Mushroom Gravy - Gluten-Free, Vegan and Organic!

Organic mushrooms from our local Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) weekly basket.

To make this delightful gluten-free gravy, you will need:

• 2 cubes of organic vegetable broth diluted in 1 1/2 cup warm water, set aside. This is your bouillon.
• 1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
• 1/4 cup diced red onion
• salt and pepper to taste
• corn starch or chia seeds (optional)

Instructions:

• In a small saucepan, sauté mushrooms and red onions in oil (we used organic cold pressed sunflower oil, also from our CSA).
• Add sea salt and pepper to taste
• Add the bouillon, stir, and bring to a boil.
• Add 1/2 cup organic tomato paste (ours was bought in a can)
• Reduce heat and let simmer until the desired consistency is reached. For quicker thickening, you can whisk in a teaspoon of corn starch or chia seeds.

Voilà!

Rhubarb and Raspberry Chia Jam

Ingredient measurements are approximate, sweeten to taste. I used organic cane sugar and frozen raspberries. You might want to double...

• Simmer on medium heat: 1 cup cubed rhubarb, a handful of raspberries (or chopped strawberries)with 1/2 cup of water.
• Stir frequently, taking care not to burn and adding water as required
• Once the fruit have reduced to a sauce consistency (about 15 to 20 minutes), remove from heat.
• While hot but not cooking, add 2 tablespoons of raw honey and/or organic sugar.
• Add 1/4 cup of whole chia seeds and a teaspoon of milled flax seed.
• Stir well and let stand to thicken.

Serve warm over pancakes, waffles or muffins. It is wonderful mixed with plain greek yogurt or on it's own by the spoonful for desert! great for adults and children!

Raw chia, honey and flax can certainly be cooked but I prefer keeping their goodness intact as much as possible.

To preserve for up to a couple of weeks, keep refrigerated in a glass jar with an airtight lid.

Protein Packed Pesto and Peas Stuffed Tomatoes

The end of the summer is approaching, it is my favourite season but I find comfort in the harvest!

We have friends we have potlucks with and Andrea told me you don't need to make pesto with pine nuts and she showed me. It was delicious and I came home with a huge bag of basil she gifted us.

That weekend, I made walnut and hemp basil and parsley pesto following this basic recipe I found on Pinterest. I used less parsley than the recipe called for, added some chili powder and turmeric as well as hemp and chili flakes.

That day we had begun pulling pea plants from the garden because they were dry and sporting brown spots on most leaves and pods.

Bye bye peas.

 Eric beautifully carved yellow and red tomatoes , removing seeds with a melon baller tool while I was processing together the walnuts, hemp, oil, garlic, salt, spices, parsley and handful upon handfuls of green and a bit of purple basil leaves.

We combined several tablespoons of the thick pesto with our peas and some hemp hearts.

Stuffed the tomatoes before sprinkling more hemp onto them.

 They baked in the oven for eight minutes at 400F and broiled for two minutes. These stuffed tomatoes can be eaten raw.

When I use the oven, I make a point out of using the oven! Our tomatoes baked alongside organic roasted potatoes and a beef roast while a gluten free gravy made from scratch with local mushrooms simmered, and snap peas steamed on the stove top.

Pesto can obviously be a delight with pasta and stir fries, it's nice added to warm soups and sour cream dips too. If you don't cook it you benefit from fuller nutrition so consider stirring it in to hot dishes just before serving.

What other nuts, herbs or spices have you used in your pesto? 

Kombucha Starter Kit - Instructions

If you have purchased from me a Kombucha Starter Kit, you will appreciate these instructions!

Photo by Amanda Porter.

The starter kit includes:

• 250 ml glass jar with live culture a.k.a. mother culture 
• kombucha a.k.a starter liquid
• green and black tea bags
• coffee filter
• elastic band

You will also need:

• 1 L glass jar a.k.a. your brewing vessel.
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 cups pure water (no chlorine)
• kettle or stove top to boil the water

Instructions:

• Clean and dry your brewing vessel (large glass jar) with water and raw apple cider vinegar or white vinegar. Soaps, detergents and chlorine can negatively affect probiotic cultures.
• Bring 1 cup of water to boil and use it to steep the teas in your brewing vessel
• Add 1/2 cup of sugar (I use organic cane sugar) and stir until it dissolves, with a plastic or wooded spoon. It is best to avoid contact with metal when handling kombucha and the mother culture.
• Let the sweet tea cool, adding the second cup of water to speed this up.
• Once the sweet tea is at room temperature, add the starter liquid and culture.
• Using the elastic band from your kit, attach the coffee filter or a cloth to the top of the jar. 
• Place your brewing vessel in a well ventilated place, out of direct sun light, where it can breathe and be left undisturbed. 
• 5 to 7 days later your kombucha should be ready. Give it a taste test. It should be tart but not vinegar. The longer it brews, the culture will use the sugar to make vinegar.

