Green Monsters...

A fellow blogger refers to her green shakes as her "Green Monsters" and I thought it was appropriate!

I like to juice, and since receiving a VitaMix blender as a gift, I have been making shakes. I am not a fan of lots of fruit (too sugary), so I use veggies in my shakes. Here is a recipe for my main shake with a few ideas following:

1 c water
1/2 c homemade almond milk or pure coconut milk (or raw whole milk)
1/2 banana
1/4 c blueberries (frozen)
2 large Kale leaves torn, leaving out main stem
big handful baby spinach
Scoop protein powder occasionally (Jay Robb- very clean powder with Stevia. I like the chocolate)
2 ice cubes (the VitaMix warms up the shake as it blends- HOWEVER I do not believe we should ever drink icy cold beverages)

Blend on high for at least 1 full minute, adding water, coconut milk, raw milk, or almond milk as needed.

Other things to add:
Pumpkin (canned/ cooked)
Coconut butter
Cantaloupe (instead of banana)
Oil (raw avocado, raw pumpkin seed)

I drink this every day almost, usually using it as dinner if I'm not too hungry or just what to go to bed with a clean system. I also like to juice for dinner for the same reasons.

Chicken for Heather

Here is a great recipe for the beginner cook (like my beautiful friend Heather), or when you just want an easy dinner.

Chicken breast
Several garlic cloves sliced
Poultry seasoning
Ghee

Directions:
Rinse chicken, pat dry. Don't bother making it look pretty, the fat and stuff will bake off during cooking
Cut horizontal slits into breast and stuff with garlic slices (more or less garlic depending on how much you like garlic)
With your fingers, rub ghee all over one side of chicken
Liberally sprinkle on poultry seasoning
Place butter side down in baking dish
Repeat buttering and seasoning on face up side
Cover with foil

Bake about 25 minutes at 375

I check the chicken at 20 minutes by cutting a small slit in the thickest spot to check for pinkness. Then I drizzle butter from pan over chicken and place back in oven for 5 more mins.

Soooooo good!

The Milk Conundrum

I went vegetarian at age 15. (I am now what I call a "conscientious omnivore"- any meat I eat is organic free range grass fed- you know, all the buzzwords- and cooked by moi. I never refer to animals as "dinner", and I do not eat meat more than once a day) Somewhere in my late teen's, early 20's, I dabbled in veganism. The best thing being vegan did for me was eliminate my allergic reactions to inhaled triggers. I was allergic to cat fur for example. I was a veterinary technician, so I was living on Claritin and Benedryl. Stopping consumption of milk, butter, cheese, sour cream, etc..and my allergies were gone, and have stayed gone 10+ years later. I can now have dairy here and there without any negative side-effects!

So what I am getting at is I have been there done that in regards to the different "milks" out there. Soy milk was a staple until I learned about it's affect on hormones, and had begun to question processed foods. Plus it curdled in hot coffee. So there was rice milk. Rice milk is a problem because it contains a lot of carbohydrates and sugar (even the Original kind). Plus they all had Canola (blech) oil. Next was oat milk, which I just found disgusting. Then Hemp seed milk, but that too curdled in hot beverages, and just tasted funky...plus I think there was Canola oil or soy oil in that!

THEN it was almond milk. Argh! It curdles also, plus it has such a strong taste. I recently learned about an ingredient in almond milk called "carrageenan", which is used as a thickening agent. It is extracted form an algae called "Irish Moss". The fun part is, it causes cancer in the stomach lining and intestinal lining of lab rats. I couldn't win!

*Carrageenen is found in LOTS of things, notably also whipped cream, and non-milk milks. Read your ingredient labels, people!

But I did win! For my graduation my wonderful parents gave me a VitaMix blender. I looked at my toxic box of crappy almond milk and gleefully poured it down the sink. Liberation! I had come to a radical notion (please note sarcastic tone): I will make my OWN almond milk! Bwahahaha!

And I did and it is great! The flavour is mild, it doesn't curdle, it has no unwanted junk, and best of all, you don't need a VitaMix to do it! Just a good strong blender.

Homemade Almond Milk

Boil a pot of water, about 2 inches full.
Drop 1 cup of almonds into the water until they start floating, or about 1 minute.
Drain, lay on towel and pat to dry a bit.
Grasp almond between your fingers and squeeze. The almond will pop right out of it's skin! This is called "Blanching" an almond to de-skin it. Aim down when you do this, as the almond will slip out with some velocity and sail across your kitchen!

Dump this cup of naked almonds into your blender, add 3 to 3.5 cups of water and about 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. Blend on high for 60-90 seconds, depending on the strength of your blender.

