Halloween is my favorite holiday. It is so autumny.
This soup can be made more easily by using canned pumpkin puree but fresh pumpkins are better. Why waste the inner pumpkin from your Jack o' Lantern?
Recipe
Grab a 3 pound pie pumpkin. Clean and carve it into any design you like but then use it as food instead of putting it on display.
After the soup is made, garnish each bowl with a sprinkling of roasted pumpkin seeds and a small dollop of sour cream or tofu sour cream. This thick soup will keep in the fridge and it freezes well too.
Ingredients
* 1 (3 pound) pumpkin, cut & cleaned or 2 cups canned pumpkin puree
* 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
* 2 tablespoons Soy Milk
* 1 diced Onion
* 2 Ripe Pears, peeled, cored and cut into 1-inch chunks
* 3 cloves of minced Garlic
* 1 tablespoon Curry Powder
* 1/2 cup Apple Juice
* 6 cups Vegetable Broth
* 1/3 cup Thick Coconut Cream (NOT sweetened)
* Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper
Toppings:
* Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
* Cilantro and a sprinkle of curry or
* Tofu Sour Cream
1. Place the pumpkin pieces (best just halved), cut side down, on a
baking sheet and pour a half cup of water onto the baking sheet. Cover
the pan with foil and bake at 350° F for about 1 hour, or until the
pumpkin flesh is tender when pierced with a knife. When cool enough to
handle, scrape the pumpkin flesh from the skins.
2. Heat the oil and soy milk
in a large stockpot. Add the onion and sauté over medium heat until
tender, about 8 minutes. Add the pears, garlic and curry powder to the
pot and cook 2 minutes more. Season with salt and pepper. Add the juice
and deglaze, scraping up any caramelized bits on the bottom of the pot.
Add the roasted pumpkin and the vegetable broth and bring the soup to a
boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 45 minutes.
3. Puree the soup with an immersion blender until smooth right in the
pot. Heat thoroughly then stir in the coconut cream and adjust the
seasoning. Do not boil.
4. Serve the soup in warm bowls garnished with a dollop of Tofu sour cream and a few pumpkin seeds.
Source:
Stinging nettle is a powerful herb for our health. Often seen simply as a weed.
It is rich not only in vitamins A, B and C, but
also helps your beauty and has a
positive effect on losing weight. It also lowers blood sugar, so this herb is recommended to those who have diabetes.
Because of chlorophyll, vitamins and iron it contains, stinging
nettle is used as food or drink against anaemia. It relaxes
respiratory tract when you have a terrible cold. Nettles also make a taasty soup:
Nettles Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp yogurt
- ½ tbsp flour
- 1 cup water
- 2 tbsp bulgur
- 2 tbsp boiled chickpeas
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- ¼ bunch of stinging nettle
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Boil stinging nettle, strain and mash it.
- You will have 2 tbsp stinging nettle when mashed.
- Mix yogurt and flour, pour water and olive oil and mix.
- Pour it into a pot.
- Add bulgur and boil, stirring continually.
- Add salt, mashed stinging nettle and boiled chickpeas into this as a final step and it’s done!
- Serve hot.
Nettles are one of nature's most nutritious plants. It's often overlooked as a week growing the the roadside. It is much more.
This great recipe uses the Quinoia grain for a crust.
Recipe: Gluten-free Broccoli Nettle Quiche
Preheat oven: 375 F
“Crust”: one cup or so of cooked quinoa (you can also use brown rice
or not use a crust.) Spread quinoa over the bottom of pie pan.
1 cup broccoli, chopped
1 large bunch stinging nettles
1 small tomato, chopped (optional)
1/2 onion, chopped
1 Tbsp olive oil
6 large eggs
1/4 c milk (or water or soy milk, etc.)
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste
- Steam broccoli and nettles in a little water
(covered) for about 5 minutes until nettles
have completely wilted. When cooled, chop into smaller pieces.
- Saute onion in oil (can add some salt) until onion is translucent.
Add nettles and broccoli. Turn off heat and mix in chopped tomatoes.
- In bowl: mix eggs, milk, salt and pepper.
- Spread grated cheese on top of quinoa, add the veggies next, pour
the egg mixture over top (pour slowly, allowing egg to sink in.)
- Use fork to poke quiche to bottom of pie pan so that egg mixture can
run all the way down, this will hold crust together. Poke all around
quiche.
- Bake until top is browned and egg no longer jiggles, about 45 minutes.
Delicious!
Source: Foodunderfoot Blog
During the bubonic plague in Europe which killed almost half of the population, grave diggers (and grave robbers) drank wine containing garlic cloves.
This concoction kept them immune from the plague.
Garlic makes your blood flow, is anti-bacterial, prevents hardening of the arteries, and has even killed cancer cells in labatory test tubes. (source: Univ of Maryland)
Garlic has been used for thousands of years as a medicine. Research has also shown to prevent colds. Garlic is a member of the onion family. Onions are another immune booster.
EAT GARLIC: Eating a few raw garlic cloves every day, or even cooked garlic will help you immensely.
Another anti-bacterial herbal aid is lavender and stinging nettles (read excerpts on left margin).
Often an overlooked weed, stinging nettles are filled with vitamins; one of nature's richest plants. An ancient treatment for arthritis, nettles strengthen the immune system.
Stinging Nettles Ravioli
Make home-made pasta dough or purchase pre-made dough..
Ingredients:
4 cups nettle tops
8 ounces ricotta, any liquid poured off
2 ounces Parmesan, grated
Salt and pepper to taste
Filling
Before they are cooked, fresh nettles can sting, so use gloves. Blanch the nettles, in boiling water. Drain and chop the nettles.
Mix ricotta, parmesan and nettles together.
Roll
out the first piece of dough
Beat 1 egg with a little water to make an egg
wash. If you have a ravioli mold, drape the fresh pasta and gently depress the dough into mold. . Fill each depression aint the seams with
egg wash. Then press another piece of pasta for the top.
You can simply cut out the ravioli by hand or use pasta machine.
Bring a pot of generously salted water to a
boil. Drop the ravioli into the water and let it return to the boil.
Cook briefly, 4 or 5 minutes, or just until the ravioli float to the
top. Drain and serve with butter and Parmesan to taste.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
READ BOOK EXCERPT:
"Stinging Nettles, Queen of Herbs: Alchemical Healing of Plant Allies" explores nettles' history, its role as a super-food, immune booster, how to use nettles, tonics, food recipes. Available as Kindle or paperback:
Questions? send email to safeinthewoods@gmail.com
Stinging Nettles are one of the highest known sources of protein in a leafy green, and offers a broad spectrum of vitamins, minerals and micronutrients.
When nettles are used as fodder, chickens lay more eggs, cows produce more milk, is it surprising, then, that nettle does a few things for humans?
This humble plant excels in an area modern pharmaceuticals can’t touch — keeping things working well so they don’t break down in the first place. Nettle vitalizes and normalizes glands and organs, purifies the blood and strengthens bones.
SPECIAL:
Descrip: "Stinging Nettles: Alchemical Healing of Plant Allies" teaches the ancient history of inettles, plant allies, how to find a "plant ally", wildcrafting, the power of the "Queen of Herbs", how to use nettles, tonics, food recipes.
by Nancy Mehegan
Researchers from Wake Forest University’s Center for Nanotechnology and an associated company FiberCell Inc. have developed a new solar cell and coating that they say has doubled the efficiency of solar cell technology.
The coating is the juice of the POKEBERRY. Apparently it absorbs sunlight very well. A common weed holding a secret like this.... These new solar cells use hundreds of minuscule plastic threads that trap sunlight from many angles. (that's new too)
