A Fork In The Road    

Story

Background to this story. I have Cat aka Attackit. It’s Spring and flea time. Had heard that fleas do not like Brewer’s yeast (not the same as baker’s yeast). There are other options, but I do not total anything. So I put it in my food. And, whatever else it did for me, one of them was not fleas. So I put some of the powder on my legs. Nope, there they were chomping away. Then I noticed that they were not where the powder was, just in-between, which was, well, most of the leg. So, never to let a rumor of a cure die without giving it its full due, I put the powder into some water (warm to help dissolve and made just a very thin mixture, not a paste) and covered my lower legs with it. Sat down at the computer and after 4 minutes had totally forgotten about it. Suddenly I remembered and looking down, saw nothing. No, my legs were still there. Not a flea. Oh, one. Watched it, no movement. After about a minute and a half there was no bite. I think he fell asleep. O.K., he’s on the move. Another spot. I wait. Nothing. Finally in disgust or dispair or whatever, he leaves. Must be desperate. Will he starve? No. The regular Cat goes by to the outside several times a day, mostly after being fed. Now, I have to figure out how to help Cat. Brewer’s on her fur would sort of cut down on grooming by herself or others. Do not want to make her a social outcast. She does that very well all by herself. Synopsis on the Brewer’s yeast – it definitely works. I have been putting a little in the canned food for her and she seems to be scratching much less.

 Butter/Honey/Cinnamon On Whole Wheat. This was delicious. Plus it has tremendous health benefits. As indicated in a previous post, honey and cinnamon may be helpful to the system before and after chemo. But obviously it must be beneficial for other things. If you want the real research, just ask. But, in the meantime,  check this out: http://www.angelfire.com/az/sthurston/honeyandcinnamon.html The health benefits of Honey and Cinnamon. Not bad for a humble slice of bread for dessert or breakfast. Snopes, http://www.snopes.com/medical/homecure/honey.asp the source of wisdom on urban legends, lists the honeyandcinnamon.html page as ‘Status: Undetermined’ and  ‘Origins: Research in progress’. Other sites are not so restrained. All I can say is you have to make your own determination. Given the research and thinking which individually backs up the power of these two ingredients separately, I would certainly surmise that together they could possibly do many things – Whether or not as much as proclaimed needs to be checked out, but I am definitely open.

 Hot Corn Tortilla. This is not to be hand held. Has Cayenne pepper, hot paprika, cheese mixed in with the corn, and butter, garlic powder, and za’atar. For za’atar, as a spice which will preserve you in the best way possible, it is difficult to beat. Anti-everything you don’t want, with support for those things you do.  

 You’ve seen it, been there, done that, and the kids hate it. Until the sauce. Be sure to make enough. It’s a combination of a great cheese, butter, basilicum, turmeric, crushed black pepper, and sweet chili sauce (just a taste). If the vegetables are all fresh, you are better than I am. This is frozen. Just enough water in the pan to unfreeze them and not lose nutrients. But sure to cook the spinach, especially if you have thyroid problems, and as a general rule, eat with other foods. Check out spinach here: http://www.naturalnews.com/026273.html Amazing stuff. The broccoli, brussels sprouts and peas all have their own individual pluses.

Another one of my dishes in a bowl. Cheese Beans. The cheese is kashkaval but any good cheese will do. Yes, I do use other cheeses besides swiss and this one. The brown beans (left over from a previous dish in which they had been boiled for an hour and a half after soaking for a day and a half with two changes of water) and garbanzos (also soaked but for only 4 hours and not previously cooked). The soaking bit takes less planning than imagined. Achieving the initial impulse to put them into a jar with water is the challenge, and then forgetting them which is easy. Just be sure that they are visible or you may truly forget them. Onions, sweet potatoes with peel, garlic (browned in the pan), sunflower seeds and cherry tomatoes. Spices, especially thyme, and fried until eatable with the cheese then melted on top and mixed in together with a small amount of sweet chili sauce. High protein and a great taste.

