Boil up and us sparingly as a lovely refreshing drink
Reduces Stress
Over time, stress can leave the adrenal gland exhausted by constantly producing adrenaline and CORTISOL. Licorice supplements can give the ADRENAL GLAND some relief. Licorice root extract can stimulate the adrenal gland, which promotes a “healthy level of cortisol in the body. “
Why does cortisol increase Weight Gain
Cortisol is a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal glands. Whenever you experience something your body perceives as a threat, like a large dog barking at you, a chemical known as adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) is released in your brain. This triggers your adrenal glands to release cortisol and adrenaline.
Cortisol is the main hormone involved in stress and the fight-or-flight response. This is a natural and protective response to a perceived threat or danger. Increased levels of cortisol result in a burst of new energy and strength.
In the fight-or-flight response, cortisol suppresses any functions that are unnecessary or detrimental to that response. During a fight-or-flight response, you can have:
1 head green cabbage medium sized 200gms ground beef lean, fat free 2 tbsp onion minced 2 tbsp tomato paste 1 cup chicken broth or you may use water instead 2 tbsp canned diced tomatoes 1/16 tsp powedered stevia *3/4 tsp salt 1 egg white optional – take out of egg portion for the day 1/2 tsp rice vinegar 1 tsp lemongrass freshly minced 1 tsp dried oregano 1 cup mushrooms finely diced
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C.
In a small bowl, stir together tomato paste and chicken broth (or water) until combined. Set aside.
Cook cabbage in boiling water until the outer leaves pull away easily from the head. Pull away 8 large leaves for the rolls. In a small bowl, combine beef, onion, half of the tomato paste mixture, diced tomatoes, stevia, rice vinegar, lemongrass and oregano. Add egg white .
Remove the thick vein from the bottom of each leaf carefully. Place 2-3 Tbsp of the meat mixture on each cabbage leaf. Overlap the ends of the leaf and fold in the sides. Beginning from the cut end, roll up tightly. Repeat rolling with remaining leaves.
Place rolls in a small baking dish, seam side down. Pour remaining tomato paste mixture over the rolls. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 1 1/2 hours, or until cabbage is tender.
RECIPE NOTES
Batch cooking tip: Easily cook enough for the week by doubling the recipe!
Make sure you wrap your rolls nice and tight so the filling doesn’t fall out when you serve the rolls.
¼ c. Fat Free Mayonnaise (Preferably use your own homemade hCG Mayo) ¼ c. Fat Free sour cream 1 T. Dijon mustard 2 green onions, finely chopped 2 t. ground horseradish
Procedure:
Place all ingredients in a small bowl and mix until well blended.
Refrigerate. Serve over steak, or meat of your choice; also makes a good dip for vegetables.
This quick and easy meal will please both the kids and the grown-ups. Chicken is marinated in a tasty mixture of marjoram, tomato paste and garlic, and served with a side of green salad and broccoli. I used chicken tenderloins because the meat is very succulent and soft but chicken breast or pork can also be used.
NGREDIENTS
1 tablepsoon dried marjoram (or freshly chopped)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
2/3 teaspoon sea salt
2/3 tsp ground black pepper
2 tablespoons virgin olive oil
8 chicken tenderloins + bamboo skewers
ghee for cooking (coconut oil or duck fat can be used instead)
4 cups rocket or other green leaf salad + lemon and olive oil
2 cups broccoli florets
1 teaspoon butter or olive oil
INSTRUCTIONS
Combine dried marjoram with chopped garlic, tomato paste, olive oil, salt and pepper and rub over chicken tenderloins skewered on bamboo sticks. The sticks are optional, you can simply marinate chicken strips. Set aside for a few minutes. At the same time, set a saucepan of water to boil.
Heat a littlecoconut oil in a large frying or grill pan. Cook chicken skewers or strips for 4 minutes on each side. In the meantime, cook the broccoli in boiling water for 2-3 minutes and mix rocket salad leaves with lemon juice and coconut oil. Toss cooked broccoli with some coconut oil and a little sea salt.
Wash and dry the chicken. Zest the lemons and squeeze the juice. Lift the skin off the breast and gently work your fingers between the flesh and the skin to seperate them.
Crush the garlic. Pick some of the thyme leaves off the stems. Mix together the butter, garlic and thyme leaves, half the lemon zest and some seasoning. Spread the seasoned coconut oil on the chickens and over the flesh of the breasts.
