A Healthy Change

A couple years ago I had a friend who jumped off the "crunchy" deep end.  It started with just a few small changes here and there as she prepared for the arrival of her first child.  I remember having a conversation with a mutual friend where we agreed that the research, effort, and changes were all wonderful and how cool it was, but that it was so time-consuming and could it possibly last?

Now, two years later, my dear friend is an inspiration in her whole food, low budget cooking, in her aspirations of raising grass-fed rabbits, goats, chickens and all sorts of animalia for nutritional benefit, as well as in how she makes her own home-made shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, and cleaners just to name a few things. 

Every few days or so she excitedly shares the findings of her newest research and how she plans to change how they live to live a healthier life-style.  And every once in a while, she shares something that I think sounds easy enough to copy that I follow gingerly along behind her.

I've come to a place where I realize that conventional medicine and nutrition in the United States is not what it should be and that much of what we've been raised to believe about our health is not beneficial, or worse, it's harmful.

This year, I'm seeking to help my family make changes, especially regarding nutrition.  To eat more whole foods, organic when I can, vinegar baths when I can't, raising the over-all fruit & vegetable ratios of our diet, & possibly looking into vegan & gluten-free options. One of the things that I've already done is signed up for bountiful baskets (a food co-op that allows you to buy lots of produce for a discount, but is a challenge because you don't get to pick what's in your basket).  I've had some requests, now and in the past, that I share some of my recipes or things that I've discovered just experimenting with my own health and so I've decided to do a blog sharing what I've found.  What has inspired me is other people's stories of things they try and I hope I can inspire you to take baby steps towards living healthier as well!

The first recipe (this was before my first bountiful basket) I tried I found searching for vegan AND gluten free dishes (The easiest explanation I can give for this is the anti-cancer properties they talk about in this Huffington Post article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/vegan-diet-cancer_b_2250052.html, and you don't need a PhD to reason through that stuff that grows in the ground or animals that eat the stuff grown in the ground is WAY better for you than some chemically processed and preserved something or another that comes from a box or bag, though... bear with me, I am taking baby steps and so you will find that many of my recipes at this point do rely on things like canned tomatoes and dried chicken bouillon.). I was VERY impressed with the tastiness of this recipe!


Asparagus Risotto
Ingredients:
-A bundle of asparagus, sliced diagonally into 2-3" pieces (discard bottom portion)
-4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
-2-3 Tablespoons EVOO
-3-4" leak, sliced across the round starting at the roots (discard roots and remaining greens)
-3 mushrooms, sliced thinly
-1 cup raw organic Arborio rice (found it on the top shelf above all the normal rice at the store)
-1 Tablespoon minced garlic
-1/2 cup white wine
-Sea salt, to taste
-2 Tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped 
Instructions:
1. Pour about a 1/2 inch of water into a saute pan and blanch the asparagus until it's bright green, remove from pan and rinse with cold water to keep it from cooking more.  Set aside.
2. In the same pan, heat the olive oil on medium heat and saute the leak and mushrooms for a minute, add the uncooked rice and saute for 3-5 minutes
3. Add the white wine and stir until most of the wine is cooked off.
4. Pour in 1 cup of broth and bring to a simmer.  Reduce heat and simmer uncovered, stirring frequently for 7-8 minutes.
5. When most of the liquid is absorbed, add the remaining cups of broth 1 cup at a time, stirring and simmering until each cup of liquid is absorbed before adding the next (NOTE: you can't cook risotto like standard rice, you have to babysit it like this)
6. Add the asparagus to the top of finished risotto.  Cover and set aside for 5 minutes.
7. Spoon into bowls & garnish with parsley


I was pleasantly surprised with how flavorful this dish was and the family (myself, husband, 4 year-old picky eater daughter, 7 year-old son, and 84 year-old Nana) polished off the whole pan!

Hope you enjoy!


***UPDATE***: I made this dish again with a sweet Riesling and a Tablespoon of lemon juice and it was still tasty!  It was a hit with the kiddos too, the picky one finished her bowl and the not-picky one took seconds!  Oh!  And I got a picture: