Taking It Up A Notch

I've been seriously interested in Nutrition for a few years now and one of my goals is to study online with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in the US. In the interim I'm reading and learning via books and blogs but last month I hit the jackpot via an email from Kris Carr. It contained a link to the Hay House World Summit. 

I've heard about the summit before but never fully realised what it was about. This time I followed the link and was blown away. Over the course of 4 weeks 100 interviews and several videos were released to view and listen to for free. I jumped in with both feet and listened to  Mike Dooley, Melodie Beattie, Cheryl Richardson, Louise Hay and many more. I also watched a documentary called 'Hungry for Change' which looked at the obesity epidemic and how processed foods and so called diet foods are causing not only obesity but also significant health issues in society. You'd be inclined to think that with advances in science and technology that we would all be getting healthier but this is not the case. Health simply comes down to nutrition and eating a natural diet. The calorie laden nutritionally deficient processed foods are leaving people obese and undernourished. It's little wonder why as a society were becoming sicker.

From my earlier posts you'll see that I've been on the right path for a while now but watching 'Hungry for Change' has kind of kicked it up a level for me. I've had a few months where I wasn't really caring for myself very well. I was drinking more wine than I normally would and eating a little too much sugar and processed foods, and not drinking enough water. I'm gluten intolerant so the level of processed foods I consume is much less than the average person but even with a slight increase it was showing in my skin. But more on that in a minute.

After the summit ended I wanted to know more so I bought the 'Hungry for Change' book on Kindle and started reading. I then discovered that the authors have a website called FMTV it's like Netflix for health and wellbeing. They have a 7 day trial so I signed up and watched 'Food Matters' and 'Fat Sick and Nearly Dead' 

OMG how much I've learned all ready. In the last few days I've introduced 2 things. And if you watch 'Hungry for Change' you'll hear them say if you add things in then eventually you wont want the bad stuff. If you deprive yourself it's harder to give things up. But if you add the good stuff in eventually the bad stuff just leaves.

David Wolfe suggests starting each day by drinking 1-2 litres of water before you have food or coffee. I now go to bed with a jug of water and a glass beside the bed so that as soon as I wake up I can start drinking my water. 

The other thing I'm doing is juicing again.... lots of dark leafy green vegies to give my body a regular micro nutrient boost. My juice consists of organic celery, kale, spinach, cos lettuce (romaine), rocket (arugula), parsley, coriander (cilantro), carrot, beetroot, apple and lemon. I put this all thru a cold press juicer and make enough for a couple of days. It stores really well in an airtight jar in the fridge. And I've even found a use for the pulp... I've been making raw wraps with it. I put the pulp in the thermomix with an organic zucchini and some flax meal and then spread it out onto dehydrator sheets and dehydrate for a few hours. The wraps are very tasty.

This was today's lunch 

Pulp and Zucchini wrap with homemade hummus, tofu,

 baby spinach and homegrown rocket and coriander.

I was so inspired that today I went to the nursery and purchased some more coriander, parsley, coriander and kale seedlings.

Oh and after only 3 days of juicing and 2 days of drinking a litre of water first thing my skin is already looking better, and the horrid dark circles under my eyes have started to disappear.  

If you are interested in your health then I'd highly recommend either watching or reading Hungry for Change. It features some of the leaders in the health and wellness movement. I've included links above for the people I've mentioned as they are a wealth of knowledge in their individual areas.

Marinated Prawn Gnocchi

If you've read my earlier posts you may have come to the conclusion that I like to cook. Actually I love to cook, if I could spend everyday playing in the kitchen I'd be a very happy girl.

Yesterday was shopping day and I bought some prawn meat and decided to marinate it overnight in a mix of garlic, chilli and olive oil.  When I got home this afternoon a quick scan of the fridge and the presence a tub of light ricotta on the top shelf helped me decide that it was a gnocchi night. I make my gnocchi with gluten free flour so its very light and as it turned out was the perfect accompaniment to my prawns. 

I love making gnocchi, whether it be potato or ricotta based. The trick is to not make the dough too dry. Prior to discovering I was gluten intolerant I made gnocchi a few times with normal flour and I have found that it's not only easier to make with gluten free flour but also gives a lighter result.

I found my gnocchi recipe on the internet and then adapted it to be gluten free.

