Chickpea Flour Crepes with Seared Tuna, Smoked Black Bean Hummus and Mustard Greens, and Breathwork to Balance

 I've committed to leaving all grains behind for a month to see how I feel, after listening to a lecture by  Dr. William Davis on the undigestible protein called gliadin found in the gluten chain that act like opiates in the brain and overtime creates leaky gut in the intestines as well as a whole host of other issues. Our grains have  been genetically modified to grow bigger, and be more resilient to pesticides and this alone has caused secondary issues in our bodies, and further and worse, foods labeled gluten free are often simply filled with more grain just different, rice flour and teff, amaranth, and ultimately the processing adds harmful ingredients and the sugar content is through the roof just to make them taste better . So even if you are not celiac, which I am not, but am gluten sensitive, it is still a grim story Dr. Davis tells us of the negative impact of grains in our bodies. 

I am curious enough to see how I will feel with no grains to try it for a month. It's been relatively easy, though I will admit I do miss my sushi rice and corn tortillas. I have begun to find substitutes, konjac flour based "miracle noodles or miracle rice" isn't awful but making "tortillas" from chickpea flour has definitely been my new favorite go to. I am all about whole foods and clean eating but I need varying textures and this does the trick, crunchy on the edges and thin, a little salty and perfect for holding a myriad of things. Today it was a pistachio coated seared ahi tuna, smoked black bean hummus and avocado-d  mustard greens.  

I'm making this while listening to Alan Watts speaking on spirituality and competition in spiritual practice, his voice was sampled for an album and I can't help but laugh, when I think of our drive towards enlightenment, our incessant posting through social media and think, he's right, "spiritual one upmanship" is a real thing and the ego wants in on it anyway it can, I catch myself thinking I need to do more, offer more, learn more and often have to put myself back in place by stepping back and going to my breath.

Nadhi Shodhana is a breath work that balances the hemispheres in the brain, that balances yin and yang in the body and activates the parasympathetic nervous system allowing the body to find rest internally. The stress response of the sympathetic nervous system cannot co exist with an activated parasympathetic nervous system which is quite an amazing thing, to put it simply, you cannot be serene and calm if you are being chased by a bear. The sympathetic nervous system is our "fight and flight" response, it is the body's reaction to stress, only the body and brain think the stress say of every day life is actually a bear chasing us and so it begins to muster the energy and resilience to escape from the bear. This is great, only our "bear" was probably just us watching the news about how many more cases of the virus are in our area, or our children yelling behind us, or even as simple a thing as thinking too much about the past or future. These everyday stressors happen one after the other everyday, makes the body and mind think there is always a bear chasing us and doesn't allow for the body and mind to rest and repair, heal, digest well. So understanding that we may not be able to eliminate all the stressors in life, that that isn't even the goal but instead it is to balance our reactions, create the ever illusive inner calm and grace in the face of all stressors, we turn to activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Biologically, the parasympathetic nervous system reduces cortisol levels, restores adrenal function depleted by the sympathetic nervous system, alters brainwaves back into calm mode, signals the body it can refocus on healing and repairing itself, like growing lustrous hair, sleeping, digesting well, slowing the heart rate, brightening the skin, and balancing the emotional responses. No amount of kale smoothies or supplements  alone will assist the body in these rebalancing functions if the body is constantly in the sympathetic nervous system.  Getting into the parasympathetic therefore to make our diets work for us is critical. Read that again.  

Getting the body into the parasympathetic happens in many ways, cold water therapy does it, hot baths do it, journaling happy thoughts do it, taking a walk in nature or a slow moving practice such as tai chi or qi gong and of course yoga does it. But even more basic at putting us back into "rest and digest" mode is breathing. So let's get to the how.  Nadhi Shodhana is quite a simple technique, find a comfy seat where you aware of your spine, sit upright and take your hand to your face, see below:

Begin by inhaling and exhaling through the left nostril while holding the right nostril closed with the ring finger. After three breaths switch using the thumb to close off the left nostril.  Use the the index and middle finger to rest on the 6th chakra, the point between the two eyebrows, your third eye. Visualize the breath as radiant light, begin to alternate sides, inhale right, exhale left, inhale left, exhale right. See the breath as light, inhale it to the third eye and exhale it down the opposite nostril and out. You can keep this simple visualization or you can see the breath rise up one side of the spine and down the other, or up the back body and through the third eye and down the front body. Create a lasso of light pull in breath, life force, qi and exhale all that doesn't serve you. 

