Cinnamon Seaweed Chicken Soup - Immune Booster!

Today I have a cold. Actually, I've had a cold for the past few days and I am thoroughly sick of breathing through my mouth, sleeping (or not) with three pillows and all the aches & pains that go along with it.

Ok. Enough complaining....because, I am also aware of so much more that my body is doing right now with this glorious cold (did I just say that?!). I can actually feel my immune system revving up, like a great engine waking up after it's winter slumber. 

My lymph nodes are 'active' and my thymus gland is busy rushing T-cells around my body to root out nasties that have lingered during our hibernation. Well, not that we've been staying inside, we have really had some lovely warm weather this entire winter and I have been out in the tunnels and garden since January...but you know what I mean! 

Winterish weather though is pretty well over - the flowers are all blooming (at least they were until the goats got out into the drive way and ate all mine) the bees are flying and the leaves are coming out. It's spring and quite often that means a great head full of snot! 

In honour of all of these bugs & viruses that are making their unrelenting rounds - I've made a Cinnamon Seaweed Chicken Soup and am busy enjoying every morsel in the clinic today. It has been a very busy week but I have finally found a day where I can nourish myself and hopefully give my body what it needs to boost my immune system and be ready for this new season.

When I make chicken soup.......

I like to bake the chicken (whole) first until it nearly falls apart.....then with my pot of lovely root vegetables (today I used sweet potato, celeriac, carrot, turnip, onion, garlic) bubbling away I add  a generous amount of seaweed (dillisk), the chicken and spices. I love cumin, cinnamon, black pepper and fresh parsley from the garden at this time of year, it tastes lovely with this mixture of vegetables. 

Tiffin with Cinnamon Seaweed Chicken Soup

Food for the Soul

What to eat today….

I remember a time when it was such a chore to prepare, cook --- no it was a chore to even think about what to prepare or cook for a meal. It was as if my mind was stuck and I couldn’t even think clearly about what I would like to eat.

Perhaps part of the problem back then was that I was so busy (distracted?) by all the other stuff in my life. At the end of the day I really didn’t have any energy left to do much about nourishing myself, let alone anyone else. 

But another thing that was happening which was probably far worse was that I really wasn’t thinking all that much about the food/meals/nutrition I ended up putting into my body. 

A meal was prepared just to get something on the table most days. Things were rushed, I was tired, food was a hassle, eating was a mindless activity. Life was an ordeal.

Then, when I absolutely had no choice in the matter and had to start carefully considering exactly what went into my body for each and every meal to make it count (because the way I was living had made me sick)…then my eyes and my world opened up.

I allowed my intuition, (not advertising, imbalance, tiredness, peer pressure or worse – indifference) to dictate the needs of my body, mind and spirit. Nourishing myself has since become a multi-dimensional approach to far more then just staying alive –

It’s a process of paying attention, listening and thoroughly engaging with my food and the environment it comes from. I am feeding my body, mind and soul through the food choices I make each and every day.

So, that’s why I feast some days, fast other days and eat normally any days in between. My relationship with eating and food has become a spiritual experience – one that only asks of me to be present and involved with the food on my plate. 

Spiritual for me means being alive….

April

Yarrow 

West Cork - the centre of the Food Universe

A few of my favourite things….

I remember not so very long ago when I spent nearly a decade sugar, wheat, dairy, wheat, meat and fish free. My how times have changed since I started the fasting, raising my own food and healing my gut properly.

Now, everything we can raise, make, cook, create, grow and catch ourselves is on the menu and since I love this time of the year so much there are so many goodies to choose from….LOL

This year I wanted to share a few of my favourite things with you, of course, it just goes to show, they all happen to be food! But, good foods are often simple things that become decadent once a little bit of this and a little dash of that, is added.

It’s kind of like magic – kitchen alchemy. Especially this time of year, there are so many wonderful tastes, food memories and seasonal offerings to be had. Perhaps we are quite spoilt living here in West Cork too, because this is kind of like the centre of the food Universe!

So now, where was I? Oh yes, my 3 treats of the season so far this year would have to be – Fig & Port Chutney, Brandy & Vanilla Butter and my Gourmet Seaweed Sea Salt blend (each of these are available at my Rebel Foods market stall in very limited quantities). 

Funny how two of those include a little bit of alcohol, but never mind it’s a seasonal thing!

For the Fig & Port Chutney, I slow cooked (food should be handled very gently) figs, apples, red onions, spices and demerara sugar, then added port at the last hour of cooking. This ensures that richness of flavour – can’t wait to try it on our Christmas goose (and turkey, duck, sandwiches, Gubbeen cheese….LOL).