 
And you thought you knew all there was to know about the flu.
Just ran across an article on a potential natural source against flu. Very much worth the read. http://www.naturalnews.com/026354_elderberry_Tamiflu_immune_system.html 

Food Test (a must take)
If you are at all interested in how you are doing food wise, be sure to take the test on World’s Healthiest Foods. As I said before it will both amaze and shock you. http://whfoods.org/foodadvisor.php
 

As an aside,

I decided to learn another language. Very important for keeping the mind super active, and can be of true value in advancing any profession. In fact, name me one profession where knowing another language would not be useful. Just learning “Watch out!” in ten different languages can be a life saver. The reason I bring it up, besides providing encouragement, is the fact that I have found a really impressive tool which has made it much easier. http://www.wordreference.com/ WordReference.com A free 14 language dictionary and thesaurus which is truly interactive, fast, totally wired, and voiced for many words. Once inside one of the languages, the link mechanisms are amazingly complete, and the options for expanding and digging deeper are exquisitely programmed. About my own progress? I can even talk to myself now, fluently. And, of course, I understand it. The person outside may not be as fortunate.

 You don’t want your salad to just say to your stomach “Hi, don’t mind me. I’m just passing through”. You want it to say “Well (opening salutations are often crucial) , here I am to help. What do you want me to do?” And that is where the dressing comes into play. The two major ingredients are za’atar, and turmeric/black pepper. If you already know about them, you are going to live a long life. Otherwise, ask around. You may be surprised how close they are given the international nature of our modern society. And if not, then they’re as close as the internet. For information on them, see http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=78 for turmeric, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/za’atar for za’atar. I have discussed them at length in other parts of the blog. We are sometimes too far from our roots for our own good.

 Avocado Onion Soydogs. #10 in the Bowl Series. The avocado is added just before putting everything in the bowl or on the plate, whichever version is shown here. If you see the bowl, then the hummus is on top. If it is the plate which made it to the blog, then the hummus is on the bottom. Guess which came first. By the way, to enjoy this dish, you do not need the hummus, but it sure adds to the taste. The important thing here is NOT to fry the avocado.  Something tells me that the results would not be pretty.

 And then there are the times when you just do not want to cook. A salad can be made to ‘look’ like a full meal – sometimes. The trick is having the extras like avocado, hummus, cherry tomatoes which actually give a particularly wide variety of vitamins and minerals. That’s all fine, but -  there must be a dessert. A salad for the main course without a dessert? Forget it.  

 Dessert. The butter is over the wall, but important for a sense of completion. Strawberry jam is an important nutritional addition – or so I tell myself. It’s very probable that in the cooking process, all of the great nutritional values of strawberries is virtually lost. But I hang on to the strawberry jam idea anyway. Strawberries – an important antioxidant, also great for the eyes, and an important cancer inhibitor (among the phytonutrients present in strawberries is ellagic acid , also found in raspberries and pomegranates http://www.zhion.com/phytonutrients/Ellagic_Acid.html)  So when you go for that next frozen yogurt, put strawberries on top. 

 Breakfast. Cupcake Eggs. Avocado-Fried Mushroom- Breakfast Salad. The toasted-in-butter-sliced-breakfast-roll is just there to fill two spaces :-). Some notes for this: This egg thing will take a bit of experimentation. I have done most of it but there are still some wrinkles. Cooked in a frying pan with no water and very, very little oil (of course you can put water in the pan, and then put an oven pan with the cupcake papers in it). If you do it straight, must have a very durable pan or pot to withstand the possible burn. A small amount of oil in the bottom of each cup will help you get the egg out, come the time. At least 2 and possibly 3 papers inside each other. Cover the pan on low flame. I will have to try it with larger cupcake molds and a whole egg. The salad is topped with za’atar. The first time for anything is never perfect, and if it is, you are truly blessed.  (Do not pick your own mushrooms and if tempted, read the warning upper left).

 Find out what you are lacking (see at end of recipe).
Broccoli and brussels sprouts with mushrooms and garlic resting on the shore of a butter sauce made with milk, turmeric and crushed black pepper(not shown).This solves so many nutritional lacks that I find it difficult to even begin. I’ll just say that if you want to be healthy, this is the place to start. And very important, everything fried in olive oil and not overcooked (except for the garlic to dampen the after effects). Read the mushroom warning at top. If you eat healthily, your body will not be constantly looking around for things it needs and has no chance of getting with  you at the helm. So the word is that if you eat right, you will stay trim.

Take the 3 minute questionnaire at World’s Healthiest Foods  to find out what you are lacking. A help note here: If you do not eat one of the foods listed, click on the <1 on the right side. When you get the results, click on the vitamins to find out which foods give it, and to find out healthwise the importance of each of them.
You will be amazed. Really.

