Healthy food affordability: a top ten list

So I have been reading all about how healthy food is expensive and I feel that this couldn’t be further from the truth. In one of my classes a professor presented that for $1 per person a meal for four people had to be incredibly nutrient deficient…having run a restauarnt for three months on zero capital, I learned to make healthful food for very little money. I’m going to share just a few of my thoughts in the form of a top ten list.

1. Lentils (green, brown, red, black – each has a different taste and different protein content!) – I like brown the best. They are high fiber and high protein. Good easy to digest low glycemic carbohydrates. Plenty of magnesium to relieve stress.

2. Millet: a great whole grain. Less than $1 a pound, even in whole foods.

3. Kale: I’ve seen it in every supermarket in America. Sometimes it sits all by itself. Sure, organic is better, but the conventional stuff at Pathmark on 125th Street was less than $1  a bunch. I bought 10 the last time I was there.

4. Chicken legs: They aren’t always organic, but I’ve seen organic ones at Fairway for $3 for 6 chicken legs, that 50 cents a leg. I’ve also seen turkey legs for cheap as well, even organic. The legs actually have more iron and the same protein as the breast. If the chicken has been fed well, the fat isn’t so horrible as long as you make veggies the centerpiece of your meal.

5. Peaches in season. Today I saw peaches for $1.29 a pound from New Jersey. They were ripe, delicious, local and cheap! Organic ones were a little bit more, but they are in season now, so take advantage! I’ve seen them for 99 cents a lb too. Buy as you need in smaller quantities – you’ll spend less.

6. Chicken feet: I know it sounds weird, but I was at the farmers market the other day and they actually gave me the feet, get this, FOR FREE! No one wanted them! So I made a to die for soup with the feet and although there wasn’t any meat to speak of – the bones made a delicious healthy soup. I added carrots (10 for $1), celery (not much more) and an onion (28 cents), along with some dill ($1.99 – the most expensive part of the soup – for $4 I could get it all in one package with the dill).

7. Zucchini and summer squash – in season now, very cheap at farmers markets or grocery stores. Pays to buy things in season. I got 3 for $1 over the weekend

8.  Strawberries – 2 for $5, you don’t have to buy 2, I bought one pint…it last me the whole week. I had three strawberries a day in oatmeal, smoothies, on their own. I cut them in half. It pays to portion control!

9. Grass fed beef – ground. It was only about $8 a lb compared to $24.99 for steaks. I know it was good quality because I talked with the farmers on how they raise the animals.

10. Small or large size free range eggs – I got 6 free range eggs for $1.75. They were small sized. They have less cholesterol and overall fat because they are smaller. 2 eggs still made a great fluffy omelet in an 8 inch pan. Wonderful protein and fats. I had with some tat soi from the farmers market. Overall balanced meal.

See, its not that hard to do. I’ll give you some pointers on some budget menus of how to use these and other in season, wallet friendly foods in the next post. Happy healthy affordable eating to you!

polycystic ovarian syndrome and the importance of a low glycemic diet

Ever since I was 16 (or probably younger), I have suffered from polycystic ovarian syndrome. Four years ago I began a dramatic personal shift toward a lifetime of wellness and weight loss and I personally waged the battle against my polycystic ovarian syndrome, beating it into submission.

Polycystic ovarian syndrome isn’t a disease….its supposedly a variation on normal…but essentially you don’t really ovulate, which to me doesn’t quite seem normal. The theory is, a woman has a whole bunch of precursors to eggs that are called “follicles” at the time just before ovulation – one of them is supposed to burst out of the ovary and get released  into the fallopian tube  (ovulation) – but hormonally in the case of PCOS there’s an imbalance and actual ovulation never happens – so your ovaries have a bunch of little immature follicles that form little cysts in the ovary.  The hormonal imbalance leads to other unsightly issues like excessive facial hair, excess body weight (and it is difficult to lose weight), in some insulin resistance and acne. You can see the little ovarian “cysts”  on an ultrasound. Its not harmful, so therefore it is usually treated with birth control – it just causes some discomfort – and you don’t ovulate – so when you want to have a baby they give you some drugs and you usually have twins or triplets…good thing for me – I’ll get it all over with at once. It sounds a bit flippant I know…because its something that bugs me for the most part the medical profession doesn’t want to address the dietary component of PCOS. I have personally and as a registered dietitian I am not allowed to speak from personal experience, but as a health coach and ordinary citizen, I can.  And I will share it here on this blog, which is more personal than professional in nature even though most of you reading will associate this with me professional and that’s ok! With proper diet PCOS  and some supplements like fish oil and maca (although diet alone will do it too) can be at bay, controlled and even in remission…but one has to be strict, relentless even…and its difficult.

