Let The Gardening Begin!
26 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Essay On Health, Recipes Tags: candida, candida cookbook, candida diet, candidiasis, gardening, green veggies, health coach, lemon juice, organic, pepitas, quick recipe, salad
We pulled up all the stalks from last year and added them to the new compost pile.
Remember back in…April, or was it March? When spring seemed to have arrived, at least for a week? We excitedly got to work in the garden, clearing out the old and making a new plan for this season.
Scallion survivors, they’ll be blooming any day now!
A new layout this year to avoid washouts during rain storms. This first section is our lettuce and herb bed.
Then it got cold again, of course. And we got busy, really really busy with Fire Cider and the New Amsterdam Market. We went on vacation for a week, and to Springfield and NYC and came back to this….
Um, I think we have a weed problem. At least the lettuce survived!
Dana and the weed whacker vs over a month of unattended garden growth, guess we know the soil is healthy!
Dana’s starts survived our vacation and are going into the ground today, if we can carve a new bed out of all that weedy growth!
Watering our little starts and seeds in the new bed: red sail lettuce, chamomile, paprika peppers, Habanero, nasturtiums, holy basil, tomatoes and more basil.
Our reward was a box full of lettuce and some volunteer dandelion greens. Hooray for the first salad of the season!
Simple Garden Salad
In your salad bowl mix the juice from half a lemon with olive oil and salt.
Toss the rinsed (yeah, maybe I should have picked it before weed whacking?) lettuce in the dressing and top with
This Sunday at 10 am I am giving a talk, ‘How to Make the Healthiest Use of Your Food Dollar‘ at the Unitarian Church, 175 Wendell Ave. Pittsfield. I will be publishing the talk in Berkshire’s Best June 1st and here on my blog in case you miss it!
Camp Food and Travel Pictures: Cape Hatteras N.C.
23 May 2012 1 Comment
in Recipes, Essay On Health Tags: avocado, bacon, beach house, Berkshires, cabbage, camp food, camping, candida, candida cookbook, candida diet, candidiasis, Cape Hatteras, cast iron skillet, eggs, fish tacos, flax bread, Frisco NC, green veggies, health coach, kale, Mahi Mahi, one dish meal, onion, protein, sausage, snack, travel food, tune sashimi
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, only 4 more hours to go!
Last week Dana drove us over 600 miles from the Berkshires to Frisco, NC on Cape Hatteras and back again, whew! Our little ’84 Jetta was packed with camping equipment and of course, lots of food! The state forest camp grounds were beautiful and totally worth the long drive to get there. We camped for the first part of our trip and then moved a few miles down the road to a house on the beach that we shared with friends, what an awesome vacation!
The view of the Atlantic from our camp site in Frisco, NC
First I want to share my favorite way to enjoy avocados, with some tamari, wasabi and a spoon….
Chipolte, salt and lime on the left and my tamari and wasabi half on the right.
All you need is a spoon, and maybe someone to share the other half with : – )
Dana’s camp stove, which he took bike touring with him over a decade ago, decided it was time to retire when we tried to use it our first morning. So we had to rely on the charcoal grill at our site. Good thing we brought our cast iron pan!
Chopped cabbage, sauerkraut, bacon and eggs; everything you need for a hearty seaside breakfast.
I cooked the bacon first, then sauteed the cabbage, pushed everything to the side and fried the eggs in the rest of the bacon fat. Flax crackers and sun tea on the side. Eating directly out of the skillet means no dishes to do, we are on vacation after all!
One night for dinner we grilled asparagus and then cooked sausages and kale with mushrooms and onions in the skillet. Dinner is served.
Best beach house dinner: fresh fried mahi mahi fish tacos (‘slaw and corn tortillas not pictured) and sashimi tuna with bacon tacos. Gotta give Bill credit for the bacon and sashimi combo and the picture too! I used romaine lettuce leaves to make my tacos, wicked good guys, you gotta try it!
New Spring Salad
24 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in Candida, Recipes Tags: raw, apple cider vinegar, candidiasis, green veggies, quick meal, Local food, organic, salad dressing, one dish meal, carrots, greens, salad, cheese, candida diet, meditation, health coach, candida, candida cookbook, tuna, yoga, kripalu yoga
Dana and I literally made room for our yoga practice.
I’ve been a bit pressed for time since there are a lot of exciting changes going on right now; the garden is growing, there are houses to bid on (woah!) and we converted an extra room in our house to a yoga/meditation room. I have been naturally waking up consistently early for the past few weeks, a change I attribute to the new season and a sign that my health continues to improve. The combination of getting up earlier and our yoga room means I’m able to do an hour of Kripalu yoga, mediate and start my day having already accomplished two of my most important goals for the day. Or I can work in an hour of yoga later in the day. Either way, having hour long classes, on line, that range from gentle restorative yoga to more vigorous, challenging classes, right on the Kripalu home page, makes a daily practice pretty easy to incorporate. If you have space for a yoga mat and an internet connection, you too can incorporate yoga into your daily routine. Give it a try!
