kitchari :: clean, veggie, delicious

I'm new to this whole posting my recipes thing so you'll have to forgive my lack of photos for the time being.  I *promise* I will start posting photos once I decide I want to pick up a camera again.

In celebration of the holidays I've been working on simplifying my diet, getting back to the basics, and focusing on what feels good to eat.  Not so much 'feels good' like I love the taste of it (damn you Dorritos) but feels good as in my belly is happy and not bloated and doesn't leave me with 4 hours of violent stomach cramps (may I say it again!?  Damn you DORRITOS!)  Enter Kitchari, the most simply delicious thing I have consumed in a few days (save for

Last night I dumped a cup of mung beans and a cup of Basmatti brown rice into a bowl.  And I left it to soak in water overnight while I happily dreamed about upcoming dinner parties, impending births of my clients, and the exam I had to give to my students in the morning.  

Around noon, after all the finals were complete and turn in (not graded mind you), I discarded the rinse water and through it in a pot with 4.5 cups of water and brought it to a boil.

Peeled some fresh ginger root, sprinkled in some curry powder, tumeric, and mixed up salt (Jane's Crazy will do just fine).  After about 30 minutes the rice was soft, the beans too, and the water was all gone.

Then I consumed a ton of it.  And it was lovely.  :)

a shout out :: dr. aviva romm

Just a few weeks ago I stumbled across one of the single greatest resources ever...Dr. Aviva Romm.

Dr. Romm was a home-birth midwife for 25 years, a relatively famous herbalist (she is good buddies with Susun Weed) and now she is a Yale trained and educated MD.  Yup you heard me right, a home-birth midwife went to the MD side, and man is she a wealth of information.

I'd suggest you hop on over, join her mailing list and quickly, and start learning about her secrets to health and wellness.  She is a huge proponent of a truly holistic approach to health–herbal and western–and believes in a mostly veggie diet.

Also if you are in need of a quick snack, she has a recipe for a truly delicious smoothie–her pink prana post-workout glow.   Try it with the cardamom, it is stupid good.  (Photo is from her blog)

recipe :: paleo-ish granola

I was blessed enough to spend the month of August blogging over at Rhythm of Home, I have cross-posted a few of my pieces over this way but I figured I'd let you know my first recipe is up and ready for viewing.  You should try it!  :)

on the joys of entertaining

Last week I had the joy of having six of my dearest friends over for breakfast as we bid adieu to our friend who was headed to Kyrgyzstan for a four month deployment.

Check out what I had to say about the joys of cooking for a crowd. 

adventures in composting

Generally speaking, discussing trash is less than fascinating.  But the reality is, as of late, I am in love with it!  I love talking to my neighbors, family, and friends about it.  Why?  Well Evie and I finally started our own compost bin.  We started small, took a piece of wire fabric and wrapped it into a circle, zip tied it, and then simply stuck it into the ground.  To give the compost a boost we threw in some already decaying debris from our yard, added a week's worth of food waste we had kept in the freezer, covered it back up with leaves and voila! 

The upside:  We try to buy in bulk to save money, which means that we sometimes have some waste.  We used to dread throwing that waste away.  Now not only do we get to compost the waste to put in our garden (thus making us feel 100 times better about it!), but now we are aware of our food waste and tend to waste less.  We see this as a double win. 

The downside:  It is open air.  But to avoid buggies, we cover most of our food waste with dead leaves from our garden.  (Thankfully we have a tree that loves to shed!)

Total cost?  $8.50

Far better than spending over $100 for a plastic composter that is an eye-sore and an expense we simply cannot manage!

Oh hey, did you know you can compost A LOT of things?  Here's a handy dandy list of 75 things you can compost...