Around bitchinkitchen, we like to enjoy a little indulgence from time to time. A few too many adult beverages, a little too much dessert, CHEESE. We try not to stress too much about it as long as we’re eating heathfully most of the time. To us, that means lots of vegetables, whole grains and fruits. But in winter, that kind of eating can also mean shipping delicate greens and berries across the country or even further. You might as well spoon a giant blob of fossil fuels into your bowl. Yum!

In case you’ve been living under a rock, that way of thinking has spawned the locavore movement, which is closely tied with Slow Food (which also encompasses the social aspects of cooking and eating together). The thinking, broadly, is that eating locally grown and minimally processed foods is better for people, communities and ecosystems. Us BIK gals are fans because we heart Planet Earth, but also because it’s the handiest thing ever to run out and grab a sprig of rosemary from your garden rather than getting all cute and going to the grocery store for a box to whip up some herb scrambled eggs. We like any task that can be accomplished while wearing (also cute) PJs.

So, that brings us back to healthful eating. What to do in winter when all you crave is salad? Well, we took a page from Barbara Kingsolver’s fantastic book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” and from Body + Soul magazine, and looked to winter greens for a hearty, tasty salad. You may not be lucky enough to find these at a farmer’s market at this time of year (but probably they are coming soon), but this is the season for good-for-you cold-weather greens like kale, Swiss chard and other winter veggies, and you can find them at any old grocery store. The key to making them salad ready is slicing them into thin ribbons and pairing with a bit of sweetness (apples, maple syrup and honey-toasted sunflower seeds in this case) and drizzling on a dressing with just a bit of bite.

I had already been thinking about winter salads thanks to Kingsolver’s book but didn’t take the plunge until I came across this recipe in Body + Soul. I made some tweaks because I find raw Brussels sprouts pretty unappealing, and I wanted more sweetness to balance the pungency of the mustard and the intensity of the greens. I served this to some friends, and to our genuine surprise, we all really liked it. I tweaked it a bit more and now like has turned to full-on love. It’s crunchy and fresh and just what I wanted after a week of too many sweets. Also, if I do say so myself, this salad is beautiful to look at. You can put it together ahead of time and just top with the sunflower seeds and dressing right before serving. Leave any excess dry – you can eat it for several days for lunches as long as you haven’t added the dressing.

Food for thought before you dive in: If you feel the urge to blanch all the greens, I beg you, resist! I tried it, and the kale and Swiss chard become irreparably rubbery. Silly me, I thought I could blanch and then dry the greens, and they would be salad-ready but, well, cooked. No, it totally doesn’t work that way. However, I think that approach does work well with the Brussels sprouts, so I did it. If raw cabbage is your thing, just chop the sprouts and use them uncooked.

One last thing – julienning is a chopping technique that basically means you slice something into narrow ribbons. It is mostly for texture and appearance. It that is too high-maintenance (especially with the apples), just chop however you like. This recipe is meant to be e-a-s-y, so don’t let a little thing like fancy chopping deter you. The only important thing for this salad is that the pieces be small. Even a happy kale convert like me can’t stomach a giant leaf in one bite.

Cold-weather salad with honey-toasted sunflower seeds

Adapted from Body + Soul magazine

Serves 6-8

Salad

1 pound Brussels sprouts

5 leaves kale

5 leaves Swiss chard

2 red-skinned apples, finely julienned (I liked Fuji apples for this), tossed with a couple teaspoons of lemon juice to prevent browning

½ cup raw sunflower seeds

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon olive oil

2 pinches salt

Dressing

1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard

Juice of one lemon

2 tablespoons maple syrup

Two tablespoons cold-pressed sunflower oil (or whatever you have handy)

¾ teaspoons salt

Make salad: Stem and finely slice Brussels sprouts into ribbons. Do the same with kale and chard, but do not mix with Brussels sprouts. Blanch Brussels sprouts in salted, boiling water for 4 minutes, then immerse in cold water to cool. Strain, and run through a salad spinner to dry shredded sprouts. Arrange chopped kale and Swiss chard on a platter, then scatter with dried Brussels sprouts. Scatter apple ribbons on top. Salad can be chilled at this point until time to serve.

Make sunflower seeds: Warm nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add oil, then stir in nuts. Drizzle with honey, sprinkle with salt and toss to coat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until nuts begin to brown and become fragrant, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from heat and transfer to heatproof plate or pan and let cook. Break apart if necessary into small chunks and scatter over salad.

Make dressing: Whisk together mustard, lemon juice, syrup, sunflower oil and salt. Drizzle over salad when ready to serve.

As I’ve mentioned, I try to eat virtuously every now and then, so I have a pantry full of stuff like flax seeds, wheat germ and quinoa. And green tea. LOTS of unused green tea. The virtues of green tea are well known even if not fully understood (and in some cases not fully substantiated): Its antioxidants may help fight disease, possibly assist with weight loss and cholesterol management, etc. Good stuff. Read more here and here. *

But the taste … well if you love it good for you. I don’t, so I must hide it in something else.

Heh heh. OK, this isn’t about ice cream (but isn’t it always about ice cream??) Anyway, I was tooling away on the Stairmaster the other day, reading my Body + Soul magazine, and came across this little gem.