You will see that with some practice this breathing technique soothes and calms both body and mind. Give it time. There are various breathing techniques or pranayama, this is just one and each has specific calming effects on the body. Nadhi Shodhana is the balancing breath.

Chickpea Flour Crepes with Seared Tuna, Smoked Black Bean Hummus and Mustard Greens

feeds 3-4

Chickpea flour batter

3/4 cup garbanzo bean flour 

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup Parmigiano cheese grated

salt and pepper

1 tbsp chopped cilantro or parsley ( if you don't love cilantro)

2 Ahi Tuna steaks 

ground pistachios

1/2 ripe avocado

a bunch of Mustard greens

juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil. 

salt and pepper

Smoked Black Bean Hummus

1 can or organic black beans ( or make your own)

1 clove garlic

juice of 1/2 a lemon

3 tbsp tahini paste

4 dashes liquid smoke

extra virgin olive oil to amalgamate about 4 tbsp

salt

Make your chickpea batter and set aside. pat dry your tuna steaks and lightly oil and press into ground pistachios, set aside. Wash, dry and chop the Mustard greens and avocado, set aside. Put all ingredients for the hummus in a blender and blend until smooth, adjust for salt. 

Heat a small nonstick pan with 3 tbsp olive oil and when hot, pour as if you were making crepes, thin rounds of chickpea batter, when air bubbles form its time to flip them over. Make all your "tortillas" and place in a warm oven. Sear the tuna in the same pan with the same oil. 

Cook to your desired temperature. 

Put mustard greens, avocado, oil, lemon and spices in a bowl and literally squish the avocado into the greens with your hands.

Great! Now compose your "ahi tuna tacos" anyway you'd like,  I mound the greens on top of the hummus and the tuna on top  and sprinkle a little chili, pistachios and smoked paprika on top! 

And for your listening pleasure:

Alan Watts for Blond:ish 

Alkaline Breakfast Shakshouka and The Discipline It Takes To Let The Happiness Flow

I have always been a sensual creature, needing to feel my way through life, taste, smell, visually experience and touch through the world to digest it fully. It's no mistake I pay such close attention to detail. "Life is lived in the details", is almost my motto.

So when I am described as "tigger" or as "born under a lucky star" or even as a "unicorn who must fart rainbows" I laugh a great belly laugh of acknowledgment to myself that my discipline of happiness is actually being transmitted and felt by others. The last year has challenged everyone at every corner of the earth to reassess their lives and shift their perspectives at the very least. For some it has meant financial devastation, utter isolation and a total reimagining of the person they once were pre covid. And all this can also be seen as a gift, a gift to committing to a truly authentic life, one without the masks of acceptance we wear in the face of familial and societal expectations, because all of that has been turned on it's head, businesses closed for almost a year, wellness venues shuttered deemed unessential, pleas to the public to self isolate even from loved ones, a form of a dystopian novel that could not have been written to make more of a blockbuster psychologically depressing film. And yet, here we are, so now what? 

So now reinvent, start over, sit quietly and sow seeds of love, let the seeds of expectation, fear, ego wither and die under a less fertile soil. Fertilize the seeds of love, joy and compassion.

On my writing desk sits a very small quote on brown kraft paper typed in times new roman font. 

It's Proust, born in the time of Cholera in Paris, as a small maybe not so insignificant side note to his revelatory quote, 

he says:

"The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." 

The source of this citation is  'In Search of Lost Time' À la recherche du temps perdu - perhaps the most celebrated work by Marcel Proust. To quote more fully from the original citation source: 

“A pair of wings, a different respiratory system, which enabled us to travel through space, would in no way help us, for if we visited Mars or Venus while keeping the same senses, they would clothe everything we could see in the same aspect as the things of the Earth. The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we do, with great artists; with artists like these we do really fly from star to star.”

