Veggies and Egg Pancake with Peanut Curry Sauce
29 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in Recipes Tags: candida, candida cookbook, candida diet, candidiasis, carrots, egg pancake, eggs, garlic, ginger, greens, health coach, onion, peanut sauce, protein, steamed veggies
Steamed Broccoli, Carrots and Onions, Egg Pancake and Peanut Curry Sauce
Egg Pancake, sliced and topped with scallions.
Not bad for a quick Monday night Fire Cider dinner meeting!
Dana made the peanut curry sauce while I chopped and steamed the veggies. We made a quick egg pancake; an omlet with no filling, just flip it to cook the other side. Then top everything with your favorite peanut sauce! We make ours with chunky peanut butter, sesame oil, tamari, apple cider vinegar, coconut milk, hot pepper and curry powder.
Kimchi: Lacto-Fermentation is Easy!
20 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in Candida, Recipes, Supplements Tags: cabbage, chili peppers, digestive support, garlic, ginger, hot peppers, immune booster, kimchi, lacto-fermentation
You may remember this post I did for a quick version of kimchi. Here is the lacto-fermented version which is pretty easy considering how much food you can preserve in about an hour, no boiling or sterilizing necessary. Lacto-fermentation happens when the starches and sugars in vegetables and fruit convert to lactic acid by a friendly lactic-acid producing bacteria. So basically you take a plant that is already good for you and preserve it in a way that makes it even healthier AND you can enjoy it all winter long. Pretty neat trick, just ask Sally Fallon:
“The proliferation of lactobacilli in fermented vegetables enhances their digestibility and increases vitamin levels. These beneficial organisms produce numerous helpful enzymes as well as antibiotic and anticarcinogenic substances. Their main by-product, lactic acid, not only keeps vegetables and fruits in a state of perfect preservation but also promotes the growth of healthy flora throughout the intestine.” Sally Fallon, Nourishing Traditions, pg 89
Simple Bites also offers a lot of information and instruction for lacto-fermenting whatever it is you have in abundance at the end of the growing season! Here’s what my dad and I did with the beautiful cabbages he grew this year….
We started with about 6 heads of cabbage from the garden each weighing about 3.5-5 pounds!
For each 5 pounds of sliced cabbage you need 3 Tablespoons of kosher salt, 4 dried hot peppers, a head of garlic and a chunk of ginger, peeled. The ginger and salt were store-bought but the rest my dad grew in his garden!
Hot peppers from Dad's garden drying on the table, we used 4, seeds removed, for each 5 pounds of shredded cabbage.
Dad shredded and weighed the cabbage for each batch while I.....
...removed the seeds from the hot chilis, measured out the salt, peeled the head of garlic and used the food processor to grind everything up.
Once the cabbage was shredded and the salt-hot pepper-garlic-ginger mix was ready, I mixed the two together in a large bowl. We ended up making about 4 batches.
The salt makes the cabbage release its water, creating the brine it will ferment in.
Once the brine can be seen above the level of the cabbage, which is very soft at this point, it's ready to pack in big, clean glass jars.
I packed the cabbage into the jar, added the brine, plus a little more so that it covered the cabbage by at least an inch. We used a plastic bag filled with water as a weight to make sure the cabbage would stay completely covered by the brine.
The lids are just sitting on top so that the air can escape and the little guys doing the fermenting can breathe!
And that’s it! The jars will sit out for a few days and then will be kept in the fridge (or a cool root cellar) until they get eaten! Lacto-fermented foods are good for everyone and especially beneficial to those of us on the Candida diet.
It’s Chocolate, For Breakfast
09 Jun 2011 2 Comments
in Recipes Tags: almond butter, almond milk, antioxidants, breakfast shake, cinnamon, cocoa powder, coconut, fiber shake, flax, ginger, hemp, protein shake, stevia
This is something that I recommend to a lot of my clients who are on the Candida diet and want something other than eggs or leftover veggies for breakfast. There are plenty of variations but this basic breakfast shake recipe packs in a lot of protein, fiber and antioxidants. It’s easy to digest and, duh, it’s chocolate, for breakfast!
Healthy chocolate breakfast, or snack or dessert...
Basic Breakfast Shake: Ingredients
1 Cup or more Unsweetened Almond Milk or soy/dairy milk
2-3 Tablespoons Hemp Protein/Fiber Powder (basically just ground hemp seeds, they sell ‘Living Harvest’ Hemp Protein at Whole Foods and I get Nutiva brand through my co-op)
Nutiva brand ground hemp seeds, lots of fiber and protein and it's vegan too.
