Tag Archives: ready for spring

What’s for Dinner Week 4

Have you ever woken up from a deep sleep and felt fuzzy or disoriented? That’s almost how the weather feels lately, doesn’t it? Some days the sun is shining and its warm and feels like spring and then the gloom and chill settles back in. It is almost like mother nature can’t decide, hit the snooze or go to the gym. This is the transition time from winter to spring. It takes awhile to wake back up and sometimes it might even feel like we are still dreaming.

In Chinese Medicine transition times are when the spleen/stomach system are most active. You can think of this as the core of our bodies, the center. Foods that are bland or mildly sweet (like wheat and sweet potatoes), and yellow and orange foods deeply nourish the spleen/stomach and digestion and help keep us grounded in times of transition.

I’ve included recipes this week for my family to help nourish the spleen system. Check back for a new chocolate chip recipe I’ve been playing with later this week too.

coconutsoup

Coconut Lime Butternut Squash Soup

Yellow Curry Chicken and Vegetables (basically crock pot chicken in trader joe’s curry with broccoli and peas over rice) 🙂

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili

Corned beef and cabbage

homemade pizza

 

What are you cooking up this week?

 

Green Lentil Curry

This is another great recipe with a foundation of spleen foods with a balance of winter and spring goodies to keep your body nourished, full and healthy. The inspiration comes from the shrinking kitchen, here is what I came up with.

what you need:

3 small yellow potatoes, cubed

1/2 cup green lentils, rinsed well

4 cups water

2 cups of cauliflower

1 yellow squash

1 small eggplant, cubed

1 medium carrot, slices

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon tumeric (eyeballed)

4 large cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon dried chili powder

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1/4 c chopped cilantro

One small piece of ginger root

What you do:

Rinse lentils and then put into large stockpot with water and bring to boil over medium high heat.

Add potatoes and carrot to lentils, simmer uncovered for 5 minutes

Add cauliflower, squash, eggplant, salt and tumeric.

Return to a boil, cover and then turn to low to simmer for 10 minutes or until veggies are tender. Stir a few times.

Meanwhile add chopped garlic, ginger, cumin and chili paste to coconut oil until carmelized.

 

Add cornstarch into veggie lentil mix to thicken juices and turn eat up high for 1-2 minutes.

Add in carmelized garlic ginger paste and cilantro and stir to combine.

 

Hardy enough to eat alone or add to quinoa, rice or cauliflower “rice”.