I asked Amie Valpone from The Healthy Apple to help me cook her favorite recipes so I would have healthy food in my fridge all week.
Today we decided that fresh salsa is going to be a staple. It’s nice that ready made salsa is gluten free, but after sampling Amie’s homemade cilantro salsa my not-so-new-years-resolution was FRESH SALSA!
Today Amie cooked: spinach with chickpeas, roasted eggplant and peppers, fresh salsa, black bean dip, and cauliflower guacamole. We also made Fish en Papillote (in parchment) and chicken stock. Recipes can be found on her blog The Healthy Apple in the next few weeks!
Cooking together is such a lost art–especially in New York City–with our small kitchens and our busy schedules. All summer, in Amagansett and in Vermont I cook with my family and it is so nice to bring some of that togetherness to my city life. And already, Amie Valpone feels like family. We don’t just cook together–we eat together–tasting as we cook–reveling in the glistening vegetables that pose on the plates as we wrap up our our cooking marathon. Preparing vegetables and prepping for the week with Amie leaves me more time to cook for–and be with–my kids. I tend to bake a few things for the week–chocolate chip cookies and homemade crackers–while Amie focuses on vegetable dishes. At the end of three hours that fly by, my fridge is filled with vegetable dishes for the week, a homemade stock, crudite and several dips.
The best thing about Amie is her enthusiasm for healthy fresh food. When she offers you ZUCCHINI!!! with sea salt and herbs and fresh salsa!!! you feel like you are eating chocolate–she is so over the moon excited about it.
Besides filling my fridge with fresh, homemade food, Amie and I are also brainstorming future projects. You can read more about all the amazing things that Amie Valpone is doing now by visiting The Healthy Apple – Services.
