Author: Chef Kim

Juice Feasting?

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Summer is the perfect time to take a couple days to lighten up and supercharge your cells with nutrition. This can be accomplished by a short juice feast, even if it’s just for one day. Giving your body a break from having to digest heavy foods can allow more time for your body to heal, clean out toxins and repair or bring systems back into balance. A juice feast is something you can do that will provide essential nutrients while allowing the body to focus its energy on important cellular function and repair. Typically you do not need to be supervised by a healthcare practitioner for a short juice feast, but if you are concerned about specific health issues, it is recommended you check with your physician or know that you can stop and resume eating whole foods at any time if you wish. Short juicing periods can make a noticeable impact on your energy, skin, weight loss, colon health, mental clarity and overall vibrancy of life.

Over a weekend or for a week, consider only drinking fresh juiced fruits and vegetables. The juice, or life blood of plants, is super dense in vitamins, mineral and phytonutrients that can provide essential nutrients for proper cellular function, repair and regeneration. Most of us are deficient in the amount of vitamins and minerals we consume because most of us are not eating enough plant food which has the highest concentration of these necessary nutrients.  And most of us do not assimilate and absorb efficiently, so we are lacking in the nutrients we need to manufacture healthy cells. Juice can help. But, NOT the juice on the grocery store shelves. That juice is low in quality nutrition because of the processes and treatments it has to go through for sustaining shelf life. Fresh juiced fruits and veggies are best! If you do not have a juicer, I’m here to help. I can supply you with juice for the number of days you would like to feast: one, three or five days. I will supply you with five juices a day and you will drink water or herbal teas between juices.  If you don’t think you can make it on liquids alone, I recommended that you supplement with raw whole foods: fruits, vegetables, and small servings of seeds and nuts during the time you are setting aside to do this for your health.

The cost for me to provide you with juices for a Juice Feast is $30 a day for 5 juices. I do suggest a day or two before you decide to embark on a Juice Feast, to start eating lighter and more salads or steamed vegetables and eliminating coffee, sodas, dairy and meat. Ideally, the summer months are best for this because the weather is warmer and our body’s are more inclined to lighter meals, and cool foods and drinks. So, this is something I am offering trough August, however there is a week mid August I will not be available. If you are interested in doing this please contact me. I am happy to work with your schedule. 

Spring Cleaning on the Inside

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Today was a wonderful spring day, warm and sunny!  An absolutely beautiful Resurrection Day. As we enter this time of year and see the new growth as flowers start to pop up and the grass turn green, we are usually so ready and eager to open the windows and start the Spring Cleaning ritual. We often take better care of our homes and cars than we do our body’s. So I want to encourage you to think about giving your body a good Spring cleaning on the inside!  You can get rid of the built up toxins and toxic emotions that are either stored away in fat cells or that consume our thoughts and energy like un-forgiveness and bitterness.  Overtime these toxins become like the dust that accumulates inside our homes and covers the beauty that is really there. You can get your lymphatic system moving in order to clear out the stagnation in your system that has been accumulating over the long winter. There are some pretty complex and expensive cleanse packages that you can purchase and join, but you may want to try a food cleanse first. Sometimes this is all you need to reset your body chemistry, but this outline is not all encompassing for what a cleanse can include. For a simple, yet effective, cleanse there are just a few recommendations to get you started. First, mentally prepare yourself to feel better. Get excited about how you will feel after a week: you will have more energy, spring in your step, better focus, less anxiety, less weight, cravings gone, better digestion, freedom from emotional holds, and you will notice the little things that seemed ‘normal’ will go away and you will feel great! So mentally, get psyched!  The next important step is to confront the stuffed emotions that you have not been willing to deal with and look to the resurrected Christ Jesus, for forgiveness and the ability to forgive others. There are documented studies that show how emotional barriers, unresolved issues and unrepentant sin can manifest as physical illness and disease. God wants you to be well.  Then take time to add in some deep breathing time during your day, and extra movement. Whether it is going up and down the stairs rather than using the elevator or taking a walk over lunch break, get out into the fresh air to stimulate your lymph by moving around and get oxygen into your lungs and into your cells for energy and renewal by doing some deep abdominal breathing. Our cells need oxygen more than they need food, so this is an important step to include for cleansing and overall better health. (You can live for 40 days without food, but only about 5 minutes without oxygen). To cleanse, you need water, so begin substituting pure water for your other drinks during the day. In order to get toxins out of the body, you need pure water to dilute and flush them from the body. Water is so important that many of the symptoms we attribute to illness are really our body’s cry for pure water. Try to drink half of your body weight in ounces of water. (i.e. if you weigh 150 lb. then drink 75 oz. of water).  Make food choices that will significantly decrease the energy demand on your digestive system. There are foods that are heavy and require a lot of energy in order to digest them; those are primarily meats and dairy products. There are foods that are very easily and quickly digested; those are fruits and vegetables. Nuts and seeds are important for their protein and whole food fats, but during cleansing, should be eaten in small amounts. Also adding smoothies and juices during this time will greatly increase your nutritional intake and ease digestion, which are both important factors that allow your body to release stored toxins. Also consider eating more of your food in the uncooked/raw state for the enzymatic action that provides, which helps the digestive process and decreases the energy required. The digestive process is helped immensely by taking a multi-strain blend of probiotics to increase the beneficial micro-flora of the gut, which is essential for nutritional absorption and immune function. Eating fermented foods is a means of getting this beneficial bacteria. Finally, rest is very important during cleansing and for overall greater health because of the repair and renewal of cells and tissues during our sleeping state. Rest is also a major influence on the hormonal balance and proper function in the body. All of these help the body to rid itself of unwanted and stored toxins, both physical and emotional.

