little gem
spring onion
Mejoul dates
green olives
sesame oil
lemon juice
mirin
rice wine vinegar
radicchio
smoked tofu
nigella seeds
black sesame seed
Japanese sushi seed mix
seaweed flakes
dried parsley
red pepper
all finely chopped or shredded –
go easy on the sesame oil –
and balance it well –
use your eye and your own taste to get this right –
Enjoy
let’s start with cheese
Cheese is highly addictive due to the casein, salt and fat in it.
The producers of cheese products know this, they have known this for quite some time, they prepare the cheese they sell to you specially to make it as addictive as possible so you will be forced to buy and eat more and more of it
They do not care what it does to your health and your mind, except to condition you into buying and eating more cheesy things. The problem is, how do you stop eating something you like to eat which is in or on just about everything we eat?
Once you know it is addictive and is so very unhealthy, how do you stop?
Despite the fact that you believe you like it.
We’ll work on this together
I had some trouble stopping myself eating cheese, it was exactly the same trouble I had when I quit smoking. Not only is it fattening and unhealthy, it is also addictive, just like sugar and salt which are also added to just about everything we eat.
Cheese is everywhere, on your Pizza, in your sandwich, in lasagne, in your macaroni, on your spaghetti, It is really hard to think of a meal that does NOT have cheese in it when you first start out NOT eating cheese. It is also, so moreish, we all love to eat lots of it. The advertisers tell us we love it and we readily and happily agree with them.
Melting gooey sticky stringy oily yellow cheese
On everything
So it’s even harder to quit that smoking, because at least these days we are not bombarded with smoking messages saying how cool it is and great it is and good for us it is. The food marketing industry is now using the exact same strategies the tobacco industry used to make us eat more cheese, like more cheese and defend our sacred cheese.
It’s such clever brainwashing we don’t even know we are brainwashed
Just look at advertising
Or rather, don’t
We have come a long way from the delightful brie made by Mr. local farmer, or the real traditional stilton. The cheese being sold to us now is not really cheese at all, certainly not in the traditional artisan sense. What we get now is a poor reflection of the old local cheese makers varieties, so much so it’s impossible to name any but the most well known mass produced ones. Think about it, what locally produced cheese can you name, or better yet, do you eat?
If we can get ourselves to the point that we stop eating this mass produced muck and go back to occasionally treating ourselves to a local handmade speciality, we are already ahead.
Try not to eat anything with cheese on it for a few days at a time. Say ‘hold the cheese’ and find out how dishes taste without it. It worked for me, it can work for you. Try it and think about how you feel.
As you start paying attention to how you feel and what you think it will become easier to stop eating cheese altogether.
Only when you have reached this stage will you realise how prevalent cheese is in your life and your diet. You will also notice you feel a lot lighter and have less trouble with your knees.
I love to forage.
today I found morels, some of the most delicious mushrooms on the planet, they are really hard to find.
They grow in April and May and love sandy soil
Today I shall eat them lightly fried in a little olive oil. Chefs also sauté them in butter, they can also be preserved by canning, bottling or drying. But this is just a nice little portion for one person, laid across a slice of home baked whole grain bread, with the tiniest smattering of salt.
Always check all your mushrooms for worms and bugs and brush them clean with a small soft mushroom brush. Some mushrooms will be covered in sand or other debris. What I do if it is really bad is wash them under cold running water and then leave them to dry separately for several hours or even overnight so they do not become soggy.
Please never ever pick any wild mushrooms unless you have learned personally from an expert in the field.
There are, for instance, mushrooms that are often mistaken for morelles which are poisonous and will make you really quite ill, so unless there is someone with you who is an expert in the field, do not pick.
If you are not sure of what it is, do not pick, if it is not in the best condition, do not pick, if it has been half eaten by slugs or is very damaged, do not pick.
Do not pick if it is very young and do not pick if it is very old.
If you are serious about learning to forage mushrooms, learn when they are not in the right condition to pick.
This is not something you can learn from a book or a few videos. You need to learn from an expert in the field, personally. Some experts run workshops during the relative mushroom seasons and it is possible to apply for these where you are.
I was lucky, my mother picked and so did my grandmother and my aunts and great aunts, so I learned from childhood which mushroom is which, what is edible, what will make me ill, what is medicine and what will give me (bad) dreams, and, of course which ones are delicious and where to find them, which trees they prefer to be near or grow on, as well as all the places they knew where their favourite mushrooms grew.