One of 4 post cards designed to promote the market. This one is my favorite. You can see the other designs on the New Amsterdam Market Facebook page.
Dana, Brian and I are also expanding Fire Cider to a weekly market in New York City called ‘The New Amsterdam Market’ which opens next Sunday at 11 am in the Old Fulton Fish Market. This is such an exciting next step for us and there’s a lot to do to get ready! So, I find I have less time that I would like to spend writing new recipes and playing in the kitchen. In the interest of time, mine and yours, I’ve come up with a new way to write recipes so I can continue to share with you on a weekly basis…
The ingredients will be listed in the order they are added to the recipe. Simple instructions will appear throughout the list and the meal should take about 5-15 min to assemble or cook, sound good? Healthy meals fast, yes please!
One dish dinner with the daffodils my mom picked for us, thanks mama!
New Spring Salad
In a large bowl combine:
1 can tuna
3-4 T mayo
2 T spicy dijon mustard
2 T raw apple cider vinegar
2 T each: Kalamata olives halved and chopped oil cured olives
salt and pepper to taste
Mix well then add
Salad greens of your choosing: baby spinach and dandelion greens are especially nutritious.
1 grated carrot
Mix again and top with
grated cheese, I used some Vermont cheese from the co-op that’s part cheddar and part Romano
a small handful of toasted, salted sunflower seeds
Serve and eat!
What’s Wrong With The Kids?
12 Apr 2012 1 Comment
in Essay On Health Tags: ADD, ADHD, candida, candida cookbook, candida diet, candidiasis, children's health, common allergens, Concerta, dairy, food as medicine, green veggies, health coach, organic, Ritalin, soy, wheat, whole foods, whole foods diet
As some of you know I spent almost 7 years, from 2002 to 2009, working as a full-time nanny in New York City. What started as a way to afford to live in the city while completing my bachelor’s degree turned into an invaluable education itself. A few recent articles in the NY Times have got me thinking about the lessons I learned from the children and families I cared for not too long ago. The first article was “Ritilan Gone Wrong” which addressed the concern that ADD drugs don’t work long term in children. Another article in last week’s Sunday Times Magazine was about puberty starting in girls as young as first grade. The latter article seems to completely skip over what seems to me to be one of the most obvious causes (and solutions!) to both issues raised in these two essays: food. The quality and quantity of the food we feed our children has, gasp, a profound effect on their health.
Here’s an example from my last nanny job, we’ll call him Tom. Tom is 13 and finishing up 8th grade. He has trouble sleeping; sometimes he is up half the night and has dark circles under his eyes. He has trouble focusing and staying alert in school. He sees a psychiatrist, the only mental health professional allowed to prescribe psychiatric medication, for anger and emotional issues. Tom’s diet goes something like this: he refuses to eat any and all vegetables except potatoes and occasionally frozen corn. This has been going on for some time and mom and dad are not interested in challenging this. He sticks mostly with pasta, bread and any and all kinds of candy. He eats conventional cheese, eggs and meat. Very rarely will he eat fruit. His diet is mostly nutritionally deficient, refined white foods, much to my dismay. Tom is very mal-nourished and is also concerned with staying thin. He likes to skip meals and refuses anything with real nutrition. As a result of what he eats and the low quality of his food, Tom is on a constant sugar high/sugar crash cycle that makes getting good sleep nearly impossible, no wonder he’s moody and can’t concentrate in school!
Mom and Dad decide at the suggestion of the therapist to put Tom on a Ritalin type drug to address his lack of function in school. The drug helps him focus and also decreases his appetite to the point where he is only eating one or two meals a day which he is happy about. I had to quit this job shortly after the parents started using a controlled substance to control their child while completely ignoring his emotional and nutritional needs. Child abuse by my standards but clearly my standards are different from some of the millionaires on 5th Avenue.
My prescription for Tom would have gone something like this: First Tom needs to get out of the addictive sugar cycle by eating fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats like olive and coconut oils and organic proteins. Changing his diet will allow his body to rest at night instead of using energy to process all those empty sugar calories. Wheat is also a big red flag, many behavioral and developmental problems are being traced to wheat in the diet. With any kind of illness I suggest looking to the diet first: it’s the easiest to change as it does not require health care professionals or prescriptions. Try eliminating the major allergens like wheat, dairy, nuts and soy and then begin to add in large quantities of green veggies, whole, non-wheat grains like quinoa and brown rice as well as beans and high quality, organic soy (if not allergic) and/or animal foods. Remember the young ladies that are starting puberty at 8 and 10 years old? Perhaps this has something to do with all the growth hormones and chemical herbicides and pesticides in the meat and dairy products sold at conventional grocery stores across our country? I know several family members and friends that have successfully treated ADD and other behavioral and developmental disorders by simply changing the food they ate. Food is your most powerful tool in transforming your health, use it!
