Healthy Summer Fruit Tart
Pie You Don’t Have to Feel Guilty Eating. Healthy Summer Fruit Tart are deserts full of ingredients with high nutritive value–fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, protein, etc, , with high amounts of life force from fresh well farmed ingredients, and with out what’s bad for you–white sugar, artificial stuff, preservatives, things with no life force, like frozen fruit and pie crusts off the shelf of Cost Co. Traveling in Europe one of the things you might notice is that the pastries are sweet, but not sickeningly so. In particular the fruit tarts are slightly...
Read MoreDaikon Radish: Detoxify and Promote Digestion
Daikon Radish is a great soup or salad vegetable. It is spicy, and acts as a digestive by stimulating digestive fire, just as the small radishes that Mexicanos eat with corn and meat do, but it is more aromatic, especially when boiled, than the small radishes and not as hot. Daikon is used in Chinese Medicine Nutritional therapy to balance heavier foods that are high in harder to digest animal protein and fat, like beef or pork. Beef and pork, which are are also neutral and cool in natural temperature, easily produce toxic dampness when eaten in excess, because the combination of heavy...
Read MoreWakame Sea Vegetable with Turnip, Pear, and American Ginseng
Wakame is a delicate, mild tasting, low calorie sea vegetable with a succulent texture. A favorite food in Japanese and Korean cuisine, it is traditionally cooked in miso soup, served on its own as a cold side dish (sunomono), or cooked with foods like kabocha squash. It can be adapted into American cooking in salads, soups, stews, as a side dish, and even added into raw sauerkraut. It compliments grains from barley and quinoa to rice and millet. Wakame looks black in the package, but turns a delicate green color when cooked, brighter if blanched briefly in boiling...
Read MoreDr. Wickermasinghe’s Ayurvedic Detox Tea for Colds and Flu
Drink a quart or more a day of this delicious detox tea if you are fighting off a cold or flu. You can also take this if you are already sick, to get better more quickly, and to prevent secondary infection in throat, sinus, or lungs. Do not use if you have a raging sore throat or high fever. Do use especially if you feel cold and have clear mucus or phlegm. This is a delicious tea made from ordinary kitchen spices that is a powerful remedy for common colds and flu. I learned it in Sri Lanka, from my Ayurveda teacher Vaidhya Wickeramasinghe. Drink from one to 5 cups a day if you...
Read MoreJuiced Watermelon with Lime, Ginger, and Salt
Alternative to Iced Drinks in Hot Weather Protect the Agni/ Yang in Summer: Juiced Watermelon with Lime, Ginger, and Salt The other day was quite hot (for SD!), and I swam at the beach after walking down from the top of Torrey Pines, and got home overheated and thirsty. I could still feel the sun hot on my head, even though I had worn a hat. I needed a lot of fluid and to cool down healthfully. An excellent alternative to iced beverages in hot conditions like that is juiced melon, especially watermelon. I juiced mine with fresh ginger root so as to protect my digestive fire/yang/agni from...
Read MoreMauk Family Farms Organic Raw Wheat-Free Flax Crusts
There are many ways to get healthy Omega 3 fat into your diet. One is fresh wild fishes like salmon, mackeral, and sardines. If you don’t like fish, you can take a fish oil supplement in summer and cod liver oil in the winter, just like grandmother used to give. Another source of healthy fat is from nuts (Walnuts are particularly good) and seeds (especially Flax). Another is from pasture raised grass fed milk, eggs, butter and poultry in small amounts. Other healthy oils high in Omega 3 include coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, avocado and walnut oils. Unhealthy oils to avoid,...
Read MoreSummer Raw Beet, Sardine, and Pasta Salad
Summer is a time when even cold dry (Vata) types or cold damp (Kapha) types can have little more raw foods. One of the ways to make raw foods more compatible for cold types with weaker digestive energy (Agni/Spleen Qi) is to have it in small amounts with other foods that stimulate digestion. Necessity is the mother of invention. Today I was hungry, lazy, and the cupboard was bare. I had some leftover pasta, a tin of sardines, a can of chickpeas, a bunch of scallions and one lone beetroot in my frig. So I made a pasta salad with those ingredinets, with olive oil and vinegar as...
Read MoreLate Winter Arugala for Kapha
Arugula is one of those green leafy vegetable that is so delicious both raw and cooked. It lends a nutty and spicy taste to other milder greens, and serves as a fine foil for feta cheese, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and dried Turkish apricots (those plump dark un-sulphered ones you get at the health food store). I love cooked Arugula with Whole wheat pasta, in which case I quick fry under high heat chopped or lightly crushed garlic, I learned this from a chef–get the oil really hot, drop the garlic in, and stir for about 1 minute, don’t let it burn, but watch the color change as the...
