End of Summer Avocado and Chicken Soup

Here’s the text I sent to my husband after eating tonight’s Avocado Chicken soup: “FYI, tonight’s dinner is going to rock your world”.  I probably oversold it just a smidge but really, it’s that good.  And easy, and quick, and healthy! (And Paleo friendly (if you omit the corn) and gluten-free, for those of you who enjoy buzz words.)

I found this recipe (formerly entitled “Avocado-Corn Chowder with Grilled Chicken” ) in the August 2011 Cooking Light.  I pretty much always alter their recipes…usually just by adding more vegetables.  In this case I added red onion, more garlic, a bunch of asparagus, and fresh tomato. They suggested serving the soup cold, but that didn’t resonate with me…warm soup just sounds better, even if it is the height of summer here.  Cooking Light also suggested cooking 12oz of chicken breast.  Because I was lazy yesterday and didn’t want to cook I bought a rotisserie chicken and my husband and I ate half yesterday, and I used the other half for this soup.  If that doesn’t work for you then just grill or sauté 12-16 oz chicken breast (depending on your protein needs) and shred.  I personally find that chicken breast tenders shred much more easily than chicken breast halves, but hey, buy what’s on sale!

In terms of macro-nutrients, if you need to cut the carbs simply use less or no corn.  I doubt you will miss the flavor.  Just use 1 ear instead of three, or omit it all together.  If you are on the Paleo diet then you will also want to omit the corn.

You’ll need:

1 bunch asparagus, ends removed and chopped (large dice)

12oz chicken breast (or half of a rotisserie chicken)

1 red bell pepper (or any color that you desire), diced

2 ripe avocados

1/3 red onion, diced

4-5 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup fresh squeezed orange juice (from about ¾ orange)

1 ½ cups fresh corn kernels (about three ears)

2 tsp almond oil

1 tsp honey

1 tsp salt

½ tsp Black pepper

¼ tsp red pepper flakes (or to taste)

1 cup water

¼ cup chopped cilantro

1 tbsp lime juice

(About 8-10 cherry tomatoes or 20 grape tomatoes)

Note:  If you aren’t using rotisserie chicken, sauté your chicken now!

The first step (or second, depending on your chicken choice)  is to peel and dice 1 avocado.  Combine with your fresh squeezed orange juice (and don’t throw the rest of the orange away- the orange will still have plenty of flavor and the pulp has fiber so eat it!), 1cup water, 1 tsp honey, ½ tsp salt, black and red pepper, and 2 garlic cloves.  Blend to a puree and set aside.

Next heat the almond oil in a medium-large soup pot.  Chop up the asparagus into large bite-sized pieces and sauté in the pot in the almond oil.  Chop the red onion and add to pot.  After the asparagus and onion are soft (but not overcooked) add 3-4 (depending on your love of garlic) minced cloves.  Saute for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Lower heat the medium-low.

Add the fresh corn, chopped bell pepper, and remaining salt to the asparagus mix and stir to combine.  Now add the shredded chicken and avocado puree and 1 tbsp lime juice.  Stir until all is warm.

Peel and chop the second avocado and ¼ cup cilantro.   You can either add these to the soup now (which is what I did) or add on top as garnish.  Top with fresh tomatoes.

What you’re going to end up with is a bowl full of tasty and nutritional goodness, with the fresh, crisp taste of summer combined with the comforting joy of avocado and soup.

Serves 4

Nutritional information per serving: 400 calories.  Fat: 18.8g, Carbs: 30.4 g, Protein: 31.9 g

Nutritional info w/o corn: 365 calories.   Fat: 18.2g, Carbs: 23g, Protein, 30.2

If you have scrolled down this far let me apologize for my abundant use of asides in this post.  I noticed it while previewing this post, but I don’t care enough to change it!

Quick, Easy and Delicious Cold Remedy!

മലയാളം: Garlic (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today I find myself stuck at home, nursing a head cold.  Yes, even herbalists get sick!  Of course, I was in denial for the first 24 hours so I didn’t cut it off at the beginning like I should have, but that’s ok because I just consumed the most delicious herbal cold medicine I’ve ever tasted- garlic honey.  It’s sweet and spicy and all things delicious!  And, let’s not forget that honey is an anti-microbial and garlic is an anti-viral, anti-biotic, and anti-septic! (*Important note: garlic needs to be consumed raw in order to benefit from garlic’s healing powers.)  Garlic can be consumed right at the onset of an illness to help prevent it from taking hold and can also be consumed throughout the illness to shorten your sick time.  Garlic honey is particularly useful for soothing a sore throat and garlic is a stimulating expectorant- simply put, it will help get all that congestion out of your body.  Now, if you are “dry”, meaning that you aren’t producing a lot of mucous, then garlic isn’t the remedy for you!