Since 2005, I kept things really well controlled with diet. I followed Nancy Dunne, ND’s suggestions in her book: The Natural Diet Solution for PCOS. The amount of carbohydrates she suggests one limit herself to is a bit unnerving and I tried it for a while. Its difficult to stick to and I cheat every so often and then go back.  However, over the past year between the stress of the economy, changes in my practice, changes in lifestyle relating to new relationships I was engaged in,  the taking of a new full time position and starting graduate school yet again, many of my symptoms have reappeared: periods every two weeks, unbearable cramps,  unbearable sugar and carbohydrate cravings, the feeling that I can never be full…its kind of crazy what a few hormones can do, but they are very powerful.

I have been learning recently through my graduate work how obesity contributes to changes in hormone levels and just how important it is for me to keep my weight down , not just for cosmetic and overall health reasons, but in order to keep my hormone levels in check.  My PCOS will always be there, but 15 extra pounds and its really spiraling out of control, seriously from only 15 extra pounds…Those have got to come off! Because I seriously don’t want to go back on birth control, which feels like my only option to regulate the symptoms and of course the advice of my doctor.

Since I was 16, I was on birth control pills. They regulated my cycle like clockwork, near the third week of the month on a Wednesday, I’d stain for 2-3 days…for a number of years. I knew exactly when I’d get my period. I never really had a need for tampons, since I’d just stain for a few days. It all kind of worked itself out. I was never huge into exercise, I was always a bit chubby. In 2005 I made a huge change. I started rowing. I started dropping weight in droves. I didn’t even try. I had to change my diet in order to accommodate three practices a week, sometimes four and the bike rides to the boathouse through the Boston streets. I tried rowing in New York, it wasn’t the same. I did triathlons here to make up for the lack of rowing.

I found that low glycemic whole grains, dark green leafy vegetables and fruit smoothies with seeds were a diet that made the most sense for me. Every so often I’d have some grass fed beef along with more dark green leafy vegetables. I rarely touched anything resembling sugar or white flour, but I ate gluten free whole grains: quinoa, buckwheat, spelt. I actually felt these grains break down slowly in my body. I never experienced shifts in my energy level and I was not hungry. I didn’t want cookies or energy bars or the other things I want daily at 3pm.  I felt golden and I went off birth control. For nearly three years I had perfect periods. 5-7 days, as regular as clockwork, minimal cramping. Everything seemed to go according to plan. Then 2008 hit. I lost clients. I lost referral streams. I lost corporate gigs and all my efforts seemed to be going nowhere. I was forced to move out of my apartment and take a good long hard look at my future. I enrolled in three graduate courses toward getting a research based degree in nutrition so I could teach at a university, take insurance and always have a “job” to fall back on in nutrition as opposed to the risks associated with running a business, although I’d always pursue that on the side. I started cooking privately and focusing on that more than coaching since it paid more.  I fell in love with that aspect of things and built a robust business model for that business. I’m still learning – but I think its coming together well.

