This is sliced ginger. Next time you go to the store, buy a piece of fresh ginger. Using a vegetable peeler, scrape the skin off of the ginger. Cut into slices and place in a freezer container. Now you have ginger when you need it. For a delicious cup of tea that will alkalize your body, place 3 pieces of ginger in the bottom of your cup, add boiling water and let steep for 2 minutes. Enjoy

Tip: You can add a piece of ginger to your cooking and it will enhance the flavor of your dish.

Wild Rice

This is a delicious side dish. Serves 4.

1 cup wild rice

2 ¼ cups stock. ( I use onion soup, for the recipe see my next post)

4 mushrooms sliced

1 tablespoon olive oil

salt and pepper

Heat a saute pan with the olive oil. Add the mushrooms and cook just until browned, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. 

In a medium sized pot, bring stock to a boil, add rice. Lower fire and simmer about 50 min. to  1 hour.

When the rice is done, stir in the mushrooms, season, and serve.

Sauteed Kale

Serves 4 as a side dish. You can also use this as a topping for pasta. 

1 Bunch Kale, chopped (off the stem)

1 Tbsp shallot, sliced

1 Tbsp garlic, chopped

1 Tbsp olive oil

½ cup vegetable stock

Juice of ½ lemon

Zest of 1 lemon

In a large saute pan, heat the olive oil. Add the shallot and garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Add the kale and vegetable stock. Cook about 5 minutes or until the kale has softened. Turn off the heat. Add the lemon juice and the zest.

Kale Chips!

A Tip for Making Vegetable Stock

Making your own vegetable stock can save you money and enhance the dish you are  making with flavor.

 Keep a  plastic container in your freezer, or a zip lock bag. When you are cooking, chopping onions, leeks, celery, mushrooms, carrots etc. don’t throw the trimmings away. Keep a bowl next to you when cooking, and any vegetable trims go into the bowl. Transfer the contents of the bowl into the container that you have in the freezer. When the bag is full, put the contents into a large pot, fill it with water, bring it to a boil and simmer for 30-40 minutes. Then strain the stock.  Pour into a freezer container, let cool and freeze.

 You can use the cooked trimmings for compost or just throw them away.

Now you have a wonderful stock that is in your freezer to use. You can defrost what you need and put it right back in the freezer.

Trust me and try this, you will become a convert to never tossing your vegetable trimmings away again.

Spelt Bread

1 ½ cups spelt flour plus 1 1/3 cups spelt flour for later use in the recipe
2 packages dry active yeast
¼ tsp salt
1 ¼ cups unsweetened almond milk
3 Tbsp of Honey
2 Tbsp canola oil 
1 1/3 cups spelt flour
½ cup sunflower seeds½ cup pumpkin seeds
¼ cup flax seed grounded in a coffee grinder

Mix together the 1 ½ cups of flour, yeast and the salt and set inside a mixer.
In a saucepan, warm the almond milk and honey and the oil. Do not bring to a boil, just very warm(this will help to activate the yeast).
Pour the warm liquid over the dry ingredients and turn on your mixer to blend, add the additional 1 and 1/3 cups flour and mix until all is blended. Add the sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and the flax seeds.

Prepare your loaf pan. Spray or grease the loaf pan and place a piece of parchment paper on the bottom and sides of the pan.
Scoop the mixture into the loaf pan and set it aside to rise.
I recommend turning your oven on the lowest setting and let the pan sit on the open oven door with a dishtowel over it for one hour.
Then you can bake the bread at 375 for 35 minutes.
Let it cool for 10 minutes before you take it out of the pan.