 

I was cringing at the thought of consuming raw garlic on its own, and even though I have garlic capsules I wanted to do it right and eat the garlic in its natural state.  So I crushed and minced 3 garlic cloves, let them sit for about 3 minutes to allow the oxygen to work with the garlic to release its goodness, and then put it in a small bowl and covered with honey.  I then dunked a piece of my homemade spelt sourdough bread (more on that topic later!) into the mixture and was sent to home remedy heaven.  So good!  I hadn’t planned on consuming the entire mixture but I did, even though I used well over one tablespoon of honey.  My advice to you is to limit the amount of honey you consume in one sitting simply because sugar suppresses the immune system- simply cover the garlic with the honey, but use as little as possible.  Honey is a preservative so feel free to make a large batch of this and store it for a few days!  You can enjoy this tasty treat any time, and it’s a great preventative to use to keep you healthy.

 

A couple of caveats: Garlic is a blood-thinner, so do not take raw garlic if you are on blood-thinning medications.  Garlic, when consumed in abundance, can make you nauseous so go slowly and listen to your body.

 

Finally, it is not recommended to feed honey to children under the age of 1 (although I doubt a child under the age of one would be eating raw garlic on bread, but still, I have to throw that out there!).

 

 

 

Bringing Common Sense Back Into Eating

Why is wholesome eating so difficult?

Image by Dan Domme via Flickr

I will never forget the day I observed my Mother make (or heat up, I should say) green beans for dinner.  She had poured a can of green beans into a microwaveable (plastic) dish, and then took the top off of her I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter bottle and proceeded to pour about 1/4 cup onto the green beans before she popped the entire ensemble into the microwave.  I was astounded and asked her what in the heckfire she was doing.  Her response?  “What?  It’s fat-free and calorie free!”.  I had to point out that it has zero calories for 1.25 sprays, not a quarter of the bottle.  She had to have poured about 200 calories into those green beans but I am pretty sure she didn’t believe me when I pointed that out.  I’m not trying to bag on my Mother, but she just didn’t get it (and still doesn’t.).  It’s not that my Mom is silly, it’s that she’s naive.  She really believes that everything that the food industry represents is on the up and up.  (As an aside, my Mom refuses to use a computer and the internet so she’ll never know that I used her as an example in this fascinating anecdote, just in case you are worrying that I’m hurting her feelings.)

Food labels and the terminology used is misleading.  Food manufacturers are allowed to use terms like “natural” even when something has been injected, raised on antibiotics and artificial hormones, or simply just has “natural flavors”.  Basically, this term is used very loosely and without integrity and thus, us consumers must be careful to read the ingredients and use common sense.

How do we return to more wholesome eating?

How do we allow our bodies to thrive by returning to foods that our bodies can more easily process and turn into energy?  The first step is with a little common sense.  What is “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter”, anyway?  (It’s canola and soybean oil, water and buttermilk.)   Is it good for you?  No- vegetable oils are known to be bad for you (they can’t be extracted through pressing like other oils, and are usually genetically modified).  At least regular butter is more natural…just eat less of it if you need to cut fat and calories.  Don’t use more of a fat-free item simply because it’s fat-free; that’s defeating the purpose as fat-free items still have calories.  The same goes with sugar-free.  I’ve witnessed first hand a group of women who were having chocolate every day (they were also on a weight-loss/health crusade, so there are some conflicting priorities here), and when I politely declined their offer to partake they stated, “you can eat this- it’s sugar-free!”.  Oh, such sweet women.  Sweet, loveable, naive women!  It’s still chocolate and it still has calories and fat.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t eat chocolate, I’m just saying we need to use common sense and moderation.

Keep it Simple

Wholesome eating is easy when we are cognizant of what we are putting in our bodies.  Use common sense and follow your instincts.  The food manufacturers are in the business of selling, and there are few regulations in place to ensure integrity in labeling.  It’s up to us, the consumers, to know what we are eating.  It is very confusing to most people, which is why I try to stick to fruits and vegetables, legumes (ok, I just like saying “legumes”.  Beans.), meats like shrimp, chicken and lean beef, eggs, quinoa, and whole dairy (not fat-free) or almond milk.   I stay out of the chips and cookies aisle.  Let’s think about what we are putting in our bodies…let’s use common sense.

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog on Whole-istic Healing!  What I mean by “whole-istic” is that we can be healthy by treating our whole selves, not just the symptoms.  This is easily accomplished through nutrition and a healthy lifestyle.  I hope you enjoy!

