heal: The Lyme Diet, a book

Did you know that 70% of the cells that make up your immune system are in your gut? Now you do. Dr. Nicola McFadzean's book The Lyme Diet, Nutritional Strategies for Healing from Lyme Disease is a great guide for eating to support 70% of your immune system, and helping to heal from Lyme Disease, likely many other auto-immune disorders such as, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, MS, ALS, chronic headaches, including migraines, as well as anyone who just wants to improve their health through nutrition.

Dr. Nicola McFadzean is a Naturopathic doctor.  Her book is written clearly and is easy to understand. It isn't too much or too little information to get started on caring for yourself better. In the seemingly brief 216 pages she lays out very clearly what you need to know about nutrition as is related to health and healing from Lyme. In fact, even if you don't have Lyme or know anyone with it I think you could benefit from reading it. Methinks this book should just be called: The Healing Diet, or The Healthy Way To Eat Diet. We can all feel better when we eat well.

eat: gluten free pizza

It's no secret we eat a lot of pizza in this house. I make it every Friday. It isn't the most healthy food, in reality. But we love it so. I used Pamela's Products Pizza Dough Mix. I baked it on my pizza stone, but made it on a piece of parchment paper and put the parchment right onto the pizza stone. The parchment is important because GF dough is very different to handle than dough with gluten. It's a bit more delicate. But as you can see, it looks just like a regular pizza and it was pretty darn delicious.

friends with fruit

This time of year is so bountiful. Fruit, veg and more fruit. The fruit season began in my own back yard this June with Olallieberries; a cross between a loganberry and a youngberry, each itself a cross between a blackberry and raspberry. Um, can you say YUM? Out of all the thorny things in my yard, these olallieberries are the only ones I would like to keep. Maybe that beautiful orange rose bush, too. But the rest of the thorny things can just go, go, go! I also have meyer lemons (they too have thorns, and they can stay also) just dropping from the tree at the moment. As if that were not enough, it has been warm enough recently to have some very delicious mission figs from my favorite tree in the yard. I love to share these fruits with my friends. And in turn they share theirs with us. This week I whipped up a little plum jam with the numerous plumbs my friend Kerith shared with us.

What's in your garden right now?

eat: yummy brick of nuts and seeds

Every now and then I get a surge of energy to experiment in the kitchen. Recently I found a wonderful site called My New Roots. What a fount of healthy recipes and nutritional information! I have so many recipes to pluck from this site and make my own. I chose to start with her Life Changing Loaf of Bread. I have little hope my lovely children with find this appealing visually, but Max said it smelled delicious... It's a start.

I made this almost exactly as she wrote, but instead of 1 Tbs of maple syrup I used 2 Tbs. Also, I don't have a flexible silicon bread pan and really wish I had used parchment paper to assist in removing this from the pan. I was unable to remove it so I left it in the pan until I thought it was cooked. It wasn't and I had to yank it out - loosing a small chunk in the process - and put it back into the oven sans pan (as instructed).

A list of this breads virtues:
It's vegan
gluten free
protein rich
fiber rich
easy to tidy up after making - you make it right in the pan!
It's so pretty

Okay, now it's your turn to try making this bread, follow this link to get the recipe.

eat: spicy thai salad

This recipe is from Raw Food Rehab. I made more dressing than was called for, added a splash of rice vinegar (not sure if that is healing or not) and added sesame oil. I'm sure I should have julienned the carrots and jicama more finely. I'll do that next time...it was enjoyed by many at our cuttlefish casting party last week. You'll have to go here for the recipe.

Eat: gluten & dairy free breakfast food

I've been trying to get back to my GF and DF diet of late. It's hard. You really need a plan when you change your diet so significantly while the rest of the crew (whom you prepare meals for) remains happily and blissfully gluten and dairy full. Breakfast is important, not for the usual reasons, but because it is important you don't start the day doing exactly what you don't want to do by having a latte and a piece of buttered toast (which is to say the very thing I do want). This little cereal mix is filling and with enough raisins is quite sweet - no refined sugar for me right now. You can use just about any nuts and dried fruit, I really like puffed rice and almonds so they are always in the mix for me. Coconut milk takes a bit of getting used to because it has a slightly thick consistency, but I've grown to enjoy it.

The other delish dish I enjoy in the morning can actually be eaten at any hour for any meal or even for a snack. It consists of Brown rice, avocado, almonds and salad dressing - olive oil and balsamic - and lots of black pepper. Pretty simple. Very easy.

What are you eating these days?

Eat: Max's Blackberry Crumble

Max's Blackberry Crumble: It's what's for breakfast.

Ingredients

1 cup oats

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

2 sticks softened, salted butter

4 cups blackberries

juice of one lemon

Directions

Rinse blackberries.

