Moving On

"She made wings of love letters and cherry blossoms"
Amanda Blake

January is has come and now it has gone, not a good month for me, a difficult month really in many ways. But we shall not go there, moving on to brighter days, literally.
I have two new recipes that I want to share that I can't get enough of it seems.
The first is a dish called Nishimi, which in Japanese means long cooked with little water. It's super easy and super good for you and super tasty as well, win/win/win. I adapted the recipe in the book The Kind Diet by Alisha Silverstone..

Ingredients:

• 1 large diakon root
• 1 small Kombocha squash diced into roughly 1 inch pieces, you don't have to peel a kombocha.
• 1 large carrot
• a few leaves of kale cut up into smaller pieces, I use the darker and flatter dino kale in this dish.
  
• 1 piece of Kombu 1 inch in size (seaweed)

In a medium size pot, I use my enamel coated cast iron pot, layer your veggies starting with the diakon, then carrot then kombocha pieces. Throw in the kombu. Add about an inch of water. Less water the more sweet it will be.
Bring to a boil and then simmer covered for about 45 minutes or until everything is soft, add the kale close to the end, maybe 15 minutes before it's done. I also take the lid off for a few minutes at the end too. Stir together and any remaining water will turn into a nice gravy like mixture with the veggies. I add a little sea salt at this point. So good and deeply nourishing.

Lima Beans and Avocado Dip:

• 1 cup steamed lima beans
• 1 soft avocado
• a little garlic powder or fresh garlic
• dash of sea salt
• dash of lemon

Puree everything in a food processor for a moment and enjoy, this is simple but really yummy dip.

I love discovering new recipes, veggies and foods to enjoy that are healthful and satisfying. I've reduced and cut out most sources of sugar in my life in the last 4 weeks, well actually the cutting out part has been going on for a long time, I just stepped things up a bit here lately. It's an experiment really. I haven't had any chocolate in weeks. The only sugar I'm getting is fructose from some banana and berries in my morning smoothie and whatever is in my veggies. Can you say Sweet Potatoes! No refined or processed sugars including honey, maple syrup or agave. I want to see how this makes me feel, my energy, my stomach and digestion. I know that if I eat certain fruits my stomach hurts, a lot. So it's good, not particularly hard but not easy at times either when I hunk of dark chocolate seems like it would make everything better at least for a moment or two. I haven't really noticed any dramatic changes physically or mentally at this time though, but any changes may have been masked recently by some healing going on in my body. It is true though that replacing sugars with healthy fats curbs the cravings. Coconut seems to work for me. I do think that when riding season is truly here that I will need some form of simple sugars, fructose for energy while riding. Rice syrup may be my go to sweetener in the future for my home made power bars, it's a slow burner. And in the riding side of things my bike got some serious love lately too. Some new parts to make her run including a new 32 Fox Float, she's so pretty and plush.