However, I gained weight and my periods are all out of whack. I blame three things I brought back into my diet: 1) dairy 2) sugar and some non-whole grains and 3) caffeine…all three addictive substances…all three cause more stress instead of less and all three things I consume now on a regular basis. Dairy is easy to give up…for the most part, except in the form of butter it makes me sick to consume it anyway…except from goats, and its very expensive, so easy to reduce consumption. Caffeine, is a bit harder – but if I bike to work in the AMs and I have herbal tea, I can easily go without. Sugar is the hardest!  I’m working on giving up sugar – but its everywhere. Requires so much label reading…also I need time to make my own meals again…bring things to work…really consume things only made in my own kitchen and resist that chai in the AM or that cookie or granola bar in the PM…having fruit on hand…even dried fruit, nuts, apples, dark green leafy vegetables and grains as a snack…just breaking up my meals into fives or sixes as opposed to threes. Back to smoothies for breakfast, back to waking up an hour earlier and doing yoga or going for a run. Also I am eating more meat than I have eaten in a while…I’m experimenting more with plant based protein, that kind of diet seems to work for me given some red meat – but very little chicken or turkey…two things that are deadly for me energetically.

I’m supposed to do the marathon in less than two months. I’ve not been running and I am in the worst shape of my new life, despite some pretty amazing thigh and calve muscles from all the biking and running I have been doing lately – even though I’m not in my prime. I’m wondering if I should just shoot to speedwalk the whole thing just for the experience and plan to finish in 6 hours…perhaps I’ll just run every three miles and wakl a mile or something like that…and train for 2011 (I am too late for 2010 unless I do the lottery!)…there’s just so much you can do in life. I really wonder how people make room for it all…I really applaud mothers for how they do.  I don’t want to drop out despite my mother’s prodding and everyone else I know telling me I’m doing too much. I think I’m personally happiest when doing a million things…it actually gets me focused. My brain sort of works at ludicrous speed…for any of you spaceballs fans out there…I hope all of you find something that makes you feel alive as much as running does for me and allows you to focus in on all the other things and get them done…and sleep too!

breastfeeding, infant formula and soy formula

I’ll be continuing my research on endocrine disrupters on posting on that soon.  As well, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the omega 3-omega 6 balance and how animals who have been fed soybeans and corn as their food source tend to harbor as much as 1/40 ratios of omega 6 to omega 3. I wonder if exposing our infants to commercially produced dairy in infant formula is such a great thing, even organic infant formulas. Soy formulas are no better and associated with many developmental disturbances from early onset of puberty in girls to disturbances in puberty for boys. Having just become an aunt and studying nutrition, I’ve become increasingly more interested in the formula versus breastfeeding debate. Having learned all about the environmental contaminants that are being passed on to our children through breast milk and looking into the components of baby formulas, especially soy formula and reading about all the health risks and side effects especially that soy based formulas have, I wonder what is a mother to do.

The reality is, despite mothers best intentions, some mothers cannot breast feed and some babies simply cannot tolerate breast milk. I’ve been working with pregnant and new moms for a while now in my nutrition and private cheffing practice. What the moms eat directly affects the babies’ gas level and ability to tolerate the milk. Some do just fine and babies thrive nicely, some don’t, babies throw up, they are miserable with gas, they have all kinds of issues and some babies just won’t take to the breast, some moms don’t produce enough milk.

Organic baby formula is expensive. Soy based formulas have corn syrup solids as the first ingredient.  According to some sources, ready to eat baby formulas may be stored in metal or plastic containers containing toxic substances such as bisphenol-A (BPA) can leach from the lining of metal cans and lids.

So if you can’t breastfeed or you need to supplement what choices do you have if you don’t want to use a commerically prepared over-processed cow dairy based formula or worse a corn-syrup based soy formula? I am still researching the issues here and what the state of these formulas are, but I hesitate to think anything in powdered form is “healthy”. The drying process may activate the cholesterol in milk to the sticky form. The proteins although “more digestible” become less bioavailable to the body.  Synthetic vitamins that are cooked up in a lab and added in proper proportion are also not quite recognized and bioavailable to the body either. But, Meredith, how can you possibly make such assertions. 60 years or more of research approved by the FDA has proven that commercially prepared infant formulas are safer and as nutritionally equivalent if not superior to breastmilk? Well, if you believe and take everything the FDA says as gospel we wouldn’t have had to wait 10 years for COX 2 inhibitors to be pulled off the market and many of the other issues that came out of longer term market studies such as liver toxicity of certain drugs etc etc.

