Towers Family Chiropractor

Helping You to Better Health Naturally

Another Sauerkraut Recipe Revisited

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

 

 

 

 

 

Chicory Root Chaga Tea with coconut milk or oil

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While you can make this tea with just chicory root, if you have chaga it is a nice combination.  Chaga is a mushroom that grows on birch trees in northern latitudes. You may not find it locally–I order online (from Optimally Organic).  It was used traditionally as a medicinal tea for general well-being/immune system support and longevity and is very high in anti-oxidants as measured by ORAC.  It does not contain caffeine. Be sure to get wild-crafted Chaga that was harvested from birch trees growing in northern Canada.   The best part is that Chaga tea tastes good and you could just have it alone!

Roasted chicory root has a long history of being used as a coffee substitute;  it makes this tea stronger and blacker with a bitter component that is similar to coffee.  Another bitter root to combine with chicory is burdock root which is one of my favorites as a coffee substitute–I use about 3/4 tsp. organic, dried and cut burdock root to 1 tsp. chicory root.

There are lots of options for what you may want to add for flavor and medicinal value–cinnamon, cardamom, licorice root, burdock root, anise seed, fennel seed, dried and ground organic orange rind, vanilla, cocoa powder.  I usually also add a tablespoon of collagen powder (Great Lakes) and I like to add  raw cocoa powder sometimes for ” hot chocolate”. But these are optional ingredients.  The coconut milk makes it rich and gives it body. This drink will remain “low carb” if you avoid adding any form of concentrated sugar to it and use stevia or monk fruit instead.

One other note, if you prefer to use coconut oil instead of milk, you can get this to emulsify in your tea by adding lecithin also and then blending with an immersion blender (it doesn’t froth up unless you blend it).  Lecithin powder made from organic sunflower seeds is now available online and may be in your health food store; this is the best type of lecithin to use as I don’t like the ones made from soy.  If you don’t use the lecithin, the oil will pool on the top of your tea.

1 tsp. dried Chaga granules

1/2 tsp. organic orange peel granules (optional)

1/2 tsp. dried burdock root or dandelion root (optional)

1 tsp. roasted chicory root granules

2 cups boiling water

stevia extract or monk fruit powder to sweeten to taste if desired

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 cup classic coconut milk (from dry coconut milk powder or Native forest organic in a can) OR 1 Tbsp of coconut oil and 1 tsp. of lecithin OR if you are not sensitive to dairy 2 Tbsp cream

Optional:  2 Tbsp. Great Lakes Collagen powder and 1 tsp. cocoa powder

Place chaga (or other herb tea) and chicory in a quart-sized glass mason jar. Add the boiling water (be sure a spoon is in the jar so it doesn’t crack).  Cap the jar and let sit for at least 15 minutes to extract.  Now if you want your tea very warm strain it into a pan and add the coconut milk and warm it until it just simmer before pouring into a mug and adding the rest of the ingredients.   Otherwise, strain the tea into a mug and add the rest of the ingredients.
If you use coconut oil and lecithin instead of coconut milk, add these two ingredients when the strained tea is in the pan.  Add your other ingredients and use an immersion blender to froth this mixture up.  Warm it up if desired by bringing just to a simmer.  Drink warm.

Celeriac Soup

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If you can find celeriac or celery root in your grocery store, you should try this soup.  It’s a low starch vegetable that has a wonderful celery-like flavor, but it’s meatier than celery so it lends a creamy texture to soups when they are pureed.  Our Co-op here in Roanoke often has organic celeriac so I have been using them in soup regularly this winter.  The cauliflower soup recipe I posted can be made with celeriac–just omit the carrot and if you want the potato and add 1 celeriac root.

This simple soup is more like celery soup but without dairy–except for the ghee which is well tolerated by many folks sensitive to dairy.  The soup is blended once the vegetables are cooked so no need to finely chop them.

 

Serves 4

1 large celeriac root, peeled and cubed into 1 inch pieces

1 very large (about 4 inches in diameter) yellow onion, chopped

1/3 cup of ghee

3 stalks celery, chopped

1 small potato, chopped (optional)

4 cups of broth or water ( I used water)

1/4 cup fresh dill weed, chopped fine or 1 tsp. ground dill seed (optional)

salt to taste

black pepper, optional

 

In a soup pot, melt the ghee.  Add the onion and saute over medium heat for about 5 minutes giving an occasional stir.  Wash and chop the other veggies while the onion is sauteing.  Add the other vegetables and continue to heat over medium heat giving an occasional stir for another few minutes.  Add the broth or water.  Bring to a boil and immediately reduce the heat to low to keep the soup cooking at a simmer for about an hour or until the vegetables are very tender and easily pierced.  Remove from heat and carefully blend with an immersion blender until creamy.  Add salt, and pepper if desired, to taste.  Serve hot garnished with dill.