I'm not sure how much of this time for us is unprecedented, historically, it seems that at the turn of the century one could argue Proust was experiencing a similar revelation about the origin of true happiness. How we choose to see, touch, feel, taste life is really up to us. Suffering in it's innumerable forms has always existed as happiness's bedside companion and the way through suffering is not in attempting to avoid or alleviate it, to remove or escape from it in life but is instead to view it as a great teacher, an opportunity to deeply experience compassion, it is suffering that is the fertile soil that enables the seeds of joy and love to germinate. 

Maybe read that again. Let it sink in. 

In Hindu and buddhist traditions Avidya is what Proust is acknowledging. It is our ignorance before awakening. Our darkness is not in the daily suffering we endure but rather in the way we view the world around and within us through the veils of ignorance, ego, attachment and avoidance that creates suffering.

We choose how to experience our life. How to digest our lives. When we look deeply, sit quietly we can choose complete presence to this moment.  How sunlight catches the tips of undulating current at the oceanside and sparkles like fairy dust, or how the pink sunrise reflects off the monolithic silver skyscrapers of a great city casting it's warm hue upon every face and street and object it can reach. We could also choose to see the danger in the ocean, or have irritation about the temperature in the air instead Or rather than seeing the morning light reflecting off of the buildings in the city we could be wholly unaware of this choosing instead to be irritated by traffic or feeling a sense of entitlement or egoic satisfaction in where we are in life and what we have accomplished, we could be in essence ruminating on past and projecting into future instead of being present to the experience of our feet on the ground. 

The great discipline is this, to find the beauty in all things, and there are a million ways we have been given to do just this. Find your way, make it a discipline, use the tools that work for you to shake off the avidya, this incorrect way of seeing to make room for the joy of now. 

Shakshouka is one of those dishes that has been a simple one pan meal that satisfied and nourished from middle eastern and north African diets and centuries past. I've given it a twist. If it is one thing I struggle with it is dishes, I look deeply into the zen of soaping up a dish as a way to romance myself into doing this and enjoying the sensation, this is my practice that I am still working on, I laugh to myself in joy therefore when I find a one pan meal that satisfies, which is rare.

It is traditionally a reduced tomato based sauce heavy with aromatic herbs of turmeric, cumin, paprika, coriander, and goat, or lamb, peppers and poached eggs, it's quintessential element making it a breakfast food for the ravenous.

I eat meat maybe twice a week but still need the protein at the beginning of my day and so I have chosen a vegetarian version that calls more out to it's South American neighboring dish huevos rancheros with it's use of black beans and cilantro. 

In any case it's simple and in these winter months it begins the day with a warm belly.

Shakshouka 

serves 2

8" cast iron pan (almost necessary)

1 -2tbsp Extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp organic tomato paste

1 garlic clove minced

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp turmeric

a dash cayenne

3 cherry tomatoes quartered

1/2 cup black beans

4 free range organic eggs

handful chopped fresh cilantro

tortillas, chickpea flour crepes (recipe coming soon), naan, or fresh crusty bread to eat this with

Saute' garlic in olive oil in a small 8" cast iron pan , add spices and let heat to perfume the room, add tomato paste and cherry tomatoes on medium heat stirring to amalgamate flavors and possibly add a little splash of water if your tomatoes don't suffice to make a soft sauce, not soupy but thick. Add drained black beans, salt and pepper and crack in the four eggs gently and spaced evenly, you have just a moment or so to shift the beans and sauce a little around the eggs before taking off the heat and placing under the broiler of your oven until the tops of the eggs have just turned milky ensuring the yolk is still soft.

remove and sprinkle fresh cilantro and maybe a dash or two of hot sauce!! Add your favorite carb and dig in.

 

Quarantine Food Diaries, Diwali, and Chocolate Chaga Avocado Mousse

This day, this week, comes once a year, true it is not my culture, the festival of Diwali is an Indian festival, but what it celebrates can give us all a reminder irregardless of culture or creed. This festival celebrates light overcoming the dark, wisdom over ignorance and when can't we all use these reminders? 