Its impossible to know what is in our food and what our food is doing to us, but I’m a skeptic, not an expert and nothing I say here is fact, its opinion. But in my opinion, I like to look into and expose facts and alternatives, give you some food for thought. And I hope I do.

I came across a few articles that mentioned human breast milk banks such as HMBANA. From an examination of their map, they appear to serve just about every major city in the United States. I’m thinking this must cost a small fortune, but then I think about all the other things we spend money on and consider what is more important, whether a child is properly nourished and develops properly or has a playstation? I know that comment is hard to digest, and I have difficult issues when it comes to money as well. Just where do I cut corners and where do I spend just a little more.  For myself, its usually on food. Its so hard to make these choices: the organic fruit, organic meat, grass fed beef, wild fish or the bananas on the street, the macaroni and cheese that is $1.29 for the box and will feed me for 4 meals or a family of four, chicken legs on sale etc. etc.  These are extremely difficult choices, but ones to consider.  However, from carefully reviewing the HMBANA site, it appears regular people need a prescription for donor milk and donor milk is pasteurized frozen and refrozen as well as undergoes quite a bit of processing. It does not appear that just a regular person can get donor milk and sometimes it needs to go through a hospital. It appears for the most part that donated milk tends to go to critically ill babies in NICUs rather than to places where just regular people can purchase it. I’m planning on calling a milk bank on Monday to find out if this is the case and stay tuned to the next blog post for the outcome of that interview.

Endocrine disrupters and the feminization of the human species?

According to an article published in the Independent (London) on December 7, 2008, entitled “It’s Official: Men really are the weaker sex“, the author, Geoffrey Lean writes: The male gender is in danger…and a host of common chemicals are to blame.

Men, if its one reason to eat organic food, it should be preserving your penis and your masculinity! Read on…

The chemicals are known as “endocrine disrupters” or quite literally “gender benders” because these chemicals will interfere with hormones. The chemicals include: “phthalates” which are used in food wrapping (think shrink wrap on your meat! and other packaged food – especially vaccuum sealed food like cold cuts!), flame retardants in furniture and electrical goods and many pesticides.  Now more than ever, eat organic! And, organic local food from the United States (anything that is “organic” but that is grown in a foreign country and imported gets sprayed as soon as it enters the United States! and its probably sprayed with something pretty strong given the xenophobia of our government and foreign dirt and farming! – ever tell a custom agent you’ve been on a farm in a foreign country and you’ll be quarantined for weeks)

A report released by CHEMTrust, a British organization that studies chemicals independently, demonstrated that male fish exposed to these chemicals actually developed eggs in their testicles.  The female hormones that end up in the sewage that contaminate these waters from overuse of oral contraceptive pills has also affected the fish in this way. In addition other chemicals are to blame for feminizing properties. There are actual centers of excellence at various universities now dedicated to this gender bender study of endocrine disrupters. It is very scary stuff because the future of our species depends upon this.

As a nutritionist I am especially interested in this and many of my clients, both male and female have complained to me of the inability to get pregnant (females) and trouble with pregnancy with their wives (for my male clients). They all want to know, what can I eat to help and now its more, what shouldn’t you eat! What shouldn’t you expose yourself to, but it may be beyond your control. That is the scary part, that this is no longer a problem of what one person can do, but an entire ecosystem, an entire planet is showing signs that our collective industrialization and the chemicals overflowing in our environment in our drinking water (despite purification folks! even if you are getting your water from Fiji! and I don’t even want to begin to tell you what kind of CO2 damage you are doing by getting water from Fiji not to mention what you are doing to the local economy and water supply in Fiji, but I digress!)

So what’s happening, what is the outcome in humans, because seriously, do we really care about Fish in British waters (we should!!! 1) we eat that fish – and you are what you eat, hate to tell you 2) fish are smaller and show signs of what is happening first before it happens to us, but shows the damage that is coming!)? Well, what is happening is a feminization of the human species. More women are being born than men. Global ratios of women to men are shifting. I know being single and living in a big city, I wonder, where are all the single men, I think sometimes I’m just crazy, but really, there are more women and certainly more women being born. The article in the independent cites how communities where the waters are heavily polluted with phtalates and other gender bender chemicals many more girls are born and in the US and Japan, more than 250,000 babies that should have been born male, have been born female. But somehow the evidence seems weak as a scientist, I wonder, where’s the proof?

