winter
I’ve been having a lot of fun crowd-sourcing recipe ideas lately. This pumpkin pizza came from suggestions on my Facebook wall, as did today’s soup recipe.
Together, we are a very smart bunch.
To me, cooking is a lot more than making food edible, or even delicious. It’s part of the rhythm of my home, of the way I live. Wake, cook, wash dishes. When I’m stressed, I cook. When I’m sad, I cook. When I’m grateful, I cook. When I’m really tired, I order Chinese.
Hey. I’m human.
The response to Winning at Kitchen has been tremendous so far. I’m surprised but not surprised, y’know?
I know you guys want to cook, I know you want to embrace this aspect of home and health. It can be daunting at first, and it can be lonely if you are doing it alone. But trust me, once it’s part of your rhythm, cooking can be the most soothing part of your day.
Thank you to Evelyn for the cayenne and ginger idea, and to Sarah for suggesting garlic. I love cooking with and for you!
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January 11th, 2013 | gluten free, recipe, vegan, vegetarian, winter | 4 Comments »
Twas the night before we leave for our Christmas travels and I hadn’t baked a thing. Nothing. But an idea had been brewing in the back of my mind for cookies…real food cookies…and I thought, if I can make crackers out of chia seeds, why not these?
It was a very yummy thought.
My son in his crib, my husband out for the night, it was finally time to face the kitchen and devise a plan. It was also time to completely empty the 3rd shelf of my pantry and find the chia seeds. 3 bags of garbanzo bean flour. 2 bags of unsweetened coconut. 3 bags of dried banana chips. Endless bags with like, 11 nuts left in them. It’s the Whole Foods bulk bins gone wild.
But it was totally worth the effort. Very rarely does a first baking attempt come out good enough to share – in this case I am so thrilled with the results I literally ran to the computer to write it all down before I forgot a thing.
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December 21st, 2012 | baking, gluten free, recipe, winter | 3 Comments »
I googled “holiday food” and it led me directly to things like rib roast, glazed ham, toffee pudding, shrimp-stuffed calamari and vegetable tartes.
But let’s be honest. Aside from 1 or 2 festive meals, our diet looks nothing like that! With all the busy-ness and travel, we end up eating a lot of odds and ends, cookies sitting on the counter, getting pizza, stopping at the McDonald’s rest stop.
And THAT, my friends, is where the holiday bloat really takes hold. Not in the thing you eat once or twice. But in the daily chipping away at healthy habits. Now, no one is perfect (present company absolutely included). But wouldn’t it be nice if at least dinner tonight was well-rounded and nourishing?
Check it out. This meal is bound to add a more festive air to your home and sure to soothe the season’s colds…did I mention just 6 ingredients?
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December 20th, 2012 | gluten free, recipe, winter | No Comments »
People ask me how I come up with recipes. Typically, I find something I like and then modify, adapt, explore and innovate. Use real food ingredients. Add unexpected elements. I’m not a chef. I just like food, y’know?
In this case, I’m riffing off of my own recipe. I posted my No-Bake Chocolate Snowballs back in October during my 21 Day Detox and they were a hit with everyone. Except people who used runny peanut butter (we’ll get to that in a second.)
What’s so great about these? They’re easy, fast, tasty and made entirely of real food.
They won’t go apeshit on your blood sugar but they’ll satisfy your sweet tooth.
They’re vegan. And gluten-free.
That’s my kind of dessert! Or snack. Or breakfast, which my last batch admittedly became.
And you’ll realize that’s ok as soon as you see the ingredient list.
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November 29th, 2012 | baking, gluten free, quick and easy, recipe, vegan, winter | 6 Comments »
I think it would be nice to host Thanksgiving one year. Obviously I’d get the bird from my local farm buying club…and have lots of veggies…and maybe some coconut panna cotta for dessert…and everything would be so good no one would realize what a healthy meal they just ate.
And I’d have amazing leftovers for days.
That sounds great. Because as it stands, we travel each year for the holidays. Many miles. We eat a lot of food at rest stops and diners. And though we love our time with the family, we go home to an empty refrigerator.
Even the milk we had was sour.
One thing I love about vegan meals is that the ingredients don’t really spoil too easily. (Seriously. Smell a vegan’s garbage can. It like, practically smells good compared to a carnivore’s trash.)
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November 26th, 2012 | quick and easy, recipe, vegan, vegetarian, winter | 2 Comments »
If you are a sinus person like me, you’ve probably had your fair share of semi-sleepless nights, slumped in the most upright position you can manage, your mouth dry and cracked from trying to suck air into your congested head.
You’ve probably been on antibiotics several billion times to get rid of the thick mucus hiding out in your skull. Probably a bacterial infection, they said.
I actually have not had a sinus infection in awhile. Changing my diet made a huge difference! It’s sorta common knowledge among holistic health folks that eliminating dairy is the trick. It might be, I don’t have scientific proof. But it worked for me, along with eliminating sugar and taking better care of myself in general. That was back in like, 2007.
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January 30th, 2012 | dairy, natural remedy, winter | 13 Comments »
Sweet tastes good. End of story. I’m reminded of this each day when Danny accepts his spinach or his beef but really lunges for his sweet potato. It’s a built-in craving.
Ok, so on that note I was in Target yesterday and decided we probably needed some cookies (oh geez, here we go Michelle). Since I wasn’t going to make it to Whole Foods, I figured I’d see what Target had. Like, a bag of good ol’ Fig Newtons must be fairly natural? Not too many weird ingredients, right?