500gm Ricotta
2/3 cup grated Parmesan
2 large Eggs 
1tsp Salt
1 1/2 cups Plain Gluten Free Flour  (plus 1 cup extra just in case)

Put all ingredients except flour in a bowl and mix until well combined. Then gradually sift in flour until it reaches a workable consistency. It needs to be rolled into a snake to create the individual gnocchi so the consistency should be soft but not so damp that it's really sticky. Flour a board or a piece of baking paper and divide into 4. Take each section and roll into a snake until it's about 2cm in diameter then cut into segments that are 2.5 cm long. Place onto a plate or a piece of baking paper and keep each individual piece separate. Continue until all of the dough is used up. This recipe serves 4 so if you are only serving 2 you can use half the amounts to begin with or you can wrap up half the dough and store in the fridge over night. Another option is to freeze any excess gnocchi once cut, if you are storing it in a freezer bag remember to flour it well so that it doesn't all clump together in the freezer

At this stage I put a large pot of water on the stove and put the gnocchi aside while I started my prawns.

There's no real recipe for the next bit because I made it up as I went along. It helped that I'd been shopping yesterday as the vegetable crisper was full and I had heaps to choose from. And as an added bonus there are still plenty of fresh herbs in the garden. In a deep non stick fry pan I put in a tablespoon of garlic oil* a small bunch of chopped spring onions and some garlic chives, and cooked them on a low to medium heat. After a few minutes I added a handful of broccoli florets and some yellow capsicum and let that cook for a few minutes. 

Next I put my gnocchi into the boiling water. Gnocchi is cooked when it floats to the surface. While the gnocchi was cooking I put my marinated prawns in the fry pan and turned the heat up little. 

After a couple of minutes the Gnocchi was floating and I removed it from the pot with a slotted spoon, when the prawns were mostly cooked I threw in the gnocchi and added some fresh chopped coriander and a twist of lime.

As soon as the prawns were cooked it was ready to serve, with a pinch of Himalayan salt and some more chopped coriander. 

 Yum!

*garlic oil - where did I get it? I made it. I have a jar of peeled garlic in the pantry it's topped up with olive oil to keep the garlic from spoiling. It has several benefits, when I can't be bothered peeling garlic there's always some ready to use. I can stock up on garlic when I find good Aussie garlic at a reasonable price and not have to worry about it drying out. And it gives me the most amazing garlic infused oil to cook with.

 

In the Raw and a little Fermented!

I've been more than a little fascinated with the benefits of fermented foods for quite some time now. There have been a few attempts at making sauerkraut in the last year but the results have usually ended up being consumed by my best friend. But in recent months the whole fermenting fascination has been rekindled by chef Pete Evens 'Paleo Way'. I eagerly awaited the release of his culture for life fermenting kit only to find that it was a little out of my price bracket. So I decided to order some vegetable starter culture online at healyourself.com.au and go back to the good old fashioned way of fermenting in air lock preserving jars. 2 days after I received shipping notification for the starter culture an email appeared in my inbox from The Raw Chef, Russell James, offering the fermented vegetable module of his online Fermentation course at a ridiculous price... so I snapped it up.

The particular course I purchased offered 10 recipes plus access to a bonus 4. They include not only a downloadable pdf version of each recipe but also a video showing either Russell or his colleague Amy demonstrating how to make each one. The trick to creating fermented vegetables that don't grow mold is all in how you pack it into the jar! So simple yet so easy to mess up. Fortunately in my previous adventures I managed to create without mold but didn't have the confidence to eat it hence my best friend being my guinea pig. 

My first attempts in the last week were using Himalayan salt on it's own as a catalyst to ferment then later in the week after my starter culture arrived I started using that. The advantage of the starter culture is that it creates a ferment with a much higher pro biotic content than you would get using salt alone.

Here's some of what I've made so far. It's still all in the fermentation stage but I have sampled and it's already delish and  that's coming from someone whose taste buds previously found sauerkraut to be totally undesirable

The other thing that's happened as a result of this is that I've also rekindled my love of raw food eating and have taken the dehydrator out of the cupboard and started creating again. The Raw Chef has recipes on his blog and I've taken a few of these and run with them. So far this week I've created zucchini tortillas, buckwheat bread, marinated mushrooms, dried tomatoes, cashew mayonnaise and raw macadamia cheese.

Top left: zucchini wrap ready to dehydrate. Top right: assembling the wrap with grated

carrot, lettuce, marinted adn dehydrated mushrooms, macadamia cheese, dried tomatoes 

and cashew cheese. Bottom left and right:all wrapped up and ready to eat 

I'm still eating cooked foods but this has been reduced and I have to say I'm feeling better for it. I'd started eating more processed foods again and as a result my sugar cravings had come back. In the last week I've noticed a distinct decline in my sugar cravings. I'm hoping these will go completely once I start eating the fermented veg and krauts

If you want to experiment yourself and need a little inspiration or guidance the Raw Chef offers a free 10 Recipe eBook, there's a link in the side bar.