The article cites sperm counts are dropping precipitously. Hamsters apparently produce nearly three times the amount of sperm than humans do these days…where they used to produce 150 million per milimeter of sperm fluid, now they produce 60 million over 50 years. The hamsters are still producing 160 million.

While there are always outliers as my good friend Malcolm Gladwell loves to write about, what is more the norm is that people are having trouble reproducing. We are also having less interest in sex, it could be what we are eating through the chemicals in our food, but also what we are drinking, breathing, putting on our skin and putting on our heads at night when we sleep. It is wise to take a look at the composition of your pillow and perhaps eat an organic apple or two if you want to retain your masculinity. Think of your penis!

Sustainability, sustainable development and our economy

I’m reading about sustainability on many fronts.  A suburban housewife, a MIT professor, an international commission, a Columbia professor who pioneered the field in the 1970s and me, a chef, student, visionary, entrepreneur and chick from Long Island who has always loved lentils and recycling.

I went to health food stores in the mid 80s when they were scary places to go and brought a family (and later an infestation) of food moths into my mother’s kitchen. My mother always grew her own vegetables and every year, I always cooked them. We always had an orange can into which we put metal cans. We recycled newspaper. Today I even put my plastic spoon into the recycling bin. I wish that the school had metal spoons for me to use so I didn’t have to use a plastic one. Tomorrow I will bring my own metal spoon.

The voices I’ve read all speak from either fear, truth, liberal fear incitement methods and for some denial or what I have learned from Josh Dorfman, the lazy environmentalist approach. We can all do something, even as lazy or as little as we can. Collectively, we can move mountains, slow climate change and conserve valuable resources, if we all do one or two things.

Eat less meat one day a week, plant one crop in your garden on your rooftop or in your window box, ride your bike one day a week to work or school (I’ve been doing it every day, but not everyone can be me and I only live 12 blocks and 4 avenue blocks away), take two minutes less in the shower, put the air conditioner on energy saver, there are so many things we can do.

I know a great deal about sustainability, but as I read, there’s so much more I learn. The economic impact of sustainability is the most challenging for me to wrap my head around. We lack in society, we build. Development in the great sense of the word goes against the very core of sustainability and sustainable development is in essence a bit of an oxymoron. In our quest to be a rich country, we’ve actually created more “bads” than “goods” according to a study published in Scientific American in September 2005 entitled Economics in a Full World.  However, the authors of the article claim despite the massive problems with uneconomic growth in our country, it is difficult to justify sustainability in terms of GDP or terms we are familiar with economically. However the authors make a bold claim that strong sustainability recognizes that fishing boats are useless if there are not enough fish to catch.

But how do you get people to change? The housewife wrote how it scares her to think about the amount of toxins in her own breast milk but wasn’t going to stop driving her SUV or save the whales. I think there are things that people can do that aren’t scary or drastic that if entire communities did would lead to monumental change and conservation. Its the little things that help.

I’ll ride my bike again to school tomorrow. I will use my own metal spoon. I try to cook my own food at least a few days a week and I’ll try to shop at the farmers market at Columbia tomorrow. We have a community garden as well which I need to go and check out. Perhaps you aren’t all ready to do these things and that’s ok. But, ride a bike or share a car one day. If you drive, take the bus or train once a week. Take 5 minutes less time in the shower and try to keep the air conditioning at 77 degrees and on energy saver. As I learn more, I’ll be posting more on this topic.

Marathon training, biking up hill and cooking for love

I have just passed the less than 2 months to the marathon mark – seven weeks to go. I ran 6 miles somewhat easily yesterday, I’ve got to get myself back up to ten over the weekend and start adding on to get up to half marathon distance by end of September with an 18 mile and 20 mile run by mid October and taper off last week of October until that first weekend in November. I’m also a full time student, working full time and cooking once a week for private clients. It’s a tough life.