Take action:

  1. Mentally get ready to feel great.
  2. Emotional release and forgiveness
  3. Breath deep and move
  4. Drink pure water
  5. Choose foods that facilitate cleansing and probiotics
  6. Rest well

Ideally you will see great results if you eliminate sugar, dairy, caffeine, alcohol, soy, meat, and gluten for a period of one to two weeks, while incorporating fresh smoothies with fruit and greens, big vegetable salads, soups and steamed/roasted/grilled vegetables. And you can eat as much of these as you wish. No counting calories is necessary. *Real whole food does not come in a box, so these chemical non-foods contribute to the toxic load on our systems, so cleansing foods do not include boxed ‘food’.

If you have any questions, ask away! If you decide to Spring Clean your Insides, drop me a comment and let me know how it goes.

Thought of the Day: Is your food making you sick?

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This question is on my mind a lot with so many people having reactions to food and not feeling well on a daily basis. The new “normal” or “feeling fine” translates to the normalcy of being tired or fatigued, bloated, achy, and can’t focus all the time.  Does this sound familiar?  The food that is most available to us and that we have been indoctrinated into thinking is “good for us” is really NON-food or it has been genetically tampered with and turned into a false food that our bodies do not recognize.  This is a topic that can go on for volumes, but I wanted to bring it up and put it out there to stir some thought on the issue. If you are eating foods that have ingredient lists, make sure you know what each ingredient is. Another way to think about it is to ask yourself if that ingredient was in your grandmother’s cabinet or refrigerator. If not, it is likely created in a lab and not ideal for your dinner plate.  The foods most important for good health are WHOLE foods that have a single ingredient – that food. Apples, pears, lemons, mushrooms, kale, broccoli, almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, etc. No ingredient list is needed for whole foods. If you buy canned and boxed foods, know that the nutritional content of those foods are typically not worth the calories. The only canned items I recommend are single food items like tomatoes, and cooked beans – with the stipulation that the can is not lined with BPA plastic. When it comes to whole foods, even those can be dangerous because of the manipulation of species by the Big AG companies and the Genetic Modification that is taking place, which is affecting everyone and why I think more and more people have issues with food allergies. These GMO foods cause gut inflammation because they are NOT natural and our bodies do not recognize them as food, reacting to it like a foreign substance and generating a histamine or allergic response. I wholeheartedly recommend watching the documentary “Genetic Roulette” and  checking out the website for Responsible Technology Org.  You need to protect yourself and family from the foods that can cause so many problems. Most of the Corn, Soy, Canola, Sugar, and Cottonseed grown for commercial food companies and animal feed is genetically modified. These foods are ingredients in primarily every boxed food item on the shelves.  The only way to know for sure that you are not ingesting GMO foods is to look for the USDA Organic seal or the NON GMO Project seal on processed food items. If produce is ORGANIC it can not be GMO. But there are no labels yet to let us know if something is GMO, so buyer beware!  Many people have seen amazing results in their health and with symptoms going away when they take the effort to eliminate processed foods with GMOs and start eating Real Whole Food! Give it a try – your ‘normal’ state of being might improve and you will enjoy greater health!

