Sometime in the past few years, my brother became a health nut. He lost a lot of weight, quit drinking carbonated beverages, and has shifted his usual topic of conversation from his lost finger (long story) to All Things Nutrition.

Now, he is always trying to advise me on ways to elevate my mood and gain weight. Let’s just say that his thoughts on this (use protein powder, give up soda, exercise 800 minutes a day, etc.) are not the same ideas that I have (which involve finding me a hot date). Just a few weeks ago, he was griping at me for not using whole-wheat pasta. COME ON! This is hard to take coming from someone who just three years ago refused to eat 97% of vegetables.

Recently I was visiting with my brother. He and I have similar personalities (read: we aren’t terribly chatty), so sometimes it’s a stretch for us to find conversation topics. On this visit, I thought I’d try to be a good sister and strike up a conversation where I thought we might have common ground. “Do you want some sprouts? I’d be happy to grow you some or get you the stuff to do it yourself. They’re very nutritious.”

His response was something like (and I  NOT paraphrasing here): “I am healthy, not a GREEN WEIRDO.”

Now, some sisters might have been offended by such a blatant attack on their social values. Not me, though. I recognize that it’s only a matter of time before he crosses over to the Green Side. Healthy today, hippie tomorrow.

My brother must know that you can’t be healthy and not be green, too. The fact is that animals raised under “green” production values are exceptionally better for you than those that aren’t. Farm-raised, cage-free eggs are not even in the same universe nutritionally as their factory cousins. And, yes, sprouts, the flagship food of Green Weirdos everywhere, are in fact, very, very good for you.

In honor of my brother, I thought I would share a little green recipe for you today. This has been my sort of go-to lazy lunch lately.

Ingredients:

*Whole Wheat Flat Bread

This is one parsley plant in the garden. I could hide one of my children in there. Crazy. My basil did horrible this year, but the parsley was mutant.

*Pesto (Your choice here, but I’ve been making a Parsley-Walnut variety lately due to a bumper crop of parsley in the garden and because I’m too cheap to buy pine nuts; of course regular Basil Pesto would work, and this time I used Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto)

*Caramelized onions and mushrooms (which would make cardboard delicious—I often have some in the fridge leftover from other recipes)

*Spinach (fresh from your Green Weirdo garden since it stays green most of the winter)

*Mozzarella (homemade from raw milk, just to be even Weirder and Greener)

*Sprouts (I like the zesty mix!)

I layer all of the ingredients on the flat bread in this order:

Bread**Pesto**Spinach**Onion/Mushroom**Cheese

I broil on high for a few minutes. (Generally, until I smell the food and go, “Oh, I forgot about lunch in the oven!”)

Almost forgot—when you pull it from the oven, don’t forget to add your sprouts! (Okay, I have to admit I would not traditionally eat sprouts on this meal, but since I was irritated at my brother, I decided to put them on everything and it turned out to taste just fine with them.)

I love this meal because it is is endlessly customizable depending on what you have laying around the kitchen. Plus, it’s vegetarian (unless you choose to add some bacon or something) which is good for you and cheap, too. (I’m leaning more and more towards the vegetarian lifestyle, but I think it may just be because saving that much money on your grocery bill is terribly addictive.)