I was looking at a previous post, Breakfast of Champions, and the salad looked so good. You might ask, a salad for breakfast? It’s actually quite wonderful for those hungry mornings! I wanted to make it for lunch, but we were missing some of the ingredients. Then, intuitive food preparation came to play. After taking a look in the fridge to see what was "lighting up" (what looked really good to eat), I assembled what we had on hand. By the time everything was put together we had a unique, colorful, hearty, satisfying, and yummy meal—one that brings a feeling of strength to the body, and one I would happily serve to guests as a side dish!

Note: The flavors are synergistic, and the salad will taste different if other sprouts are used.

Ingredients: Serves 2, or 4 people as a side dish
1 collard leaf, thinly sliced
3/4 cup mixed sprouts: we used mung bean, French green lentil, and buckwheat in equal amounts of each kind
1/2 Fuji apple, diced (peeled if desired)
1/4 large Haas avocado, cut into small bite sized pieces
3 tablespoons green onions, finely sliced
2-3 tablespoons Goji berries
1/2 lemon, squeezed on top
Tiny drizzle of toasted sesame oil
Tiny drizzle of Juniper Balsamic vinegar, optional
Tiny sprinkle of cayenne pepper
And if you want something salty, drizzle on a little bit of Coconut Aminos.

Directions
Have the sprouts ready to go. They’re very easy to sprout. Buy mung beans, buckwheat, and lentils from the health food store, or online.
Make sure you get buckwheat "groats".

For mung beans and lentils: Soak about 4 tablespoons of each for 6 hours in sprouting jar with lid.
Drain, rinse with pure water, and drain well.
Turn jar upside down or place at an angle to sprout so that the sprouts don’t get soggy.
Rinse and drain twice daily for 2 days.

For buckwheat sprouts: Soak about 4 tablespoons of buckwheat groats for 30-60 minutes in 1-2 cups of pure water.
After soaking, pour contents into a strainer and rinse well under cool running water. Drain well.
Cover strainer with a plastic bag, and set out on the counter to sprout.
Continue to rinse and drain twice daily for 2 days.
Make sure all the mucilageous quality is gone before eating. If they feel slippery, rinse more.

Assemble Salad Put sprouts, collard slices, apples, green onions, Goji berries, and avocado into a bowl and mix well.
Plate salad, and squeeze on a little lemon juice, a tiny drizzle of toasted sesame oil, tiny shake of cayenne, and a little drizzle of optional Balsamic vinegar and Coconut Aminos.

When preparing a meal, reinvention can take place in the blink of an eye, simply by changing the herbs or spices, or adding new toppings to a familiar dish, like zucchini pasta, or a sprout salad. When this happens, Rex and I find that we’re about to eat meal that’s constantly evolving—and to our delight, it’s always new, and never the same.

When I looked in the fridge to see what appealed to me, all the sprouts were glowing with life. My body was almost diving in to get them! Everything living was calling to me like a song, so I trusted this feeling, and out came the mung beans sprouts, the tiny French green lentil sprouts, and the buckwheat sprouts (shown at right). I wanted to include a hearty green, like the kale we used in the Breakfast of Champions recipe. But we didn’t have kale—we had collards—and flavor-wise, I think it turned out to be the right choice.

Once the salad was completed, we didn’t actually know if it would taste good—more trust in the process. Yet as soon as we topped it with some lemon juice, a tiny drizzle of toasted sesame oil, and another tiny drizzle of Balsamic vinegar, from the 1st bite we knew it was going to be great! And the unusual flavors tasted better and better the more we ate. I actually made myself a second helping—I was so hungry for all that live food nutrition!

The benefits of this diet combined with intuitive food preparation are clear: the body gives strong signals if I listen. And in doing so, day by day, I am led to find the best foods for any given moment. What I’ve learned time and again, is that if we don’t have all the ingredients to duplicate one of our recipes, to not let this stop me from creating a variation, or something completely fresh, something new. Then, to surrender my questioning mind, and allow creativity to have full reign in the kitchen, and see what delightful meals and surprises spring forth!