This abundant, colorful bowl is a refreshing meal to welcome in the equinox. Each component adds a layer of nutrient-density, making it an on-repeat dish for dinner. Look forward to roasted carrots bathed in chili oil; crowd-pleasing, Dijon-marinated beets; and a smattering of herbs, olives, and almonds to cover your flavor bases and textures. Crafted by avid plant-home cook and food alchemist, Sasha Pagni, this recipe pays homage to the West Coast high-health movement of the 1970s. It's herbaceous, bright, and the added element of cooked grains keeps it satiating.
Beauty secrets: The bed of deep green and purples offer anthyocyanins, a critical antioxidant, plus their bitter flavor profile stimulates important gastric juices. This beats bloat and recalibrates your palate from craving sugar, which can be quite acidic and dehydrating to the system. Beets contain the amino acid betaine, which helps to create fluid balance in and outside of the cell; an imbalance in fluid causes the cells to die—and when a cell can no longer replicate, our bodies show signs of skin aging.
Ingredients:
Roasted Carrots
- 2-3 tablespoons chili oil (recommended: Momofuku, Brightland, Chi Chi Pepper, or Dano’s)
- 3 medium-sized organic carrots
- 1 teaspoon organic maple syrup
- Salt + pepper, to taste
Marinated Beets
- 2-3 small beets
- 1 tablespoon stone ground mustard (recommended: Dark Horse Fermented Dijon or New Primal Coarse Mustard)
- 1 teaspoon coconut sugar
- 1 teaspoon flaky sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons organic Extra Virgin olive oil (recommended: Brightland or Wonder Valley)
Everything else
- 1 cup cooked millet (substitute: amaranth, rice, buckwheat, or pearl couscous if not gluten free)
- ⅓ cup kalamata olives, chopped
- ¼ cup chopped herbs (recommended: mint, parsley, dill)
- 4 cups of fresh, organic greens (recommended: radicchio, baby rainbow chard, frisee, arugula)
- ¼ cup crushed almonds
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 375F.
- Place beets in a pot of boiling water and cook for 30-40 minutes or until they can be pierced through.
- Once beets are into boiling water, prepare a second pot and cook your grain of choice, according to the suggested directions.
- While the beets and grains are cooking on the stove, toss carrots in chili oil, maple, salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for 35 minutes or until tender.
- Prepare the marinade for the beets by whisking all ingredients and setting aside.
- Prepare toppings by roughly chopping kalamata olives, herbs, and crushing the almonds.
- Once the beets can be pierced through, drain the water from the pot and allow them to cool for 5 minutes. When they are cool enough to handle, cut into quarters and toss in the prepared marinade.
- Build your bowl: layer greens, grain, carrots, and beets. Sprinkle olives, herbs, almonds as you prefer and drizzle the excess marinade from the beets over the entire bowl to act as a dressing. Enjoy.
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