Home Made: Mushroom Speltotto

A friend of my recently introduced me to the spelt grain. Spelt has been in the UK long before many of the wheat hybrids we eat today.  It has more nutrients than it's inbred wheat cousins and doesn't seem to cause sensitivity or intolerance.  Which is why it's often used as replacement for wheat in breads and pastas.  Since it's mushroom season I thought I'd try out spelt risotto or Speltotto (coined by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall).  Using mushrooms as they are in season, a British alternative to Parmsesan cheese and Sharpham Park Organic Pearled Spelt.

Garnished with home grown parsley

INGREDIENTS:

200g Sharpham Park Pearled Spelt*

1 litre of vegetable stock

1 large onion

50g butter

Virgin Olive Oil

Not just a pasta cheese*






METHOD:

1. Rinse the spelt under a cold tap and put to the side.

2. Dice the onion and slice the mushrooms.

3 Heat up the butter and a splash of olive oil. 

4. Add in the onions and cook until soft.

5. Add the spelt to the pan and coat the grains in the oil and butter making sure the grains don't stick together.

6. Gradually add a quarter of the stock and allow the spelt to absorb the liquid. Keep adding the stock and allowing it to absorb until all the stock has been absorbed.  This should take about 20 minutes.

7. Add in the mushrooms and stir until they are cook.

8. Sprinkle with grated cheese and garnish with Parsley.

Urban Gardening: Drying herbs and winterizing your garden

Sadly it's time to pack up our garden.  Our most successful herbs have been washed and are now air drying in the kitchen. Ready to add flavour to dishes and healing properties to herbal remedies. Since we are keen to get our beloved herbs back to the former glorying next year, we are winterising the garden.
   According to the experts, when winter approaches the soil should be on the dry side. Many herbs like dry soil anyway as they are from the Mediterranean and herbs like lavender, rosemary, and thyme are used to growing in the dry rocky soil. But there is another reason why you want to watch out for water as winter approaches because wet soil wicks the heat away from your plant. Not only that, but water freezes when it turns very cold and this can crack the roots of your plant. Make sure they are in frost proof containers that won't crack and expose the roots.
  To stop water getting into the soil we are using a mixture of pine bark and saw dust. This stops water seeping into the soil.

Herbal Remedies: Sore Throat

Autumn is well and truly here. The remains of my beautiful green herb garden are fading into hibernation. Lucky I harvested the majority of my herbs and air-dried them in my kitchen.  It's hard to avoid getting sick at this time of year. The changing season brings with all sorts of bugs and typically I've got a sore throat.  Thank goodness for James Wong's Sage and Honey Remedy. 

INGREDIENTS:

1 large bunch of dried sage leaves
Enough runny honey to cover the leaves

1. Cover the dried sage with honey.
2. Simmer gentle for 1 hour.
3. Allow to cool.
4. Strain the honey and put in a small sterilized bottle.

USE: Take 1 tsp to sooth your throat 3-4 times a day when needed.Use to sweeten hot lemon drinks for cold and flu. Keep for 6 months.

Book Review: Not on the label by Felicity Lawrence

If only this book was fiction. The horrifying reality of where our food comes from and the price the farming industry pays for perfectly formed and flavourless food.  Felicity Lawrence's well researched books explains the extravagant network of global food distribution. The terrifying power that supermarkets have over suppliers. The unorthodox methods that farmers are driven to use to survive. From bleaching chicken and rejecting edible vegetables in poverty stricken countries. The slavery of supply factory workers, who regularly short the food we buy into regulation colour and shape, unripe and over packaged. Each chapter focuses on the key offending products chicken, salad, beans, bread, apples, bananas, coffee and prawns. And final the ready meal. It's a captivating read, a darn good diet aid and another great reason to get down to your local market.

Click to get your copy here or download it from Itunes for the Ipad. 

Natural News: One of the many reasons not to eat a chicken nugget

Ever wonder what's really found in Chicken McNuggets? Some of the ingredients, it turns out, seem to belong more to an industrial factory of some kind, not a food retailer. According to the McDonald's Corporation, its famous Chicken McNuggets are made with ingredients including autolyzed yeast extract (which contain free glutamate, similar to MSG), sodium phosphates and sodium aluminum phosphate. But that's not the freaky part. According to McDonald's own website, Chicken McNuggets are also made with "hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness" and "Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent." (http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/nutr...)

At least two of these ingredients are artificially synthesized industrial chemicals. TBHQ, a petroleum derivative, is used as a stabilizer in perfumes, resins, varnishes and oil field chemicals. Laboratory studies have linked it to stomach tumors. "At higher doses, it has some negative health effects on lab animals, such as producing precursors to stomach tumors and damage to DNA. A number of studies have shown that prolonged exposure to high doses of TBHQ may be carcinogenic, especially for stomach tumors." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TBHQ)

Dimethylpolysiloxane, a type of silicone, is used in caulks and sealants, as a filler for breast implants, and as key ingredient in Silly Putty. Says Wikipedia:

"PDMS is also used as a component in silicone grease and other silicone based lubricants, as well as in defoaming agents, mold release agents, damping fluids, heat transfer fluids, polishes, cosmetics, hair conditioners and other applications. PDMS has also been used as a filler fluid in breast implants, although this practice has decreased somewhat, due to safety concerns. PDMS is used variously in the cosmetic and consumer product industry as well. For example, PDMS can be used in the treatment of head lice..." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimeth...)

Not that the other ingredients are any better. Because cotton is not regulated as a food crop, cottonseed oil may contain chemical pesticides that are banned in food production. It is also almost always genetically modified. Hydrogenated oils, of course, typically contain trans fats, the artificially produced fats that are unusable by the body and that studies have linked to a number of detrimental health problems. And autolyzed yeast extract is a chemical taste-enhancing ingredient containing free glutamate that manufacturers use as a friendlier-looking replacement for MSG.

And what about the chicken in Chicken McNuggets? It's factory-farmed chicken, not free-range chicken. So it's the kind of chicken that's typically treated with vaccines and hormones while being fed conventional feed products that are medicated with pharmaceuticals and grown with pesticides.

Yum!! Don't forget to ask for extra dipping sauce. We haven't even talked about what you'll find in there...

Source: 25 Amazing Facts About Food, authored by Mike Adams and David Guiterrez. This report reveals surprising things about where your food comes from and what's really in it! Download the full report (FREE) by clicking here. Inside, you'll learn 24 more amazing but true facts about foods, beverages and food ingredients. Instant download of the complete PDF. All 25 facts are documented and true.

Additional Sources:
http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/nutritionexchange/ingredientslist.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TBHQ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethylpolysiloxane

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032820_Chicken_McNuggets_ingredients.html#ixzz1aPmWUtSb