Tofu Success!

Previous attempts with tofu have been pretty bad, but this time I got it right! I think the key is to marinade the tofu first. Phil even said he thought it was chicken!

I mixed up some dark soy sauce, grated ginger, crushed garlic, honey, sesame seeds and a bit of hot water, and marinated the tofu (cut in chunks) for about an hour.

I heated up some sesame oil, stir fried a whole lot of veges and added the tofu/marinade about half way through cooking. When it was nearly done I added some pak choi and some more grated ginger.

Served on quinoa for extra nutritional benefits!

"Nourishing Traditions" Muffins

Remember the soaked pancakes I made a while back? These muffins use a really similar batter. They turned out pretty good for a first attempt I thought, a light fluffy texture. They aren't very sweet, but I guess what would you expect from a recipe with no sugar in it.

Heres how I made them (from the Nourishing Traditions cookbook):

- Soaked 3 cups wholewheat flour in 2 cups of kefir for 24 hours

Then added : - 2 organic eggs
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- about 1/4 cup melted butter
- about 1/3 cup honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- a few shakes of cinnamon and a handful of sultanas

Mixed it all up, put in muffin pans and cooked at about 160 for 30minutes.

Nourishing Traditions

This is a book I'm currently reading and trying recipes from (see the pancakes a few posts back). Its pretty radical and different from what is usually taught about nutrition and I'm still forming my opinions about it.
It promotes the use of saturated and animal fats and using full fat dairy products and not the skim versions. It seems to have lots of research evidence to back this up. This is something which is pretty hard to get my head around as generally we are taught to use unsaturated and low cholesterol fats. I'm not entirely sure if I agree with Sally Fallon on this one, although I need to read the book in a little more detail.

She's also pretty big on the concept of soaking your grains before using them. I already do this with my oats (ie soak overnight before cooking) but don't do this for baking etc. The theory behind this seems to be that it makes the grains more readily digestible and therefore we are able to derive more nutrition from them

The concepts in the book I definitely do agree with are the use of whole grains and natural sweeteners instead of refined grains and sugars, trying to avoid excess chemicals and preservatives by cooking from scratch, and the importance of lots of fruits and veges.

Has anyone else read/heard of this book? what did you think?

Feeding the animals

As most of you will know, or will of figured out from the content of this blog, I am interested in food and nutrition. This year I have been doing some pretty detailed thinking about nutrition, where our food comes from and what we should be eating for optimum health. Kind of like - if we were animals in a zoo, what would the zoo keeper be feeding us to keep us all from dying. Because actually a lot of thought and research goes into what to feed animals in the zoo, yet a lot of us don't really think much about what goes into our bodies except for if it tastes good or not.

My thoughts, and bits and pieces of research are leading me down the path of exploring more wholefoods, cooking from scratch and trying to organic and locally sourced foods where possible. I'm not very good at it, and I'm taking small steps, but I certainly think a lot more when doing the grocery shopping, and our diet at home is definitely taking a more wholesome turn. My kitchen cupboards have a lot less processed junk, and a lot more raw ingredients these days. I plan on blogging a bit about these kinds of topics in the future.

I think a lot of people in New Zealand are beginning to think more this way also. With the cost of groceries rising fast it tends to force you to think carefully on what you're spending your money on. Often the most nutritious staples are the cheapest, like dried beans and pulses.

Thought/opinions? do you want to read my ramblings along these lines? My google analytics thingee tells me that people are actually reading this blog, so what do you guys wanna read about??