I was very inspired by a fellow student I met in class today. She is also a marathon runner. She started running (Boston was her first marathon, brave girl!) for the same reason I did – for charity. I raised money to fight terror in Israel, she raised money for Cancer. Her father had cancer. He died 5 minutes after she started running Boston. She’s running again this year to honor him. I was blown away by the story. Granted triathlons and running also changed my life, helped me lose weight, discover self confidence, determination and drive I never knew I had, plus it helped me realize my passion for cooking and teaching. Had I not done a triathlon, I never would have started giving cooking classes which led to the downward spiral that led me to leave the job I hated, ultimately end a ridiculously unhappy relationship, and start the business of my dreams as well as going after the education that will ultimately conclude the dream chapter enabling me to teach, write a book and hopefully lecture at conferences and land a research job with funding.

I’ve also started biking to work recently. Granted I live about 5 minutes away from work by bike and I want to get long runs in the morning. So it’s possible to train, cross train and eat well. I’ve been working on it by eating home nearly every night a mostly vegetarian, high fiber diet low in refined sugars.

Some of the things I’ve had lately:

Black quinoa with lentils, broccoli and carrots with sesame oil and ginger

Peas in coconut milk with kale, broccoli and eggs

Greek yogurt with fresh fruit

I’m thinking meat tomorrow night. I’m seriously disappointed I can’t get grass fed beef anywhere in a 5 mile radius of the upper west side…although I’m slightly excited at the prospect of going to whole foods on 97th street in between work and my 5pm class, but I don’t know if that will happen.

I started biking to work on Morningside Drive which is straight up. I didn’t really think twice since I’ve only taken it down and just didn’t think twice about it, but let me tell you, a 10 minute bike ride straight up a hill is better than coffee. I didn’t need any today, I was so energized from that ride, I made it straight through an incredibly busy day and a 2 hour class afterward without thinking twice about my 3pm snack. I had some pea soup as a pick me up after lunch because my office was freezing. I think soup is an amazing snack as its starting to get cold. I used to love hale and hearty soups when I worked in midtown. They have several great vegetarian, non-dairy, low fat soups and a few good protein containing ones that area also low fat, just avoid the creamy ones, the corn ones and anything else that seems too good to be true, it usually is….but bean soups, vegetable soups and pea soups are all great as are mushroom ones.

I’m looking forward to an at least 8 mile run tomorrow AM, although I might only make it 4 given that I have not been able to wake up early enough. I’m looking forward to yoga at lunch or on Thursday AM. I’ll be taking Amsterdam on the bike, which is slightly flatter. I’ll leave you with my recipe for Quinoa surprise.

Black quinoa with lentils, broccoli and carrots

1 cup of brown lentils
2 cups of water
¾ cup quinoa
1 ½ cup water
1 stalk of broccoli
Handful of baby carrots
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon sesame seeds (I use black ones)
Sprinkle or two of cumin
Garlic or chopped up ginger
A little butter or ghee (about 1 tsp)
A handful of cilantro, chopped
In two pots heat measured amounts of water and bring to a boil separately. When water boils add lentils to the pot with 2 cups and quinoa to the pot with 1 ½ cups. Boil quinoa about 12-15 minutes or until all water absorbed. Remove from heat, toss with butter and leave aside. In other pot, boil lentils about 20 minutes. In last 5 minutes of cooking add chopped broccoli and carrot. Let cook with cover on until vegetables have steamed and are fork tender. Drain any remaining water. Stir in spices and a bit of chopped cilantro.

I hope you all enjoy this recipe and get inspired to do something active – whatever it is: go to a dance class, get on that bike and do a lap of central park or whatever park is near you, take a tai chi class or just play in the dirt with your kids. Just get out there. Realize how the sunshine (what’s left of it anyway!) and end of summer/beginning of autumn air will invigorate you and bring you closer to whatever goal you have. Its good to have goals…however big or small they are.