I never tell anyone where these mushroom patches are, some are very rare, some are very common, some are very hard to spot, others are extremely easy. I know over fifty varieties, but I only pick some of them. I pick depending on seasonal availability, which can vary greatly from year to year.
If you do come across a mushroom patch never ever pick them all, leave one third – always, – don’t be greedy.
Let some grow up and spore, if you see someone else also knows this mushroom patch and has already picked them, leave what is left. and go your way.
I will not pass my expertise on to anyone, I have no one I want to pass it on to and do not give workshops. We have so little forest left and it is still being cut down at an astonishing rate. There are few wild meadows left and little duneland. Many of the varieties I used to pick are now rare or even endangered. If I do come across a patch of rare mushrooms I leave them alone, even hiding the patches of the rarest ones so no one else can stumble across them.
Morelles can be bought already dried, or in jars or tins, preserved for your recipes and dishes if you really want to try them, very rarely you can get them fresh. There are now growers who specialize in morles too, that would be the best bet.
Better yet find a restaurant where the chef has them on the menu and try them cooked by an expert.
Vegan, oil free, gluten free, delicious.
This oil free recipe gets its creaminess from the Violife ‘white’ and the borlotti beans. red beans will also work. Carrot adds sweetness and cucumber a delicious coolness. The rucola is used as a herb as it is strong and peppery in flavour, all offsetting the slight bitterness from the chicory. Thus giving a wonderful easy to eat oil free salad containing all the nutrients needed.
For gallbladder and liver health it is also possible to add dandelion leaf finely chopped, it goes well in this dish adding it’s own flavour in-between the chicory and rucola. It is possible to forage dandelion almost anywhere, be careful to choose clean plants not near busy roads but in meadows or parks where the air is cleaner. Or like I do simply grow it in your garden as it is a healthy nutritious plant.
The lemon juice and salt bring out all the natural flavours of the fresh ingredients and with the rucola and the dandelion leaf you don’t need pepper.
red chicory, finely chopped
spring onion thinly sliced
grated carrot
dandelion leaf finely chopped
a small tin of green borlotti beans (red kidney beans are also good)
greek white ‘goats cheese’ Violife, in small chunks
rucola, very finely chopped (arugula)
red cayenne chilli very finely chopped
cucumber in small chunks
paprika, orange, sliced and chopped (bell pepper)
lemon juice to taste
salt to taste
Why would ‘better’ be something we have to go out and get?
Surely it should be with us all the time, but the same wording is used for ‘getting’ ill – as if it is something we shop for at the supermarket
Well
Perhaps it is something we get.
Most of us spend most of our lives living with some kind of low grade inflammation all over
This is what we consider normal and it gets worse with age
We have gotten so used to it we think it’s normal
We eat junk, we know it’s junk, we eat rubbish, we know it’s rubbish, we turn our noses up at fruit, we refuse to eat vegetables and we have phobias about eating salads.
We are all addicted to sugar, fat and refined carbs, and wonder why we feel vaguely sick all the time.
Stop messing about, you know why you feel sick all the time. You eat crap! You pay no attention whatsoever to the quality of the food you put in your mouth, half the time you don’t even know what it is!
You just shove the fastest, easiest, nearest crap into your mouth and assume all will be well, just like everybody else, till, when you are fifty you find yourself on a gurney being rushed into surgery for a bypass.
Welcome to the western world where your diet will kill you.
Having just reached a similar point myself I know where that place is, being hospitalised is scary.
Going out and ‘getting’ better is where it’s at.
Get yourself a better diet, get yourself healthy, get yourself fit, get that feel good factor into your life now – start now by eating your veggies before you die.
Get your head round it, get rid of your junk addiction and start eating real food.
I thought I had a fairly healthy diet, mostly vegan mostly plant based, I loathe meats anyway so I don’t eat them. I hate milk, I’m not keen on greasy stuff or sweet things I don’t eat sweets as such, but I slip often enough to make my diet pretty damn useless anyway, so I need to clean up my act.
Recently I was eating bars of chocolate, white buns with jam and clotted cream, tiramisu, mayonnaise, prawns and fish slathered in oils and even some meats like roast beef. I was completely off the rails.