To learn about flavouring your kombucha, please read this previous post.

Enjoy your raw, homemade, alkaline, energy-boosting, probiotic kombucha!

Nathalie at the Bhakti In The Woods Festival, August 15 to 17, 2014.

Heal your gut and the rest will follow - a guest post by Toni Sicola

This blog post is an extract of a very interesting article, reproduced with the author's permission. Read on to discover why it is that if your gut isn’t working properly, nothing in your body can.

Toni, who's releasing her first e-book this summer for folk transitioning to the gluten-free lifestyle, and who's biography you will find below, is a wellness expert and in her article, she explains the link between gut health and overall health:

Vitality starts in the gut where we assimilate input from the outside world into resources for inside our bodies. Gut health is crucial for the health of every other system in our bodies. It affects our skin, our immune response, our hormones, our weight, or energy level, our bowel movements (obviously), even our MOOD and PERSONALITY. That’s right, there are studies being done now to attempt to isolate certain bacteria in the gut responsible for depression and anxiety. That level of detail hasn’t been worked out in the lab yet, but rest assured that altering the human biosphere to address any number of mental health problems is in the not-too-distant future.

The gut is often called our “second brain” due to the more than 500 million neurons that reside in the Enteric Nervous System.

 

In fact, communication between the gut and the brain is a two-way street, with information going from gut to brain far more often than we ever thought was the case. The term “gut feeling” is a lot less metaphorical and much more literal than you might think. A healthy gut means proper communication between the systems of the body.

So certain bacteria in our gut represent the body’s ability to fight off invaders, and they actually communicate with those neurons I just mentioned above. When the right bacteria are overtaken by the wrong ones, we start to see both acute and chronic malfunction in our bodies, often accompanied by inflammation and pain. A healthy gut means a healthy immune system.

It’s been shown that “bad” bacteria such as candida thrive on sugar and foods that quickly turn to sugar. When there’s an overgrowth of candida, the bacteria actually cause you to crave those foods that they like to eat! Likewise, when you have “good” bacteria at healthy levels in your gut, you’re more likely to crave a diet that they want to eat – one rich in fiber.

You might be surprised at some of the easy changes you can make to start improving your gut health today. Of the listed suggestions, (Read the full recent article here) for me personally eliminating sugar is by far the most challenging to stick with consistently. It might be a different story for you, but considering how much sugar we as a country consume every day, I’m guessing we might have this in common. Nathalie: "oh yes we do!"

If you completely eliminate sugar for at least two weeks, it will have a synergistic effect with the rest of the suggestions on this list. If you do all the things below but remain on a high-sugar diet, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle. Sugar is a highly inflammatory food. After your two weeks of cold turkey, test the waters with fresh berries or a small amount of dark chocolate, but pull back for another week or so of you see negative side-effects.

Toni's gut healing pointers include consuming foods rich in live cultures such as sauer kraut - which brings me to say that I have began experimenting and that my fermented vegetable recipes are coming soon to this blog! Another source of healthy probiotics is making your own unpasterized kombucha, like I do!

Toni Sicola is a wellness professional, holistic nutrition expert, and food enthusiast. In her day job, she manages the wellness program for over 5000 employees in 8 locations at Alameda Health System in the East Bay Area of California. She has a Master’s in Integrative Health Studies and a Certification in Integrative Wellness Coaching.

When she’s not working, Sicola is feeding her passions for cooking, gardening, rock climbing, creating, and playing with her dog Dexter. Her favorite places to be outside include the national and regional parks in Northern California, especially Yosemite, and her back yard garden. She loves to find ways to be creative in the kitchen, often using herself and her husband as guinea pigs for her latest ideas.

Sicola’s first e-book will be released this summer. She’ll be sharing her most practical tips for going gluten-free while continuing to live a sweet-rich life filled with delicious, satisfying, and nutritious foods. 

Visit her blog at www.cultivatedwellbeing.com, like her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/cultivatedwellbeing, and follow her on Twitter at @dailywellbeing. You can also join her mailing list to receive extra goodies each month including exclusive recipes, news, and an early copy of the e-book absolutely free.

What’s an Afformation?

I guest posted for Toni at Cultivated Wellbeing! In case you didn’t see it, check out my article on using afformations

Afformations on Toni Sicola's Cultivated Wellbeing Blog

Daily Toxicity

We know about toxicity which can be

inhaled,

ingested,

injected,

We forget though, those toxins that can be self-induced.

Emotional boundaries are thus required and recommended.