Weekly cooking thoughts and recipes – notes from a private chef

I am a private chef. This means I cook meals for people with their input in their homes using groceries they have purchased. I tend to think of it as an iron chef competition but that everything is the secret ingredient. I suppose its more like an episode of chopped but without the puff pastry and gummy bears. I have unlimited amounts of time, instead of a half hour, although I do make one soup, two main dishes, three side dishes and one or two desserts in about 3.5 hours, so in a way, I do have some time constraints, plus that last hour is usually spent cleaning. I have never cleaned so well in my life as I do in my clients’ kitchens except when I operated my restaurant in the Atmananda yoga center on Lafayette street earlier this year. I was one with the mop.

This week, I made a cream of brocolli soup with red potaoes, a casserole of halibut and bay scallops, meatloaf with 90% grass fed beef from a small farm (Simply Grazin) in Skillman, NJ and an orange pepper from the farmers market along with vine ripened tomatoes from the market as well as local cippolini oniones, beet greens and spinach sauteed in a bit of olive oil, peas and mushrooms with those great cippolini onions and for dessert, my first ever successful tapioca coconut pudding with a pear crisp (two desserts). I need to start taking some photographs of my dishes.

My inspiration comes from several sources: the food network, eating out, dreaming, and simply going to the store, the market, the recesses of my mind and seeing what looks/feels good. I feel somewhat like Mozart writing a symphony and hearing the parts of each and every instrument and how they all fit together. I feel I do this in my head with flavors: lemon, mint, butter, sundried tomatoes…soy, ginger, onion and shallot, balsalmic vinegar, oil, shallot etc. I have ideas that sometimes work and sometimes don’t, but I experiment. I don’t ever cook with recipes because I can’t follow them. I’m too creative and passionate that I miss things and recreate while I am creating. I’ve tried to follow recipes and I miss steps, add things in different proportions. I’ve always found baking a challenge for that reason.

I need to start writing down my recipes, but I never know the correct proportions. I hardly ever use measuring cups or spoons. I use my hands a lot – pinching, sprinkling, dashing, mixing…I always infuse love into my food.

I’ll give you the recipe for the coconut milk vanilla pudding because it was easy and came out right:

Naturally sweetened coconut tapioca pudding

Ingredients:

3 cups coconut milk (I used lite)

1/4 cup tapioca

2 tablespoons turbinado sugar

2 tablespoons agave nectar

2 tablespoons vanilla extract (pure – from madagasgar or tahiti best) – a vanilla bean with bean specs removed would be better

Directions:

Heat tapioca in coconut milk until simmering. Turn heat to low and continue simmering 12-15 minutes, stirring often. When tapioca is really transparent, turn off heat, stir in sugar, agave and vanilla. Pour into dessert dishes and refrigerate at least 4 hours. To avoid skin, put a piece of saran wrap directly on surface.

Variation:

melt 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips in a double boiler and add liquid chocolate at the same time as vanilla or instead of vanilla for a chocolate pudding.

Garnish with fresh mint!

Sprouts, zucchini and purple peppers

This week at the farmers market I saw one of my favorite and delicious friends, a purple pepper. The bell peppers are smaller than your supermarket red or green pepper – about half the size and a deep purple (not eggplant, but a true purple). The taste is sweet, crunchy and delicious. A great salad has purple, yellow, light green peppers with lentil and pea sprouts. Delicious. Add some sesame oil and a bit of tahini with lemon and fresh chopped cilantro and you’ve got a crunchy, amazing salad.

Recipe:

Salad: 1 medium sized purple pepper chopped into 1/8 inch squares

1 small green, yellow or orange pepper, chopped into 1/8 inch squares

2 cups lentil, pea or other assorted sprouts (can get in any supermarket)

1 tablespoon shallots, chopped

½ red onion, chopped fine

Dressing:

3 tablespoons tahini

Juice of 1 lemon 2 tablespoons sesame oil Black sesame seeds (1 tablespoon)

1 tsp honey

Directions: Mix sprouts, peppers and greens in a bowl. Make dressing in a small bowl. Place ingredients in order, except sesame oil. Whisk this in last with a little honey. Add a touch of orange juice or slightly more lemon if too thick/sticky. Dress salad and top with sesame seeds.