Then came the easter celebrations and plates full of filled eggs and devilled eggs and other dishes made with eggs, french cheeses, white bread, jams and clotted cream and serious overdoses of chocolate.
I ate everything. I overate.
No wonder I ended up in hospital with stabbing pains in my guts the day after, the DAY after!
I did it all to myself,
I know what to do now. You know what to do too, you do, you have always known, but you don’t listen to it, you only listen to your food addiction and every day you make the easy wrong choice, and you know you do. Even in the face of your own addictions, your own habits, your own routines, as well as advertising, the misinformation, propaganda and the immense social pressure we are all under, change anyway.
Start anyway.
Just like me you need to change your diet before it kills you.
get better
get healthy
So I got out of hospital yesterday with my gallbladder still in me
What a treat
To get to keep all your body parts
I am pleased I managed to avoid surgery, they are all so very keen to chop you up and take bits out.
Like it’s some kind of fashion.
The problem is not the gallbladder, the problem is the gallstones, it’s the gallstones that need to go so why not leave the gallbladder which has a job to do and just remove the gallstones? That strikes me as far more logical. The surgical technique would be practically the same.
Unfortunately any and all cures for gallstones or ways of removing gallstones or in fact any other kind of treatment for gallstones except surgery is not supported in mainstream medicine, so you’re fucked before you start! You have to drop conventional medicine and go your own route if you want to keep all your insides right where they are. Which is the route I have decided to take.
Very careful menu planning, loose weight slowly and gently, drink lots of water, lots more exercise, and meditation
Specially the meditation
As, together with the searing stabbing pains from gallstones I also am extremely bad tempered lately, I mean white hot rage, temper tantrums and anger attacks for no reason.
I’ve got a gall!
It’s even in the language, it’s become part of the language. Gall!
Yes the anger, the rage, the temper are all part of gallstones and gallbladder and liver problems.
Apparently my digestive system rules.
In my research the only place I have found references to the emotional aspect of this is in chinese medicine, and partially in ayurvedic medicine nothing in western medical literature, though I’m sure if I dug a bit deeper I might find some reference to it.
So we will see what happens now.
I have an appointment with my GP to go and I have made an appointment with an ayurvedic GP as well. (Yes I wish it was Deepak Chopra as well – but he doesn’t practice here)
Of course I will be trying every fad and find and alternative AS WELL as keeping an eye on the mainstream, after all, the goal is to survive.
So now onto a good meditation hour and………..
Wish me luck – I need it.
A quick simple wok dish
Ready in no time
A clean and easy recipe if you like you can use any bits of any suitable vegetables you have left over
Of course it’s vegan!
You will need Mie.. Mie is a kind of noodle made from wheat, one rose or swirl of mie per person is enough.
You can use noodles if you wish.
Don’t overdo it, too many noodles or mie spoil it.
With this recipe you want to really taste the veggies
This makes enough for 4
Ingredients
Mie 4 nests
prepare all the vegetables in advance.
One large onion cut in half and then thinly sliced.
Garlic 3 large cloves halved lengthwise and sliced thinly
A chunk of ginger the same size as the garlic altogether, sliced to the same size as the garlic
juice of 1 lemon
sugar 1 tbsp. (or a little more to taste if the lemon is very strong)
4 tbsp Ketjap benteng manis (sweet soy sauce)
2 tbsp ketjap asin (salt soy sauce)
One paprika finely sliced, any colour
Green french beans blanched and cut in half.
Courgette, 1/3 of an average sized one. sliced lengthwise into strips
A little sunflower oil or peanut oil to start the cooking off in the wok.
salt to taste
technique
Chop all the vegetables as instructed above in advance
Blanch cool and cut the beans in advance.
Put a pan of water on to boil and cook the mie according to the instructions on the packet.
Add a little oil to the wok and quickly heat the ginger and garlic without burning them, turn them out onto a dish
Then sear the beans to get a little colour and flavour into them and turn them out onto a dish
Add the onion, paprika, mushrooms and courgette to the pan and toss turning the heat low
just as they are starting to soften.
Then add the beans, ginger and garlic back into the pan.
Add the lemon juice, the ketjap benteng manis, the ketjap asin and the sugar and stir through.
Add in the cooked and drained mie
for four people I add four mie ‘nests’
Turn it all over in the pan and mix well turning the heat right down to avoid burning.