Read MoreDandelion and Chicory Greens: Vegan Fast Food
My idea of fast food: real food, made easily. Too many of my vegetarian and vegan friends are what I call “grilled cheese vegetarians.” Though they avoid meat, they also seem to avoid green vegetables and eat lots of bread and soy cheese or vegan sausages. I was on a meditation retreat a few years ago in Quebec, and it was surprising: lots of beans and grains and dairy, too, even ice cream, but zero green vegetables. Chinese medicine says: Protein for strength, Grains for energy, Green Vegetables to keep it all clean. Luckily, walking around the extensive uncut fields...
Read MoreBaked Butternut Squash and Black Bean Soup
One of the aspects of cooking that Chinese Medicine pays attention to is method. Each method of cooking adds relative values of heat to the dish being prepared.Steaming and boiling are the mildest. Then, in degree of warming-ness comes stir frying, followed by croc-pot slow cooking/stewing, baking, and finally, the hottest form, deep frying. That may explain in part why baked and deep fried goods are so satisfying; life is a process of warm biochemical or energetic transformations; qi and blood are warm–baked and deep fried goods reinforce that warmth, although with the latter method...
Read MoreHow to Make Salad or Raw Veggies for a Vatta Dominant Person
In general, people who are Vata dominant should avoid salad or raw vegetables, especially if in an unbalanced, aggravated state. Vatta, unlike Pitta and Kapha, is rough, not smooth. Raw vegetables are also considered rough; they are made “smooth” by cooking. And since like increases like, rough food will, therefore, increase Vata, and in the end aggravate, or vitiate it. Many raw vegetables are also considered cold in energy. And, as Vatta is cold and rough, irregular, and dry, it needs food that is warm, smooth, regular, and moistening. In addition, Vatta is pacified by sweet,...
Read MoreNapa Cabbage 1-2-3-
my friend lucia keeps composting her napa. (she grows a lot since she owns a farm, but she complained she has ideas for everything but napa). here are two great ways to use napa in cooking. one: napa stir fry heat sesame oil (plain, not toasted type)to pretty hotadd grated or julienned gingerstir 10 seconds and lower flameadd sliced shitake mushroom stir fry for a few minutes, less if fresh, longer if dried.add napa cut in larger pieces. add the white part first the leafy ends second.stir fry a minute while adding tamari wheat free soy sauce to taste.add a dash of white pepper, or five...
Read MoreTurnips and Parsnips and Parsnips and Turnips and Pears!
One of my favorite places for home cooking in San Diego’s years past was Mr. Zia’s Afghan restaurant, on 30th St. in North Park. Mr. Zia became a friend, and even took me to the Afghani mosque during Ramadan. For those of you in San Diego, his son Khaled owns a “healthy” pizzeria on Adams Ave., named after his father, Zia’s, and has lots of vegan choices. http://www.ziagourmetpizza.com/ One of my favorite dishes at Zia’s was his turnips. Another was his cooked pears. They were made with the same recipe. I have made this with parsnips, too. Parsnips are an...
Read MoreCold Beet Borscht Soup for Summer
Cold Beet Borscht Soup for Summer Let’s call this a soup, even though I grew up drinking it out of a glass, and at Yonah Shimmel’s Knishery in New York (est.1910) they were still serving it on tap, for $1.25, along with home made Kefir, in little plastic institutional juice glasses when I visited last, about 10 years ago. This is the closest I can get to Yonah Shimmel’s cool, sweet, sour beverage, with some modifications of my own that take into account a Russian influence (add dill) and my Ayurvedic background (add black and white pepper). And its so EASY to make, and...
Read MoreSummer Raw Cabbage Salad a.k.a. Cole Slaw
I am a huge fan of cabbage. When I was a strict vegetarian it must have been its hearty quality and chewy texture that appealed. Now that I am an omnivore, I value cabbage both for its delicious, slightly sweet taste, and its high fiber low calorie ratio. In fact cabbage has the fewest calories and least fat of almost any vegetable. Its a great diet food, and a great food to balance the heavy quality of cooked meat. I find eating meat with vegetables, but without grain to be much lighter and digestible. Raw Sauerkraut, which is a cinch to make at home, and ridiculously expensive at the...
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