Monica’s Recipes Roanoke Chiropractor—spinal adjustments Page 2 Roanoke Chiropractor—spinal adjustments Towers Family Chiropractor

Avocado Dressing

August 28, 2020 by towers

Don’t throw away the juice from your cultured vegetables–some people drink it (in small amounts or diluted because it is salty) but I discovered it makes very good salad dressing! It may be hard to believe–sauerkraut juice in salad dressing?–but made as I describe below it is delicious. You’ll need a blender.

1-1/2 cups of salad dressing

1/2 cup sauerkraut juice

1/2 avocado

1-2 tsp. honey (you could try monk fruit instead but I like the honey)

1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar (I use the vinegar from marinated red onions)

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend well. You should not have to add salt as the sauerkraut juice is salty.

Greenbeans with Celeriac

August 24, 2020 by towers

Celeriac or celery root should be showing up at the farmers markets and produce sections now that late summer crops are ready to harvest. If you haven’t tried this unusual vegetable yet this simple recipe may inspire you. I just started digging up a few at a time in my garden. I’ve posted soup recipes that had celeriac as an ingredient and they do make flavorful, creamy soups when cooked until soft and blended. This recipe uses finely chopped pieces of the root so that it will cook tender in about the same time as the green beans–just put them in the same vegetable steamer. The roots have to be peeled–a bit of a chore but easier with a vegetable peeler.

Serves 2

2 cups chopped fresh greenbeans

1 cup peeled and chopped celeriac root (no bigger than 1/2 inch cubes)

1 Tbsp. butter or ghee

salt to taste

black pepper to taste, optional

Put the beans and celeriac cubes in a vegetable steamer. Bring water to a boil and then cover and reduce heat to low to gently steam the vegetables for about 5 or more minutes. Keep an eye on them piercing a few times during steaming so they don’t overcook. You want them perfectly tender but not soft. As soon as they are tender, remove from steam and transfer to a bowl. Add the butter or ghee and cover so that it melts. After a few minutes, stir the butter or ghee in and add salt and pepper, if desired, to taste. Serve immediately.

Natural Deodorant with Essential Oils

July 22, 2020 by towers

If you have a collection of essential oils you likely have what you need to make a simple, effective deodorant. You will need good quality grain ethyl alcohol too–such as Everclear or high proof vodka or gin (organic versions are available). General rule of thumb–use 10 drops of a combination of specific essential oils (listed below) per ounce of alcohol. Best not to use rubbing alcohol due to questionable purity for using on a daily basis.

We’ve been using variations of essential oils in this recipe for years and love it–always smells great and it works!

Glass 2-4 ounce spray bottle (we used an empty Weleda spray deodorant bottle)

2-4 ounces of grain alcohol

10 drops total of essential oils per ounce of grain alcohol; good choices are tea tree, lavender, chamomile, lemongrass, sage, geranium, jasmine, sweet orange, grapefruit, lemon, frankincense. Be sure to include the tea tree oil and at least 2 of the other choices that are printed in bold.

Pour the alcohol in the spray bottle. Add your combination of essential oils. Shake before application.

Onions with Basil Oil

June 29, 2020 by towers

It’s the season of onions and basil, especially if you are a gardener. While fresh basil is usually available year-round in grocery stores, it is never as good as the very fresh leaves from your garden. Now that I have an abundance from my garden I make basil oil every few days so there’s always some in the fridge. If you don’t have basil plants, support your local farmers market where you should be able to find it.

The basil oil recipe was posted last year and you can find it here. If you have that already made this onion topping recipe can be made very quickly.

And on the topic of onions–don’t neglect them! They are relatively inexpensive and store well so it makes sense to always keep them on hand. If you have them in the garden they are likely ready to start harvesting. Because they are so flavorful, onions can jazz up lots of other vegetables. The other night I made this onion recipe to use as a topping on gluten-free pizza. I spread some of the basil oil on the fresh-from-the-oven baked crust and then topped with these onions plus some pitted olives. If you eat dairy, it would be delicious to put grated cheese over the basil oil and then top with the onions–just put it under the broiler for a few minutes to melt the cheese if desired. Other options for the onions besides pizza are steamed green beans, broccoli, or cauliflower. Of course, they would be good with the basil oil on pasta and I’ve done this with organic brown rice fettuccine.

