A few weeks ago I watched a fascinating series called The Healing Kitchen, which shared many traditional and ancestral healing herbs and plants. It reminded me about humble little purslane, a “weed” you see everywhere and walk right by (or on.)<\/p>\n
Not long after, I was visiting a friend whose front garden bed was filled with volunteer plants. While she and I hiked, her husband picked me a whole baggie of plump, fresh purslane. He likes using it in a Middle East salad called Fattoush.<\/p>\n
After my hike I offered to share some of this green gold with a neighbor who politely declined. “Isn’t that what’s always growing in sidewalk cracks?” she asked skeptically.<\/p>\n
Indeed it is that very same weed. But here is how I look at it. Humble purslane can grow just about anywhere with no planting, tending, watering or nurturing. So basically it is a mean survivor–and I don’t mind getting a piece of its powerful nutrition. Take a look at all of its nutritional benefits<\/a> that include cancer prevention, heart and bone health, immune boosting and much more.<\/p>\n Not to mention, it’s 100% free!<\/p>\n While I wasn’t able to make Fattoush, here’s the meal salad I improvised instead: A bed of lettuce topped with fried radish matchsticks, shredded carrots and cabbage, red peppers, chicken, pumpkin seeds and of course, purslane which adds a refreshing, citrusy flavor.<\/p>\n The dressing is simply pesto made with peaches and pistachios, which makes it creamy and thick without a lot of oil.<\/p>\n While the Healing Kitchen series is over, you can still order it<\/a> and get the recipe book for many remedies, skin care potions and immune and health-boosting foods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few weeks ago I watched a fascinating series called The Healing Kitchen, which shared many traditional and ancestral healing herbs and plants. It reminded me about humble little purslane, a “weed” you see everywhere and walk right by (or on.) Not long after, I was visiting a friend whose front garden bed was filled … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,20,9,13],"tags":[791,792,793],"class_list":["post-6075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-what-is-healthy-eating","category-recipes","category-green-kitchen","category-local-and-sustainable-eating","tag-eating-weeds","tag-foraging","tag-free-food","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6075"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6081,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6075\/revisions\/6081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}