Wild Rice Salad with Cherries

Northern Michigan is my favorite place on earth. There isn’t even a close second. I grew up a few minutes from the beach north of Boston so people thought I was nuts to leave in the summer for the Great Lakes.  How wrong they are!

One of the many wonderful things about this part of the country is that it’s where cherries are grown.  When ‘up north,’ we eat cherries everyday. Cherry pie for breakfast signals summer for me.

When I got back to NYC, I was homesick for spicy Vernors, 10 pm sunsets and cherries. I couldn’t do 

much about the first two but luckily (for a small fortune) it’s cherry season in NYC too.

I made Heidi Swanson’s wild rice salad with cherries and it was a hit. It’s no cherry pie but that’s a breakfast thing anyways.

Combine 3 1/2 cups of cooked wild rice, a few handfuls of greens like spinach or arugula and 2/3 cup toasted walnuts. Make  a cherry vinaigrette by combining ½ cup of cherries, ½ cup olive oil and ¼ cup of white wine vinegar. Blend until smooth and season with salt. Dress the salad (you’ll have leftovers) and then toss in one cup of pitted fresh cherries and top with some crumbled goat cheese.

Nut Milk on Your Doorstep? Only in NYC!

There are a lot of dairy substitutes out there these days – rice, coconut, almond, soy, etc. – but very few of the store bought brands taste that great in my mind and many are chalk full of random gunk. O Milk of Brooklyn to the rescue! They deliver fresh almond and cashew milk to your doorstep weeknights between 7-10pm. They charge $5 for delivery but refuse tips since it’s still the owners driving around dropping off your fresh milk. It’s insanely awesome.

http://www.omilknyc.com/

I got a few of both delivered and froze some to save on the delivery fee for the next few weeks. Says she who just bought a ticket to London in August. Penny wise, pound foolish. Literally.

The almond milk is fantastic for oatmeal, smoothies, coffee or whatever else you would normally use milk in. The cashew milk is a meal in itself. Delicious!

Avocado Smoothie

It's not as weird as it sounds. Avocados have a seed so they are technically a fruit. And my friend Jessica just had a tomato (seeds!) and cucumber (seeds!) smoothie in Belize. And while we are all used to them as guacamole, they lend themselves well to a bit of sweetness. Have an avocado smoothie for breakfast, and you'll actually survive until lunch without a terrible case of the munchies.

Combine one firm avocado with cold almond milk and about one tablespoon of honey or more if you like sweeter smoothies. Toss in some sunflower seeds or other nuts if you like. I prefer to garnish it with some crunchy caramelized sunflower seeds but that is a bit of extra work.

If you like it, awesome. If you don't, go back to your guac. Zzzzzz!