My discipline is strong, my life like many of us has had moments of trauma, drama and tendency towards a constant overcoming of either physical or emotional events and maybe this is why my practice of keeping a high vibration has become so disciplined. I see the various teachings and practices I've learned from various disciplines and theologies as all fair game to put into my arsenal of the luminous warrior. 

I consider myself this, not enlightened, but a perpetual warrior for light. 

And so on this week I am reminded of the work it takes to always raise the lightness in our beings and the how is up to you, the tools are plentiful in both directions, dark and light, so which do you choose?

This blog holds these tools for lightness and true while a food blog it is also my space to create awareness and share healing anyway I can and if it resonates for you then take it and use it and raise the light!

We are entering the winter months, the world is coming upon a second wave of the virus and we are looking at imminent lock down so there is no time like the present to cultivate a strong practice of light work for yourself and hold the intention for humanity at large. 

I turn to chocolate, it's nutritional and healing  components are hugely  helpful in raising my spirits!!

I make it two ways, the "so good for you could eat the whole thing" way and the "French girls don't get fat" only eat a spoonful way. I've given you both recipes, you decide what you're up for.

Choco- Chaga- Avocado Mousse

4 ripe avocados

10 very soft dates ( soaked if necessary)

4 tbsp raw agave nectar

2 tbsp Chaga powder 

4 Tbsp high quality raw cacao powder

Mexican version

add:

 1 tsp cayenne

4 tsp cinnamon

smoked alder salt on top

Put avocados and dates in a blender, add powders and agave, blend away, if you should like to kick it up a notch then do half with the cinnamon and cayenne with smoke alder salt on top to finish!!

"French girls don't get fat" true French Chocolate Mousse:

 

 ¾ cup chilled heavy cream, divided

4 large egg yolks 

2 large whites separated

¼ cup brewed espresso or strong coffee, room temperature

⅛ teaspoon kosher salt

3 tablespoons sugar, divided

6 ounces Lily's chocolate (60–72% cacao), chopped

Preparation

Step 1

Beat ½ cup cream in a small bowl to stiff peaks; cover and chill.

Step 2

Combine egg yolks, espresso, salt, and 2 Tbsp. sugar in a heatproof bowl. Set over a saucepan of gently simmering water (do not let bowl touch water). Cook, whisking constantly, until mixture is lighter in color and almost doubled in volume and an instant-read thermometer inserted into the mixture registers 160°, about 1 minute.

Step 3

Remove bowl from heat. Add chocolate and whisk until melted and mixture is smooth. Let sit, whisking occasionally, until room temperature.

Step 4

Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites in a medium bowl on medium speed until foamy. With mixer running, gradually beat in remaining 1 Tbsp. sugar. Increase speed to high and beat until stiff peaks form.

Step 5

Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture in 2 additions; fold reserved whipped cream into mixture just to blend. Divide mousse among 6 teacups or 4-oz. ramekins. Chill until firm, at least 2 hours.

Quarantine Food Diaries : Medicinal Mushrooms, Why They Are Adaptogens and How To Use Them

With fear and anxiety going through the roof for many worldwide, now is the time to really get into medicinal shrooms.  Though Timothy Leary may have been discovering the effects of psilocybin, or psychedelic shrooms, on the brain, we are talking about something much more subtle in nature but no less potent in terms of healing body and brain. 

Adaptogen is a term that has started popping up on the labels of brands I love such as Four Sigmatic, Sun Potion, and moon juice and is defined as an herb or mushroom that acts as a stress and anxiety modulator in the body and brain. I always try to eat clean, closest to the source, but the addition of these powders and supplements to drinks and smoothies is a quick way to boost milligrams per mouthful to whole foods and sometimes hard to get fresh versions of these special shrooms. 

Cortisol is the body's stress response hormone, our fight or flight hormone as it is commonly referred to and it is being activated daily, our sense of security is being put into question, stability, the influence of the news and everchanging face of our world takes it's toll on us collectively and individually everyday. Self care is the key and a component to that is looking at what we eat and how it can work towards soothing and calming our stress. Cooking and Eating activates the senses, creates nostalgia, warms a home with scent and heat and nourishes body and soul, why not have it help our brains to reduce our stress hormone as well?

