December’s Healthy Skin Recipe comes to us via Food & Wine Magazine. It is for a pearled barley salad with apples, pomegranate seeds, and pine nuts. Dr. Jacob’s tips for why this is a healthy recipe for your skin follows after the recipe. Enjoy!

Pearled Barley Salad with Apples, Pomegranate Seeds and Pine Nuts

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup(s) pine nuts, preferably from Italy 2 ounces
• 1/4 cup(s) plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoon(s) white wine vinegar
• 1 small shallot, minced 2 tablespoons
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 4 cup(s) Thyme-Scented Pearled Barley (see below)
• 1 large tart apple, such as Honeycrisp cored and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1/2 cup(s) pomegranate seeds, from 1 pomegranate
• 1/2 cup(s) chopped flat-leaf parsley

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Spread the pine nuts in a pie plate and toast until golden, about 5 minutes. Let cool.
2. In a bowl, whisk the oil with the vinegar and shallot and season with salt and pepper. Add the Thyme-Scented Pearled Barley (see below), pine nuts, apple, pomegranate seeds and parsley; toss before serving.

Pine nuts provide Vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant, to help decrease wrinkling in the skin. The olive oil provides natural ingredients to moisturize the skin from the inside out. Shallots (containing flavonoids), apples (containing proanthocyanadins), and pomegranate provide potent antioxidants for quenching free radicals that break down collagen in the skin. Parsley contains alpha linolenic acid, which provides anti-inflammatory effects, further protecting the skin!