Season the birds inside and out. Strew the rest of the thyme over the base of an oven proof dish and sit the birds on top, breast sides down. Pour over half the stock and a squeeze of lemon. Roast in the preheated oven until the juices run clear (aprrox 50 minutes dependant on the size of the birds).
Turn the birds after 1/2 hour and baste with the pan juices leaving the skin on the breast to crisp. Remove the chickens from the cooking dish and keep warm whilst you make the sauce.
Cook together the rest of the stock and the lemon zest and juice with a little stevia. Use to de-glaze the cooking dish scraping up all the crusty cooking juices and simmer them together to amalgamate the flavours.
Strain into a clean pan. Add the yoghurt and cook down fairly hard to reduce and caramelise the yoghurt. Season carefully and add a little more stevia if necessary (it depends how tart the lemons are) Finish the sauce with a good handful of freshly chopped parsley. Remove the breasts and legs off the carcasses and serve with a coating of the sauce.
In an ovenproof Dutch oven over medium heat, brown roast in coconut oil on all sides; drain.
In a small bowl, combine the hot water and bouillon; add the ketchup, onion, Worcestershire sauce, caraway, salt and pepper. Pour over roast. Add bay leaves.
Cover and bake at 325° for 3 hours or until tender. Remove roast to serving platter; keep warm.
In a small bowl, combine flour and cold water until smooth. Stir into pan juices; bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened, adding water to thin if necessary. Discard bay leaves. Serve with cooked potatoes and carrots if desired.
INGREDIENTS 1 cup water 1 scoop egg white protein poweder – Use an unflavored egg white protein – AP 1.5 tsp cinnamon 1/8 tsp crushed cardamom Powdered Stevia *to taste – I used 8 little 1/32 tsp scoops for mine 6 ice cubes 1/8 tsp glucomannan powder optional – this makes the shake more filling with no added calories for fiber
Ingredients should be found at Dischem or any Health Shop.
INSTRUCTIONS
Add all ingredients except glucomannan powder and blend. Add glucomannan powder and blend one last time.
Serve immediately. (Shake starts to separate if left too long.)
This shows just how under-rated Garam Masala is as a marinade, and illustrates beautifully the wonderful flavour of black cumin – make sure you use the true jeera kala, not nigella seeds. It’s an easy meal to put together at the end of a busy day, and if you don’t have any ground almond to provide a little thickening, just mix the garam masala with a little plain flour when you coat the chicken.
Ingredients Serves: 3
4 boned chicken thighs, trimmed no skin
1/4 teaspoon medium chilli flakes
1 teaspoon black cumin seeds
2 spring onions sliced
1 garlic clove crushed, or a pinch of garlic powder
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1/4 cup tomato puree
1/2 cup plain yoghurt
1 teaspoon ground almonds
1/4 tsp himalayan salt
1 teaspoon fenugreek leaves
Directions
Pat garam masala onto all sides of the chicken and marinate 30 minutes.
Heat pan, dry roast black cumin seeds and chilli flakes for 1 minute.
Add oil, spring onions, garlic and chicken, and brown chicken on both sides over high heat.
Remove chicken to a plate, reduce heat and add tomato, yoghurt, salt, almonds and fenugreek leaves. Simmer, stirring, for 4-5 minutes.
Return chicken and any juices to pan and simmer until cooked through.
Serve with rice.
Additional Tips
Whenever we cook this lovely Indian-inspired dish, we find it so tasty that we wish we’d made more. The recipe can easily be doubled so that we have left-overs!
Angelica may be familiar as the acid-green crystallised or candied strips used as a decoration on cakes and desserts, but angelica itself is a herb. It is known as ‘herb of the angels’ (hence the name) because it was believed to have medicinal properties. It’s a member of the parsley family, a tall plant with a long firm stem and bright green leaves. Candied angelica is made by boiling the stems in sugar syrup. If you can find the fresh herb (almost impossible) the stems can be cooked with rhubarb or apple for pies or crumbles. They’re also used in jams and preserves, and the leaves go well with fish or in salads.
Ingredients
700gms stevia (granulated)
900g cooked angelica stems
425ml water
Rind and juice of a lemon
Method
Choose young tender stems from two-year-old plants. Remove all leaves then cut into lengths that will fit your pan. Fill the pan with water, bring to the boil, add the stems, return to the boil, then lower to simmer. Cook until the stems are tender, approx 25-45 mins depending on the thickness of the stems.
