Biochar - interesting!

I found this project on Indiegogo this morning (Indiegogo has so many amazing projects, I want to fund them all!)

BioPreta Sample Project

I looked up biochar in wikipedia, and learned some interesting things about how the ancient technique of smoldering agricultural waste on farming land contributed to keeping the soil and environment healthy.

Source: http://www.biochar-nsr.eu/cms/

Sometimes I have to wonder if in many ways (not all!), our ancestors were so much smarter than we are. Or perhaps not smarter, but wiser. Why go through the trouble of producing chemicals to put on our land if we can use what we don't need to augment the soil instead. Seems like far less work (but alas, would contribute less to the "economy", oh my! note sarcasm in this sentence, which is not always easy to convey in writing).

Trepanation is one way that our ancestors clearly were not smarter nor wiser!

Caraway Rye

I got a bread machine at the Sally Ann a year or two ago, and use it for kneading my bread. I still like to bake the bread in the oven if I can, as I prefer the crust and shape of an oven baked loaf, and I can better control how it comes out.

Last night I made caraway rye dough, and this morning baked it up on my pizza stone. It is delicious!

150 ml of water
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp honey (for a lighter bread) or molasses (for a darker bread)
1 cup rye flour
1 1/4 cup white bread flour
2 tbsp caraway seeds (or more, if you like)
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast

Put in the bread machine in the order listed. Use the dough cycle.

Let bread do final rise in a oblong shape. I rise it on a silicone matt so I can just pop it into the oven with no fuss. Preheat oven to 400 C. Heat pizza stone

When the bread is doubled in size, pop in the oven. Pour 1/4 cup of water into the bottom of your oven (please please please check your over instructions and follow them - this is fine in my oven, it may not work in yours). Bake until the bread sounds hollow when tapped, for me about 30 - 40 minutes in my convection oven.

Delicious plain, or with butter or honey.

uBiome project

In December I got my own genome partially sequenced to help me better understand the health issues I am dealing with. I also learned a lot about my genetic history, including my matrilineal line (that is, where my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's ... mother came from ).

I have a new arthritis diagnosis that is associated with inflammatory bowel disease. I don't have IBD, but I am curious about the bacteria in my gut. Gut bacteria are really important to health, and provide a variety of functions such as assistance with digestion, vitamin production, and synthesis of a variety of substances. Gut microbes have been associated with a number of disorders, including depression, autism, several types of arthritis, eczema and even sinusitis!

So, along came uBiome, which I found on Indiegogo, a crowdsourcing website. I'm going to get my gut biome sequenced and see what they find. Should be very interesting! In the meantime, I continue to try to eat food that are wholesome and healthy, close to their natural form, and have a wide variety of naturally occuring microbes such as kefir, yogurt and saurkraut.

Two books that will help you cook more healthily in a microbe friendly way are Wild Fermentation and Nourishing Traditions:

Oatmeal for breakfast

Just a quick update, here is pretty much what I eat everyday for breakfast. These are large flake oats because I ran out of steel cut, but the general idea is the same. Cook up several days of oatmeal at a time, and just reheat in the microwave before adding your goodies.

The oats are topped with pecans, hemp hearts and some brown sugar. Depending on how thick the oatmeal is, I'll add some milk or soymilk on top as well. Delicious!

Hearty oatmeal with pecans, hemp hearts and brown sugar

Warming roasted squash soup with apples

1 roasted acorn or pepper squash, mashed
1 apple chopped
1 onion chopped
2 stalks celery chopped
2 carrots chopped
1 L chicken or veggie broth
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp all spice
1 tbsp canola oil

Saute onion, apple, carrot, celery in canola oil over medium heat in a medium pot. When onions are translucent, add mashed squash, broth and spices. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove 3/4 of soup and blend on low speed for 20 - 30 seconds (we like a soup that is not too smooth). Mix in with the unblended soup and serve with whole wheat bread and Havarti cheese. Excellent dinner on a cold Saturday night.

Eating well in a rush

I'm a busy person. We're all pretty busy. It may be kids, it may be dogs, it may be our jobs, our hobbies, or other things in our life.