Next my favourite seasonal delight has to be Brandy and Vanilla Butter. This is really a little bit (ok, a lot) my own take on an ancient Victorian recipe. Of course, I am using my own organic vanilla infused Jim Beam that has been aging, just waiting for this season….

Brandy butter is something special, often reserved for Christmas day pudding, it can be heated and poured over the warm pud like a sauce or better yet, a steaming hot pudding and cold brandy butter melting over top can’t be compared to anything else. 

We also love it with a cheese selection and with smoked salmon or other smoked fish. Come to think of it, smoked cheese sandwiches with brandy butter has a nice sound too….hmmm.

Lastly, I have changed my Seaweed & Sea Salt recipe for the holiday season – adding sesame seeds to this unique medley of gorgeous sea salts from around the world. I love salt, it’s healing properties and ability to turn ordinary food into an art form.

My Gourmet Seaweed Sea Salt blend has West Cork sea salt along with French, Himalayan and other Atlantic sea salts. When combined with the seaweeds and infused with thyme – the flavour is exquisite. 

So much to look forward to this holiday season – it’s all in the food! 

April

Magic of Christmas….comes in a jar! 

An Intuitive Bread Baking Lesson....

Ok….I’m back!! LOL

It’s been a long summer and I have done quite a bit of cooking, baking and creating in the kitchen….and I’ve learned quite a bit – being busy means needing to find shortcuts but also something else, that is perhaps far more important.

I don’t really ‘like’ to follow recipes! But let me clarify that a bit better here….I love looking at the ingredients list and deciding if I can make something or other. I enjoy the final product and of course the process in between.

But, being a ‘spiritual’ foodie and interested in this inner connection we should have with our foods – certainly the ones we grow and create ourselves – I am far more interested in putting things together until they ‘feel’ right.

Perhaps the best way to explain this is with my breads….I have long been known to be able to whip up a quick batch of bread and have it come out tasting absolutely fabulous. To be honest….it often amazes me! LOL

Because I really don’t ‘think’ about any recipe…..I just put things together (in this case, flour, water, baking soda or sourdough) and see what happens. It really is quite an intuitive process – but this also means each and every dish may turn our differently.

So….for today’s lesson! LOL An Intuitive Bread Baking Class

Get a bowl – deep and preferably stoneware, a wooden spoon and some water. Take your sourdough starter culture out of the fridge and let it sit for an hour at room temperature.

Next get some flours out of the cupboards and see what you have – I like to mix them a bit especially for sourdough because it is nice if it rises and is soft on the inside – ie. It’s not a brick!

Today I used strong white bread flour, malted grain flour (whole grains) and of course rye for feeding my sourdough starter. I like the malted flour because it contains several dark flours and is made with fermented grains – so the goodness is already present before we even begin.

Into the bowl I pour flour – until the bowl is about ½ to ¾ full. Often about an equal portion of each of the strong white flour and the malted but sometimes a little more white to make a softer bread. Don't measure anything - just fill the bowl to a little more then 1/2 full.

Next, I spoon out my sourdough starter, enough to make at least ½ cup and upwards to 1 full cup if I am trying to keep these sourdough starters freshened. Then I always replenish my starters with 2 -3 tablespoons of rye flour and ½ the amount of water before anything else.

Once the starters are dealt with I can move onto mixing the bread. Which is simple – I pour in enough water to make a doughy substance that is not wet and not dry. Each time this might take a little more or less water. And yes, I use cold water (or whey if I am making cheese that day). 

Then I let nature take it’s course and the  sourdough sponge is placed somewhere warm to rise for the next 18 to 24 hours or so. Again, the length of rising time all depends on the heat in the house, the time I have, the type of bread I want, how active the culture is that day and so on.  

Then I knead it down, add more flour and work with the dough until it is soft and silky. Usually about 10 to 15 minutes or so. Then, back into the bowl for another rise (usually 4 to 6 hours) until it is ready to be kneaded again and shaped for the bread tins.

I bake my breads at 250C for 15 minutes, then turn down the oven to 200C for 20 minutes or so. This seems to work out best (sourdough doesn't rise for me in a fan oven). But each oven is different - so you have to play around with this. 

Is this a recipe? Perhaps or perhaps not…..to be honest when I look at the complicated list of details for making sourdough bread that are on the internet and in the recipe books – my eyes glaze over.

It’s just not that complicated. And neither is life!

April

Sourdough dough after 2 rises....ready to be shaped into loaves

A Heavenly Treat....Homemade Apple & Cinnamon Goats Yogurt

I tried my hand at making my own yogurt this past week and it turned out fairly well….of course it’s goats yogurt, which I think is superior in both taste and nutrition – and it’s so easy to work with.

To be honest with you, we spent so many years as vegans and vegetarians, that even now with our own goats I often forget about milk and we almost never eat yogurt…

I make a little cheese each week with our milk and the rest is used for dandelion coffee at the weekends. That’s about it for the milk – of course the children have about a tablespoon in their porridge in the morning.

However, whenever I read up on the fine art of cheese making I always came across advice and recipes for yogurt….

So, I thought I might as well learn how to do this as well! What I did though to make the first batch easier and to try to learn how our milk would respond to a yogurt culture – is buy a goats yogurt and use this to ‘seed’ another batch using our own milk.

First of all, I am using raw milk which has it’s own bacteria and life process taking place. I have found I am learning more about how our milk responds to being processed into cheese every time I make it….(the cultures and rennet).

And I only have small amounts of milk to play with each day, so I have to pay careful attention to what I am doing if I want to learn anything here. LOL

I used about a litre of milk, which I warmed to room temperature. Then taking 1 generous tablespoon of the purchased yogurt, I stirred a little into some of my milk. This was then poured into entire jar and shaken very well.

I didn’t want to sit around and stir, heat or otherwise stand over a pot ‘cooking’ something that, to me, should be a natural process. Yet, I knew the milk now needed heat in order to curdle into yogurt (grow the mesophilic bacteria).

So, to provide a relatively steady supply of gentle heat, I placed the jar into a small bowl and filled the bowl with hot water. This was replaced every few hours and the jar contents were swirled around or gently agitated.

It was starting to thicken after a few hours…then it was left overnight (in the oven to act as an insulator) while the next morning another bowl of hot water was filled.

Pretty soon I had yogurt. No real fuss. Nothing fancy and virtually no equipment was needed. When I think about it….this is gentle food at it’s finest. Homemade yogurt is a little thinner then the shop bought stuff….but the taste is very nice!

For our yogurt treat, I stewed apples and cinnamon and mixed this into the yogurt….heavenly!

April

Apple & Cinnamon Goats Yogurt

Down a New Road....Still Wild Foraging Food

I haven’t really been cooking much of anything (new that is) these days…I’ve been very busy with the garden and farm work….all of these animals need tending as well as planting and weeding to be done.

Most evenings I have been exhausted and kept thinking I am too tired to write…but here I am, today making some more cheese for the weekend, with a pot of goat stew in the slow cooker and have made 6 jars of jam with all the dried berries left over from the winter.

That’s on top of the farm work LOL! And I think I am not doing much of anything….

One update I wanted to make is how after nearly 3 weeks we still haven’t bought any vegetables other then 2 bags of onions and a few carrots. Not so long ago this would have been unheard of for me….I would never have thought I could get by with just the greens growing around me.

But, I am and we are! I have made soups, stews, pesto, stir-fries, casseroles and what ever I can think of using just the wild greens in the fields and things that are growing in my own garden.

And we have more then enough to eat. Of course I combine these with fish, meat, beans, lentils, couscous and rice to create a different dish for every meal. They are all quite versatile and I know we are getting an abundance of vitamins and minerals like nothing else.

I actually think it has taken me this long to notice how I am feeling on this diet of mainly greens from the fields and our own milk, eggs, meat, cheese, garden greens, herbs and so forth. To say I am more in tune would be an understatement….

Its as if I am in charge. I can feel my gut changing, my outlook and thinking is less clouded. I actually feel more like myself right now then ever before in my entire life on this planet.

I know it’s because my food is nearly fully ‘mine’ – produced or made or grown or harvested by me. When I started this experiment over a year ago (make every effort to no longer buy finished products of ANYTHING) I knew I would feel better.

But right now, I guess I had no idea how much better and what other changes this line of thinking would bring…I can look back now and see how my new lifestyle in terms of eating has taken me down quite different paths then what I had been expecting.

Stay tuned, this is only going to get more interesting!

April

Duck and Guinea Fowl Eggs

Wild Yeast Bread...Yumm!!

Oh. My. God! This is my masterpiece!!! LOL

Well, let me tell you a story….as part of a homeschool experiment, my son and I decided we would try our hand at growing some wild yeast. Apparently you have to capture the little wee beasties….

So here is what we did.

I took a jar of warmish water – to this I added a couple of tablespoons of my own raw honey. Then to create a bit of acid for the yeast to feed off of, I also added some of my own homemade Apple Cider Vinegar (it tastes so good!).

This was all stirred together until the honey was completely diffused throughout the entire water. Lastly I got a piece of rhubarb from the garden, chopped it up and this was also placed into the water (it’s supposed to have some fruit).

The jar was covered with a piece of cheese cloth so it could breathe...

Every day for a week or two – we gently stirred this concoction and watched it carefully. I was checking for any mold growth or something unusual as well. If mold had started to grow, it would kill any wild yeasts….

Finally – there started to form some frothy substance on the top of the jar. I tasted it, and it was wild yeast! This week I was trying to decide what to do with this (it’s not very much) so I poured it into a bowl and made bread with it.

It is quite possibly the best bread I have ever made in my entire life. Seriously. And for the first time in over 2 months, my bread rose as it baked – all from wild yeast I had grown myself in my own kitchen.

Blooming marvelous!

April

Wild Yeast Bread 

The Memory of Water - An Essential Ingredient in Our Food

I just realised I haven't mentioned how my feta cheese turned out...and I wanted to post a photo of it. So far, it was my favourite cheese to make (it is easy!) and after it was in a salty brine for about a week or so, it was gorgeous.

To make any cheese is an art. One foodie area I hope to some day become part of with some fine culinary delights and offerings for my own family. So far our cheeses taste great (at least they do to us!) and I can't say they really compare to shop bought or mass produced cheese.

Just this morning I had some of my chèvre cheese on toast....and once again loved it! Only this time I think I was far less critical of it and just enjoyed the sharpness of the cheese together with the sweetness of the fig jam. 

It was heavenly.

So, back to my feta - this is a cheese that I have always loved. Ever since my youthful days spent roaming the Greek section of Toronto with all the restaurants and great authentic foods. Then having spent quite a bit of time in Greece - enjoying homemade and local foods....it was the exquisite taste of the feta I have long remembered.

And that is the taste I want to reproduce (as much as possible) in my own kitchen, from my own goats. I know the taste of anything has to do with the local environment, the way the animals are fed and treated as well as the technique of the artisan food maker.

BUT....I also know what is discounted here and that is the fundamental element of absolutely everything I do, think, talk about and is essential to all of my work. That is WATER. The water makes the food, starting with the animals and the plant that grows...

Water alters a foods' vibration with whomever is working with it, using it in anyway (even transporting it) and especially in their cooking. Your own personal vibration is transferred to your final cooked product through the specialized memory of water.

A low vibration will give poor food...and even if it tastes great (initially!) the person will feel 'bad' sometime after eating it. However, it will also work to lower your vibration and does us no good whatsoever. 

These things are so important to me and my family and the food we eat - that's why I make everything myself! LOL

By the way...for some great 'vibration' food products check out my growing on-line shop. I am still getting it organized - most of these are 'starter' products (you have to go and make the food yourself LOL) which are based on it's energetic frequency. 

April

Homemade Feta Cheese with Olives, Olive Oil & Oregano

Gut Health - Restored After A Parasite Cleanse

I am back to cooking, baking and eating – Yayyy!! And we are all just sitting around like fools grinning at each other – the food, everything, tastes so very good – but after even half a meal I am stuffed, so it’s slow going right now.

Today I have been going back over in my mind the types and tastes of foods I most missed during my cleanse (am I the only one who does this?LOL) And checking down my mental list for some that I wanted to try out…..

With this in mind I actually made a yeasted bread. Can you imagine!!! I have not eaten yeasted bread in nearly a decade – and made any in longer than that. At one time in my life I would have made this type of bread every week.

Then everything fell apart with my health, my gut and my life (well, sort of) and there was a long stretch of no bread at all. Then about 3 years ago we brought back in some spelt soda bread – and have enjoyed every bite I would add.

But, things have so obviously changed as a result of me doing these detoxes and cleanses and my gut is a completely different place now. I knew I was ready for something quite different and my body told me it was time to break out a little....

And that something was homemade yeasted bread. I did choose a whole meal organic flour and of course mixed it with a little spelt – but not much. Then worked away with some organic yeast and made a lovely loaf of fresh bread.

It was that easy and not a problem at all for any of us…just pure enjoyment. However, I would not recommend it to anyone who has taken any form of antibiotic or has issues with candida in their guts. Until you have these issues sorted out and your gut is functional then, keep it restricted. 

It has taken me so long to overcome these issues – I only recently felt like my body was balanced in terms of healthy bacteria colonies after all the fasting, cleanses and detoxes. But I have achieved my goal!

Another food I was craving was fennel – only not the way I usually have it (in soups and stews) but some sliced and gently stir-fried with other vegetables (onion, leek, garlic, broccoli) in a little oil and very little else.

I seasoned it lightly with salt, pepper and fresh dill and then tossed with basmati rice….heaven!

April

Home made Yeasted Whole Meal/Spelt Bread