Serves 2

1 cup chopped yellow onion

2 tsp. basil oil

Place the chopped onions in a baking tray (about 8 x 10-inch size). Add the basil oil and stir until onions are coated. Spread the coated onions in a thin layer over the surface of the pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes or so. Serve immediately.

Chicken-Broth Rice

June 15, 2020 by towers

In the summer when it is too hot for soup, you can use your chicken broth to make flavorful rice. If you are not making your own broth, give it a try–see a previous post for this recipe. It’s easy and economical, when you buy a whole chicken for the meat, to follow up with a batch of broth. Keep in mind that home-made broth has some fat in so I don’t add any additional oil or ghee to the rice once it is cooked.

Serves 2

1 cup organic brown basmati rice

1 cup chicken broth

1 cup water

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 Tbsp or so organic GF tamari, optional

Place broth in a sauce pan and heat it if it is a gel until it “melts”. (If it has been refrigerated and it is made correctly, it will be a gel. Again, follow the broth recipe that is linked above for really good broth.)

Rinse rice under running water and drain. Add the rice to the warmed broth and add the cup of water and salt. Bring to a boil over high heat and then immediately reduce heat to low so the mixture just simmers. Cover with a lid and continue to simmer undisturbed (don’t remove lid) for 30 minutes. Remove lid (all the liquid should be absorbed and if it isn’t continue to simmer with the lid on for another 5 minutes or so). Add tamari or salt to taste but fluff the rice with a fork to mix–gently lift the rice from the outside toward the middle. Serve immediately.

Another Sauerkraut Recipe Revisited

June 5, 2020 by towers

Originally posted in 2014, this recipe is worth revisiting. It can be as simple as cabbage and salt and dill, which is what I used last week when my Chinese cabbage started coming in. I have an abundance of dill seed heads from the greenhouse. No need to remove them from the stems–I just put the whole seed head in the bottom of the fermenting jar and added the cabbage on top of it. Dill is good at self-seeding so if you’re not growing it, consider buying some and let it go to seed in your garden–you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see it coming up the next year.

Note the pictures above. You don’t need anything fancy–just a wide mouth jar for the cabbage mixture and a smaller jar filled with water to act as a weight and which fits inro that wide mouth. Cover it all with cheese cloth. This is all explained in the previous posts that I link below.

Here’s the original recipe:

Cabbage galore no more–finally the garden cabbage is gone! The last couple of batches I made were kept pretty simple but delicious just the same–I wanted to share these options with you. First, don’t underestimate the flavor of fresh herbs for improving the taste of your cultured veggies. I have dill growing in my garden and have been adding lots of it to the last couple of batches of sauerkraut I’ve made. It seems that the dill tones down the cabbage quite a bit in both smell (while fermenting too) and taste. Second, I’ve been adding chopped cucumber to the fermenting sauerkraut for the last 1 or 2 days of fermentation. This allows the cucumber to pick up the dill and garlic flavors but retain its crispness. Have fun experimenting!

1-2 large head of Chinese cabbage (this is about 1 gallon finely chopped)

1 cup of fresh dill weed chopped fine or 1 flower head of dill seed

3 large cloves of garlic, crushed

1-2 Tbsp. sea salt, depending on the size of the cabbage

About 3-5 days later 1 cucumber, chopped

Cut the cabbage in half and core each half. Cut side down, quarter lengthwise. Then holding the quarters together chop across in 1/4 inch slices. This will result in a fairly fine shred. I find this easier with this type of cabbage than shredding with a grater. Put cut cabbage into a large bowl. Add rest of ingredients except cucumber. It should taste salty–this is important because the salt inhibits mold growth. Follow directions for fermenting described in the previous recipe. After about three to five days (taste the mixture daily and proceed when it has fermented to your satisfaction), chop a cucumber lengthwise in half or in quarters and then in 1/4 inch slices across. Stir it into the sauerkraut and press the vegetable mix down into the juice. Let ferment another day. Keep refrigerated.