Morgan Style Creamed Potato. This one would definitely open a restaurant. Fried the thinly sliced potato in olive oil and set aside. Cooked the garlic to a golden brown to reduce its socially desuasive (my coinage) after effects and set aside. Fried the mushrooms well and then put milk, oil, cheese (kashkaval), flour, salt in with the done mushrooms. Added cayenne pepper (very little), and zartar for all of its benefits. Topped the assemblage with turmeric (curcumin), and crushed black pepper to enhance the body’s use of the curcumin, and photographed. Be sure to read the mushroom warning. The warning is about using the wrong type of mushrooms. But, in terms of the good kind which are a bit old, you are on your own. That is the reason for the zartar (thyme) as an anti-fungi, anti-bacterial as well as all of its extra nutritional value. Even if the mushrooms were picked 10 minutes before, I would use this spice. Ten thousand years (or whatnot – don’t spoil the effect) of Lebanese culture has proven the value of this spice.

Deep dish Cabbage Stew. We often think of stews as separate vegetables boiled in water and served in water, or at least with the water poured off. One of the reasons that stews normally don’t excite us. How many would go to a restaurant and order stew. If they even had it on the menu. Right! O.K., so this is an attempt to brighten up its name even though its base is cabbage which in and by itself is another turn off. But, let’s take the basic concept of stew which is that everything in the stew lends its taste and nutrients to everything else, and that the resulting assemblage is richer for the fraternization. However, some of this is often lost when the water is left behind. In frying, and some water was put in during the cooking to be sure that the final result would hang together and would transfer and cook the spices. But here, nothing is thrown out. The cabbage only serves as a backdrop. The other ingredients consist of two garlic cloves, cherry tomatoes, peas and a veg burger. The spices are thyme, rosemary, turmeric, black pepper, cayenne pepper, brewer’s yeast, with just enough water to be sure that all of the spices are integrated. The cheese sauce was made separately, with the stew mixed into the sauce at the end. The sauce is just enough water to pick up all the nutrients left in the pan after the stew has been set aside. Added milk, cheese (in this case kashkaval), mushroom powder for cooking.

Comment about traditional cooking. It occurs to me that traditional cooking handed down through the generations in most countries of the world is the result of thousands of years of experimentation  and has properties and combinations which work together to provide health. I am not speaking here of societies which have been disrupted by any number of causes or diseases which are endemic in certain societies and caused by viruses and bacteria transferred to humans, such as malaria. We see this in people who have outlived most of us in Western society. In many cases, the diet has been something which we think is relatively poor compared with the variety available in most supermarkets. But what we have done is to throw out all of the wisdom, all of the life giving combinations of foods and spices in our race to ‘modernize’. And we see the results. A higher rate of constitutional disease and in general shorter life spans in developed society. That is one of the reasons that I have attempted to bring into my cooking some of the spices and foods which are found in traditional cooking.

 Raw Onion and Red Bell Pepper Salad With Special Mayonnaise Sauce. The sauce is mayonnaise, a bit of yellow mustard, sesame oil or olive, crushed cayenne pepper, crushed black pepper, salt, thyme, garlic powder, just enough water to make it shakable.

A Way To Slice Onions
The onions were cut from start in under 1 minute. I have watched chefs dice onion for the longest time with great élan and a special knife. Since I cannot keep my mouth shut that long, I had to figure out a different way. It’s simple. Take a peeled onion set on end. and make cuts with a knife very close together across the top, to a depth of about half the onion. Turn the onioncounter clockwise (or clockwise – depends on personality) and do the same thing again. Then put it on its side and slice the onion. Vola!

 Carrot Herding Soydogs with Mushroom Pointers. The glaze is cinnamon butter honey. That explains it all.  Read the mushroom warning at the top.

 Broccoli and Mushrooms In Butter Sauce. The brocs and rooms you’ve seen before. The sauce you have not. Good chuck of butter, small amount of turmeric for the yellow, thyme, salt, crushed black pepper, very small amount of flour, crushed cayenne seeds. Be very careful with the pepper and cayenne. Can overpower anything fast. Read the mushroom warning top. Buy them, never pick them unless you know exactly what you’re doing, and even then, buy them. They are perfectly safe if you  get them from a reliable source. In fact they can add a number of vitamins you do not get enough of from other foods.

 Fruit Dump. If you don’t like fruit, then this is the dish for you. All of it in one place at one time with strawberry jam and cinnamon in mayonnaise. Will kick start your body into doing the right thing for a while. Apples, grapes, banana, walnuts, pecans. Just get it in there and let your body figure it out.