The rains of fall have begun, the cooler temps and fallen leaves have created a perfect breeding ground for the family of funghi we are looking to consume. Though I am not a successful edible mushroom hunter, I usually find all the poisonous ones, those who are in the know find them for me, so  I am lucky all the same!

Maitake mushrooms or hen of the woods, their common name, are one such species found locally in the Northeast of America where I am. It is, along with reishi mushrooms one of the most potent alternative medicine adaptogens. Helping to regulate the systems of the body that have become unbalanced, these shrooms fight cancer cells, boost immune function and regulate mood imbalances. 

Maitake can be found in many supermarkets nation wide these days where Reishi because of it's woody nature are better taken as supplements. Cooking with Maitake mushrooms is a pleasure, I've made everything from cashew cream maitake mushroom soup to maitake "steaks" seen in another recipe : Maitake "steaks" on this blog. Their flavor is meaty with deep earthy tones and texture similar to a portobello, why those are often used as "steaks" as well. During this season I introduce them wherever I can. A recent favorite rosemary  roasted chicken thighs with maitake mushrooms over soft polenta and turmeric, tahini roasted acorn squash is all about the anti inflammatory properties these foods offer and that is our recipe for this chilly rainy day.

Rosemary Roasted Chicken Thighs with Maitake Mushrooms, Polenta and Turmeric Roasted Tahini Acorn Squash Wedges

Ingredients:

serves 3-4

1 acorn squash, sliced into wedges, skin on, de seeded

6 organic, free range chicken thighs, skin on

2-4 sprigs fresh rosemary

1 large blossoming maitake mushroom 

2 tbsp tahini

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp garlic powder or fresh grated garlic 

dash cayenne pepper

freshly ground pink peppercorns

salt

extra virgin olive oil 

1 cup white wine

1/2 cup instant polenta

2 cups water

1/2 cup grated Parmigiano (lactose free naturally)

2 tbsp butter

Dry off chicken thighs and salt, pepper, cayenne, and coat with garlic. Add a small amount of EVO to a cast iron pan and brown both sides on high heat, add torn pieces of maitake and rosemary and coat evenly in oil letting the aroma of garlic, rosemary and mushrooms fill the air, then quickly add the white wine before the aroma turns bitter from burning, this can make or break your flavor. 

Pop it in an oven, in the same cast iron pan, skin side up at 350F for 40 min. piercing the meat at 30 min to see if liquid runs clear, if it does remove from oven and let sit to rest. 

Meanwhile, arrange squash wedges on  parchment on a cookie sheet and coat in Evo, mixed with turmeric, cayenne, garlic, salt and pepper, finally drizzle tahini over top, it will stay exactly as you see it so make it pretty!

Pop in the oven just after the chicken, 1" wedges should take about 20-30 min and get good color on them, no need to flip.

On the stove top just before the chicken and squash are ready bring 2 cups of water and butter to a boil, sift in the polenta and stir vigorously until amalgamated and starts to thicken, pour in the parmigiano and take off the burner, about 3 min, for instant.

Plate away!!

Quarantine Food Diaries Soup Season, Bone Broth, why we all need it

 Bone broth is everywhere, the newest trend, everything from bone broth stocks to bone broth juices, supplemental bone broth powders and bone broth in capsules, but what is all the rage?

I sat pondering this clear broth and understood it was as old as time just repackaged and renamed for better marketing, so that all those who would could cash in on the new buzz word of our consumer culture.

Your mother's chicken soup is bone broth. It's that simple. Any soup made with the bones and connective tissue and fat simmered over two to three hours is bone broth. 

What's the fuss all about? Here's a few concise facts about what bone broth does and why it is said to support digestion, boost the immune system, act as a probiotic restoring the gut and reverse signs of aging like collagen loss and inflammatory responses. 

• It is rich in a protein called gelatin made from dissolved collagen. Collagen is found in connective tissue and digested in this way boosts collagen production in our bodies
• It is rich in amino acids called glycine and proline, neurotransmitters that have anti inflammatory properties and immune system support. Proline helps support joint health and collagen production.
• B vitamins: Niacin and riboflavin both of which play a role in metabolism, assisting in the breakdown of carbohydrates, proteins and fats and boosting the gut microbiome, it is a probiotic.
• rich in glucosamine and chonodrotin two nutrients that support joint elasticity and health.

