A chef from Kripalu taught me the egg over veggies trick. It’s quick, easy and satisfying. You can substitute any vegetable for the mushrooms and sweet potatoes in this easy breakfast recipe- try spinach, onions, tomatoes or your favorite blend of vegetables.
Let’s talk about wild mushrooms!
This year, our local farmer’s market has had a bumper crop of really beautiful mushrooms for a really reasonable price. Look at these beauties – oyster mushrooms.
Do you know that mushrooms have characteristics of both plants and animals? They are strange and wonderful little beings, and nutritionally rich in vitamins and minerals (not, however, protein as is often suggested). You can substitute any mushroom for those I use in this recipe.
This dish, while simple, is wonderfully balanced from a protein-carbohydrate-fat perspective, as there are healthful versions of each. Egg protein will keep you satisfied, as will the bit of anti-inflammatory monounsaturated olive oil. Sweet potatoes are a complex fiber-filled carbohydrate and they and the mushrooms are nutrient-dense, filled with vitamins and nutrients.
Here’s a quick weekday breakfast.
Egg "Poached" on Wild Mushrooms and Sweet Potatoes
This recipe is quick, easy and satisfying. You can substitute any vegetable for the mushrooms and sweet potatoes in this easy breakfast recipe- try spinach, onions, tomatoes or your favorite blend of vegetables.
Course Breakfast, Lunch
Servings 1
Equipment
Saute' pan
Ingredients
1egg
1tspolive oil
2/3cupwild mushroomschopped
1/3cupsweet potatocooked (leftover from the weekend!) and cubed
1 1/2tspdried thymeor the fresh or dried herb of your choice
Instructions
Warm olive oil in a small pan and sauté mushrooms and sweet potatoes for 3 or 4 minutes over medium-high heat.
Crack an egg into the pan, sprinkle with herbs, cover and turn down heat to low-medium. Let the egg “poach” in the steam of the vegetables for 3 or 4 minutes.
So easy. So tasty. So healthy. Make this lovely spring breakfast or not-too-sweet dessert right now.
If you have violets in your yard, here’s a whole new way to enjoy them. Violets are filled with antioxidants, so are health promoting in all the ways so many herbs and botanicals are. The lemon and violets both lend a light fragrance to this no-cook pudding.
I think of the ratio for chia a lot like the ratio for grains – that is, one part seeds to two parts liquid (for a pudding like this). I don’t count the yogurt in liquid – to me, that’s to make a creamy texture.
Make this the night before your breakfast, or a few hours before dinner for dessert. I used yogurt for a big of creaminess – for a vegan version, use a coconut yogurt or just skip the yogurt, perhaps boosting the chia for thickness.
Enjoy!
Ingredients
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
juice and zest of 1/2 fresh lemon
2 tsp honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup chia seed
1/4 cup plain yogurt (good quality any level of fat)
1/2 cup violets – use heads (if you are up for chewing) or just the petals
Directions
In a medium bowl, mix almond milk, lemon juice, zest, honey, and vanilla. Stir in yogurt and chia. Add most of violets, saving a couple to decorate your creation.
Place in refrigerator overnight, or at least for 4 hours before serving.
Makes two – 2/3 cup servings.
For breakfast, if you top with 1/2 cup of blueberries, you’ll have a fiber, protein and nutrient rich start to your day.
Report back!
Annie
Spicy shots! I love ’em.
A couple of years ago Free Fire Cider, based on a folk recipe, popularized by herbalist Rosemary Gladstar, and trademarked, with great controversy in the herbal world, but a group in WMA, had its moment in the sun. Here’s my fire cider recipe.
Since then, I’ve been enamored with making spicy shots – delicious concoctions designed to warm and give a nutritional zing-ha to your morning. It’s a practice I especially get into in these (still!) cooler months.