Extra, Extra!

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Read all About it…

There has been a lot happening this year and this year has only just begun.  I want to tell you about some of the projects and new opportunities I’m involved in so you can know me a little better. I have just returned from a stay at a Hallelujah Acres Lifestyle Center in Florida, oh it was so sunny and warm. The center provides a B&B feel while providing classes on healthy lifestyle choices, food preparation that is raw and cooked vegan, a Bible study and exercise. Last Fall I went through the training offered by Hallelujah Acres to be a Health Minister, to be able to help people claim and achieve the abundant health God intended us to have. Our choices really do get in the way of our health. I will be offering some classes based on that training. The course, Get Healthy, Stay Balanced, is one that is approaching.

I am also going through a six month Plant-Based Professional Culinary program for wellness diets, so that I can teach and inspire others in new ways how to incorporate more plant-based foods into their diet. It is through these foods, that God created, that provide better nutrition for our ailing bodies. I hope to work with some doctors in the area by providing classes that will help patients implement better dietary choices so that their sickness and diseases will be reversed.

There is another thing I want to let you know about. Besides loving to cook and prepare raw whole foods, I have a love for holistic health. Food and health go together. I have been learning and living out herbal and natural alternative approaches to healing for the last 22 years. In the past two years I have acquired training in Holistic Blood Chemistry Analysis. It is a great way to see specifically how your organs and glands are functioning and also how they respond to stress. Knowing these things about yourself can help to pinpoint what is going on and how to bring balance back to your body, by targeting those organs or glands that are out of balance with specific foods, supplements and therapies. More information on this can be found under the Healthy Alternatives Tab in the directory.

So, as I keep learning and doing, I will keep sharing that information with you, hopefully inspiring you to take greater responsibility for your own health and making healthy lifestyle choices.

I am happy to answer any questions and consult about health concerns, but I also need to state that I am not a doctor and can not prescribe or diagnose. Let me know if there is any way I can help you in achieving your health goals.

Pineapple Cucumber Gazpacho

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I tasted this soup last week while visiting St. Petersburg, Florida. Eating it outside under the warm setting sun was such a blessing, considering it was below freezing back home. So when I was back home in the frozen north, I decided I wanted to try my hand at making my version of the soup I had enjoyed. It turned out very good and brought a feeling of warmth and tropical flavors to a very cold day. I hope you like it. Serves 4.

  • 1 cucumber peeled, seeded and diced, reserve seeds
  • 1/2 pineapple, cored and diced
  • 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
  • 1/2 lemon, juice only
  • 2 Tablespoon walnut oil or other nut oil
  • 1/2 jalapeno or dash of cayenne
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1/2 cucumber , peeled and chopped
  • 1/4 pineapple, cored and chopped
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1 Tablespoon of white balsamic vinegar, optional

Place diced cucumber and pineapple in a bowl, add cilantro and jalapeno if using. Stir to combine. Place lemon juice, oil, cucumber half and reserved seeds, chopped pineapple, salt, water and if using white balsamic in a blender and puree. Add more pineapple to thicken or more water to thin. Pour over diced cucumber and pineapple, stir, taste and adjust seasonings. sprinkle with cayenne to your taste.

This will make a wonderful summer treat, but if you need a reminder of what summer tastes like while your waiting for the thaw, give it a try.