So whatever your age, or gender, physical state bone broth has key roles to play as the fountain of youth from skin to gut to joints to immunity. 

Make sure you are giving yourself a broth made from humanely pasture raised animals as we carry the energy of that which we eat into our own cells, so making a broth from a chicken that hasn't run free and has been pumped with antibiotics and growth hormones will impart these traumas to you as well. 

I make a bone broth and like to add the umami to it, a few different ways today I'll give you one to play with. 

To increase the trace mineral content to your broth add ginger, and scallions, an onion and at the end you can saute' mushrooms, bok choy to give it a Ramen twist as I did. Just remember, good old chicken soup is also a bone broth!!

Ramen Broth

• 
  
• 2.2lb pork soup bones or if you can't find I used country ribs 
• 1 onion , peeled sliced 
• 3 shallots/scallions green part only
• 3cm/1¼” cube ginger , cut in half
• 2 cloves garlic
• 
  

 Ramen Broth

• 2 tbsp soy sauce or liquid aminos
• 1½ tsp mirin
• salt to adjust flavor
• 2 cups Ramen Broth in this recipe , boiling hot

 Ramen Noodles and Toppings 

• 80-100g/2.8-3.5oz fresh thin buckwheat noodles cooked separately and held until ready to compose soup
• a few shredds of the boiled pork or if you want to work harder, thinly sliced sautee'd pork (prettier)
• shredded raw red cabbage
• 2 baby bokchoy sautee'd with 6 shitake mushrooms sliced in sesame oil, garlic and chili, for a little kick. Add soy or aminos to steam slightly at the end. 
• Instructions

Ramen Broth

1. Bring 4L/8.5pt of water in a pot to a boil. Add pork bones and boil for 10 minutes. A lot of scum will surface.

2. Drain and wash the bones under running cold water one by one, removing coagulated blood.

3. Add the cleaned bones, the rest of the Ramen Broth ingredients excluding bonito flakes to a large pot with 4L/8.5pt water, and bring it to a boil.

4. When scum surfaces, occasionally scoop it off gently using a ladle (note 5). Do not mix the broth with the ladle when removing the scum as it will cause the broth to become cloudy.

5. After removing the scum 4-5 times, turn down the heat to simmer gently.

6. While simmering, remove scum a few more times in the beginning if required.

7. Simmer for 2 hours with a lid on but allowing for slight ventilation

8. Turn the heat off. Put the broth through a sieve and collect only the liquid.

9. Makes about 1.6L/3.4pt of soup 

Making Soy or Amino Ramen 

1. Place soy sauce or aminos and mirin in a serving bowl. 

2. Boil water in a sauce pan and cook noodles and drain.

3. Add Ramen Broth to the bowl, mix. Taste test the soup and adjust with salt.

4. Add the noodles. Place topping of your choice and serve immediately. 

Stinging nettles, shaman plant medicine and mustard green salad with rainbow trout

The change of season always reminds me my body needs different attention. The shamans of Northern American tribes used plants to treat everything, some of our modern day medicine has its roots, literally, in plants as well. 

Stinging nettles (urtica dioica)  are one such herb I have added to my anti inflammatory arsenal of weapons to fight the big fight against the stiffness and soreness that threatens to invade my joints. 

The indigenous people of America would use this fantastic plant leaves, stems and branches in one of three ways. They discovered that the fine hairlike prickles on the stems of the nettle plant released a natural antihistamine that blocks histamine production in the body when literally flogging the skin. Histamine is a protein that causes inflammation, redness, and irritation. It is produced in response to environmental or dietary proteins. 

If you shy away from modern day flogging no worries, you can make a tea of the dried leaves and roots and this is readily available online or if you’re in Philly, Penn Herb sells it in bulk! 

https://www.pennherb.com/

I absolutely love Gold thread tonics as well, for a super hydrating body and brain pick me up, they are always in my cabinet, they don't contain any sugar either but have just a tad of sweetness from erythritol.