Kids and adults alike will find that changing their diet to a clean, whole foods, plant-based diet will improve everything from mood to energy levels. Clear thinking (and clear skin!) starts with clean food. And for those of you that might want a little guidance in this area I will be starting a new class series this May called ‘Local Nutrition’. This class series will teach you how to take advantage of all the amazing local, organic food available in our area while not breaking your budget. And that’s just the beginning so stay tuned for more information!
Sunday Breakfast
09 Apr 2012 1 Comment
in Recipes Tags: arugula, Beads and Beyond, Bisque, candida, candida cookbook, candida diet, candidiasis, cheddar, class series, eggs, green veggies, health coach, healthy living in the Berkshires, Local food, North Street, one dish meal, Pittsfield, protein, quick meal, raw, raw cheese
On Saturday night I made dinner for Dana and I: roasted cauliflower dressed in ghee, cumin, turmeric and two of our homemade curry spice mixes with mustard seeds. Then kale with goat cheese, hot pepper and a dusting of cumin and curry. For dessert I made biscuits which I planned to use again in the morning for breakfast.
For the meal pictured I started with a bed of arugula, drizzled olive oil, sprinkled salt, black pepper and hot pepper and then grated some amazing raw cheddar cheese from Vermont. I fried up some eggs and toasted the biscuits. The eggs go on top of the greens and then I grated more cheese on top of everything. A quick meal with plenty of protein and even a serving of greens!
Coming soon: my cookbook based on the recipes in this blog and a new class series, “Healthy Living in the Berkshires” which will be hosted by Bisque, Beads and Beyond on North Street starting with two information and sign up sessions May 23rd and 24th. Mark your calendars and stay tuned!
Japanese Burrito
28 Feb 2012 1 Comment
in Recipes Tags: bread alternative, candida, candida cookbook, candida diet, candidiasis, canned tuna, green veggies, greens, health coach, herbs, hot sauce, mayonaise, Nori, one dish meal, onion, protein, quick meal, salad greens, sea vegetable, snack, tuna, wrap
Tuna prepared with mayo, salad mix, sheets of nori and hot sauce: combine and eat!
I love nori, it’s a really versatile sea vegetable that makes a great wrap for sandwich fillings. You can use any of your favorite cold sandwich fillings rolled up in a sheet of crunchy, mild tasting nori. Today I grabbed a bag of baby salad greens, my favorite hot sauce and a couple of cans of tuna. I prepared the tuna with mayo and onion, some spicy Dijon mustard, a splash of balsamic, salt and pepper and the juice of 1/2 a lemon.
Layer mixed salad greens, prepared tuna and some hot sauce, then roll it up!
A healthy wrap is a green wrap!
Nori is considered to be a “super food” because it is packed full of vitamins, nutrients and even some rare trace elements. Nori is very high in protein, iron and vitamin C. It is also a great source of vitamin A, vitamin B2, iodine, potassium and magnesium. Nori seaweed has been shown to moisturize dry skin, improve circulation and detoxify the skin. SeaSnax is a company that makes roasted, lightly oiled and flavored nori sheets. Their snacks are crunchy and salty and satisfy like potato chips with the added benefit of being highly nutritious!
Comfort Food: Goat Cheese Greens
13 Oct 2011 3 Comments
in Recipes Tags: candida, candida cookbook, candida diet, comfort food, fennel, garlic, goat cheese, green veggies, greens, health coach, hot pepper, one dish meal
Greens chopped into fettuccine sized slices.
The idea here is to use a whole bunch of greens, sliced into fat ribbons, and then combine them with some creamy, cheesy goodness for a dish that’s similar to mac n cheese but with way more nutrients, minerals, vitamins, fiber, good fats and all that other stuff your body gets from green food! I used to love cooking pasta and dressing it up with olive oil, grated cheese, hot pepper flakes and lots of garlic. In retrospect, the pasta was just a vehicle for the seasonings and cheese so why not replace it with the one food most missing from American diets? Why not indeed!
Ingredients:
A big bunch of sturdy greens like collards or the leaves from your broccoli, romanesco or brussels sprouts plants. Strip the leaves from the stems, stack the leaves and slice into fettuccine sized ribbons.
Olive oil, enough to saute all your greens
a clove or three of mashed or minced garlic
and any or all of these flavorful, medicinal seasonings: hot peppers, fennel, garlic salt, sea salt, black pepper, paprika smokey or hot, all to taste
Fresh goat cheese, get it local at Berkshire Organics or the Berkshire Co-op Market
So happy to have time to cook more and relax more after a very busy three weeks.