Wrong! Fig Newtons are made with high fructose corn syrup, as are just about every other cookie on the shelf. Including the homemade-looking Archer brand I almost got fooled into buying. Only Kashi cookies were made with regular sugar.
(Which, of course, does not make them healthy by any stretch of the imagination. But I still bought them. I’m human.)
Anyway, the reason I’m talking about sugar and corn syrup is because we are all human, and we love our sweets. This is a recipe you will therefore love. All 3 of us did!
Cranberry Citrus Quinoa
For quinoa:
1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 cup orange juice
1 cup water
big pinch of salt
2 Tbl. olive oil
1/2 onion, minced
1 cup butternut squash, diced
1 pear, diced
5 oz. fresh cranberries, chopped (although I suppose you could use dried)
1 cup walnuts, chopped and toasted
1 handful fresh mint, chopped
1 handful fresh basil, chopped
1 lemon, juiced
Big pinch cayenne pepper
salt and pepper
First, rinse and drain quinoa. Then combine with OJ and water in a pot, bring to a boil and simmer until water is absorbed.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a big pan and add onion. Add a bit of salt and pepper. Cook until translucent. Add squash and pear. Mix and cover until they are soft (about 5 min). Mix in quinoa, then add herbs, lemon, and more salt and pepper.
*At this point, take out a portion for baby and set aside. At least, that’s what I did. Though in retrospect I think he’d have liked the cranberries if they were chopped smaller.*
For the adults, add cranberries, walnuts and cayenne. Mix well.
Serve over cooked or raw greens.
For the record, here are other things that Danny likes to try and eat:
Deodorant, christmas tree ornaments, my leg, the couch, his coat, my nose, the cat’s tail.
You’d think natural selection would have knocked out this dangerous need to eat everything by now! Or else natural selection is what gave mothers eyes in the back of our heads. Sometimes.
January 16th, 2012 | baby, recipe, Sugar, vegan, vegetarian, winter | 5 Comments »
I’ve been reminding and reminding my clients to take time for themselves over the holidays. To not overdo it. To step away from work. To keep it simple.
There’s a saying, “We teach what we need to learn.” It’s so unbelievably true.
In honor of my own restful holidays, this post has been magically pre-programmed to shoot out to the Universe while I am hopefully relaxing with my family and eating something nourishing and simple, like this:
Sweet Potato, Beans & Apples
2 cups uncooked mung beans or lentils
2-3 sweet potatoes, washed and diced (skin left on)
2 peeled and diced carrots
1 onion
1 cup vegetable broth, divided into 2 half cups
2 apples, washed and sliced (skin left on)
1 tsp. dried thyme
approx. 1/2 tsp. salt & 1/4 tsp. pepper
Cook mung beans or lentils by bringing them to a boil with 4 cups of water. Reduce heat and simmer until tender.
Meanwhile, sauté in a pan drizzled with a couple tablespoons of oil over med-high heat: the chopped onion, diced sweet potatoes & diced carrots with salt, pepper & thyme. Cook about 8 minutes. Add 1/2 cup vegetable broth, cover. Reduce to medium heat and cover. Cook about 5 minutes or until carrots and sweet potatoes are tender.
Add mung beans or lentils to sweet potato mixture with the remaining 1/2 cup broth and cover. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes.
Spoon into center of a plate and place fresh cut apple slices around edge of plate.
This dish is high in protein from the beans or lentils – there is no need to add meat. You can add a green salad as a side and this is a complete, satisfying meal. This makes at least 4 generous servings.
Thank you to Joni at Healthybodypeacefulsoul.com for the recipe.
December 27th, 2011 | beans, happiness, recipe, vegan, vegetarian, winter | 2 Comments »
Last week a friend held a Christmas party for all us moms and babies. Holy moly did she put out a spread – probably 15 different hor d’oeuvres and desserts! She had 2 Christmas trees up and decorated, her baby in a holiday onesie, and Christmas stockings filled with gifts for not just the babies but for all us moms, too. Including homemade soap.
It was so sweet, and we had a lot of fun.
But I suspect my lovely friend is not the only among us who is doing, doing, doing this holiday season! (And not sleeping much.)
So, I have to ask.
Is there a way to bring some simplicity in your holidays? Are there some things you don’t have to do? Tasks you could cross off the to-do list? Ideals you can let go of? Emotions you can release? (Oooh I snuck that last one in there. But yeah, the holiday season can bring up a lot of emotions that one might try and subdue with a plate full of brie.)
A lot of people let go of eating healthy food during the holidays.
That’s not the kind of letting go I’m really encouraging. A few straight weeks of eating anything and anything does not pay off in the long run, trust me.
But what if you could eat healthy without cooking a darn thing? Because I know you’re busy. I’m talking about the snack you have before a holiday party. The dinner you grab before heading out for last minute shopping. I know we all will eat some special holiday goodies – and we should! – but you don’t have to make every meal an indulgence.
Here are some quick, no-cook ideas.
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December 21st, 2011 | quick and easy, winter | 8 Comments »
Meals like this are sometimes called “Garbage Plates” or “Garbage Salads.” It makes me cringe though – I just can’t call organic veggies and grass-fed steak “garbage.”
Maybe a Kitchen Sink Salad? Even that sounds like it should go down the disposal.
Nah, let’s just call this an un-recipe. A formula for making the most out of the food in your fridge and getting dinner on the table fast.
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December 2nd, 2011 | baby, quick and easy, winter | 9 Comments »