If you can find fresh nettle you can use it as you would spinach, make a nettle soup with miso or a risotto with stinging nettle. 

I’ve chosen tea for our purposes and am cooking with mustard greens which are more readily available, fresh, during this season and contain polyphenols and flavonoids also responsible for anti inflammation and anti oxidation in the body.

Mustard greens have a bite stronger than arugula ( rucola)  when eaten raw which I love! 

Simply dressed with an avocado as dressing works best to temper their peppery nature.

Butterflied broiled Rainbow trout and mustard greens

1 butterflied rainbow trout 

Za’atar seasoning (see quarantine diaries day 5)

Himalayan sea salt

Campot pepper ground with a mortar and pestle

1 bunch Mustard Greens

Roasted beets ( Beets done three ways post) 

1/2 avocado 

juice of 1/2 one lemon

Olive oil extra virgin, cold pressed to taste

Heavily pepper, and Za’atar season the butterflied trout, place on parchment and on a cookie sheet to broil.

Roast beets even a day earlier and slice, bring to room temp.

Roughly chop mustard greens and massage with 1/2 avocado, lemon, olive oil salt and pepper.

Broil trout for 8-10 minutes, it’s thin you don’t want to dry it out.

Serve next to beets and dressed mustard greens and a cup of nettle tea... find and feel inflammation melting away.

And a playlist to heat up a practice you choose, yoga, dance....you choose your healing.

Indigenous vibes

Quarantine Food Diaries, Lists of Joy, Emoto's Water Study and Happy Birthday Cake

 It's a simple practice, not complex, but it does require discipline. I sit up in bed as soon as I wake and write a list, somedays it's five things, somedays it's two but I write it everyday, that's the discipline. I write a list of things that make me smile, that persuade the edges of my mouth to turn upward from inside reflecting outward. 

A dense foam atop a well balanced cappuccino 

the smell of the crisp outside on someone when they walk past me

sun warming my skin on a chilly autumn morning

a fire in the fireplace

coconut cream 

the softness of a dog's ear

The brain is organized into a pattern of joyful thought as it's first job of every morning by doing this, it sets the tone for the day. So, as we continue are day whatever may present itself you have half a chance at the brain trying to find a way back to detaching from drama and focusing on simple joys. 

Dr. Masaru Emoto was one of the first individuals to conduct a scientific experiment on the power of positive words versus negative criticism or bullying words on glasses of water over time. He wrote a book and published these studies called, The Hidden Messages in Water. Dr. Emoto's study took bottles of water and taped pieces of paper with words of praise on some and words of criticism on others and taped the words facing the inside of the bottle. These bottles were frozen and the crystallization of the water in each of the bottles repeatedly formed beautiful symmetric crystals in the positive intention bottles and disorganized "ugly" crystals in the bottles written with criticism and mean words. The intentions we have and the words we use hold power to change how an individual looks and feels and Dr. Emoto's experiments are the physical manifestation of this. 

He went on to create more experiments like this and others in the field have followed showing over and over again the power of intentions and words. I choose to give myself positive thoughts in the morning to breed beauty from within. We can't always say the right thing, avoid a criticism but we can auto correct, we can apologize for harsh words and realize the impact they have had.  And we can choose not to engage with those who cannot see the damaging effect of words.

I made my birthday cake, because I love to share and cook, because I had a new cake to try and wanted to, and that is the other thing about intention and positive thought, when cooking that love can be felt and tasted in the food that is made from that state of being, equally if you're in a terrible mood or arguing while cooking I guarantee the food doesn't taste good. Give it a try, conduct your own little experiments proving the power of intention.

Clementine Madeliene Cake

4 clementines 

1 1//4 cup sweetener ( I used coconut sugar but it does turn the cake darker )

6 pasture raised eggs

1 2/3 cup finely ground almond flour 

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Wash the clementines well and soak for one hour in cold, clean, water, drain. Add the whole fruit peel and all to a saucepan, cover with water, cover and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 1 1/2- 2 hours to soften.

grease and flour ( I used the almond flour) a 10" spring form pan, preheat oven to 350F. 