Giving Thanks

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Today, we set aside a whole day to enjoy food, family and friends and to reflect on our blessings and BE Thankful.  Have you ever considered taking on this mentality Daily, everyday!  I’m not talking about the food gorging and all the extra helpings of  mashed potatoes and pie we find ways of justifying because it is ‘ only one day’.  I’m talking about the aspect of focusing on the enormity of our blessings, which the most important of which are family and friends! I have come to realize that it is with WHOM we have relationships, that bring the greatest blessings into our lives. Each day we may touch someone new with a smile to lift their aching heart or give  someone a tender touch to comfort their soul, have tea and conversation with a good friend or take a walk around the lake. It is our presence in their life that we may never know the impact of, while they make a mark on our life.  I believe when we are thankful and take time to acknowledge our blessings, we feel better and have a greater quality of health.  So taking time out daily to be thankful for the people you will see that day, or for friends and family that you received a call or text from, can build up your mind and body  while exercising your spirit of Thanksgiving. I believe God provides gifts of comfort and enjoyment, but it is the people He puts into our lives that make life worth living and bring the greatest blessings! I’m thankful for you, who visit this site, who come to my classes and those who visit me at Fresh and Green and enjoy the food I prepare. Many of you have become friends that I cherish and feel blessed knowing you.

 

Take Care

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Green Goodness!

If we don’t have a life-threatening illness, we know someone who does.  We have been taught that disease is a result of a host of many possible causes, of course depending on what the illness or symptoms are.   It is my understanding, that the majority of illnesses and diseases are primarily the result of two causes…  either a deficiency of nutrients that prevents the body from functioning in a healthy way, or a toxic load under which the body cannot function, or the combination of both, in most cases.  The body was created to deal with all kinds of assaults from bacteria, viruses, injuries and poisons and has in place specific mechanisms like generating fever for overcoming pathogens and acute inflammation and cell renewal for healing itself.  But these self – healing abilities require proper nutrition for the innate mechanisms to take place. When the nutrients are not provided through eating fresh whole foods, the lack of nutrition generates dis-ease in the body in addition to it not being able to fight off pathogens and  self-heal.
When a food is ripe in nature, it is at its nutritional peak. As soon as it leaves the ground, branch or plant it grew on, it begins to lose nutritional value. If that food is then processed in some way and ends up ground, bleached, heated, pasteurized, sauced and in a box, can or jar, there isn’t much nutritional value left. Then usually, synthetic vitamins are added. However, the synthetic vitamins are difficult for the body to utilize, if at all. So much of our food that we have been told is good for us and we have lived on for many years, has been nutritionally deficient causing our body’s to reach a level of having significant deficiencies. When food is processed it is also loaded with additives to sustain its shelf life, but the additives are toxins to our bodies. Our bodies try to break them down and get rid of them, but adequate nutrients are necessary for proper detoxification to occur. So many of us have also reached appoint where our bodies can no longer detoxify sufficiently, so we have a large toxic load due to insufficient nutrients. In addition to food toxins, we are exposed to hundreds of environmental toxins and toxins found in personal care products. So there is no shortage of toxic buildup in our bodies. The combination of toxins and the deficiency of nutrients play an integral part in the dis-ease and illnesses we experience.
To successfully overcome illnesses, super nutrition is needed in the form of fresh vegetable juices, a whole foods diet comprised of mostly raw fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds and legumes. If you take care of your body and give it what it needs, your body will take care of YOU. It was created as wonderful self-healing machine.

I will be giving a Come Clean-Cleanse Workshop on Thursday November 7, from 6:00-7:30 PM at Fresh and Green Market. Green Juices and Smoothies will be served and the cost is $10.

 

Simple or Elegant

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I taught a few classes this summer that turned out to be really enjoyable for me and from the feedback, for everyone who attended.  What I want most for people to see and encounter when attending my classes, is that it can be easy to put together Beautiful and Deliciously Healthy Food!   It is very fun for me to see excitement in peoples faces when they taste something that wakes up their taste buds but at the same time understand that they are really nourishing their bodies, because they are eating fresh, whole food without a box and the accompanying preservatives and chemicals.  And most recipes take less time the “convenient food in the box”. I won’t get started on “fake” food.  Just think of all the goodness there is in your garden or at the farmer’s market or in your CSA box. There are so many wonderful things you can do to get creative with raw foods – greens, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, etc. You can enjoy the simple delicious pleasure of a superbly ripe peach, watermelon, or berry each with their own array of antioxidants and vitamins. Or you can take a little time and combine some of the earth’s bounty into a wonderfully refreshing salad that is sure to please! 