In a 9 x 13 baking dish, combine blackberries and juice of one lemon. Set aside.

Mix together first four ingredients, then with your hands combine the dry ingredients and softened butter until a crumble forms.

Evenly cover the blackberries with the crumble mixture.

Place baking dish into a 375 degree oven for 40 minutes.

Eat: Curried Quinoa Salad

Oh, you might be wondering whatever happened to our commitment to eat grain free and all that? Well, we lasted a week, I lost 5 lbs and Chris gained 5lbs. I wouldn't call it a fail, I'd just say that way of eating isn't for us. We were committed for seven full days and then we had pizza for lunch. I think more than pizza Chris and I wanted our Lattés back! So, we went back to eating what we always eat and we've lost and gained our 5 lbs each. So, that brings me to my newest fun personal challenge; I'm going to go on another elimination diet. I've been feeling tired, bloated, my joints are painful, the list goes on. So I'm eliminating for the next four weeks: eggs, dairy, peanuts, gluten, refined sugar, soy and corn. Well, this is day three and I can fit my wedding ring on without force, I have been waking up pretty early (and falling asleep without trouble). I also haven't been drinking coffee, I tried one latté with steamed coconut milk and decided to forgo the whole thing. I love black coffee too, but find that I'm dependent on the stuff.

Here's one of the meals I made that fits into this relatively restrictive diet, it's also VEGAN, for all you vegans out there!

Curried Quinoa Salad

1/2 cup quinoa, prepared as directed
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 - 1 1/2 tsp curry (my favorite is Trader Joe's brand)
2 Tbs rice vinegar
lots of fresh black pepper
1/2 - 3/4 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 cup each diced carrots, broccoli, bell peppers, raisins, frozen peas
1 cup cashews (or sliced almonds)

Place olive oil in a large pan, with a medium high flame
Sauté onions until translucent, then add garlic, stir for one minute
Add carrots, broccoli, bell peppers and raisins and cashews. Stir for two to four minutes
Add cooked quinoa, stir
Add curry, pepper and rice vinegar, stir
Add the frozen peas, stir, cover for three or four minutes to thaw the peas
Serve!


You can always increase or decrease the curry and pepper, use whatever veggies you love most. Sometimes we use cranberries instead of raisins, but there is always a dried fruit element in there - you could even try apricots...The three things I always have in there are quinoa, carrots, dried fruit and then add as much veg as I can...

Enjoy

Eat: Better

When we first settled in California, 8 years ago I was suffering from terrible joint pain. It was likely caused by the Lyme disease I had contracted around 2000. In fact, I blame that disease for just about every ache and pain I have. I can't remember who I was before that disease, but I do know who I am now. And I'm pretty sure the two me's are quite different.

The single best thing I did for my health after we arrived here in California was change my diet. I became gluten, dairy, refined sugar, corn, caffeine, night-shade and red-meat free. That was hard. But within a few days (!) I was in less pain and had more energy. It was good to have me back. I enjoyed living my life in a 120 pound body - oh how I enjoyed it! Then I came down with adrenal fatigue, lost a lot more weight. To comfort myself I started eating just about whatever I liked, mm how I enjoyed eating! Three years later I'm living my life in a 140 pound body and I'm really uncomfortable. It isn't all about what size pants I'm living in. Mostly I just feel crappy. And yesterday as I walked I could feel my fat jiggle! Now THAT is quite enough of THAT! Time to change my eating habits again. A journey is about to begin...

I'm not prepared to go back to the diet I had been on, though I did have a lot of success with it from a pain control aspect. I was often trying to replicate a non-gluten free life in my cooking that became stressful. I've done a great deal of reading about different diets over the past few months; vegan, paleo, specific carbohydrate or SCD, gut and psychology syndrome diet or GAPS. Having experienced the power of a diet change I am ready to change my eating habits again in order to change my body, my mind, my life. Chris is going on this 30 day challenge with me. I think we could both loose ten pounds by the end of the month with food changes alone. Add exercise in there and look out!

Which diet have I chosen? I'm going to start us on the Whole30. It is similar to the paleo or the SCD diet, but I must confess I will not eat any more meat than I already do. I may feed Chris a little more fish, but I have never liked it and with the state of our oceans, well I don't think I will start now. I would like to ultimately move over to a vegan diet again, and many of our meals will be vegan. I'm not ready for full time vegan life yet. My focus will be on making the meals we eat more healthful and loosing weight and exercising more regularly.

Here we go!

