As much as my experience with vegetables is extensive, the turnip and I surprisingly have never met in the kitchen. It has always seemed like an extraneous ingredient – something you have to get rid of in the garden, so you end up throwing it into a pot with – whatever – and hope that it just cooks away. The turnip is just not the star-quality food I normally seek when selecting ingredients, but as a seasonal, local, and I do believe a bit of a lonely crop, I was compelled to take a turnip bundle home with me.

“What do you do with these turnips?” I dubiously asked the woman managing the vegetable booth.

“Make a soup.” She answered, while collecting my money.

I was beginning to picture an image resembling the children’s story, Stone Soup. Things just get thrown in the pot, and eventually a long simmer just works everything out somehow into a good meal.

“What kind of soup?” I asked.

“Turnip Soup.” And she was onto helping the next customer as I was left standing alone with the responsibility of 4 bulbous turnips.

Later that evening as the wind howled outside, I tentatively chopped my turnips, determined to make the quiet tuber a star. I found it to be much like a potato, yet with a higher water content and slightly sweeter flavor. I solicited the help of a single yam to further enhance the sweetness, alongside a minimal complimentary ingredient list, which included the basics: onion, garlic, etc.

A half hour passed. The smell of savory swelled. And finally, there it was: Turnip Soup.

The spotlight turned on. The turnip stepped out.

It was absolutely delicious.

Puree of Turnip Soup

A comforting holistic soup made from the delicious yet often forgotten turnip.

INGREDIENTS:
2 Tbsp coconut oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, minced
3-4 turnips (about 1 pound), chopped into 1” pieces
1 medium sweet potato (about ½ pound), peeled and chopped into 1” pieces
2½ cup vegetable broth
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste
½ teaspoon black pepper

DIRECTIONS:
Heat a large saucepan over medium heat. Melt the coconut oil, and add the onions and garlic. Sauté for 3-5 minutes or until onions begin to turn translucent.

Add the turnips and the sweet potato and sauté for 2 minutes longer. Pour in the vegetable broth and almond milk. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes, or until turnips and potatoes are tender.

Transfer soup contents to a blender, and puree until completely smooth (blend in a couple small batches, if necessary). Pour soup back into pot and reduce at a low simmer for 5 minutes longer. Add salt to taste and black pepper.

Not that I ever really need an excuse to eat chocolate

Extraordinarily! Well, perhaps just ONE more bite then . . . (but last one for real FOR REAL this time) . . .

Yet despite this popularized news, superfood company and cacao manufacturer Navitas Naturals has just released what they consider “the honest truth” — exposing that even when processed at low temperatures (i.e. “raw”), there is actually no vitamin C (ascorbic acid) present in cacao.

Oh.

Since 2004, Navitas Naturals has meticulously conducted lab tests directly looking for vitamin C content in raw cacao — each test coming up consistently negative. Always seeking new exciting health advantages of the natural foods they sell, having a firm grasp on nutrition is an important part of the company’s platform. Yet with the current media claims on cacao’s high vitamin C content pointing directly against their own findings, the Northern California-based company decided to let science settle the score.

The multi-platform test performed included using two separate laboratories and three different analytical methods: High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Capilary Electrophoresis (CE) with UV detection, and Titration. Though all three methods have their place in the scientific community, Titration is the most commonly used method in the food industry when determining vitamin C (ascorbic acid) content. However, there is a critical detail within the Titration method which is easy to miss when testing raw cacao’s vitamin C content: Titration is unable to differentiate the vitamin C (ascorbic acid) from the vitamin’s analogs. Consequently, many companies experience test results known as a “false positive.”

Navitas Naturals has a different preferred method – HPLC – which looks directly for vitamin C (ascorbic acid), and not just the analogs. And although the analogs in the Titration test predictably showed a “high vitamin C” false positive, the HPLC method clearly documented a negative vitamin C reading. After utilizing the CE method for a third round of testing, the reports again returned consistent with the negative HPLC results.

To cross all their t’s and dot all their i’s, Navitas then tested their cacao products against one of the largest raw cacao brands in the United States using the Titration and HPLC methods. True to all previous findings, the results confirmed raw cacao, regardless of source, has no vitamin C (ascorbic acid) present.

So here’s the honest truth: cacao is a tremendously beneficial superfood — serving as a rich supply of antioxidants, one of the highest natural dietary sources of magnesium, and containing an impressively high iron content alongside many other essential minerals. Navitas Naturals’ raw cacao powder, for example, has a documented score of a 950 ORAC units per gram (95,000 per 100g) — which is huge! You only need 6g of this organic raw cacao powder to exceed your daily ORAC need as per USDA recommendations. This “real chocolate” is 100% a health food. But as nutrition is a quantifiable science, it is important to be clear on one thing: vitamin C is one benefit cacao does not provide.