Really Good Mayonnaise

May 18, 2020 by towers

I have seen recipes online for making mayo right in a wide-mouth glass jar in one step using an immersion blender–this is a great idea! And it is my preferred method now that I know how well it works. I have had it fail a few times but I think that was because I did not wait until the ingredients came to room temperature.

Here’s my version which uses a blend of equal parts olive, sesame and coconut oils. You could use all olive oil or just two oils– olive and sesame or coconut.

Look at the gold color of this mayo in the picture–the result of using very good quality eggs from pastured chickens. Only use the best quality eggs since the product is not pasteurized.

2 egg yolks from pasture-raised chickens fed antibiotic/hormone-free feed, room temperature

1 tsp.. honey–optional

2 Tbsp.. raw, organic apple cider vinegar

1/4 to 1/2 tsp. sea salt

1 tsp. prepared yellow mustard

1/3 cup (room temperature–not cold) each of extra-virgin olive oil, cold-pressed organic sesame oil, and organic coconut oil

OR 2/3 cup of extra-virgin olive oil and 1/3 cup of sesame or coconut oil

Be sure your ingredients are at room temperature. Place the egg yolks in a clean, dry wide-mouthed glass jar (16 or 32 ounce size). Add the apple cider vinegar, salt, mustard, and honey. Pour the oil on top. Place the blender head all the way into the bottom of the jar where the egg yolks are and pulse briefly in bursts while holding the head in place (the bottom of the jar). Do not move the blender head up and down until you see the “creamy white” mayo forming around the blender head and then only move it up slowly. Be patient and only pulse a few seconds at a time. Once the egg yolks and other ingredients are clearly well mixed and the oil is starting to get pulled in and changing to creamy yellow in color continue to pulse while moving the head of the blender very slowly up and down gradually working your way up as the oil gets pulled in. Do this until all the oil is emulsified. Do not over-mix–as soon as the mayo completely forms, stop! The mayo should be thick by this time–as thick as regular mayo but it will thicken more once refrigerated. Keep refrigerated. Very nice to have a lot less clean-up–store the mayo in the fridge in the mason jar!

White Bean Salad

May 15, 2020 by towers

This salad involves no cooking (nice now that the weather is warming up!) and is very quick to put together if you have some of the ingredients made ahead. I routinely make marinated red onions, ginger carrots, and a mustard-honey dressing (make it without the miso for this recipe) so that I usually have them in the refrigerator. Also, it helps to have some cooked beans in the freezer; I cook big batches of either pinto or garbanzo beans, and sometimes navy beans so that I can freeze some in pint-sized containers.

Serves 2-4 Served over bed of lettuce

2 cups cooked navy beans (small white beans)

1/2 cup ginger carrots

1/4 cup marinated red onions

2 stalks celery, finely chopped

1 avocado, cubed

1/2 cup mustard honey dressing

fresh parsley or cilantro, finely chopped and optional

salt to taste

lettuce of your choice (2 cups per person for a big salad)

Evenly mix all the ingredients except the dressing and salt in a bowl. Add the dressing and stir well again. Add salt to taste. Serve over a bed of lettuce in individual salad bowls.

Sunchoke Soup

April 20, 2020 by towers

Yesterday I found a surprise in my garden–lots of sprouting sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichokes) that were growing out of control. The tubers were large and in good condition. I normally slice them and serve them raw in salads but this was over a pound of tubers so I decided to make soup. This recipe is similar to the Celeriac soup recipe posted earlier. Sunchokes, like celeriac, are non-starchy making them low-glycemic.

For the gardeners out there, these potato-like tubers are easy to grow, prolific, and survive the winter so that they come back each year. But be careful where you plant them as they can be invasive—I thought I had harvested them all but apparently I missed some and they spread into my iris patch.