But, if we don't take time to eat well, we won't have the right type of energy to keep up. I have a habit of esorting to coffee to keep me going when I'm running on empty, which isn't really a healthy or sustainable choice. Coffee is great and everything, but shouldn't be what keeps you moving.

Here are some quick snacks I keep handy to eat when I'm in a rush. Having them around makes it less likely I'll reach for a cup of coffee and a cookie to push me through a low point.

Steel Cut Oats - every Sunday I cook up a pot of steel cut oats. 1 cup of oats to 4 cups of water, simmered until they are soft and tender. I keep this in the fridge and take out single portions (about a quarter of the batch) at a time. I reheat, chop some banana on it, and sprinkle some walnuts. A sprinkle of brown sugar and a splash of milk, and I have a breakfast or snack in two minutes. This keeps me going for a good three hours before I need to eat again. Oats are also a good source of fiber, including soluble fiber which can lower cholesterol. Oats are also the only food source of GLA (gamma linoleic acid).

My family's yogurt muesli with berries

Yogurt muesli - My mom adapted this recipe from the Movenpick restaurant's delicious Swiss Muesli (Before they were bought out by Peachtree foods in Canada).

2 cups of plain yogurt
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup currants
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup of frozen berries
1 apple, grated or finely chopped
1 tbls honey

Mix all this together and store in a contained in the fridge for up to 3 days. Add a bit of milk if it is too thick for you. Makes a delicious snack, breakfast or dessert. My family also traditionally makes this on Christmas morning, so that the family can eat at their leisure while we are opening presents.

Mixed unsalted nuts - I always keep a jar of unsalted mixed nuts around. A handful of these have protein, fiber and healthy oils, everything I need to give me a mid afternoon energy boost. I'm careful not to overeat nuts, as they are also calorie dense. But, they beat a chocolate bar any day.

Banana shake - I often have a bottle of plain kefir around, which I don't like on its own but I love blended with a ripe banana and a small scoop of cocoa powder. The sweetness of the banana balances the sour of the kefir, and makes a refreshing, filling and tastey snack on the go in under 2 minutes. Have I mentioned I love probiotics, and I try to get a variety of different ones into me on a regular basis (thus the yogurt and the kefir).

All of these choices are also easy on your budget, when you compare them to what you would pay to eat a snack outside of the house. $2-3 for a toasted bagel, add another two for a coffee, and you have lightened your purse but not filled your body with much that will really help it.

A tofu story: Soy milk continued

1. Boil your mash. So, you've now got a bunch of soy mash boiling on the stove, with a total of 454 grams, or 1 pound, of soybeans and about 22 cups of water. Cook this for about 20 minutes on medium. Stir frequently, as the soy will stick to the bottom of the pan. You want to avoid this from burning. If your soy mash threatens to boil over, stir or add a little cold water. Your soy milk is ready for the next step when the solids have separated from the milk. It should look like the picture on the right.


2. Strain your milk. Line a colander with muslin, or use a fine meshed strainer (like I did!). Carefully pour the mixture through the strainer to separate the soy fibre from the soy milk. It's best to use muslin so that you can squeeze all the soy milk out of the mixture and to avoid any graininess in your soy milk. 


3. Enjoy your milk! If your aim was to make soy milk, then you are done. Soy milk in this manner won't keep as long as that which you buy at the grocery store as it has no preservatives. I have never tasted a better cup of soymilk than my fresh soymilk with a touch of maple syrup and a splash of vanilla!

 I'll add the instructions to make tofu soon.

You will have a bunch of soy fibre left over, and shown on the left. This is called okara. Don't throw it out! It contains a lot of fibre, and a good amount of protein. Okara can be stored in the fridge, or frozen or dried for future use.

I'll do a post in the future about okara uses, but as a quick idea, you can use it to bulk up your morning oatmeal, cutting calories and increasing fibre and protein. I made oatmeal with 1/2 cup rolled oats and 1/2 cup okara cooked with about 1 1/2 cups of water (or more, depending on how long you cook it for and how moist you like it). This oatmeal is rich, creamy and very delicious!

These instructions are my variation of those found in The Tofu Cookbook by Bauer and Andersen and by Makiko Itoh at http://www.justhungry.com/2006/03/milking_the_soy.html