2 Tablespoons unsweetened Dutch cocoa or raw cocoa powder
2 Tablespoons ground raw flax seeds (the omega 3 fatty acids help with inflammation and overall health)
1-2 Tablespoons almond butter and/or coconut milk. Don’t bother with ‘light’ coconut milk it’s just regular coconut milk with a lot of water added. A little of the full strength variety goes a long way for flavor and satiety.
Stevia to taste for sweetness
Dash of Cinnamon and/or ground ginger (both of these combat Candida and add unexpected flavor)
Optional: ¼ Cup organic whole milk yogurt. Hawthorne Valley Farms makes great yogurt or you can use soy yogurt by Wildwood, the plain flavor tastes like plain, tart yogurt!
Add some ice if you like and blend it up! You can use stand blender or immersion blender, my favorite kitchen tool. Drink right away.
Close up of ground hemp
Spring Fever (not the good kind)
12 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
in Essay On Health, Supplements Tags: cold remedy, Echinacea with Osha, Fire Cider, flu remedy, ginger, lemon, medicinal food
Hot lemon and ginger tea, our own Echinacea with Osha and a shot of Fire Cider
I managed to stay healthy all winter long, I even survived Dana’s death flu. Then, Thursday night I started to feel a bit icky and spent Friday sick and whiny. I annoyed myself! Usually other people get sick and I start taking preventative herbal medicine to bolster my immune system and avoid whatever’s going around. This time I must have been preoccupied because it totally snuck up on me, damn you spring fever!
So, on Friday, in between the naps and the bit of work that I got done I was taking shots (literally, I used a shot glass!) of our homemade Echinacea with Osha and shots of Fire Cider along with some throat soothing Lemon and Ginger tea and after 24 hours I’m feeling better without ever having felt really awful. Ah, the power of not-so-modern medicine.
Whoop that cold with a belt....of Fire Cider!
I took about 5 shots each of Fire Cider and Echinacea with Osha. Not in the same glass tho, that’s a little much, even for me!
Our personal use Echinacea, thanks for the beer BBC and for the awesome brown glass growler!
The ‘tea’ is really easy: finely grate some fresh peeled ginger, about a 1/2 inch cube, juice half a lemon, sweeten with honey if you can or stevia if you’re like me and fill your mug to the top with just boiling water. It looks like theraflu but it tastes good and is going to help your body heal because of the vitamin c in the lemon and the anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal properties in the ginger! This makes a refreshing cold beverage too, use fizzy water instead of hot.
Grated ginger, juice from half a lemon, stevia and hot water in my favorite mug!
A hot ginger bath, use powdered ginger or grate some fresh, about 1/4 cup, can be very helpful as well.
Herbal and plant-based remedies, unlike symptom masking OTC meds, work with your body to help you get rid of whatever cold or flu bug you’ve got. Oh, and they are way cheaper! Especially since you’ll only need them for a few days instead of dragging around for a week or more. Just sayin’ plant food makes the best medicine and if you eat good foods most of the time, you won’t need much else!
Mushroom Soup: Another Basic Health Building Recipe
11 Feb 2011 6 Comments
in Candida, Essay On Health, Recipes Tags: bonito, cloud ear mushrooms, egg, ginger, green veggies, Mitaki mushrooms, napa cabbage, onion, reishi mushroom, sesame oil, shitaiki mushroom, stock, tamari
Three kinds of medicinal mushrooms, Napa cabbage and a poached egg topped with srirracha, good and good for ya!
This is Dana’s recipe and it will make a lot of soup, you can even double it so you’ll have many bowls of soup for now, and soup base to freeze for later. It is so worth the hour it takes to make this rich and healthy soup! Mushrooms, especially the ones I use in this soup are incredibly good for you. Among other things these mushrooms support proper immune function, they are high in anti-oxidants and may help prevent cancer. Mushrooms are high in fiber, potassium, riboflavin, niacin and selenium as well as vitamins and some even contain Iron. Medicinal mushrooms help kill bacteria and viruses, reduce and prevent tumor growth and can be helpful with many common imbalances like asthma, Candida and other degenerative diseases. Aside from all that health stuff mushrooms are delicious, this is one of my favorite things to eat and it always makes me feel good!
