Start with PURE SPACE – a beautiful studio featuring
nothing but white space and spectacular northern light…

stir in a buzzing kitchen…

a small village of sets…

a computer station… or two…

and a generous showcase of props…

… add to that a rainbow of clean food
and the results are guaranteed to be delicious!

Stop by tomorrow for a taste of the photos created by this incredibly talented and inspiring team: photographers Andrea Gentl and Marty Hyers, food stylist Susan Spungen, and art directors Kurt MacKenzie and Andrew Brown of MacKenzie Brown Design. I can’t wait to share the results with everyone!

Eat clean live well!

When I self-published CLEAN FOOD nearly five years ago, I could have never imagined letting go of our original vision. But as our lives, our food, our environment and our world have changed, it seems timely for CLEAN FOOD to change too. I admit, I’ve spent the past few months holding on to what CLEAN FOOD was, but today am ready to embrace change. In fact, when I reflect on the state of our food and our health, simply embracing change is not enough. Instead, we must create it.

With that intention in my heart, and a whole lot of help from the creative genius of Andrea Gentl and Marty Hyers, we embark on bringing clean food to life so that even more people can eat clean and live well. Over the next four days I will be sharing this journey here on my blog, on Facebook and on Twitter.

I hope you will join me.

Eat clean live well!

To sharing the journey…

Eat clean live well!

What they should have told me is that sharing beloved recipes would endear me to family and friends instantly! Come on…you know it’s true! I served this recipe over the New Year and my inbox has been stuffed with requests for it ever since.

This recipe has been in my family so long that I’m not even sure where it came from, but I vividly recall my mother tweezing it from a recipe box stuffed like a Build-A-Bear with a variety of paper that would rival any paper mill’s inventory! I’m sure it’s changed from the original, but it’s every bit as yummy (please forgive the out-of-season use of basil)!

In an effort to give credit where it is due, I’d like to thank Delicious magazine, or was it Cooking Light or maybe Vegetarian Times…sometime in the early 90s? My apologies to the author (if you’re out there reading, please chime in). For those interested in making this gluten-free, substitute Job’s Tear’s or sweet brown rice and enjoy!

MEDITERRANEAN BARLEY SALAD

1-1/2 cups uncooked whole barley
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup dry, sun-dried tomatoes (30 halves)
1/2 cup dried apricots (18)
1 small bulb fennel, thinly sliced (3/4 cup)
3/4 cup raw shelled pistachios
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
3 tablespoons drained capers
24 kalamata olives, pitted and chopped

Lemon dressing
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
2 Tbs. chopped scallions
2 Tbs. flat-leaf parsley
2 large cloves garlic, minced
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Soak barley overnight. Drain and place in large pot with 3 cups water and 1/2 teaspoon sea salt. Bringing water to a boil, add barley, reduce to a simmer and cook covered until water is absorbed. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly before tossing.

In small mixing bowl, cover dried tomatoes and apricots with hot water and soak approximately 15 minutes to reconstitute. Drain soaking water and chop coarsely. Fluff barley and add chopped tomatoes and apricots, plus prepared fennel, pistachios, basil, capers and olives.

In small mixing bowl, whisk together all dressing ingredients. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour over salad, toss to coat and serve room temperature.

I like to serve this over greens, with a side green salad (perhaps some arugula, spinach or a raw kale salad) or simply on its own. However you choose, I hope you enjoy it in good health!

Eat clean live well!

Pizza – Expect to see much more of this favorite food…I mean… vegetable!

Nordic Food – It’s time to start foraging for wild and sustainable food, but don’t expect me to painstakingly prepare (and photograph) it!

Doughnuts – The new cupcakes! Both of these crazes allude me (I just don’t care much for cake, but when cookies become the trend, look out!)

PETA “will go on a full-scale campaign to get the country of Turkey to change its name to Eggplant.” (from Esquire.com) – Love that!

Kale Chips – Look for this staple among clean foodies to become highly manufactured and produced. (Shine from Yahoo.com) Seems they’re on to us!

Food Trucks will become even more popular and widely spread. (Post-Tribune)

Food Trucks will become less popular. (Huffington Post) (Are you dizzy yet?)

Fin-to-Tail or Nose-to-Tail or Root-to-Blossom – Call it what you’d like, it’s certainly efficiency. And with no waste…can we call it clean (at least in some regard)?

Goats – The new dairy.

Ethnic Fare – you pick the ethnicity – they’ve all been mentioned in one list or another.

It’s one thing to track trends and another to make actual predictions, but my main focus has always been working to create change. So, instead of predictions, I’ve compiled a top 10 list of intentions for 2012, created with the hope that if we all embrace these ideals, perhaps we can make even more progress toward their coming true. I hope you’ll join me.

1. More home cooking.

2. More shared meals with family and friends.

3. More nourishment from our food, our relationships, our activities, our practices, our careers and our connections.

4. Food that doesn’t require a label, and that is sustainable to grow and produce.

5. More clean food accessible to all, regardless of socio-economic status, regions or any other circumstances that prevent healthy, nutritious food from being available.