And now, yes, back to your regularly scheduled chocolate consumption.

Quiet, yes.  But quiet it made me in exchange. The laptop stayed unusually closed, and my mind remained comfortably still as I soaked up the simple complexity of nature around me. I basked in the broad, lazy pastures with resting hay barrels and excited crickets; the frontier-like houses with dirt driveways that crackle deeply from passing cars; the families of cows resting under the shade of lanky pine trees; and then, of course, the gardens. Every house in that pristine setting had a food garden. And as ’tis the season, each garden was absolutely brimming with vegetables, berries, tubers, flowers and all the best bounty that good soil, plentiful sunshine, and a summertime season can offer.

To me, there is something so innately joyous about being able to harvest and gather one’s own food. It’s one of those instinctual “this feels right” type of tasks – you know, like the opposite of walking into a Walmart. And with my dad’s all-organic garden absolutely flourishing this year, frequent harvesting was exactly what I did. Carrots, artichokes, onions, tomatoes, broccoli, squash, greens . . . who knew I was a borderline locust.

Upon nightfall, we’d make grand simple meals of the freshest of fresh vegetables. Here’s what went into our summertime garden salad bowl, which we consumed just about every night. Delicious. When I wasn’t eating it, I was thinking about eating it. Brought to you by nature and what’s perfectly in season . . .

Life Is Good Salad:

INGREDIENTS
2 heads of red leaf lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces
3 cups shredded carrots
1 bunch chives, coarsely chopped
5-6 sweet Persian (miniature) cucumbers, sliced
3 large hierloom tomatoes, chopped
1 large Hass avocado, chopped
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds

DIRECTIONS
Toss all ingredients together in a large bowl. I dressed mine simply with oil, lemon juice, sea salt and black pepper.
Ah.
Yes.
Perfection.

In caveman days, I think I actually would have done pretty well.  While my un-evolved cohorts were off worrying about getting stampeded by woolly mammoths in their quest for a meaty entree, I would have stayed at home feasting on berries and nuts and nutritious greens, and feeling – yes – totally fabulous. I probably would have looked hot in my cavelady dress too.

Ironically, it’s some of the modern social settings that can, at times, be a wee bit problematic. Like barbecues. Oh yeah – the smokey grills full of animal-bits, bowls of greasy chips, and ubiquitous offerings of “mystery ingredient” coleslaw have me basically locked into the one thing I can share with everyone: beer. And while beer is great and all it’s not exactly my idea of a well-rounded meal . . . which is why I always BYOB.

No – not more beer (while arguably always a good idea). In this case I’m referring to burgers. I like to bring my own homemade burger patties for several reasons: to participate in the BBQ fun, to ensure that I eat well, and to share with my woolly mammoth chasing friends. This summer’s no different, and lately I’ve been absolutely hooked on a new burger recipe: a Portobello Burger Patty which is so fantastically savory, juicy, and full of plant-based protein, I’ve clearly developed a new healthy habit. I make a big batch ahead of time, and then just use as needed (and by “as needed” I mean embarrassingly often).

Such an easy BBQ solution with only one little problem – everyone else seems to favor my burgers over the ones on the grill too. So do yourself a favor and bring extra, as these days survival of the fittest is more in line with He Who Has The Most Portobello Burgers. Evolution, baby.

Click here for my Portobello Burger Patty recipe.

Growing up, each weekend the process was the same: first I would scour my collection of cookbooks and, without fail, choose the most complicated one I could possibly find to tackle. Next came the well-practiced whiny parental nag (pout inclusion dependent upon circumstance) to schelp me to a grocery store, soon followed by a creative justification as to why the 20-something ingredient list I had carefully bulleted was totally and completely necessary. Upon eventually getting everything I needed, I would then begin The Great Meal Preparation, lasting several hours, which was inevitably coupled with The Great Kitchen Mess. All this for a meal that was usually mediocre, at best. Perhaps this is why video games were invented.

At any rate, though my style of cooking has clearly improved over the years, there are still a few recipes from way back when that stand out in my mind as true successes. One in particular is a pasta puttanesca. With a savory, satisfying Italian flair, this dish is in the “frequent favorite” category.  Of course, I’ve since revamped this recipe to shine in a more nutritious light, and low and behold I do believe it’s far better (and simpler!) than the one I made growing up.

Here’s my recipe.

Nutritional perks: Low carb, High in healthy Omega Fats, Alkaline-forming, Full of trace minerals, Gluten-Free, Antioxidant-Rich