lotus-life

Apple Tea is an excellent health tonic made with raw honey (preferably local) and unfiltered apple cider vinegar. It is good for helping to fight off viruses, as well as for allergies. I am not sure why it works, but possibly something to do with changing your pH balance (the vinegar) and the local pollens and other natural soothing and health-promoting properties of honey. You can look it up. Ingredients 1 T Bragg’s organic unfiltered cider vinegar 1 T raw honey 1/2 cup cold water 1/2 cup ...

Quinoa is a cheap, nutritious, easy-to-cook pantry staple. It was an important crop of the ancient Incas, and has been a staple in South America for thousands of years. These days, it is widely available in North America. Hooray! High in protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals, quinoa is technically a seed (not a grain). However, it easily takes over for grains in my kitchen. It comes in red and the more common, plain ‘white’—my family prefers the white. I often make it to go with dinner (unde...

Are there lentils in your pantry? Have you cooked them yet? They are so easy, so versatile, so tasty and so good for you. What are you waiting for? My favorite lentil for everyday cooking is the French Green Lentil, which has a lovely blue-green mottled look when dry. It is a little more expensive than the standard brown or green lentils, but still very economical. When cooked, these lentils appear more like a faded black-bean (brown-grey?) and can indeed be substituted in most places you wo...

Most people are well aware that bits of teflon coating in their food is not desirable. I was also concerned about the scratches in some of my hard anodized aluminum pans, allowing aluminum beneath the hardened surface to leach into my food. I have now pared down my kitchen cookware/equipment, so that my collection now consists primarily of: Cast iron (two skillet sizes, a square griddle and a large covered pot) Enameled cast iron (several sizes) Enameled steel (baking dishes) Stainless stee...

You can make your own broth. It is not hard. In fact, you really should consider making this one change to your cooking habits, if nothing else: make and use your own bone broth. “Bone broth is one of the best foods you can feed your body and...it is hands down the easiest nourishing food to make in your kitchen." - Katie at Kitchen Stewardship After enjoying a nice dinner of braised bone-in chicken, or maybe just a rotisserie chicken, save all of those bones and bits. Gather every speck...

Overhauling the pantry meant tossing a lot of things out, and making major updates to my grocery list. One of the first things I did was toss out oils that quickly turn rancid, and therefore include bleaching and deodorizing in their processing (yuck!), and which are also high in unsaturated fats, which turn out NOT to be so good for us. Preferred Oils Butter, cultured and pastured Coconut Oil, expeller-pressed Sesame Seed Oil, expeller-pressed Olive Oil, extra virgin Pork Leaf Lard, past...

Along with cleaning out my pantry, breakfast is one of the first big challenges I tackled. What would we do without our old favorite standby, cold breakfast cereal with coconut-almond milk? I started with overnight-soaked oatmeal (“porridge"), and also started serving more (pastured!) eggs. Granola was still an option, but I ditched the nut milk, since it has all kinds of extra stuff in it. Going back to cow’s milk, I found that there are at least a couple of brands at Whole Foods that are...

Plastics and chemicals have always made me uneasy, so for a long time I have worked to cut them out of my life and house. Cleaning products, personal care, produce - I read labels and articles and gradually found an approach that worked for me: non-toxic, fragrance-free, mostly organic, and ‘do I really need this?’. I cook for my family most nights, and have been a member of two CSA’s for a few years now - one for meat (year round) and one for produce (32 weeks), so we were eating a lot of ...

What it comes down to is that I want to live a long, healthy life, and I would like to take my family (and friends) with me. And I believe that you are what you eat (or otherwise ingest). I decided to start this blog in order to share my discoveries, and any wisdom I have gained and can convey, from my food journey. I expect it may grow beyond that, but for now, I will start with my search for sustainable, excellent health through food and cooking.