This is a really simple recipe that makes a great side dish that will also help with digestion! Other vegetables like cucumbers, green beans, or cauliflower can easily be added or replace the broccoli.

Serves 3 to 4

• 1 head broccoli, cut into florets and steamed
• 1/2 c kimchi
• generous splash of extra virgin olive oil
• 1-2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar or lime juice
• generous handful of sunflower seeds
• 1 or 2 heirloom tomatoes, sliced
• dash salt and pepper

Method: Steam the broccoli or other vegetable, remove from heat and toss with other ingredients, serve slightly warm. Great as a side dish for pizza or curry.

Read more ...

Ever wondered what they ate in Europe before the potato? Pease porridge was one of the staples of the diet. Who doesn’t love a good pea soup with ham hock or sausage? Ever thought that mushy peas might make a fantastic pizza sauce? It does. We had a little pea soup left over from dinner last night so I thought I’d give it a shot. My pea soup was made with beef broth and lots of ginger, onions and garlic, and made a lovely bright green flavorful sauce.

This recipe also makes a great gluten and grain free thin crust pizza using almond flour, the recipe for the crust is from a fantastic cookbook I have just gotten: Recipes for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet by Raman Prasad.

Crust:

• 2 t olive oil
• 2 c (220g) almond flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c (115g) dry curd cheese
• 1/4 t salt

Read more ...

Although my partner grumbles and complains to high heaven about the smell while I am making kimchi, he usually eats it up and wants more. I have taken out the chilis for this recipe of kimchi and added in burdock root, so it isn’t by any means an authentic Korean kimchi, but we like it. It also makes a quick salad when added to steamed broccoli and sunflower seeds, then tossed in olive oil.

Makes about 2 quart jars (depending on size of cabbage)

Brine:

• 1 litre filtered water
• 4 T himalayan or sea salt

Vegetables:

• 1 medium napa cabbage, shredded
• 6 medium organic carrots, grated
• 1 large daikon radish, julienned
• 3 medium burdock roots, julienned

Read more ...

Many years ago while doing a study abroad program in Morocco, we spent a lot of time eating the best bread and apricot jam I have ever had. We ate it for breakfast, lunch and even just for a snack.

This last week our local farmers market was chock full of tasty sun-ripened apricots. I bought a bunch and made a delicious apricot jam. Unfortunately, it rained non-stop and I was unable to finish it in the sun, but if you have the opportunity to do so, your jam will be better than you imagine. Apricots are full of vitamin A and potassium among other things. BC Apricots are amazing!

Read more ...

Looking through a little book by Phillip C.S. Fong written in Pidgin English, Papua New Guinea Igat Gutpela Marasin Tu, I discovered a hiccup cure. Papua New Guinea’s Pidgin is an official language, although simple and based on English, you may find you can understand it if you look at it long enough! Or just read it out loud and suddenly it will start to make sense! One tip is that you generally pronounce ‘e’ as ‘eh’. ‘Save’ for example means to know and the last e is pronounced as ‘eh’. ‘Me no save’ for example means ‘I don’t know’.

Em is save wokim nek bilong you krai olsem HUK, HUK, HUK, na i wok long mikim yu olsem tasol. Na sapos em ino malolo long mikim yu olsem long tu o tri wik, em iken kilim yu. (If your throat won’t stop hiccuping for two or three weeks you can die). Side note! My pidgin isn’t that great, so there is probably a better translation possible, but you can get the gist…

Read more ...

Last night I decided to try an almond torte with cherries and cream. The BC cherries are fantastic and I get raw cream from our local herd-share fresh every week, in fact I have just gotten back from picking up my share.

The almonds probably come from California. I did find a online farm-stand that would ship me nuts from the farm in 30 lb boxes, but I haven’t gotten around to doing that yet. Most almonds are pasteurized these days, unfortunately. As usual my oven burnt the hell out of my tortes. As a result I use a lower temperature for a longer time that might normally be used for a torte, feel free to experiment with the temperature.

Read more ...

One of the things that I have developed over the years after working so long in the food industry around heavy duty oven and floor cleaners and whatnot, I have developed a chemical sensitivity. Doing the GAPS/SCD diet has made me more aware of what is affecting my body in adverse ways. I have also become increasingly frustrated for how much money I have to spend for a bottle of shampoo and conditioner that doesn’t have a zillion names I can’t pronounce included in the list of ingredients. Anyway it turns out you can just use baking soda and vinegar very successfully as a shampoo and conditioner.

There are various other ingredients you can add to these basics, I have tried a few. My first attempt washing my hair with my own shampoo was with bentonite clay and marshmallow root, I think I also used soapnut detergent in that. I didn’t really like the results for that, as my hair is quite fine and the bentonite dried it out too much. I haven’t tried adding marshmallow to the shampoo since then, if I do, I’ll let you know.

Read more ...

Rose hips can easily be made into a vitamin C rich tasty spread. I make this recipe with dates and apples to sweeten the rose hips. It is best to cook rose hips even though heat breaks down vitamin C. There is also an enzyme in rose hips that also breaks down vitamin C very quickly which is neutralized by heat. Therefore it is important to cook the rosehips long enough but not too long!

I like this method because it can take a really long time to clean rose hips individually and remove the hairs and seeds from them. Simmering them and then straining them through a moulie or sieve helps this process to go faster.

Read more ...

With the rise of environmental toxins, many women are having increased problems during their period. I have been drinking this tea, with slight variations for a few years now and it really helps to balance and even out a wide variety of menstrual symptoms. There are a lot of other herbs that can be used and are especially useful for women, so please get to know which herbs work best for you by experimenting a little.

I use a large, plain white Chinese tea pot that holds about 6 cups of water. I have a tendency to use a lot of the various herbs and it varies depending on how much of the herb I have and how I am feeling that day. These amounts are therefore not set in stone.

• 2 T nettles
• 1 T sage
• 1 t fennel seeds, crushed
• 1 t camomile
• 1 pinch yarrow blossoms
• 6 c water, boiled

Read more ...

The first time I made this recipe I was working in Burma (Myanmar) at a 5 star Renaissance International hotel. One of the long-time expatriates that frequented our catering services was an older, leathery-skinned alcoholic Swedish lady. She had somehow managed to get the Swedish ambassador to Thailand to come to a dinner party at her house when he was in town.

She insisted I follow a very particular recipe when making the marinated salmon which has a relatively higher ratio of sugar than many gravad lax recipes. The Swedish usually have this salmon on their smorgasbords and always serve it with this delicious mustard dip. I have altered the recipe slightly here to use honey instead of sugar for a GAPS and SCD friendly recipe.

Read more ...