How to preserve and protect your produce from the summer heat

Monday, August 12, 2013 by: PF Louis
Tags: produce, summer heat, healthy food

(NaturalNews) Summer heat presents problems for fresh produce wilting and losing its vitality. There are some simple ways to utilize them so they can be transformed into edibles that can linger in your fridge without spoiling.

Or they can simply be used immediately in ways to beat the heat while avoiding the heat from the kitchen stove.

Creating veggie foods that refrigerate well

You can't let basil sit around too long. Ditto for cilantro. Why not use them to make a pesto? Combining basil for flavor with fresh organic cilantro (coriander) gives you a tasty pesto. Cilantro serves to help detox heavy metals such as mercury. You can involve other greens, like spinach, before they get too mushy.

Using a food processor, you can sample the pesto to taste and texture as you make it. Add pure water with olive oil, taking care not to overdue it, while mixing until you get your desired texture.

In addition to the greens, use a generous amount of olive oil, one-half or one whole lemon squeezed, sea salt, some fresh garlic cloves, and a few pine nuts or walnuts. When you're satisfied with your pesto, put it into a jar and top it off with enough olive oil to seal it.

It refrigerates well for weeks and can be used for pastas and sandwiches or whatever else suits your taste.

Gazpacho soup is a delicious, cold, spicy soup that loves to hibernate in the fridge and improve its flavor. It's the perfect summer soup. There are several recipes available, but the trick is getting the right consistency. Too thick makes it more a salsa than a soup.

You'll need tomato juice, fresh tomatoes, cilantro, garlic and other spices, fresh cucumbers, and chopped onions. Making it keeps the kitchen cool because there's no cooking involved.

Source [2] below offers several recipes. If you've never had gazpacho soup on a hot summer day, you're in for an unforgettable treat.

Cold potato-leek soup, aka vichyssoise (vishy-swa), is a cold soup classic that's delicious and refreshing. It's a chilled cream soup that will absorb your potatoes before they sprout and your leeks before they rot. Source [3] below offers many approaches, including some with reduced fat.

Just make sure you use organic tomatoes and potatoes at least. It's better to use all organic produce and dairy as well, because those two items are among the most heavily sprayed with noxious chemicals.

Cilantro should be organic since it acts better as a heavy metal detox agent if it isn't loaded with toxins to begin with. And of course, your olive oil should be organic extra virgin cold pressed.

Summertime is also smoothie time

Never mind the dairy smoothies with ice cream and milk. That stuff keeps in the fridge well anyway. It's much healthier to use your fruits and green veggies for cooling, refreshing smoothies before they spoil from the summer heat.

You'll need a good blender, not the best, but adequate. Find a blender with a hard plastic container that's not too expensive and doesn't require removing the blade section to clean it. You won't have to worry about breaking or chipping glass. [4]

All you need are fruits like bananas, mangoes, or apples (organic only) to give you some texture and greens of your choice. You're safe with a 50/50 blend of fruits and veggies, but you may want to get more creative after you try a few.

If you want a more liquid, colder smoothie, put some ice in the blender too. Try watermelon and cucumber with ice some time.

Here are some international recipes you can use as a guide for healthy, flavorful and refreshing green smoothies (http://www.naturalnews.com).

Sources for this article include:

[1] http://www.mindbodygreen.com

[2] http://allrecipes.com

[3] http://www.google.com

[4] http://www.naturalnews.com