Green tea, concealed with spices and fruit. Brilliant! I was, of course, nervous about the quantity of green tea because 1. Ick! And 2. I had tea bags and could not see myself cutting open enough tea bags to yield a third of a cup. Eventually I ditched the loose-tea approach out of pure laziness. It turns out, it’s just fine and saves a step to just use the tea in the bags. And it saves you the inevitable floating chunks that loose tea leaves behind. I would proceed with caution if you want to use more than four bags (which using my tea bags yielded less than 1/8 cup of leaves) because the apple flavor is delicate and easily masked by the tea. To compensate somewhat for the vastly reduced tea quantity, I lengthened the steeping time a bit.

You could go a little wild with other stuff in small quantities … I considered adding a slice of fresh ginger, maybe a handful of fresh cranberries for color and a little flavor. If you love green tea and have some loose, maybe try the original recipe linked above. Otherwise, for a warm, spicy beverage that tastes a little like green tea but much better, try the one below. Seriously, I’m making it again tonight, and this time it’s purely voluntary.

Spiced apple green tea

Adapted from Body + Soul magazine

1 Granny Smith apple, finely chopped

4 cups water

1 cinnamon stick

Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste

4 strips orange zest (use a vegetable peeler for this)

2 tablespoons honey

Four bags green tea

Stir together apple, water, spices, zest and honey in a saucepan. Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer for two minutes. Turn off heat and allow to steep 15 minutes. Pour through a fine-mesh strainer over tea bags, pressing on solids to extract as much liquid as possible and let steep two minutes. Resist the urge to swirl tea bags and squeeze all the liquid out of them, as this can make the tea quite strong and mask the other flavors. Remove tea bags and reheat if necessary. Drop in a couple apple slices to garnish, if you like, and enjoy.

*Full disclosure: We’re both science gals, but not experts on health and nutrition. When we talk about nutrition on BIK, it’ll be from a relatively conservative point of view using trusted non-peer-reviewed sources. We’d love to go to the nutrition journals and read all about this stuff and give you our most informed, most unbiased opinion, but we got no time! We try to be skeptical of whatever we read, eat as many whole foods as possible and enjoy most things in moderation.

Good morning, sunshine! It’s Monday, a new week, another chance for a fresh, healthy start.

But, first … more confessions. 1: I have been known to eat ice cream/potato chips/cheese/some combo of the three for dinner. 2. I am a health nut. I know, I am a deeply confused woman. But I really try to pull my crap together sometimes, and this is one of those times (I recycle a New Year’s resolution to eat more fruits and veggies most years). Thus, smoothie time.

If you’re not big smoothie drinker, I highly recommend at least trying smoothies on for size for several reasons. They’re easy, they are super good for you (fiber, antioxidants, calcium, protein) and they are tasty, even for a sweets-scarfing gal like me.

Did I mention easy? You don’t even need a recipe. There are a million out there, and we will surely try some in the future, but I like the kitchen-sink approach following a basic, flexible formula. This makes enough for two nice portions, although I usually drink it all myself in a desperate attempt to offset all those ice cream dinners. Here’s the thinking behind the formula. If you just want the recipe, skip to below.

My base is always a banana. On the riper side is best so the fruit purees very smoothly and contributes sweetness. But any banana that isn’t green will work fine.

Next is yogurt. If plain, I’ll also drizzle in a tablespoon of honey. Silken tofu plus honey is a great replacement to make a vegan drink. If you want an all-fruit smoothie or one that’s a little thinner, skip the yogurt. One note: I often have plain Greek yogurt around. If I’m using that in my smoothie, I drop the quantity to ¼ cup because it is super thick and tangy. If I have conventional yogurt, especially if it’s flavored, I use ½ cup – which is 6 oz., the amount in a single-serving carton.

Frozen fruit: I view ice cubes as wasted space in a smoothie, but I do like a frosty drink, so I use frozen berries. If you disagree, more power to you, although the addition of water in any form will dilute the flavor, so go easy. Whatever you have in the freezer is fine: blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, sliced peaches, cherries, I have used them all. My current fave is 1 cup of raspberries plus 1/3 cup blueberries.

Kitchen-sink stuff: You can stop with bananas, berries, yogurt and juice, or go wild. Recently, I had some leftover cranberry sauce so I added that to a blueberry smoothie. YUM. Sometimes I add half a peach and some fresh ginger to a raspberry smoothie. Plums, pears, anything works. If it gets too thick with the extra stuff, add more juice.

Juice, 1-2 cups: OK, if you’re type-A like the BIK gals, you may wish for a strict recipe, but the amount of juice depends on personal preference. I use 1½ cups. If you like a thick smoothie, use less – just enough juice to make everything come together (it will thin out as the fruit melts). If you want it lighter, add more. I use orange juice because I always have it, but I have also used cranberry cocktail with good results. Mango nectar comes to mind as something I need to get my hands on for smoothie-ing ASAP.

Basic smoothie: serves one to two.

1 ripe banana

¼ to ½ cup yogurt, see above (if using plain, add 1 Tbsp. honey)

1 1/3 cups frozen berries or other fruit chunks such as mango, pineapple or peaches

1 to 2 cups juice (I use 1½ cups orange juice)

Toss everything into a blender and blend until smooth, adding more juice if needed to make drink come together smoothly. Enjoy!