Healing Herbs

Healing foods hold keys to healthIndeed, our pace of living and the commercialization of food seems to have masked what is perhaps the most important key to good health, that of diet. Long before modern medicine, cultures were eating healing foods to both prevent and heal illness. The ancient Chinese document, the Niejing (circa 500 BC) illustrates the importance of using medicinal herbs in everyday food as a fundamental tool in preventing and treating disease. It is likely that both Hippocrates and The Yellow Emperor would have enjoyed healing broth, soup or other long-simmering dishes. Read my article in Canadian Health and Lifestyle to discover the healing secrets of ginger, turmeric, thyme, cinnamon, and more kitchen herbs for health.

Everyday Flexitarian

Make Your Eating Style and your Kitchen Flexible

This year, you wanted to eat healthy. We all do! So why not go vegetarian one or two days a week? It's easy.

Nettie Cronish, my co-author on Everyday Flexitarian and I have been giving cooking demonstrations and seminars on Flexitarian cooking and from the comments we hear at those events, people are welcoming our book!

The flexitarian diet has no fixed rules. Instead, it recognizes that for some body types, responsible consumption of small amounts of organic beef, lamb, chicken and fish may be beneficial. Proponents of the flexitarian diet encourage people to adopt a healthy eating style, one that is largely based on vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds and fruit.

...more

NAME THAT HERB WINNER

Calendula - The edible healing herb.

Congratulations to Wendy- send your address and claim your prize. I will mail you one of my little herb handbooks or the Summer Recipes book, your choice.

Cheery and bright, these prolific annual flowers jump around the herb garden in colors ranging from orange to yellow and every shade in between. Their seeds look like something out of the dinosaur age.

When you pluck the flowers for a salad or to make calendula butter, they give off a very delicate and pleasant floral aroma and taste. This lovely aroma strengthens on drying the flowerheads. Jane Hawley-Stevens, who uses calendula in creams and other cosmetic products dries calendula that she grows organically. Here we see the drying cabinet she uses:

The nice thing about drying the flowerheads is that we get tons of seeds to plant for next year. Actually, unless you are vigilant in deadheading the flowers, you will get a good crop next year anyway. In fact, I have heard of gardeners ripping the plants out (along with their hair!) after a few years of calendula going to seed. But that won't happen to you because you will be drying and using all those beautiful petals in soups, stews, butters and using them fresh in salads.

Here they are growing wild on a tiny Atlantic island off the coast of Brittany France:

...and planted out in an Arizona garden in the middle of a Pecan Farm:

One summer day in 2007 I think it was, I visited Four Elements Herbals in Wisconsin about an hour drive from Milwaukee. It was one of the most enchanted places I have ever seen. Owner, Jane Hawley-Stevens took me on a tour of the Chakra Garden and then delighted me with a lunch (pictured below) of homemade bread, Wisconsin cheese, cauliflower and pickled beet salad and a beautiful summer salad made with cabbage and other greens and flowers she grows on her beautiful land. The large flowers are nasturtium and the petals are calendula.

Feast your eyes and enjoy.

Oatmeal Cookie Challenge

I must say, there is nothing like a good Cookie  Challenge to get my blood sugar spiking. This one is a healthy one, the oatmeal sitting a bit lower on the GI scale, so it should keep me from going over the edge.

Here is my entry for the Oatmeal Cookie Challenge at Savor the Thyme. Since it is from my Vegan Cook's Bible, it has no eggs, but once you try the flaxseed alternative, you might find you like it. Of course, you can definitely use an egg in place of the flaxseed.:

Oatmeal Coconut Cookies..a pat crocker original recipe

If you use spelt flour, the cookies will be thin, lacy and crisp. If you use all-purpose wheat flour, they will be a bit firmer, but still crisp around the edges. Don’t crowd the cookies because they spread and require lost of space on the baking pan. From The Vegan Cook's Bible (Robert Rose, publisher), with permission.

Preheat oven to 400° F (200° C)

2 Baking sheets

Makes about 2-1/2 dozen cookies

 

2 tbsp            ground flaxseed            

½ cup            rice milk or soymilk, divided            

¾ cup            spelt flour                        

½ tsp            baking soda                        

½ tsp            baking powder                        

¼ tsp             sea salt            

¼ tsp            ground nutmeg            

½ cup             solid coconut oil            

2/3 cup            brown sugar            

½ tsp            pure vanilla extract            

1 cup            large flake rolled oats            

½ cup            shredded coconut            

 

1. In a bowl, combine flaxseed and 3 tbsp of the rice milk. Stir and set aside for 10 minutes or until gelatinous.

 

2. Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Stir well with a wire whisk or fork.

 

3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the coconut oil with the brown sugar. Beat in the remaining rice milk, vanilla and the flaxseed mixture. Stir the dry ingredients into the sugar mixture. Add the rolled oats and coconut and mix until combined.

 

4. Using 2 spoons, drop about 2 tbsp (dough onto baking sheets, about 2 inches  apart. Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes or until lightly brown around the edges. Cool the cookies on the pan (about 10 minutes) before lifting on to a cooling rack.

 

 

Note:

Working with Coconut Oil – Non-hydrogenated, naturally saturated oil from coconuts does not contain trans-fatty acids. It is a significant plant source of lauric acid (anti-viral properties). Because coconut oil remains solid at room temperatures, it replaces butter for cookies and cakes, but is not as soft as butter at room temperature. For creaming, use a warm bowl and position it by the pre-heating oven, but do not put the bowl directly over heat because the coconut oil will melt quickly back into a liquid. However, if this happens, remove to a cooler spot and let it firm up again before creaming.

Refrigerate remaining coconut oil after opening.