Eat: A Yummy Sandwich

This is such a delish little sandwich, a copy of one I had at River Cafe in Santa Cruz, with a few changes just because I didn't have pickled red onions (which I really must make). Anyhow, Chris and I have been eating this over and over and over and over...I think it's the lemon zest and goat cheese that make it so addictive. And it doesn't take much effort to make it all happen, that's nice.

What you'll need:

Goat cheese
lemon zest
sweet hot pickles, sliced thin (I use Toni Pacco's)
1/2 avocado, sliced thin
pepper jelly (I use Trader Joe's brand)
lettuce
sour dough bread, toasted (or GF bread)


How to fix it up:

• In a bowl, mix together goat cheese and lemon zest - enough goat cheese to spread onto one slice of bread (or how ever many sandwiches you're making).
• spread cheese onto toasted bread,
• layer pickles, avocado and lettuce onto that,
• spread your pepper jelly onto the other piece of toast,
• put that onto your layers,
• slice in half,
• EAT!

I hope you make this and enjoy it. Chris likes a little chicken on his, I like mine vegetarian. Don't know how to make this vegan, but maybe you could try vegan "cream cheese" with lemon zest in place of the goat cheese. I've also made this without the avocado and it doesn't suffer much.

Cake in a Cup?

Yes, cake in a cup! I had a craving, but just a little one. It takes about 5 minutes, including clean-up to make this little wonder. Admittedly I'm still perfecting this recipe, but I know at least three of you will have some ideas for me, do share...

 

Chocolate Cake in a Cup

2 Tbs All purpose flour (you can give gluten free flour a try, I did)
2 tsp Cocoa powder
1 Tbs Sugar
1/8 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
2 Tbs Melted Butter (I'm going to give coconut oil a try next)
1 Tbs Milk (or milk substitute)

In a coffee cup or small microwavable dish, mix the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients and mix again, microwave on high for 40 seconds.

Eat!

Eat: Tortellini Soup

The official name of this soup is: "Wendy's Amazingly Delicious Sausage & Tortellini Soup". And it is delicious. My friend, Wendy in Seattle served this to us when we were there one year and I just found the recipe card recently. I had dreamed of that soup regularly in the winter months for the past 8 years. Had I known the recipe card was in my little book, I'd have been eating it for many winters now. We dined on this one night during Chris' birthday week. It was surprisingly easy to make, and I think you should give it a shot one cold, wintry night. This is not gluten, dairy or meat free, however. It's got em all. 

Ingredients:
2 T olive oil
1 lb Italian chicken sausage
2 large onions
3 celery ribs, finely chopped
4 large cloves garlic, chopped
1 small fennel bulb, cored & chopped
Reserve a handful of green fronds
2 large inches red pepper flakes
salt & black pepper
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
2 quarts chicken stock
2 9-oz packages of fresh tortellini
1 1/2 cups fresh basil
1/2 cup fresh flat parsley, chopped

Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Directions:
Preheat a large soup pot over med-high heat with 2 T olive oil. Add sausage and break it up as it cooks - 3-4 minutes. Add the onions, celery, garlic, fennel, red pepper flakes and salt & pepper. Cook stirring frequently for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and continue to cook for a minute. Then add the chicken stock. Put a lid on the pot and bring the soup to simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Uncover the pot, add the tortellini and cook for 5 minutes. Once the pasta is cooked through, add the basil and the parsley, then taste and re-season with more salt & pepper. Chop up the reserved fennel fronds and stir them in. Sprinkle with cheese.

Serves 8

Eat

Kale is my new favorite food. I must confess kale scared me at first. My sister has been eating it for years, I've just been slowly taking the dive. I've been enjoying kale/pear/ginger smoothies, but kale salads are sort of a new obsession. It makes me feel healthy just looking at it, and I think it's pretty. I've even begun to crave this salad.

Ingredients
Salad:
Bunch of Kale, washed and chopped.
1/2 cup pepitas, toasted
3/4 cup diced mango, I used frozen
sprinkling of pomegranate seeds

Dressing:
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
3-4 tablespoons balsamic vinaigrette
1 clove garlic, minced
lots of fresh black pepper
little bit of salt
drizzle of agave

Mix the salad ingredients then the dressing ingredients then toss them together, combining thoroughly. It tastes best if you let it sit at least ten minutes before you dig in. Enjoy!