From right to left: a jar of reishi mushroom powder, peppercorns, dried shiitake, a bag of bonito flakes, onion and dried cloud ear mushrooms
Ingredients:
4 Tablespoons sesame oil
1/2 medium onion or, for less sugar, 1 large leek, white part, sliced into thin half moons
2 cups dried shiitake mushroom, in boiling water, with a weight, for about 10 minutes. Reserve the water!!
Cloud ear mushrooms, one of my handfuls, about 1/3 cup
or
Mitaki about 1/3 cup, broken up into small pieces
2-3 heaping tablespoons Reishi mushroom powder
reserved mushroom water plus veggie broth, mushroom broth, ect, about 7-8 cups
ginger, at least 1 teaspoon dried or 2 teaspoons fresh
about 10 black pepper corns
a fluffy 1/3 cup of bonito flakes (optional but also delicious and recommended)
about 1/4 cup Tamari (NOT soy sauce. Tamari is wheat free fermented soy food…check it out!)
1 teaspoon mirin (omit if you are avoiding all sugars)
1 teaspoon brown rice vinegar
Dried shiitake mushrooms soaking in hot water for about 10 minutes.
Prep the onion, get your ingredients together and soak your big dried mushrooms in boiling water until soft, about 10 minutes. When they are ready squeeze out excess water, cut the stem offs and slice the mushroom caps. Save the mushroom water, it makes excellent mushroom soup broth, imagine that! Finely chop the stems and set everything aside.
Start with 4 Tablespoons sesame oil (or any neutral oil like canola or grape seed) in a heavy bottomed soup pot on medium heat.
Add in the sliced onions and or leeks, saute together with the ginger until soft.
onions and sesame oil with ginger
Add the mushroom water plus another 8 cups or so of broth. Add all the mushrooms including the diced stems and reish powder and the peppercorns. If you want to go for it with the bonito flakes you should add them now. Simmer for 10 minutes with the top on (you’ll prob have to turn it down to low) to let all the mushrooms completely rehydrate and flavor the broth.
Napa cabbage: chopped!
While you wait, chop in half lengthwise a Napa cabbage and then thinly slice crosswise until you have about 3-4 cups
Chopped napa with my three reserved mushroom soups ready for the freezer in the back ground.
Now, back to our soup on the stove, time to add a teaspoon of mirin and then the tamari, about 1/4 cup (add 1 Tablespoon at a time and taste in between).
Adjust for flavor, add srirracha, more tamari, brown rice vinegar, reishi…
Before you add the cabbage, take some mushroom soup out and reserve it for later. You can freeze it for months or until next week when you are craving this soup, lucky you will just take it out of the freezer, heat it up, add the rest of your Napa or kale or broccoli and voila, soup, with minimal effort. I recommend freezing in small containers that way you can make up as many servings at a time as you would like.
Then add the sliced Napa to the soup, stir and turn off the heat.
If you want to add an egg, my favorite, poach a few separately in boiling water and add an egg to each bowl of soup, then serve! Also tastes excellent with cooked pork and/or chicken, shrimp, scallops? This is a great soup base….so get creative!
Phlegm Tea* (*tea does not contain actual phlegm)
08 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
in Essay On Health, Recipes, Supplements Tags: cold, cough, cough remedy, expectorant, flu, ginger, licorice root, tea, thyme, water
So, you forgot to take your Echinacea with Osha, you ran out of vitamin C and your co workers keep coming into work sick and doped up on symptom masking cold medicine. No wonder you’re not feeling well. If you’ve got a cough, congestion or any other phlegm related symptom this tea can help. And it’s never too late to start taking immune boosters like zinc and FIRE CIDER!!!
Thyme, Ginger and Licorice, a powerful cold and flu remedy.
This tea is really easy to make and take. The recipe for this tea is a ratio of water to herbs so you can make a lot or a little. When someone is sick we put a soup pot on the stove and keep it going all day. A cup of tea every couple of hours can make a huge difference in how you feel.
For every 4 cups of water use 3 Tablespoons of ground Ginger or fresh if you’ve got it, 1/3 cup of Licorice root and 1/3 cup of Thyme. Put a lid on it, bring to a boil and then turn the heat off and let it sit, covered, for 15 minutes. Strain out a cup at a time and drink it hot. You can add honey to sweeten and it will also help soothe your sore throat and boost your immune system.
Shredded Licorice Root from Mountain Rose Herbs
For more information on these ingredients and their amazing health building properties, check out the links below. I order herbs from Mountain Rose all the time, always organic, always the best quality.
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