Here’s one I whipped up this weekend, with tart cherry juice and apple cider vinegar. Cherry, ginger, and turmeric are all anti-inflammatories and packed with antioxidants. Apple cider vinegar is a natural probiotic. If you, like me are in the second half of life, this drink is vata-pacifying – grounding and warming.
Quick, easy, and makes you say “haaaaaa”. I aimed for warmth rather than heat in the spice. Raw garlic makes me burp, though my husband is focused on eating more, so I suggest he use this to wash down a nice raw clove for himself. Pow.
A delicious concoction designed to warm and give a nutritional zing-ha to your morning
Course Breakfast, Drinks
Equipment
Blender
Ingredients
1/2cupunsweetened cherry juice
1/2cupapple cider vinegar
1Thumb-sized piece of gingersliced
3Tspturmericdried spice
1/2tspcayenneor to tast
Instructions
Place everything in a blender and blend away. Pour into a small mason jar with a lid. The ginger and spice tend to separate, so give it a shake before your morning shot. I take about an ounce after my morning coffee and morning practices, a few minutes before breakfast.
I have a spicy-shot-for-every-season vision!
Have a favorite spicy shot you make?
Please share in the comments!
Everyone should have a vegetable-based recipe or two that takes (snap!) that long, that serves as a quick meal or snack. This raw Asian slaw recipe has been a mainstay of my 3pm-give-me-carbs attack for years. It works.
The heart of the recipe is savoy cabbage and rice wine vinegar. You can enjoy (and I often do) just these two ingredients. But why not toss in some carrot, cilantro or Thai basil, and sesame oil? Add a handful of cashews, organic tofu or garbanzo beans to make it a meal.
This is a great springtime detox recipe, because it is nutritionally dense, and contains the antioxidants that support your liver in its biotransformation of cellular gunk into removable trash, which can then be flushed out of your body via the usual exit routes. This recipe also has lots of fiber, secret weapon of the weight-conscious.
Asian Slaw Recipe
Ingredients
½ cup savoy cabbage sliced thin
½ cup red cabbage sliced thin
a few fresh snow peas, sliced
¼ cup diced red pepper
1 medium carrot, diced
1 Tbsp fresh cilantro if available
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
optional:
2 Tbsp Asian salad dressing
2 tsp sesame oil
1 slice fresh ginger, diced with skin trimmed
a handful of cashews, or 1/2 cup tofu
Directions
Toss everything together and eat.
Just getting started with healthy eating? This article will help.
Please resist the temptation to spray weed-killer on your lawn as it is filled with nutrition free for the taking. Eat your “weeds” instead! Wild garlic mustard, for example, is considered an invasive weed but is also a nutrient-dense green with a spicy garlic flavor. This green is filled with antioxidant vitamins and minerals, and eating a little something wild every day connects us more deeply to nature.
I love the fact that just when we need to brush out the sludge from that long cold winter, the very tonics we need to help that happen literally spring up under our feet. Dandelion, ramps, wild strawberry and garlic mustard to name a few are everywhere now, and all we need to do is accept the invitation and support to detoxify deliciously.
Here is a nice light green spring soup recipe that I whipped up with the crew of people coming for Detox at Kripalu in mind. And of course, all my friends who are Kripalu Detox alums. Between the garlic mustard and asparagus (which is bursting with glutathione, the mother of all antioxidants and a detox power food) this recipe is made for spring nutrition. Enjoy!
Most commercial salad dressings, I am sorry to say, are filled with chemicals. Choose them carefully, and consider making your own. It’s easier than you think.
Dressings and sauces are an opportunity to perfect and balance vegetables with nutrient-dense oils, vegetable proteins, and spices. Here’s a nice tahini dress to serve over cooked or raw greens, sprouts, carrots, peppers, and scallions. I am waiting impatiently for my Thai basil to grow to add to this one.
You can make a base of this dressing, and change it up by adding one or more of the following to small batches of it: Cilantro, lots of garlic, Thai chili, peanuts, lime