Here is a recipe from my Gourmet Summer Supper Class that can be made simply with option one described below or a bit more elegant by following option two. Option two may look like it takes practice or maybe too much time. but when I made it for the first time, layering the avocado only took about ten minutes and it does not need to be perfectly aligned, it just needs to be overlapping slightly. Give it a try, it is stunning both to the eyes and the taste buds.

Stuffed Avocado Salad

Avocado half or roll,  filled with chopped lemon vegetable salad 

  • 2 avocados, ripe but not too soft
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 radish
  • ½ cup zucchini, small diced
  • ¼ cup red pepper, diced
  • 3 tablespoon green or sweet onion
  • 1 med kohlrabi, small diced
  • 2 tomatoes, seeded and diced
  • 2 tablespoon minced basil,
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
  • Zest of one lemon
  • 6 tomato slices crisp dehydrated (optional)
  •  Garnish: White balsamic vinegar or coconut aminos.
  • Tomato crisps (paper thin tomato slices dried in dehydrator until crispy)

 

 For chopped Salad: Slice off top and bottom of tomatoes, cut outer flesh away from seeds and pulp of tomato, keeping seeds intact. Cut flesh into 1/4 inch cubes; reserve seeds and surrounding gel aside for garnish. Combine tomato cubes with diced kohlrabi, onion, pepper, zucchini, and radish. Add lemon zest, basil and sesame oil.

 Option 1: Cut avocado in half, remove the pit, peel and place on a bed of baby greens. Fill with chopped salad, drizzle with vinegar or coconut aminos.

 Option 2: Lightly oil a sheet of plastic wrap with olive oil. Peel avocados, keeping them whole. With peeler, shave thin slices of avocado, working from the top to the bottom. Carefully place slices on plastic wrap, overlapping slightly to create a sheet of avocado about 4 by 12 inches. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Repeat to make 2 sheets.

 To assemble stuffed avocado rolls:  Place ½ -3/4 cup vegetable mixture across bottom of each avocado sheet. With plastic wrap, roll up like a sushi roll. Remove plastic wrap. Drizzle white balsamic or coconut aminos on each serving plate. Cut each large roll into three pieces.  Place 1 roll per plate. Garnish with tomato seeds and tomato crisps.

 

Creamy Vegetable Stack

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This is my dinner tonight. It is easy to throw together once you slice and chop your vegetables of choice. I hope you like it as much as I do.

For 2 servings:

  • 1 zucchini, thinly sliced lengthwise using mandolin
  • 14 cup red pepper, diced
  • 1/2 cup spinach, leaves stacked and sliced thinly into ribbons
  • 1/2 portabella mushroom, diced
  • 1/2 avocado, sliced
  • 1 small carrot, shredded
  • 1 Tbs diced onion, diced

Cream: 1/2 cup soaked cashews, 1/4 avocado, 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, 1 Tbs Braggs aminos, 3/4 cup water

Prepare vegetables as indicated. Combine cream ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

To assemble: Slightly overlap 3-4 zucchini slices lengthwise. Place half of the avocado on top of the zucchini, followed by half of the spinach, mushroom, pepper, carrot and onion. Spoon 3-4 Tbs of the cream on top of the vegetables and cover with another layer of overlapping zucchini. Repeat vegetable layers and cream. Top with zucchini slices and cover with cream. Allow to set for 30 minutes to combine flavors, or if you have a dehydrator, place inside and warm using a setting of 125 degrees for 20-30 minutes.  YUM!

 

 

Green Coconut Mint Bars

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These are still frosty from the freezer, but oh so cooling and delicious!

  • 2 cups shredded coconut
  •  ¼ cup cashews
  •  2 Tbs chlorella or other super green powder
  •  2 dates
  •  2 Tbs maple syrup
  •  2 drops mint essential oil

Combine the coconut and cashews in a food processor and blend until it begins to break down into a creamy texture. This will take a couple minutes as it takes time for the fat to separate from the coconut fiber and become soft. Once it is spreadable, add remaining ingredients and continue to process to combine well. Line a dish with plastic wrap and pour mixture onto plastic. Cover with another sheet of plastic and press firmly together and form into a rectangle approximately a half inch thick. Remove plastic and score into bars, and place in the freezer to set. After 30 minutes they can be transferred to the refrigerator or kept in freezer. At room temperature they will soften, so it is less messy to eat them straight from the fridge. Enjoy the goodness.