 

 

Grain-free Hot Cereal

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Many people think their diet will be inadequate (especially in fiber) without including grains.  Yet many other people are perfectly happy and healthy without eating grains.  Whether one is following a keto or low carb or low inflammatory diet, there can be plenty of fiber and nutrients in a grain-free diet.  And it is not hard to replace some grain dishes, with ones containing hi-fiber, nutritious ingredients but no grain products.  If you like hot cereal in the morning, give this a try.  Some compare it to cream of wheat.

Serves 2

1/4 cup organic coconut flour

2 Tbsp. organic flax seed, ground to a powder in blender

1 cup water

1/2 cup coconut milk (optional, can be replaced by another 1/2 cup of water)

1/2 organic apple, chopped fine

1/4 cup blueberries, optional, fresh or frozen

2 Tbsp. chopped walnuts, optional

1-2 Tbsp. collagen powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 Tbsp. ghee or butter

1/4 tsp. monk fruit powder to sweeten, optional

Bring water to a boil and reduce heat to low.  Add apple and cinnamon, cover, and simmer 5 minutes until tender.  Add ground flax and coconut flour and stir well.  If using, add coconut milk , collagen powder,  walnuts and blueberries.  Continue to stir over low heat until evenly heated.  Add water if desired to consistency of your choice.  Remove from heat.  Add ghee and sweeten with monk fruit to taste if desired. Serve immediately.

 

Healing Moisturizing Oil

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This is a recipe too but one for topical use only!    Castor oil is very healing (to learn more, read “The Oil That Heals” by Dr. William McGarey) and belongs in everyone’s medicine cabinet.  Many people have used it as a castor oil pack as recommended by Edgar Cayce and McGarey’s book explains how to do this.   It is best used topically as the book explains unless you know what you are doing and wish to use it internally as a laxative!

However, to use topically as a massage or moisturizing oil it is too thick and sticky to use alone.  Diluting it with a highly-absorbed oil such as argan is the key for using this therapeutic oil as a healing massage oil.  The essential oils make it a delight to the senses and add to its healing properties.  If you get massages, bring it to your therapist and ask her/him to use this instead of standard massage oils.

In general, for massage oils, use up to 15 drops total of essential oil(s) per ounce of castor/argan oil mixture.  Make it in small batches (2-4 ounces)  for freshness.

 

1 part castor oil ( be sure to buy organic, cold-pressed, solvent-free)

1 part argan oil (organic, cold-pressed, or jojoba oil)

a couple drops of vitamin E oil (optional)

frankincense  essential oil

lavender essential

Pour equal parts castor oil and argan oil into a glass bottle.  Cap and shake well. ( I use a 4 ounce brown glass spray bottle that the argan oil comes in.)  Add the essential oils one drop at a time so you can count them.  Add the vitamin E oil if desired.  Shake again.  Massage into sprain/strains, sore or inflamed areas, tight muscles, feet, hands.  Also can be used on the face by bathing the face first with a warm wash cloth, putting a couple drops of the blend on the wash cloth, and brushing over the face–very light and feels great!

 

Shiitake Mushroom Soup

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This is an unusual recipe for me to post but it was so good and so easy I wanted to share it.  If you like a creamy mushroom soup, try it!

So, you need some leftover cauliflower soup to make this.  Since I make the cauliflower soup frequently and often have leftover to last a day or two, this recipe  is easy for me.   I had some shiitake mushroom to use up so it all fell into place.  If you want your cauliflower soup to be extra “creamy” try adding a celeriac root.

Serves 2

1 quart of cauliflower soup

1/4 cup ghee

1 cup chopped shiitake mushrooms

Melt the ghee in a soup pot and allow it to get hot over medium heat for a minute or two .   Add the shiitake mushrooms.  Stir to coat the mushrooms–they will absorb the ghee so keep stirring for 3-4 minutes.  Add the cauliflower soup and bring to a simmer over medium heat.  Let it simmer for 10 minutes.  Add salt if desired.  Serve hot.

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Towers Family Chiropractic

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(540) 343-6636

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