6. Widespread awareness and options for those with food sensitivities, allergies and/or intolerances.

7. Less dependency on oil – for processing, packaging and transportation.

8. More education for all ages about making healthy choices – in our schools, in our companies, in our communities, in our healthcare system.

9. More government support of locally grown, organic, sustainable farmers, and farming and less influence from corporate farms in our national policy.

10. Kale! I’m constantly told that this should be my mantra, so inclusion on this list was inevitable. But, consider this. If we all replaced just one of our processed foods with an extra serving of kale (chips, sautéed, salad…), we might be well on our way to being a healthier nation in 2012!

No matter what YOUR intentions for 2012 may be, I wish you a year of discovery, nourishment, growth and connection, and I’ll look forward to sharing it all right here on my blog. To that end, thanks to all who participated in my year-end “Giving Thanks Giveaway!” The final winners are (can we get a drum roll on this thing?)…

Here’s to peace and fulfillment in the year ahead.
Much thanks for being part of this journey to

EAT CLEAN LIVE WELL!

And they are… Lili U & Jennifer Thurman Sebestyen! Congratulations!

There’s just one more week to enter to win your own copy of CLEAN FOOD or CLEAN START! All you need to do to enter is:

1. Share a comment on this post with your hopes, dreams and intentions for 2012,

or

2. “Share” the CLEAN FOOD Facebook page with your friends!

Eat clean live well!

Let’s face it. When someone asks you to taste test “Coconut Milk Non Dairy Frozen Dessert,” you definitely don’t say no – especially if you want to remain on speaking terms with your children! I have a list a mile long of blog topics I’m “supposed” to be writing about, but instead I have to tell you about last night’s NadaMoo experience.

It started when I removed the lid. Now let me be clear, I’ve never been a fan of coffee, but I love the smell and I LOVE coffee ice cream. But since when does ice cream have an aroma? Well it does now! The aroma of NadaMoo’s Java Crunch was to die for! And as a result, untrue to my regular ways, I completely forgot about reading the ingredients, grabbed a spoon and dove right in! My girls joined me immediately and within minutes (okay, so maybe it was seconds) the entire pint was gone. We have no regrets!

Here are the ingredients: Organic coconut milk, organic agave nectar, organic rice syrup solids, organic inulin, organic espresso, organic cacao nibs, organic guar gum, organic locust bean gum, sea salt. Pretty clean if you ask me, and this incredible ice cream is dairy free, gluten free and vegan!

Needless to say, I am now officially a NadaMoo fan and can’t wait to try “Mmmm…Maple Pecan” tonight!

In the meantime, don’t forget that there are still two weeks left of my Giving Thanks Giveaway and all you need to do to enter is…

1. Write a comment on this post sharing your favorite sweet distraction around the holidays or anytime!

2. “Share” the CLEAN FOOD Facebook page with your friends, or

3. Retweet an @terrywalters tweet on Twitter!

Two more cookbooks will be given away this Friday! Will one of them be for you?

Eat clean live well!

And the winner is…

If your name wasn’t drawn this week, there are still two more opportunities! Remember, it’s not enough to “like” a post. You have to either comment on one of my EAT CLEAN LIVE WELL blog entries, share a CLEAN FOOD Facebook post, or retweet an @terrywalters tweet!

Eat Clean Live Well!

This is the opening from last week’s Huffington Post article “50 Words Every Food Lover Should Know.” I failed miserably, identifying fewer than 25% of the terms! Evidently, “burgoo” is not a verb, a jerobaum is not an appropriate substitute for my green smoothies, and I should definitely be calling my family to the table for Fläskpannkaka every time I make pancakes!

In effort to redeem myself, I decided not to study these terms and gain from the knowledge, but rather simply to make a new list! A list that proves that we love not only clean food, but sustainable good health for ourselves and our environment. So, for all of you clean food lovers out there, here’s a list you might be able to relate to even more! How does your clean food knowledge stack up?

A

Arrowroot, Agar, Alkaline, Amaranth, Arame, Antioxidant

B

Braggs

C

Cacao, Clean (of course), CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), Compost, Chew

F

Farro, Free radicals, Farm, Farmer

G

Gomasio, Groats, Gluten, Garbanzo, Genetically engineered

H

Harvest

J

Juicing

L

Local, Living

K

Kombu, Kimchi, Kudzu, Kale

M

Millet, Miso, Mirin, Mochi

N

Nori

O

Organic

Q

Quinoa

R

Raw, Rainbow (of color)

S

Seasonal, Sprouting, Slow

T

Tatsoi, Teff, Tamari, Tahini, Tempeh

U

Ume

W

Wasabi, Wakame, Whole

Y (one extra for indulgence & necessity!)

Yummy

Don’t forget that this is week two of my Giving Thanks Giveway! Two more CLEAN cookbooks will be given away this Friday and all you need to do to be entered into the random drawing is to 1) share or retweet one of my posts on Facebook or Twitter or 2) leave a comment here on my blog. (Prizes can be shipped within the continental US only)

Eat clean live well!

Eat clean live well!