Scott's Dish

So every once and a while I'll get an email from a friend or client telling me about their meal they made, or some fantastic recipe they found out about. I sense the enthusiasm from them as much as I feel it when I get emails like that. It satiates my Whole Foodies self, and inspires me to keep doing what it is I do! I just got one from Scott Galloway tonight, a fellow musician and friend, and this was the only text in his message:

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Short grain brown rice
Onion
Black beans
Coconut milk
Cumin
Allspice
Avocado
Grape tomatoes

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I laughed, because the recipe is exactly as I would write it, and I could tell he cooked with foods he happened to have in his fridge, using his intuition to guide him through the cooking process. Combinations become easier to put together with a little cooking experience and experimentation, and I believe Scott has matured this aspect of his cooking self. It's a way of expressing yourself. Where I would cook things one way, another person would use the same ingredients differently, or add an ingredient that I would have never thought of, or bought in the first place. This is the beauty of cooking from intuition. You express yourself, and your food resonates that energy. Recipes are a great place to work from, and learn from, but really, when it comes time to making a recipe, the final product will always have the personal touch of the cook in it! Don't be afraid to improvise - do things your way, or take an idea from a recipe and experiment with it for your own gain. At the end of the day, it's your food to eat - so cook what makes you happy! ... and then send your photos and recipes to Whole Foodies! :)

Food for yer yin-yang

Aduki beans and well cooked rice. Need I say more?

Sideways Recycled Bean Burgers

What do you do with leftover beans? Burg them!! Keep any leftover beans aside, even if they have veg and grain in them, and mash them up to make beans.

At the retreat, we continuously made bean burgers by adding chopped onion and carrot to the leftover beans, added bread crumbs, oat flakes, or even best - flour (we used fresh ground whole kamut). Play with the quantity of grain to get them tough enough to form balls in your hands - if they do, place them on a baking sheet (with parchment paper is best), and bake them at about 375F for 20 minutes or so, as per your desired firmness of burger. Pictured here, is a baking sheet for a giant oven, forced into our little home-sized oven - it worked just fine, but there were a few wonky burgers from it. Also - you can add seasonings to bring them to life, like ground cumin and black pepper - or curry powder etc. Easy as pie!.. actually, easy as bean burgers!

Burn-Your-Mouth-Off Salad

This was made by my sister-in-law but is very blog worthy. For a wintery winter, I haven't been making a lot of green salads. So this was refreshing, but also face melting due to it's extremely high proportion of raw garlic present in the salad!!

Garlic is just amazing!! It's an antibiotic, antimicrobial, antifungus, antiparasitic, .. need I go on? It just drives stuff out of the body, typical of all pungent foods. Ever notice that when you eat a pungent food (like garlic, or horseradish) that the energy in our body seems to ascend and go outwards? This is the nature of pungent food - so if you have something that you want to drive out of you, use pungent foods!! A cold is a good example too.. a little bug is trying to hide out in our body, and raw garlic just drives it right out of the body... at first, but if you continuously do it, it can have a reversed effect. So, pungent foods in moderation are excellent. A refreshing salad with greens and chick peas are a perfect thing to accompany some hell-inspired raw garlic to drive out the baddies in your digestive tract, and depending on how well you digest the fiery fall root, it might clean out your colon too.

It has such potency for eliminating garbage from the body, that it is often too strong for people with hard-working livers. Signs of a hard-working liver might include flatulence and digestive discomfort after eating raw onions or garlic. The best solution?: don't eat them!! You can cook them, and it will help, but until your liver has done it's work and is able to relax, avoiding pungent white vegetables might be helpful. If it doesn't bother your digestion, then the white "spicy" root veggies like the aforementioned onion and garlic are nicely stimulating for the liver - creating a "get up and go" feeling, stimulating the body, blood, mind and qi.

So there you go - a whole blurb about garlic, and that's all I've got, as I have no clue how this salad was made. There were chick peas and greens and a magnificent dressing that only sister Krista can make, and so I'll leave it at that. Oh yes, carrots and cashews I can see in there as well...  AWESOME SALAD!

Beany bean and miso dip!

Yummy!! Here's how these were blended:

The green one: flax oil, miso paste, honey, apple cider vinegar, shoyu, cumin, black pepper, garlic, cayenne, parsley, ... and ground sesame seeds.

The red one: aduki beans, miso paste, chili powder, cumin, lemon, cilantro, black pepper, cayenne, ginger, and a bit of cilantro. The aduki beans I used were leftovers and had some orange juice in them... but it was kind of weird, I don't think I'd do that again.

How to Feel Amazing

I really don't feel any better than when I eat grains, beans and vegetables with a sauce. To me... this it. This is why we feel good.. this is what makes your day good no matter what. What keeps us centred, motivated, in love, on top, on the ground.. all the good things you want in life you can access from within - when you eat this!!!! Am I right? huh?.. huh?.. remarks?

