Spreading the Love ...

What better time than this week to spread some 'heart healthy' recipes that I've recently had on my 'must try list' ... remember that list I wrote of a few days back? I love chocolate and cakes and cookies as well as the next foodie, but some of these recipes will warm the cockles of your heart in a different way ...

From Joy @ The Herbed Kitchen, comes this wonderful tomato and barley soup. Silent Bob and I had this for our dinner last evening. This soup has a bit of sweetness, a bit of a sour tang, a bit of a bite to the barley, and some soft chew to the carrots - a good mix ... like a good marriage, so to speak.

To go with Joy's soup, I made Denise's Flax Seed Bread. Denise began a site called bread expectations, devoted to bread baking, back around the turn of the year. I have been so interested in all she does there! She has excellent instructions and tutorials and some incredible recipes. This flaxseed bread is high in fiber, another healthy addition to our Valentine's Day heart healthy meal. It tasted great and made awesome toast this morning, but the dough was quite soft and I think I will put it in a pan or on a rounded tile the next time I bake it (and I will make it again!). As you can see, it spread out instead of up and I like my bread to have some loft. The flax seed is such a great addition to bread. I love it and I think it's good for you, right? It has a crunchy, crispy crust and a chewy whole wheat/flax seed body ... really good.

Of course, every soup and bread meal rounds itself out nicely with a green salad, so I made a bit of  sweet salad to finish off the meal. No dessert last evening, as we had chocolates to nibble on with our bottle of red wine. This salad had sweet dates, sweet red pepper (I used an orange pepper), and tiny slivers of tangy sun-dried tomato and slivered almonds tossed with greens and a simple olive oil dressing. So simple, but so healthy and fresh! Zenobia @  RAWk Me! will give you sooo many different and adventurous vegetable and fruit combinations for truly unique salads. All are from fresh and simple ingredients with minimal processing ...

So there you have it! Three incredible recipes from three incredibly talented foodies ... they provided Silent Bob and I a wonderfully heart healthy dinner on that 'heart obsessed' day - Valentine's Day!

Salut!