because I just, you know, I just—

Now, GreenWise does make like a prepackaged chopped kale, but it still has the stems on it.

Yeah, exactly.

But I have made this salad with that. And it was okay. And then, you know, and it was, yeah, it was okay. So I think that they're enjoying the salad.

Well, I just, you know, I—

There's a lot of flavors going on in there.

Definitely. There's a lot of flavors.

I like the dressing.

The dressing is really, really good. I mean, and you can use it on any salad. It doesn't have to be on this salad. So is there anything else that I can help you guys with?

Mm-hmm. I like horseradish.

I know.

I hope that you've enjoyed But, Flax, I'm glad that you joined. And again, if you did not see the recipes, they were attached to the email.

There you go.

Excellent. Yeah. Oh, I did want to show you.

Good, Flax. I see it's small.

I'll bring it up here. So the The soup, the cold soup. Sorry, you're only seeing like my chest came from this magazine, Gluten Free and More. You can also go online, glutenfreeandmore.com, and they've got tons of recipes. Now, again, they're gluten free, but they're not necessarily grain free or dairy free, but, but some are. And some are. So it's just a really good resource. So I actually subscribe to this magazine. And then the salad came from this book called Be a Plant-Based Woman Warrior. And the authors, I put the authors' names on the recipes, but look them up because they're a hoot. They've got stuff, you know, they do online, but they're so fun to watch. But again, it's all plant-based. We still need to remember that we need to make sure we have protein, and sometimes their protein is beans, you know, and things that we're staying away from. But again, I always like to use it as a resource or if something has a recipe, has eggs in it, I may look up the same thing recipe. You do like, first I'll do Easy Paleo whatever, and then, um, because then I know it's gluten-free, it should be dairy-free, grain-free, but it still have eggs. Some people can't do eggs. Then I'll do the same thing and do Easy Vegan whatever, and I wanna, I look to see what they use to substitute the egg. You know, what did they use? Did they use a flaxseed egg or a chia seed egg or applesauce or, you know, various, you know, different egg substitutes? Because the eggs are usually in there as a binder. So they use something else to bind. And I'll look at a few different recipes and decide, you know, and try to make it my own, you know, or see what other recipes may not use onions or they may not use, you know, something that you need to stay away from. And it just gives you a good resource. And then the other thing I always do is I like to have my recipes printed out. And then once I make it, I will put my own notes on there, like needs more garlic or way too much horseradish or whatever it may be. Me, or the suggestions, like in that soup, maybe I put in a little healthy fat and some more healthy fats, some olive oil in there, you know, whatever it may be. And if I then really like it, I put it in a notebook and I have like a file, you know, like a 3-ring binder. And I have little tabs, breakfast, lunch, dinner, you know, Instapot, air fryer, however you want to divide up your recipes, appetizers, that kind of thing. And then when I'm looking for something or making my shopping list, I'll go there kind of first. And then I always try to add maybe something new, one, one thing new for the week. Not always, but that way I don't feel so overwhelmed with that everything I'm making is new. Yeah, my standbys, and then I say, okay, this day I have a little extra time. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make that. So, so I hope that helps. And, and I hope that we'll do some more cooking classes, whether they be here in the kitchen or online or hybrid like we did this time. But I appreciate you guys joining me today. I really enjoyed it, Debbie. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Welcome. And I'm gonna try that soup. That looked awfully good.

What?

What, Joan? I'm gonna try that soup. It looked awfully good. Yeah. And as I said, make it your own. Like, make it and then think about what you may or may not want to add to it.

All right.

Thank you.