Kale - My Wholefood Romance

Apple Pie Smoothie

September 12, 2012 By Meg With 2 comments

It’s my birthday this week, and one of the great things about having a birthday is that you get to give yourself little treats throughout the day. I seem to centre mine around food, and I have been planning my meals for today with a lot of excitement! First things first – a breakfast aperitive – a green smoothie of course. Lately I have been rocking out some grapefruit numbers, but today it’s an Apple Pie Smoothie. This smoothie is nutrient rich, energising, cleansing, and delicious!

Apple Pie Smoothie

5 large stems of kale, spinach or silverbeet (de-boned)

I banana

1 apple, chopped (not Granny Smith, something a little sweeter)

1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (or to taste – start with less and add if you need)

1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 cup almond milk/rice milk/milk of your choice

1 teaspoon spirulina or chlorella

1-2 teaspoons chia seeds

Water to your desired thickness – around 1/2 cup is a good start

Blend, taste, adjust the spices if you need to, and ENJOY!

Another cute idea is to top the smoothie with home made muesli, and eat it with a spoon!

Much joy and deliciousness. x

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Sea Vegetable Love Part Three: Nori, plus fast pickled ginger.

July 4, 2012 By Meg With 6 comments

Nori is probably the most recognisable form of sea vegetables to many of us, used in sushi hand rolls and the like. Weighing in the heaviest in protein of the sea veg family (almost 30% – whoa!), the accolades for nori don’t end there. How about a hefty helping of calcium, iron, zinc, B vitamins, and vitamins A, C and E? Yes please!

Today I thought it would be cute to make little nori squares, as opposed to the traditional rolls. You can of course use this same method to make rolls if you prefer, but the Food Matters Project‘s recipe for this week - Updated Tea Sandwiches, inspired me to make my nori into mini sandwiches. Check out what the other FMP members came up with here.
This makes about 6-8 rolls worth.

You will need:
Nori sheets
1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa (I used quinoa instead of rice to pack an extra protein and nutritional punch, but you can use rice again if you prefer).
Seasonal vegetables of your choice to fill your sandwich or roll.
2 tbs brown rice vinegar
1 tbs water
1 tsp honey
1 tsp sea salt

1. Whisk together the last 4 ingredients and stir through the slightly cooled quinoa (keep a very small amount to dress your kale cabbage combo if using).

2. Cut up your nori into the size and shape you require. HOT TIP: keep the size small enough to fit into your mouth in one bite, or big enough to be able to pick up and handle easily.

3. Spread the quinoa onto one side of your nori.

4. Top with all sorts of wonderful fresh produce. I love to use a mix of kale and cabbage. I will not apologise for how much I

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Kitchen Pharmacy Part 2 – Prevention, plus an immunity hotpot

May 29, 2012 By Meg With 4 comments

Prevention.
It’s better that cure! That is definitely the word on the street. And it certainly saves a lot of time (and money if you think it terms of time off work) to be avoiding illness. By keeping yourself as well as you can you are also in a better position to bounce back faster and more completely if you do get sick.

So how do you stay well and avoid the dreaded lurgies?

There are certain key nutrients that help to maximise immune function, the big three being Vitamin C, Vitamin A/betacarotene and Zinc.

Vitamin C is widely recognised as being of assistance during colds / flu / infections for its ability to reduce the severity and duration of illness. Vitamin C supplements are one of the most widely consumed supplements on the market. They appear in varying quality, forms and strengths, and here is the basic lowdown. Powders are better absorbed than tablets. Smaller quantities taken more frequently is better than one huge dose. Don’t buy chewable vitamin C tablets as they are full of sugar/sweeteners which inhibit your immune system by up to 50%, and this is not what you want!

Having said this, nutrients work better, and are ultimately best absorbed if you have them as part of a whole food! Of course there are circumstances where we require higher doses, but for prevention and general wellness, wholefood is the go.

We are so lucky to have such an amazing array of goodies packed with Vitamin C to choose from, with capsicum, kale, broccoli, thyme and parsley, kiwi fruit, strawberries, citrus fruit, raw cabbage, sweet potato and tomatoes being the high flyers. Be careful though, you can destroy up to 100% of the vitamin C content of these foods during the cooking process as it …

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Cacao Love: Chocolate Avocado Mousse and Chocolate Kale Chips

May 15, 2012 By Meg With 1 comment

I have had a little cacao obsession this week.

It started with the avocado love from last week, which just sort of melted into an avocado chocolate mousse; and finished with cacao and cashew kale chips…. Lucky that cacao is chock full of antioxidants: 10-15 times more antioxidants than blueberries, and 20 times more than green tea to be precise – whoa! Cacao beans are super rich in magnesium, and are also high in chromium, iron, zinc, vitamin C and manganese. If you are worried about the caffeine content, it is actually quite low – around 1%, compared with coffee which had around 10%.

So what’s the deal with cacao anyway? The cacao tree grows the cacao pod which is the fruit. The pod is full of fabulous seeds which we know as cacao beans. You can find cacao as beans, nibs, powder and cacao butter. The nibs (like chocolate chips) and the powder lend themselves fabulously to baking, trail mix, smoothies, desserts and my new gourmet granola (I will post the recipe soon!).

The difference between cacao and chocolate, or ordinary cocoa, is that the latter is like a watered down version of cacao, with added extras like sugars, binding agents, milk solids, colourings and other chemicals. Vitamins and minerals are very sensitive to heat, and as most chocolate and cocoa is made using high temperatures, the end product is severely depleted in antioxidants, and has almost none of the vitamins and minerals it began life with. Good quality raw cacao however is produced using low temperatures and so maintains much of the original nutrient profile, hooray! Although it’s not something you should really eat in the same quantity as vegetables, the health benefits make it such an awesome alternative for a sweet treat! You will find it in …

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