 

Crazy Healthy (and budget friendly) Chicken and Vegetable Soup

This is tonight’s dinner (and tomorrow’s lunch).  This is an incredibly easy soup that is also extremely healthy – nothing but vegetables and chicken in here!  You can use whatever you want- the reason this soup is so budget friendly is because you can just use up whatever vegetables are leftover in your fridge.  Here’s what I have in my soup:

Onion (1 whole), garlic, celery (4 stalks), broccoli, zucchini, shredded carrot, tomato (I only had 1 on hand, but I probably would have used 2 if I could have), a little fresh parsley, and kale. Oh, and chicken, of course!  I used 1.25 lbs of chicken breast.  I sautéed the onion, garlic and celery to soften it up and then added the chicken, 4 cups of water, 2 chicken bouillon cubes, all the vegetables, and then sea salt, pepper, 2 bay leaves, thyme, and a little cajun seasoning because I like it with some kick!  I added the kale last so that it wouldn’t overcook.

Because this is so low in calories I added two tablespoons of grated cheese to my bowl…one big bowl of this soup comes in at about 250 calories, with 7 grams of fat (4g from the cheese, which you can omit), 14g carbs and 30g protein- of course the amount of protein will depend on the amount of chicken used.  I think I am getting about 4.5 servings out of this pot of soup.   As you can see, this is very low carb, but the high amount of protein keeps me full (and keeps my muscles looking good, oh yeah!).

My favorite part of this easy soup is that it is different every time, but it’s always extremely healthy!  If you are a vegetarian I think using extra firm tofu in place of chicken would work out well…I’ve done it before in other soups with good results.

Happy Eating!

 

 

Four Reasons to Consume Dandelion

Image via Wikipedia

Most people’s sole relationship with dandelion (taraxacum officinale) involves trying to eradicate it from their yard, but did you know that Dandelion is a highly nutritious bitter herb that, amongst other things, can assist with digestion and alleviating water retention? It is such an herbal superstar that renowned herbalist, Susan Weed, suggests that we could all benefit from eating a dandelion leaf after every meal. The best part? You have to go no further than your own yard to find it!

Had too much of a good thing?

Who among us hasn’t had the occasional post-meal discomfort? Our stomachs blow up like we inhaled a balloon, and we are just overall uncomfortable. It doesn’t feel good and it definitely doesn’t look good! Eating a couple dandelion leaves will assist in digestion and help prevent the dreaded post-meal bloat. Dandelion is a bitter herb and bitter herbs by nature assist with digestion. It doesn’t taste as good as lettuce or spinach (helpful hint- the younger, smaller leaves are less bitter than the bigger leaves) but it’s more than worth it to eat dandelion. Your stomach will thank you. An easy way to consume dandelion is to pick a few leaves and add it to your salad.

Bloat be gone!

Dandelion leaves are a known diuretic, however unlike over-the-counter commercial diuretics which deplete the body’s potassium, dandelion is completely safe and actually provides vitamins and minerals instead of depleting them. (Dandelion has equal amounts sodium and potassium, which counter-balances any ill effects that a diuretic would normally have on the kidneys.) Simply eating a few raw leaves will assist in expelling excess water, or you can make dandelion tea with the dried herb (one teaspoon dried herb per 1-2 cups of water, and add a little chamomile to decrease bitterness).

Need to get things moving?

Dandelion root is a safe, mild laxative. Often times simply pulling the leaf from the base of the plant (thus getting the thick leaf stalk) is sufficient for many people’s needs, but dandelion root can be found in most natural food stores. Simply boil 1 tsp of dried root in 8oz water for twenty minutes and drink (again, you can add chamomile flowers for flavor). You can drink dandelion tea a few times throughout the day until your symptoms subside.

Get your vitamins while weeding your lawn

Dandelion leaves are highly nutritious. The leaves and roots are both very high in iron, manganese, phosphorous and Vitamin A. Dandelion also provides average amounts of Calcium, Vitamins B and C, Potassium, and Cobalt. In short, it’s like taking a multi-vitamin with the added benefits of improved digestion!

Dandelion is easy enough to find in your yard. We’ve all plucked one of the white fuzzy heads off a dandelion and blown into the wind, perhaps after making a wish? But if the flowers are not in bloom, here is how to identify the plant: Dandelion leaves have jagged (toothy) edges and are hairless (smooth to the touch). Dandelion leaves also grow close to the ground in a rosette formation. If you aren’t comfortable eating the dandelion from your yard you may be able to find dandelion at your local natural foods store. However you choose to procure it, dandelion indeed a good friend, keeping our digestive systems happy and our bellies tight!

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References:

“Healing Wise” by Susan S. Weed

“Nutritional Herbology” by Mark Pederson