Strain. Refill the pan with fresh cold water and leave the stems to soak overnight (12 hours). Strain and throw the water away.
You may find that if you have used mature stems that they need to be peeled. If that is the case do so now. Then weigh the stems. For every 900g of angelica stems you will need 700g of stevia granulated sweetner
Cut the cooked stems into bite-size pieces, add them to a large saucepan. I use a preserving pan which is a very worth while investment especially if you are often making chutneys, jams and jellies.
Add the water and the stevia. Over a very low heat, stir constantly until the stevia is dissolved, then add the lemon juice and rind. Bring to the boil and boil rapidly until setting point is reached.
To tell when setting point has been reached either use a thermometer the setting point being 200°F/110°C or put a little jam on a chilled saucer, as it cools the jam should begin to set. It will wrinkle slightly when you draw your finger across it.
Cool slightly before pouring into warm, sterilised jars, cover and seal immediately.
There are so many reasons to use chamomile in cooking, you may never steep a dusty bag in hot water again. Forget tea — buy it in fresh bunches or dried in bulk. It’s neither hard to find nor expensive, and the fun you can have with this little yellow flower encompasses cocktails, dessert and even savory dishes. Fresh chamomile, also spelled camomile, even serves as a sharp-looking table decoration, so acquire some of these daisy-like plants and use them in every way possible.
WHERE IT’S FROM
As with most plants, there are numerous types of chamomile out there, from a wild version known as pineapple weed to scent-free field chamomile to the Moroccan variety found growing in the salty soil by the Mediterranean Sea. The most common of these flowers is the basic German type, followed closely by the Roman or English variety, which are the ones grown in North America and Europe. No matter which you decide to work with, they all hail from the family Asteraceae, and all impart a slight apple flavor and a floral quality that has helped the plant find its way into diets throughout history — it’s been harvested as a food and herb for thousands of years.
Before chamomile became a culinary staple and a famous tea, it was used mainly for medicinal reasons. Chamomile tea is traditionally drunk at night as a natural anxiolytic, which helps with anxiety and calms the mind and body. Chamomile also has anti-carcinogen properties and has been known to help with inflammation and to ease an upset stomach. The healing properties of chamomile were so prized in ancient Egypt that the plant was dedicated to the sun and worshipped. You can also find evidence of chamomile’s medicinal uses in the Lacnunga, an Anglo-Saxon manuscript dating back to at least the first millennium. In it, the flower is referred to as the one of the “nine sacred herbs.”
WHEN IT’S IN SEASON
You can find this plant growing all over the world. Typically it blooms twice, once in the spring and once in the summer, and soon after each blossoming the plant is harvested. Some regions pick the flowers as they come, like in Egypt, where they harvest every seven to ten days with a special rake. It’s this hands-on practice that makes Egyptian chamomile prized above others. Other regions might only cull the blossoms two or three times in a growth cycle.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
You can buy chamomile dried or fresh, though unless it’s the right season you won’t find just-picked flowers. When buying dried, make sure you are getting whole flowers, not just fine-grained plant dust. It’s fine if they’re a little crumbly, but you should see button-like buds and a mixture of green and yellow leaves and petals.
HOW TO STORE IT
Store dried chamomile like any herb, in an airtight container out of direct sunlight. If you have a fresh plant, you can put the ends in a cup of water just as you would any cut flowers.
HOW TO PREPARE IT
It may surprise you just how many things you can do with chamomile. For example, at Juni in Manhattan, pastry chef Mina Pizzaro infuses the flower into ice cream, highlighted with yuzu and ginger. “The flavor lends a natural gentle sweetness and pleasant floral notes to the dessert,” she says, adding that the spiciness of ginger and acidity of yuzu help to strike a perfect balance.
Chamomile works in non-dessert applications as well, as chef Craig Richards has done in Atlanta at St. Cecilia. His pièce de résistance: scallop crudo with chamomile-celery oil. “We decided to use chamomile because it’s a unique ingredient you don’t see very often in savory cooking,” he says. “It brings another element of acidity and herbal flavor that plays very well with raw fish, especially the natural sweetness of the raw scallop.” Richards has developed a technique for extracting the plant’s flavor as well. “We blend it for an extended period of time so that it heats up in the blender and releases its essential oil.” He also suggests making a dried chamomile and salt rub for fish and throwing some fresh blossoms in a spring salad.
