This is a wonderful, restaurant quality, transitional (or raw) dinner salad to make when you want something substantial. Steamed green beans and broccoli florets combine with fresh baby greens, tomatoes, onions, pine nuts, and sunflower sprouts. for a partly cooked, mostly raw dinner. The veggies are topped with a tamari-garlic dressing that makes them both delicious and really satisfying.

Lightly steaming harder to chew, or harder to digest veggies like broccoli and beans can be most helpful for many people. For those who prefer to have a 100% raw food meal, cut broccoli and beans up into bite sized pieces, and proceed with directions below.

Ingredients: Serves 2
3 cups mixed baby greens
1 cup green beans, cut to preferred size
1 cup broccoli florets, cut to preferred size
1/4 cup sliced mild spring onions
1/2 cup tomatoes, chopped
4 tablespoons pine nuts
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons wheat free low salt tamari
1 clove garlic
handful sunflower greens

Directions
Put olive oil, garlic, and tamari into a large bowl and mix.
Add tomatoes and mix to coat.
Gently steam beans, broccoli, and spring onions to desired tenderness.
Put greens onto plates.
Transfer steamed veggies (or raw veggies) to bowl with olive oil, tamari & garlic and gently mix.
Spoon veggies on top of greens.
Top with sunflower spout greens.

It's peak season in the Northwest and we can't seem to control ourselves. We keep bringing back bags and bags of fresh produce. The kitchen is overflowing. The countertops are covered. It's wonderful, really, to have these gifts galore, treasures for the body, and such beauty for the soul.

Sometimes we're asked what we eat on a raw food diet. And here's an answer: Just this morning we brought home watermelon, blueberries, cherries, raspberries, nectarines, strawberries, lettuce heads and mixed greens, celery, baby cucumbers for pickling, parsley, corn, garlic, kale, beets, tomatoes, green beans, sunflower sprouts, sweet spring onions, ginger root, raspberry honey, avocados, pineapple, oranges, and pine nuts!

We visited four places to bring it all home: first, the farmers market (where we loaded up and chatted with Roslyn from Rabbit Fields Farm, shown here); second, the local coop; third, Trader Joe's; and lastly, a local farm where we get heads of organic lettuce so huge and strong they take our breath away. There's a power that literally radiates from the romaine: it's a deep dark green, and we can feel the minerals and chlorophyll within the fibers of the plant. We usually juice one whole head a day, along with a lot of parsley, a whole head of celery, one cucumber, two apples, and a lemon for a vitalizing, alkalizing drink that often leaves our bodies literally tingling.

Summer is "the time" for us in this region to move into greater levels of health. This is the season to eat light, vital, and invigorating foods. We keep talking about going on a juice feast during the summer, but it keeps eluding us. Often we make it most of the day on juices, then need to eat some solids. So we listen to our bodies. Maybe the fast will happen this year, maybe not. As our friend, Terrie Lambert (singer-songwriter, and inventor of Moonshine Slides) says, "it's all good."

In the meantime we're thrilled that there's so much abundance for us to partake in, and our gratitude overflows. We thank the farmers who grow the food, and we also thank the food which gives us life so that we may offer ourselves to the world in small ways, with acts of loving service.