Drain and remove any seeds from the clementines before putting in a food processor. Add sugar, eggs, almond meal and baking soda and lemon juice in that order. Pour into prepared pan and bake for about an hour, checking periodically with a toothpick to see if it comes out clean. Mine was done in 50 minutes!

Dust with powder sugar. 

Quarantine Food Diaries Birthdays and Autumn Kale Salad, Avocado dressing and Smoked Chili Pepitos

I’m two days away from another birthday, I’m in grad school for mind body medicine with a specialization in healing foods, I spend my days teaching yoga, inventing new recipes and reading literature on the mind body connection.

What could be better?

Can you believe I have teenage girls who absolutely hate me? It’s true, the cliche’ has finally hit me too. I’m not exactly sure why I thought I could avoid this rite of passage with my specific brand of mothering, clearly it makes no difference whatsoever.

Though my evolution to extreme presence and mindful behavior is a daily discipline I am not surrounded at all times by those doing the same, nor was I always so acutely aware and mindful. So here I am watching the cycle of the human condition and trying to pay attention, stay present and see from all sides, though my feelings are hurt. It stings. 

Interaction always has two sides and hurt builds

up over time. Children are little souls with little life experience but great big overwhelming feelings peppered by hormonal surges and the hearty development of the ego for sense of self apart from the family.

It’s all necessary development for separation but as a mother who is an empath and disciplined to living intentionally, it  can feel like fingernails down a chalkboard.

So I cook. 

I cook to nourish my body, to soothe my hurts, I walk wounded back deep into my sanctuary of a kitchen to heal because there is not always an answer, or a should’ve or could’ve, there is just what is and the hurt that makes way for the fertile soil of new growth.

I’ve decided massaging kale with avocado, olive oil and salt will be therapeutic.  A recent trip to a nearby farmer’s market has me left me with a giant bush of perky red kale and some tiny sweet potatoes. The oven is on, I’ve stacked a small 1/16 of a cord of wood on my balcony and I’m making the first fire of the season.

I pop the sweet  potatoes in the oven and kneel to pay the reverence deserved to the healing energy a fire can offer. 

I soaked my kale to let free any critter that might have been chameleon like, hid amongst the lacy edges and deep purple veins

And I let the tears roll. 

Pema Chodron says the beauty is in letting their be room for everything, the joy, the pain, the grief and the mundane, the healing comes from the room you leave open to all of the experience. She says there is no real fixing things for good, that things come together and then they fall apart and they come together again, it’s just like that. And it’s ok.

Autumnal Kale Salad

1 bunch organic red kale ( shred into bite size pieces, de vein)

1 avocado

1-2tbsp olive oil ( depending on how big your avocado is)

1/2 juice of lemon

3 -4 tiny sweet potatoes ( mine were like ginger roots they were so small) 

1/4 of a red onion thinly sliced

1/2 cup of cooked quinoa

2/3 cup Pepitos 

1/4 tsp turmeric 

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

A dash of chili oil or chili powder 

Salt and pepper

Roast sweet potatoes skins on until soft.

Dry off washed and shredded kale ( I make bite size pieces not a slaw) .

Boil quinoa and set aside, I put a piece of kombu seaweed in my boiling water with the quinoa as it imparts iodine , vitamin A and manganese all the nutrients hard to get into the body otherwise. 

Sprinkle Pepitos onto a parchment lined baking sheet and dust with the spices listed above, coat with chili oil if you have it, if not use chili powder or even cayenne and coat with olive oil, finish with salt and pepper. Try the small seeds before putting them in the oven and see if your taste buds want to adjust the balance of flavor!

Roast just until the spices start to perfume in the oven, any longer and they will burn and taste bitter. 

My oven was on at 350 for the sweet potatoes and it took 10 min. 

Find a big bowl and place kale, olive oil, the avocado, lemon juice , salt and pepper in it and begin massaging. Literally squish the avocado into the leaves of kale, this is your dressing! 

After the kale has relented it’s stiffness and become softer you’re ready to add in all the other ingredients. Sweet potatoes, onion, quinoa, Pepitos and toss maybe adding a dash of smoked paprika, salt, and pepper as well as a touch base more olive oil !