February, 2010

Now there’s no need to worry if you missed any of Charlie’s 3-Course Valentine’s Meal demo at our Farmers’ Market yesterday! … Here’s your chance to watch whenever you like.

It’s a great How-To for a quick, easy and delicious meal:

• A Sweet & Simple Salad
• Chickpea Croquettes with Chard and Carrots
• Raspberry Champagne Float

Sweet and Simple Salad

This is a simple salad, using ingredients from the farmers market. The great thing about this is the flavors are so fresh, you know everything was picked yesterday or a couple of days ago and it’s so simple to throw together last minute. You can use whatever your favorite farmer’s market greens and veggies are to build your own version.

• Lettuce
• Radish, sliced
• Avocado, sliced
• Candied Walnuts

Honey Vinaigrette

• 6Tbl Olive Oil
• 2Tbl Apple Cider Vinegar
• 2 tsp honey
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• Good Pinch salt and pepper

Place the arugula in a bowl and toss with the dressing.

Place onto a serving plate and top with radish, walnuts and avocado

Chickpea Croquettes

• 2 cups cooked Chickpeas, rinsed and drained well
• 1 cup Wholewheat Flour
• Juice of 1/2 Lemon
• 1/2 cup Onion, chopped
• 1 bunch Garlic Chives
• 1/2 Red Bell Pepper, finely chopped
• 3 Garlic cloves, minced
• 2 Tablespoons Parsley leaves
• Salt and Pepper
• Olive Oil

In a large bowl, mash the Chickpeas with a fork. Add all the other ingredients and mix well. Season and taste! Form the Chickpea mixture into patties, about 1/2 inch thick (add a little water if needed).

In a large saucepan, heat some Olive Oil over a medium heat. Place 4 patties in the pan, and cook for 4-5 minutes, until the bottoms begin to brown. Flip the patties over, with a spatula, and cook for another 4-5 minutes on the other side, until that side begins to brown, too.

Transfer to a plate, and repeat with the remaining 4 patties.

Serve with Homemade Ketchup or Chutney (we recommend Sylvie’s from the market – they work together perfectly!)

Sauteed Swiss Chard

Simply wash and roughly chop a bunch of Chard (including the stalks). Mince a clove, or two, of Garlic. Heat some Olive Oil in a pan, sautee the Garlic with the chard. Add a pinch of Salt. Done!

Roasted Heirloom Carrots

In a bowl, toss the carrots with Olive Oil and Sea Salt. Place into a foil parcel, with 4 cloves of Garlic. Cover and bake at 375 degrees, for 30 minutes.

Raspberry Champagne Float

This doubles as a dessert and an after dinner drink, and will be sure to win your loved one over. It’s a dessert to share!

• 1 cup frozen raspberries
• ½ cup Agave
• Vanilla Ice Cream (from Help Yourself of course!)
• Champagne (or other sparkling white wine)

Blend the Raspberries with the Agave to make a syrup.

Pour a good swirl of the Raspberry syrup into a glass. Fill up with Champagne and add a spoon full of Vanilla Ice Cream.

Q: What was your favorite thing you ate on Valentine’s Day?

This week:

We were very sad to cancel our Friday night Valentine’s Event, but are bouncing with excitement because the Farmers’ Market on Sunday will be even better – we’re moving some of Friday’s event over to Sunday! … We have all the usual wonderful organic produce (see below for more details!), and also some wonderful Valentine’s Day tips:

• At 10:30am, Charlie will be demonstrating some good-for-you-chocolate Valentine’s Day treats that are super easy to make at home for your family or loved ones
• At 12:30pm, motivational speaker Kevin Gianni from The Renegade Health Show will be talking about Food Cravings and teach us how we can overcome them.

Your Shopping Lists:

New potatoes are in season – yippee! And we’re delighted to see so many heirloom varieties making their way to market – the beautiful colors of Carrots and Tomatoes have been a joy, and quite a talking point these past few weeks! This week the heirloom carrots are back, as is rainbow chard. We’re also very pleased to see the arrival of Spinach in amongst our more regular greens.

• Greens: Green and Heirloom Rainbow Chard, Savoy Cabbage, Lettuce, Spinach, Arugula, Asian Mix
• Veggies:  Grape Tomatoes, Green Peppers, Heirloom Carrots, Cauliflowers, White and Portabella Mushrooms, Radishes, New Potatoes, Yukon Gold Potatoes
• Herbs: Dill, Garlic Chives, Flat Italian Parsley
• Extras: Eggs … and lots of Valentine’s treats for you to buy and take home

p.s. Have you watched our Valentine’s video, yet?

See you on Sunday!

Let’s face it, it’s gotten cold again! And thunderstorms are forecast for Friday night. So we’ve taken the sad decision to cancel our Valentine’s Event.

BUT DO NOT WORRY … we’re moving it all to Sunday -Valentine’s Day! …

Check out the Farmers’ Market post for details!

We have had such a great response from our Raw Detox programs, almost 80 people that have either completed it or signed up for it, that we decided to throw a party! And with Valentine’s Day just around the corner it makes it a double celebration!

So come and join us on Friday 12th February between 6pm and 8pm at Help Yourself and “Fall in Love with Real Food”! (We even made a Valentines video for you!)

We will have our tents set up outside the restaurant where:

• Charlie will be demonstrating some healthy valentines treats that are super easy to make at home for your family or loved ones.
• Motivational speaker Kevin Gianni from The Renegade Health Show will be speaking about Food Cravings and teach us how we can overcome them.
• We will have a raw tapas bar so you can sample some of our tasty raw dishes!

And of course it will be a great way meet and catch up with other people that are passionate about healthy living and real food!

Tickets are $30.00 and can be purchased at Help Yourself, 829 Fleming Street (corner of Fleming and Margret) or call 305 296 7766 to reserve a ticket.

Hope to see you there!

Last Sunday we had a great time, taking the Farmers’ Market over to join the Key West Food & Wine Festival. Thank you to all our regular Market-goers for making the trip down the road! And great to meet so many new faces.

This week we’re back on home turf, at the regular time

9am to1pm

If you thought SuperBowl couldn’t also be a healthy and delicious day… think again!

At the market this week, we’ve got juicy heirloom carrots, as well as gorgeous heirloom tomatoes – they sold out so quickly last week!

The Lacinato Kale, Red Kale and Red Chard are back on the list this week, along with regular favorites: Asian Mix, Arugula, Assorted Lettuce (Crisphead, Butterhead, Romaine, Looseleaf), Cauliflower, White Mushrooms, Portabellas and Potatoes.

… Not forgetting our local Keys eggs – we KNOW how much you love those!! No fighting now!!!

… Or the grape and roma tomatoes, red round radishes, scallions, parsley and cilantro.

YUM! See you there!

We love Micheal Pollan! His philosophy around food, outlined in his books ‘The Omnivores Dilema’ and ‘In Defense of Food’, are directly in line with ours and the reasons we opened Help Yourself. In fact I can’t think of any better words to sum it up than his phrase on the front of ‘In Defense of Food’; Eat Food. Not Much. Mostly Plants.

This morning I had some time to myself and I went down to Voltaire Books and picked up his latest book ‘Food Rules’. This is a simple pocket guide he calls ‘An Eaters Manual’ that contains 64 rules on how to eat.

Forget Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach, Medi Fast or any of the other fad diets out there, if everyone followed these simple guidelines we would have a much healthier and thinner nation. Guaranteed.

Take Rule number 37 for instance:

“The whiter the bread the sooner you’ll be dead”

How true this is! In fact here’s a little whole grain trivia we have posted at the restaurant that helps you understand why this rule is so true: