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

Spirit Of Nature – Wild Food Foraging

This spring (and most springs) I do my best to use the local, fresh wild foods growing around me – it’s one of the main reasons I choose to live in the country. There is an abundance of clean water as well as lots to harvest at any time of the year.

This weekend is the May Day holiday – for me it has been celebrated already with a fire ceremony on Wednesday – but the weekend will be nice too. The way I am choosing to honour the spirit of this month of Bealtaine this year is to….

Bring more of the Spirit of Nature back into our bodies – and I plan on doing this by completely wild foraging our greens for the next few days. I actually have next to no vegetables in the house right now and will not be buying anything…..

They are over-rated anyway!!! LOL But, I am quite serious here….

So….as you may have guessed, I have been foraging quite a bit already this spring. Finding nearly anything and everything that is edible around me (nettle, dandelion, wild garlic, sorrel) – both in my garden as well as growing wild.

I am now hoping to take this a little bit further afield so to speak – and see what else I can find close by that will fit nicely with our meat or fish over these coming days.

Basically the challenge is to find enough greens (wild) to accompany meals for 4 people, 2 dogs and one ‘I’ll try anything once’ (just once) cat. The rest of the animals are already great at foraging out in the back garden…

Besides, the birds do it – and they manage. You can even raise a fully grown horse on grass and pasture…so at the very least, we should be able to find enough for a few days to supplement our meals, and make a tasty diversion!

Either way… eating like this has got me thinking (once again!) about this entire vegetable growing/eating, get your 5-a-day mentality. If we were eating wild harvest, even some of the time – you don’t need 5-a-day….

These plants are so rich and abundant in minerals, vitamins, phytonutrients, energy and spirit – we hardly need anything else. It’s no wonder we are all so depleted – eating vegetables and fruits grown in hot houses, under plastic, and devoid of nature is not, well, natural.

Our guts are not designed for that kind of lifeless food (it’s not really living is it?) and our tissues are waiting in hope for something real, natural and wild. This leaves a whole lot to consider with regards to this supermarket lifestyle we are encouraged to follow…

April

Does she look like she is smiling to you?? Me too!!

Soul Food - Dining on the Wild Side

We hear these words and this phrase, Soul Food mentioned around seemingly good food or supposedly great comforting food yet do we use it too loosely? Might it mean something far more, much deeper then the connection we make between feeding ourselves rich foods?

Perhaps when it comes to food, eating and diet in general this term goes back to a distant time when we were more in touch with who we are and what the consequences of eating a poor diet would be. What if this really has to do less with the type of food and relates to the place the food comes from?

When I think of a spiritual connection to my food, these days I seem to gravitate towards wild game, herbs, vegetables and berries I grow in the garden and meat I raise myself. All of this would be organic in that no chemical would knowingly be supplied to anything.

Our food is something that has gotten away from us. We have been taken down a path of resistance to real, earth grown produce towards trusting and placing faith in clean, 'safe' (sterile) foods manufactured, treated and processed in some way.

This alone destroys the intended meaning of our food - it is meant to build strong healthy bodies, also contributing to strong willed minds. But, we must also take this one step further because we are spiritual creatures, our food is meant to maintain this connection we have with the earth and all her forces.

For me, this has come to mean keeping the cleanest diet possible, and seeking out wild natural sources of basic foods that are alive with nature vibrating inside of it. I have mentioned how the first time I ate venison (after many years) I dreamed of the foods the animal had been eating - wild apples, grasses, trees - as if I was becoming a part of some hidden landscape.

But then again, I was not becoming anything - this wild animal was now leading me inward, towards an ancient original aspect of myself - my soul. They have not forgotten who we are....

April

Roast Venison cooked in clay pot