Procedure:
Heat the olive oil in your cast iron skillet on medium heat, add your garlic and any whole spices you are using like the hot pepper flakes and the fennel seeds.
Before the garlic starts to brown, add in all your pretty green ribbons and saute til wilted and cooked through.
Add salt to taste and any powdered spices you are using, like paprika.
When the greens are cooked to your liking and you’ve adjusted the seasonings, serve the greens and top with as much goat cheese as you like. Mix it well, it will melt instantly on the hot greens and make a creamy sauce, kinda like mac n cheese but with out the gluey macaroni and unsettling powdered ‘cheese’. Top with some hot sauce or sriracha if you need extra heat. Isn’t it comforting to know that your comfort food is really nourishing?
Comfort food can be green and good for you too!
Green Bean Romano: Good Fast Food
02 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
in Recipes Tags: cheese, garden, garlic, green beans, green veggies, kid food, organic, quick meal
Cheese makes everything better!
It’s dinner time. I’m hungry but I don’t feel like spending even 15 minutes in the kitchen. I need something healthy, fast! Lucky me, my dad gave me a bag full of green beans from his garden last night. This big bowl full of crunchy, green garden food took me less than 7 minutes from start to plate and you probably already have everything you need to make it:
Olive oil
A mashed garlic clove
Salt n pepper
Romano, Parmigiana or similar hard cheese, grated.
And of course a bag full of freshly picked green beans.
First, set up a steam basket in a pot of water on the stove and let the water come to a boil while you pick the stems off and rinse the green beans.
Throw all the green beans into the steamer for a few minutes while you grate as much cheese as you need to dress your beans.
Then, in a big serving bowl combine salt, pepper, enough olive oil to coat the veggies and a mashed clove of garlic, if you like. Mix well, add the tender, barely steamed green beans and toss to coat.
Add half the cheese, mix, top with the remaining cheese and more cracked black pepper. Done! Quick, healthy and it has lots of finger food potential so your kids just might eat it.
Fun With Garden Foods
08 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in Essay On Health, Recipes Tags: carrots, cucumbers, frittata, garden, green veggies, lettuce, organic, peanut sauce, purple haze carrots, salad
Pretty purple carrots make a great edible center piece.
Dana and I harvested a ton of food from our garden at Green Meads Farm in Richmond last Friday. We spent the morning and part of the afternoon weeding before filling our bags with future dinners. The commercial crop of leeks and romanesco we are growing on the Clark’s farm (hopefully soon to be our farm!) is looking hardy after a late, slow start. Without all the weeds, our garden at Green Meads is looking like a real garden, as in, now we have paths and can see individual plants! The weed uprising has been quashed, for now. After all that I discovered we have lots of lemon cucumbers, gherkins, collards, basil, kale and carrots. I’m super excited to take pictures and make fun things with the lemon cukes, they live up to their name in appearance and I hope they make excellent pickles.
When we finished our work Dana and I headed home with bags full of produce, hungry for a big late lunch. By the time we got into the kitchen I was running out of steam as far as cleaning all the veggies. So we put all the carrots (Purple Haze variety, of course) into a big glass pitcher to soak which doubled as a very colorful and edible centerpiece!
Cucumbers, carrots and collards from our garden, eggs from Hannah's grampa, peanut sauce from last nights salad.
We made a frittata with collards, sliced up a couple of cucumbers to go with the peanut dressing from the night before and made two so-called ‘Southamptons’, a drink made with 2-3 dashes of bitters, a squeeze of lime, a bit of sweetener, if you like, and soda water. This drink is sometimes refered to as a mocktail (versus the more adult, cocktail) but I wonder if the place the drink is named after has anything to do with that reference? No, it’s probably not named after those Hamptons. Whatever the Southampton is named after, it’s a bitter, tart drink, and it’s soothing to the stomach as well. It was supremely nice to be able to sit outside and enjoy the food that Dana and I have worked to create.
A simple salad complements the big, late lunch we ate at 3pm.
After a big late meal and the day’s manual labor behind me, I didn’t have a huge appetite for dinner. I made a light salad, with a mix of all the salad greens from our garden including baby spinach. I used some Fire Cider, mayo, a mashed garlic clove, salt and pepper to make a quick dressing. And then for dessert I snacked on the tender young carrots we thinned from the garden and that addictively good roasted almond butter with flax seeds from Trader Joes. I feel really good about today; lots of fresh veggies in a variety of colors, with my biggest meal in the early afternoon and plenty of time spent outside, doing work that I love with some one I love. I know that not every day can be as well-balanced and stress free but it’s nice to know I can make it happen!
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!
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