Line a wire strainer with a layer of damp cotton cloth (just get it wet under the tap and wring out), such as a piece of your significant others Hanes t-shirt. *Make sure it is big enough to drape over the edge of the strainer, as you will be gathering this up to make a pouch to squeeze the liquid out.*

Hold cloth lined strainer over a large bowl, pour in some of the liquified almond mixture. Carefully gather up the cloth and squeeze gently from the top of the liquid down, like squeesing icing out of a piping tube. It will take a minute, and when it is all squeezed out, you will have a sort of crumbly paste. Rinse out cloth and repeat process until you have emptied the blender.

Refrigerate and use within about 5 days. Use it just like milk; cereal, coffee, tea, baking, drinking straight, whatever!

And "Go you!", for making something you usually get in a carton, on your own! And it's completely good for you!

Simple, delish fish recipe

This recipe caught my eye over at the website for Tao of Wellness. This is the website of the Drs. Maoshing and Daoshing Ni, owners and founders of Yo San University, my Alma mater. This recipe in particular comes from Dr. Mao, under the intention "Heart Health", and originally uses salmon. Since wild caught salmon is so over fished now, hubby and I opted for wild caught cod. It was a wonderful substitute.

Basically what I am giving you is a sauce and cooking instructions, both of which are from the Mao's recipe. His recipe gives you more stuff to do with it, like eating as a salad, with the sauce as a dressing, and cooking leeks with it. We tried cooking the leeks with it, but I think they were too big, as they didn't cook all the way through.

So with no further ado, here is an extremely simple and delicious fish dish!

14 oz Cod filet (serves two)
sliced fresh ginger

1/2 c. Rice vinegar
2 T. white miso
1/2 to 1 tsp. powdered ginger

Heat oven to 375.

In a saucepan, warm the vinegar. When warm, add in miso and ginger powder, stirring to combine.

Lay the cod on a sheet of aluminum foil, gathering up the edges to make a bowl shape. Lay the slices of fresh ginger over the fish. Spoon the sauce over the filets.

Roll the edges of the aluminum foil together to make a tent.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Options:
Leeks- slice in half lengthwise, then slice the halves into thirds lengthwise. Place over filet, over the ginger, and pour sauce over the whole thing. Tent and bake.

We had this tonight with the Celeriac and Parsley soup. Yum!

Celery Root and Parsley Bliss; An amazing, simple soup...

This soup makes you feel the way you felt the first time you laid eyes upon your high school crush- hopeful, slightly breathless, and kind of peacefully exuberant! However, unlike the highly unpredictable outcome of said high school crush, the end result of this soup recipe will turn out brilliantly!

Celery Root (Celeriac) and Parsley Soup

**First a word to the wise. Peeling celery root is a workout. Just use a sturdy vegetable peeler, but have a knife handy if you really need to slice something off. I got through one and a half roots before needing to bring in hubby reinforcement!

Coconut oil (Olive is fine also)

½ yellow onion, sliced into half-moons

2-3 voluptuous cloves garlic

2 large celery roots, totaling about 2-2 ½ lbs, sliced into ¼ inch thick slices

8 cups broth, or enough to cover celery root (I used one carton Imagine Organic reduced sodium chicken broth, and one container Imagine Organic no- chicken Chicken broth. They make a lovely combination)

1 fluffy bunch flat leaf parsley (rinse well, chop roughly)

Optional to add at end;

Lemon juice

Salt

Black pepper

In a large pot, sauté onion in about 1 tbsp coconut oil until slightly translucent. Add minced garlic, sauté 1 minute more. Pour in broth and add celery root. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and cover. Cook for about 40 minutes. When celery root is fork-tender (think mashed potato texture), turn off heat. Let cool for a bit, say 15 minutes.

Ladle out extra broth into a separate bowl. You will add this into the blender shortly.

Add the bunch of parsley to the main pot, try to use mostly leaves, some stems are OK, mix in well. Scoop out 2-3 cups of the soup into the blender. Blend until smooth, adding some of the broth back in for desired consistency (I used it all throughout the 3 batches I blended). As you blend each batch, pour it out into another pot.

*If you run out of broth to add, use water, just not more than ¾ cup max, so as not to dilute flavour (yes, I tend to add in extra U's- it's the old English romantic in me I suppose).

TASTE. Then decide if you want to add any of the optional ingredients. Personally, I didn’t.

Not one of the three people I gave this soup to had ever tried celeriac, let alone eat parsley, and they all LOVED it.

Excellent for dinner or an early light breakfast with a soft boiled egg on the side!