A Stew For You!

         By special request I decided to make a slow cooker stew. It seemed to be in line with all the snow we've been getting here in Vancouver. This stew is loaded with veggies that have many healing properties. Here are a few of our nutritional winners: eggplant stimulates brain activity, ginger is good for digestion and nausea, and garlic gives a good boost to the immune system! Tumeric has been long known for its cancer cell-fighting properties and cayenne pepper cleanses your blood.  The lentils give it a nice hearty protein as well as great texture. You can really feel free to play around with this recipe, change up the veggies, throw in Quinoa or beans. 
         I think what I enjoyed the most about making this was that it filled the house with seriously mouth watering smells all day long!


Chop and Drop Veggie Lentil Stew Recipe:


1 medium eggplant

Chop and Drop stew about 5 hours into cooking

1 zucchini
1/2 head of cauliflower
2 cups of lentils (any colour)
1 cup of okra
3 carrots julienned
1 turnip
1 cup chopped fresh spinach 
2 Tbsp fresh chopped ginger
5 garlic cloves


Spices:
1 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. tumeric
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp chili powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tsp Salt or to taste

1 Tbsp Braggs

Chop all veggies and drop them into the crock pot with the lentils. Pour enough water in to cover the veggies. Mix together spices and stir into pot. Plug in and set to high, cover and let stew for 8 hours. If there is an excess of water when you are getting towards the end, leave the lid off for the last 45 mins or so. 

With all the time you saved cooking this stew, you can now make a delicious homemade...
                           Gluten free Cornbread!
This recipe was on the back of the Bob's Red Mill Organic cornmeal package that I got which I tweaked a bit. It called for whole wheat pastry flour but I wanted to try it with the brown rice flour that i had ground up myself! (See Tips below for a how-to!)


1 cup cornmeal
1 cup brown rice flour (or pastry flour if gluten isn't a problem for you)
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp. baking powder
1 Tbsp. sugar (optional, I didn't use it)
1 egg or egg replacer
1 cup milk (I used almond milk)
1/4 cup butter (I used Earth Balance vegan margarine)
Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl. Add egg, milk and butter. Beat until smooth, about one minute. Preheat oven to 425. Bake in a greased 8 inch pan for 20-25 minutes. Serve warm with butter :)


Sarah's Tip for the day:


* For fresh ground brown rice flour, all you need to do is use a blender, coffee grinder or I used a magic bullet. Put in as much rice as you want and grind until fine. Use immediately in your cornbread recipe or store it for a couple of weeks.

First Post, Oh Boy!

"Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food"

Yummy Eggplants from the Trout Lake Farmers Market

          This quote by Hippocrates has really led the way in how I now think about food. Eating a diet of whole, unprocessed, organic foods is high on my priority list for many reasons. First, foods that are whole and unprocessed such as fruits, veggies, whole grains, nuts and seeds are high in vitamins and minerals; when we have taken in all the nutrients that we need, they trigger our stomaches to tell our brain that we are full quicker. Refined carbohydrates like white flour fill our stomaches to the brim without triggering the brains to say stop and cause us to overeat. When we don't over eat, this gives our digestive systems love in the form of time; time to break down and process the food into fuel and medicine.

         Whole foods are Karma foods. This means eating foods that are lower on the food chain. By doing so it uses up much less energy in its production. Plants come from the soil, making it only one degree of separation between them and your belly. Meat and dairy products on the other hand have a much larger footprint, and are much higher on the food chain. We must first grow and harvest plants, feed the livestock, deal with its toxic excrement and of course process the meat (mostly done in conditions that are on a mass scale, crowded and inhumane).

        Just like you, food has life force! And when you eat foods with a healthy happy life force, it is in turn projected through your body with added energy, alertness and balance. So this is why I decided to start a food blog - to help people learn how to prepare and ENJOY the delicious food options that are accessible to everyone and oh so easy to make!

        My lovely blog partner Melanie and I (Sarah) will be sharing with you delectable recipes, mouth watering photos as well as nutritional knowledge so that eating well and feeling well is that much easier! Since I have many roommates that love being taste testers, they have conveniently asked us to be our official recipe raters and will comment on each dish that comes out of the Karma Kitchen.

Now to the good stuff!.... But what to cook first!??