Fire Soup

Coleman and I are easing back into homeschool after our trip back east. We've been back about a week and a half and not a lot of official work has been accomplished. While we were in Massachusetts I found my thoughts on our homeschooling days shifted a bit. I think we're almost completely de-schooled. Which puts me in a new place mentally, a place that feels more sure than before about his ability to step up to the plate and get some work done. This week we have revisited Khan Academy and have begun working again more seriously at math, but I get ahead of myself. Here's how I knew Coleman was ready to get more serious: He made soup. Fire Soup. Lead to the kitchen by the inviting aroma of onions, garlic and ginger sautéing away on the stove. Add to that chopped carrots and sweet potatoes and he was eager to partake. (It was surely very helpful that he was hungry.) What got him cooking up his own pot of soup? I was adding lentils and chicken stock to my stew. He didn't want either of those two things and for sure didn't want stew. Soup was a much more appealing menu item. And so he began digging through all the food and spices we had and built himself a most delicious soup for dinner, all by himself, without even a little prompting. I mean really, really delicious. Step aside Jamie Oliver!

Fire Soup Recipe (makes enough for one big bowl of soup!)

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp olive oil 
1/4 of a Large onion, chopped
1 large clove crushed garlic
1/2 tsp crushed ginger
1 medium carrot, peeled and diced
1/2 sweet potato, diced
1 small white potato, diced
5 thinly sliced apricots
1 Tbs raisins
10 grinds sea salt
7 grinds black pepper
1 tsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp apple cider vinegar
a dash of each: cinnamon, paprika, cayenne pepper, turmeric
1 1/2 cups vegetable stock

Directions:

1. Using a medium sized pot, on medium-low flame, sauté the onion until translucent, add garlic and ginger and stir for 3 minutes.
2. Add: carrot and both types of potato and a small amount of stock to pot. Cook for 5-10 minutes on low heat.
3. Add: salt, pepper, sugar, cinnamon, paprika, cayenne & turmeric, stir to coat vegetables.
4. Add vegetable stock and vinegar, cook on low/medium for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Add apricots and raisins, cook for 5 minutes more.

Serve with croutons and water with lemon slices for a beverage.

If you try this recipe please write to me so I can let Coleman know how you enjoyed it, or how you might change it! Thanks.

Love on a Plate

Nana's baking is famous within the family and our circle of friends. There are certain items that make the top of the list; apple pie, lemon meringue pie, blueberry muffins, my favorite cookies we call them date-balls (but they should have a more glamorous name), ginger snap cookies. That's just the first few things on a long list of confectionary delights. Some of the recipes are old family recipes which some day I would like to put into a book. I don't know where the apple pie comes from, maybe a favorite cook book. The true magic of the apple pie Nana makes us all (often) is the love she bakes into it, and just the right amount of working the dough. I'm a novice when it comes to baking apple pies, but with Nana's guidance I have made a couple yummy ones. I think those pies have actually brought me closer to some of my friends and certainly brought more love into our lives. I think of this apple pie as Love on a Plate. Because it just is. And tis the season for apple pie - it's a long season, thankfully.

Crust
5 Tablespoons butter (I use salted and reduce the salt in the recipe)
5 Tablespoons shortening
2 Cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt (or 1 teaspoon if you've got unsalted butter)
1/4 to 1/2 cup very cold water (in Massachusetts, in the muggy climate Nana uses 1/4 cup, here in California where it's dry I use 1/2 cup)

Nana uses a pastry blender. I use my kitchenaid mixer.
Mix the dry ingredients together, then blend in the butter with the mixer or the pastry blender until it forms pea sized balls, add ice water and blend a little more - it should still look like a course meal. Using your hands, form a couple disks of equal size, wrap in wax paper or plastic wrap. Refrigerate for an hour.

Filling
6 to 8 big Granny Smith Apples, peeled and sliced
1 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons all purpose flour
juice of a lemon
1 tsp cinnamon

Combine the sugar, flour and cinnamon in a bowl.
Peel, core and slice the apples. I use a one of these - not that exact one, but a similar one and it makes life easier!
Squeeze the lemon over the apples
Pour the sugar mixture over the apples and mix together.

When assembling the pie crusts I like to use a silicone baking mat. Because, unlike my mother I'm no expert when it comes to handling the dough.
Roll the dough, rolling in just one direction at a time (don't roll back and forth, back and forth)
If you start with a disk it should follow that the crust will then be round. Make it so.
When transferring your crust to the pie plate, drape it over your rolling pin and then (with the plate very near your freshly rolled crust) place it onto the pie plate.
The crust will hang over the sides, let it, but just by about 1/2 inch, if there is excess, cut it off with a sharp knife.

Fill the crust up with the apple mixture.

Roll out the top crust and repeat the [painfully difficult] task of transferring the crust onto the apples. The top crust should hang over beyond that of the bottom crust by another 1/2 inch. Roll the top crust over the bottom crust and pinch it so it seals the crusts together. Make pie edge using your fingers or a fork to make a pattern and reinforce the seal.

Brush the top crust with milk or egg white. Bake at 350 until nicely browned.

Eat! I know what I'm making for dessert tonight, never mind that it's already 4:30!