Produce departments usually have them in the Fall and Winter, but you may find them now as they are still available at our Co-op. Be sure to scrub them well with a vegetable brush as they are knobby. No need to peel after scrubbing but use a paring knife to remove spots that could be harboring dirt or sand.

Usually milk or cream is used in sunchoke soup, but I used yellow miso. If you don’t have miso and are dairy tolerant, use 1 cup of cream or half-and-half instead.

Serves 4-6

1 large yellow onion, chopped

4 Tbsp. ghee

1 pound of sunchokes, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces

1 celeriac root, peeled and cubed or 2 stalks of celery, chopped

4 cups of chicken or vegetable broth or water

1/4 cup of MisoMaster mellow miso or 1 cup of cream or half-and-half

Salt and black pepper to taste

In a soup pot melt the ghee over medium heat. Add the onions and saute 5 minutes stirring occasionally. Add the celeriac or celery and saute another few minutes. Add the sunchokes. Stir well. Add the broth or water and bring close to a boil. Reduce heat to low to keep the soup at a simmer–don’t boil. Cover with the lid cracked. Simmer until vegetables are tender and pierced easily with a fork. If you are using milk, add that now and heat for a few more minutes. Remove from heat. Use an immersion blender to puree. Add the miso if you are using miso and blend again. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.

Dahl with Fresh Ginger

April 15, 2020 by towers

Dahl is a spicy lentil stew made with red or orange lentils. Unlike the green or brown larger-sized lentils which are purchased unprocessed and can be sprouted (see recipes), the red or orange lentils are available processed (dehulled, split, and polished) so they will not sprout. They can still be soaked overnight and rinsed well before cooking to reduce some of the anti-nutrients naturally occurring in legumes. They cook quickly because of the processing and soaking.

Usually served with basmati rice, dahl is also good with steamed vegetables and/or some kind of bread. The spices are warming and anti-inflammatory and the dish is very nourishing. I found organic orange lentils at our co-op and was excited to make a pot of dahl on a chilly, overcast Spring day. Make enough for leftovers as it is still very good re-heated.

Makes 6 servings

2 cups dry red or orange lentils, preferably organic, soaked in 2 quarts of water overnight, rinsed very well in a strainer, and drained

2 medium-sized onions, finely chopped

1/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp ghee

4 Tbsp. grated, fresh ginger (peeled first)

3 cups chicken or vegetable broth and 3 cups of water, or 6 cups of water

6 cloves fresh garlic, peeled and crushed through garlic press

2 tsp. ground turmeric

2 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 to 1 tsp. ground cayenne (optional)

salt to taste

fresh cilantro, chopped, for garnishing (optional)

Melt 1/4 cup of the ghee in a 4-quart soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion and saute 5 minutes. Add the ginger, turmeric, and 3 cloves of the garlic (crushed) and stir over medium heat for another minute or two–don’t let the garlic brown. Carefully pour in the broth or water and add the lentils. Stir well and increase heat to bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and let simmer under a cracked lid stirring occasionally. Allow to simmer for an hour or until it reduces to the consistency you desire.

About fifteen minutes before serving, melt the remaining 1 Tbsp ghee in a small sauce pan. Add the cumin and cayenne if desired and saute over medium heat for a few minutes while stirring. Add the remaining 3 cloves of crushed garlic and stir for 1 minute. Remove from heat.

Use a potato masher to pulverize the lentil mixture to a creamy consistency (or use an immersion blender). Add the cumin/garlic mixture and stir well. Salt to taste and add more cayenne if desired. Spoon into bowls over brown basmati rice or steamed vegetables and garnish with cilantro if desired.

« Previous Page

Avocado Dressing

Greenbeans with Celeriac

Natural Deodorant with Essential Oils

Onions with Basil Oil

Chicken-Broth Rice

Another Sauerkraut Recipe Revisited

Really Good Mayonnaise

White Bean Salad

Sunchoke Soup

Dahl with Fresh Ginger

Good Nutrition

Sauerkraut Time

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