Taste the cooking liquid,
it is important that you taste the liquid in the pan for balance
Add more sugar and/or ketjap asin to balance the lemon juice and ketjap benteng manis as needed,
taste it all again till you are satisfied with the flavour balance, adding salt only if you must.
Serve immediately
Any leftovers can be frozen and are delicious if reheated in the wok.
As we head towards the end of August, we wait for the heat to stop, for coolness to arrive, morning early, evening late, to at last make the hot days manageable again.
Food is not really on our minds, coolness is, a perfect time for fruit, salads, ice creams.
And lots and lots of liquids, water being the best.
Drink enough water, cool, clear, crisp, clean. Chaudfontaine, Perrier, Spa, there are so many delicious waters to try. They all taste different, try some and find out.
I have been eating fruit, mostly.
It’s the best,
cool, sweet, simple.
Fruit requires no more work than a quick cut of the knife.
Eat raspberry, melon, watermelon, strawberries, grapes, apples, now apples are really crisp and cool.
Try something you don’t usually eat, passionfruit, papaya, dragon fruit or cactus fruit. I have, not just as they are, but chopped up and mixed in delicious bowls of fruit salad. They need nothing else.
Delicious new flavours, wonderful sweetness without the bane of refined sugars, which like cheese we know we shouldn’t really eat.
Fruit.
Quite possibly the healthiest food on the planet.
For this recipe I used two beetroots, raw, a pink and a yellow, this gives a pleasing pastel nuance to the finished dish. Dark beetroot can also be used. It is a refreshing light salad or side dish. Also shown is the original recipe which has since evolved into the recipe I am offering you today.
ingredients.
2 beetroots
Japanese vinegar
Mirin
Salt
Cinnamon, ground
Juice of 1/2 an orange
Zest of one orange
quarters of 1/2 an orange
Mustard seed
Fennel seed
Wrap the beetroot in paper and foil and cook in the oven for 1/2 to 1 hour depending on size at 180°c.
Allow to cool and then peel.
Slice into 5mm. slices so the coloured rings show.
Put a layer of slices in a bowl and add one tbsp. of vinegar and 1 tbsp of Mirin. a sprinkling of ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. mustard seed, 1/4 tsp fennel seed and a sprinkling of salt. Plus the zest of half the orange.
layer again and repeat.
squeeze 1/2 the orange an add the juice to the beetroot mixing gently.
Cut the other half of the orange up into pieces making sure to keep the segments whole but without skin or pith.
Mix gently into the salad and leave in the fridge for 1/2 an hour to cool and marinade.
serve and enjoy
Red Cabbage salad Recipe
1/4 red cabbage
4 large radishes
1 Spring onion
Juice of half a lemon
grated lemon zest. (1/2 a lemon)
1 tbsp Mirin
Celtic sea salt to taste
3 tbsp Hellmann’s vegan mayonnaise. (or homemade vegan mayonnaise)
Technique.
Cut the stalk out of the red cabbage and remove any bruised outer leaves.
Finely slice the cabbage, into approximately 1-2 mm strips, the fineness of the chopping, or slicing makes the difference here.
Place in a bowl and massage firmly to bring out the colour and soften the texture.
Add the salt. (be sparing with the salt)
Grate in the lemon zest – be careful to avoid the pith as the zest is so much more fragrant.
Squeeze 1/2 the lemon and add the juice to the cabbage, mixing well.
Top and tail the radishes and slice to 1mm thickness, slice as finely as you can leaving the radish in nice wafer-thin translucent rounds, mix with the cabbage. Use a mandolin if you can’t do this well with a knife.
Finely slice the spring onion making sure to use the white and green parts, 2mm thickness is fine enough for the spring onions.
Add a tablespoon of mirin.
Add three tablespoons of mayonnaise.
Mix thoroughly and leave to chill for an hour, then mix again to stir the juices through.
It is ready to serve.
This will produce a juicy, cool and fragrant cabbage salad with a generous dressing which is refreshing and satisfying.
P.S. It is always possible to change the chopping techniques, but this will change the whole texture of the dish. It is always possible to change some of the ingredients, ordinary table salt if you have no celtic sea salt. Normal mayonaise if you do not have vegan or Hellman’s. Instead of Mirin, a small spoon of sugar – but remember that changing the ingredients changes the entire flavour of the dish.
Try it, let me know how it went, I look forward to your comments.
How to stop eating cheese 