So what is it? If it looks disgusting to you, then your salty sweet taste buds have not yet acclimatized to whole foods and that's fine. There comes a point when you no longer desire the super yang foods like sugar and flour, nor the ultra yin foods found in heavily salted foods. What's left is that oh so harmonizing centre where the present moment comes to life, your senses heighten, and that once bland food suddenly has incredible taste - and leaves you feeling ON the centre. This is a feeling not familiar to most eaters these days, I know so because a standard American (Canadian in my case) diet just makes me feel off centre, up and then down, and nowhere - and you want more - because you are never quite satiated and fulfilled. And you want more of not only food, but things in life, because what you ate and have is seemingly not enough.. but it is!! You just have to come to the centre to appreciate, see and be gracious for it. This is where this meal comes in... man, totally centering, which like I said, makes life sparkle.

Am I crazy? Possibly... but it all makes sense to me, and if it resonates with you too, leave a comment or tell someone you love to eat grains and veggies for dinner... with love.

How to make:

-Steam grains

-Cook beans

-Sautee/steam greens (see 'greens' for ideas on this)

-Make sauce (see previous post)

Drizzle with flax oil, sesame seeds, whatever makes you happy.

How to eat:

-Sit upright, cross legged on a soft surface, which is nice because you can cradle the warm bowl in your other hand to feel its warmth.... OR eat with feet flat on the floor in a chair at a table

-Smell your food, 'what are you eating?'

-Take a bite sized amount on your fork or other eating utensil

-Chew it until its disappeared in your mouth (usually takes 30+ chews)

-Take a breath before going for more,... set your eating utensil down now and then

-Remain seated after eating and wait for the "Qi puff" to ascend into your body, which is quite energizing AND relaxing.

Food divides into two parts from our digestion, the "clear" ascends and energizes us, and the "turbid" descends and exits along our waste portals.  

If the food sat like a rock and is "stuck" in your centre, you ate too quickly or weren't focused, and the two parts didn't quite separate, making your liver and centre sticky and stuck.. and usually tired. This doesn't allow for the full nutrition to be assimilated... it's like a poor burning fire that produces a lot of toxic black smoke, as oppose to a clean burning fire which produces two parts similar to our digestion - clear smoke, and turbid ash - with no incomplete burnt wood or charring toxic smoke.

Strive to feel the Qi puff with everything you eat, and you'll start to realize how much of your food burns dirty and incomplete.. which again, is toxic and tiring for the body.

Start by eating slow... and try eating vegetal foods such as grains and veggies!

Chili Beans

Hearty, spicy and GOOD! A simple recipe for a crockpot or stove top:

Pinto beans

Oil

2 whole garlic cloves (cooked in with the beans and then mashed)

1 onion (sliced, diced, chopped or whatever)

Cumin, chili powder, black pepper and sea salt

Uhn! Ride 'em cowboy!

I bet these would even taste better if they finished in the oven for a good baking!

Sprouted Spicy Asian Mung

I used leftover soup for this which was made of seaweed, shiitake mushrooms and Korean gochujang (spicy red paste). I simply cooked up some sprouted mung beans in the soup, which reduced a little bit making a bit of a stew! 

I added some dried ginger as well to bring the otherwise cooling dish some heat that would go to my centre (dried ginger warms your inside whereas fresh ginger warms the periphery, but the seaweed/mung combination is very cooling for the centre of the body and so a little dried ginger helps balance that if you're eating this in mid-winter!... too much information? I think it's cool!....)

Quick Korma and Turmeric Rice

Quick Korma

6 Tbsp. oil

3 bay leaves
2” stick cinnamon
8 cardamom pods
4 whole cloves
1/4 tsp. cumin seeds
1 Tbsp. ground coriander
1 Tbsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. cayenne
3/4 tsp. sea salt

1-1/2” piece fresh ginger
5-6 cloves garlic
1 smalll onion

Chopped potatoes or other veggies
1 cup beans or chicken (optional)
3 Tbsp. tomato sauce or paste
3 Tbsp. yogurt or cream

Heat frying pan with oil. Add spices and wait until aromatic. Add chopped/blended garlic, onion and ginger into the pan and stir. Sautee for about 3 minutes or until onion turns brownish. Add veggies, beans or meat and cook until soft (may need a little water). Add tomato sauce and yogurt and simmer until sauce has thickened. Add dill or wilt some spinach in it to finish with some greens if you like!


Indian Rice

3 Tbsp. oil

3 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
4 cardamom pods
1” stick cinnamon
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 tsp. turmeric

2 cups basmati rice
4 cups water
2 Tbsp. raisins
1 tsp. sea salt

Put oil in a pot and heat to med-high. When oil is hot, add spices and wait until aromatic. Add rice and quickly pan toast. Add water, raisins and salt, bring to a boil and simmer covered until fully cooked, about 45 minutes. Serve with Quick Korma recipe.