A Bountiful Life - Blog

Dressing Up your Food

27/9/2019

Green Goodness salad dressing

Tasty condiments can transform simple, healthy fare into delicious meals. The secret to packing your diet full of vibrant vegetables is to couple them with delectable dressings! They can also be a vehicle for some powerful healing foods that support our health and digestion, such as vinegar, lemon, garlic and miso. These condiments can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge, allowing them to be part of your healthful convenience food options.

Green Goodness Salad Dressing
This dressing is creamy thanks to the avocado, and packed full of nutrient dense garden herbs. Adjust herbs according to what you find in your garden. Great to serve alongside grilled vegetables and barbecue fare in the summertime, as well as salads and pasta dishes.

2 small avocados
½ C water
6 tbsp apple cider vinegar or lemon juice, to taste
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 ½ C packed herbs - eg chickweed, cleavers, parsley, spring onion, chives, basil (half milder herbs with half stronger tasting herbs works well)

Add all ingredients to food processor and blend until smooth. Keeps around 4 days.

Green Goodness salad dressing surrounded by Self heal

Tahini Mustard Dressing
This is thick, creamy and tangy while being completely free of dairy and poor quality fats that most store bought dressings are loaded with. Tahini is a great source of calcium.

¼ cup tahini
½ tsp sea salt
½ C apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
2 T prepared mustard
¼ C extra virgin olive oil
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped (optional)

Blend all ingredients together in a food processor. Store in the fridge.This dressing does not contain water to ensure a long shelf life, you can thin with water before serving if desired. Great on salads and roasted veges.

Creamy Salad Dressing
The creaminess of this dressing comes from the soaked cashew nuts. Nutritional yeast packs a cheesy flavour and is high in B vitamins and chromium for energy and blood sugar balance.

½ cup water
¼ cup raw cashews, soaked
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh fennel (or thyme, dill or similar herbs)
½ small garlic clove
⅓ teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon onion powder (or add onion weed or chives)
1 Tbsp honey or sweetener of choice

Blend all together in a food processor. Due to the water content this dressing will keep for about 1 week.

Orange Ginger Miso Dressing
This Japanese inspired dressing is a great way to incorporate probiotic-rich miso into your diet without heating it. Serve over steamed or sauteed veges or as a salad dressing.

2-5cm fresh ginger, peeled and zested finely
2 tablespoons miso, white is ideal for a mild, sweet taste
¼ C fresh orange juice, or lime for a tangy dressing
1 tablespoon tahini
1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
2 tablespoons raw honey
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
4 tablespoons rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Store in the fridge. Can thin with water to serve.

Pumpkin and Quinoa Patties

27/9/2018

These patties are light in texture and tasty to eat while being incredibly good for you. Just four patties provides a third of your daily fibre requirements to feed your gut bacteria and support digestion, detoxification and blood sugar balance.

About Quinoa
Pronounced ‘keen-wah’, quinoa is a seed rather than a true grain. This makes quinoa more easily digested and higher in nutrients than many grains. Quinoa is one of only a few plants that offer all the essential amino acids, and is known as a complete protein. This makes it a great choice for vegetarians. Quinoa also offers iron and a range of B vitamins that aid energy and blood health. One cup of cooked quinoa offers one third of your magnesium requirements, an essential mineral for managing stress and one which many people are deficient in. Finally, quinoa is rich in antioxidants that are essential for protecting our body from free radical damage that can otherwise cascade into a variety of chronic diseases.

Ingredients
1 C pumpkin puree*
3 C cooked quinoa** (see below for how to cook perfect soaked quinoa)
3 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 onion, chopped
1 C almonds, grind into flour (or 150gm / 1.5 C of ground almonds)
1 1/2 T coconut flour
4 T nutritional yeast
⅓ C chopped parsley or wild herbs such as chickweed and puha
¼ C grated carrot
1 garlic clove or ⅓ tsp garlic powder

To prepare
Mix all ingredients together, let stand for 5 mins to firm up. Scoop out tablespoon size portions, pan fry for 2 mins on each side until golden or alternatively bake in the oven. Serve with chutney and coconut yoghurt, more vegetables and salad or turn them into burgers.

Notes:
* Roast a whole pumpkin for an hour or until tender. Allow to cool until able to handle. The skin peels away easily and it is easy to cut open and scoop out the seeds. Puree the flesh in a blender, freezing extra in portions for later recipes, or use as the base of a soup or sauce.
** To maximise the nutritional benefits from quinoa, first soak the grains in warm water with a little vinegar for at least four hours before cooking. This reduces the phytic acid content, making it easier to digest and increasing the bio availability of nutrients. To prepare perfect soaked quinoa, soak 1 1/2 C quinoa for 4+ hours in warm water with a dash of vinegar. Drain and rinse. Place in pot, add fresh water until quinoa is just covered. Add lid and put on high heat until just simmering. Turn off the heat and let sit covered for 10 mins until water is absorbed.

Substitutions:
Replace the ground almonds and coconut flour with 1 C gluten free breadcrumbs. Replace the eggs with 3 Tbspn of ground flax/chia mixed into a gel with 9 Tbspn of water, allow to sit 15 mins to thicken.

Our Relationship With Food

28/3/2018

Imagine food being a joy and a pleasure in your day, free of any anxiety, guilt or 'shoulds'. Imagine you were also able to work with food to be a primary source of healthcare in your day, both for yourself and your family. This is how our relationship with food can be in our lives, yet we have many blocks that get in the way.

I enjoyed exploring such ideas with attendees of our recent Food as Medicine workshop. It was interesting to hear common themes from people around what gets in the way of having a healthy relationship with food. Unless we consider the deeper driver's of our food choices it can be nearly impossible to shift ourselves into healthier eating patterns. What if sweet foods were our only sense of sweetness in life? Perhaps the only place we allow ourselves to feel pleasure? If we try to cut sugar out of our diets in this state, but don't stop to examine these beliefs, we can simply end up feeling sad and deprived instead of more healthful.

On top of this, our emotional state has a profound impact on the functioning of our digestive system, which in turn effects how much nourishment we are able to obtain from our food. Eating while stressed or anxious activate the sympathetic branch of the nervous system – we get ready for fight or flight. This reduces blood flow, and so activity, of our digestive tract and means food arrives without the digestive juices to process them effectively. Poorly processed food not only lowers the nourishment we derive, but can also cause toxin formation, inflammation and bacterial imbalances within the gut. This can in turn be an underlying cause for many illnesses to develop, including increased frequency of colds and flus, autoimmune conditions, mood disorders and even deeper illnesses such as cancer.

Appreciating the relationship we have with food and the impacts of our mental-emotional state on digestion and health, we can learn new ways of being. We can choose to prioritise meeting our emotional needs. What might need to shift in our daily lives to give us the time and space we need to make healthy food choices? Can we support our future selves by soaking or preparing food in advance of busy family times, such as the morning rush? Can we bring more sweetness into our lives through prioritising time to connect with others or pampering ourselves with a bath or a rest? Can we gentle on ourselves when we haven't been able to prepare the most healthful meal and instead eat the food we do have in a relaxed and appreciative state of Mind?

Having knowledge and awareness of both ourselves and food, we can truly start to eat consciously and make healthful food choices for ourselves. We can meet our bodies needs easily and with enjoyment instead of stress and worry. In this way we can make the most of the powerful healing effects our food has to offer us. Our food truly becomes our medicine.