Sweet Potatoes: The Other Orange Vegetable

The sweet potato has been a part of my diet since childhood. Who doesn’t remember at least one Thanksgiving dinner with candied sweet potatoes (marshmallow topping optional!). Sweet potatoes are often given to babies as their first taste of solid food. These earthy beauties are universally appealing with their stunning color, luscious texture, and sweet taste.

When I first began studying macrobiotic cooking, I was shocked to discover that potatoes, America’s “perfect” food, where considered among the worst foods for health. Potatoes are stem tubers, so technically speaking we cannot even call them the “root of all evil".  All joking aside, they are one of most acidifying plant foods and for optimum health it is better not to include them as a regular or even semi-regular part of your diet. Being the young enthusiastic macrobiotic student I was, I took this information to heart and pretty much avoided all kinds of potatoes, white, orange, and even purple, for many years.

Missing the wonderful, comforting texture of potatoes, and a favorite veggie bar snack (the french fry), I decided to occasionally include sweet potatoes in my diet. Sweet potatoes are very relaxing, and sweet potato fries make a delicious (but rare!) treat. Fortunately, for all of us who like to indulge, they are classified as tuberous root vegetables and besides being delicious have a number of health benefits. 

I encourage you to enjoy “the other orange vegetable”, a less-dense alternative to the winter squash. 

Today I am going to share my recipe for candied sweet potatoes. While they don’t have marshmallow fluff on top, you are sure to appreciate them even more than the original, sugar-filled recipe. You will also feel great after eating them! 

Sweet, orange and delicious!

Candied Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients:
Sweet potatoes- Peeled and cut lengthwise into 2 inch thick slices
2 Tablespoons of Brown rice syrup
1 Tablespoon of Barley Malt
1 teaspoon of Extra virgin olive oil
1/4 to 1/2 inch of water to cover the bottom of the pot
A small pinch of Sea salt - 1/16 to 1/8 teaspoon

Preparation:
*Note: this works best using a wide, saucepan; ideally a cast iron pan with a lid.
Place Sweet potatoes in the pan with enough water to cover the bottom of the pot. Cover and bring to a boil.
Lower the flame and steam on low heat for 5 minutes.
Remove the lid and drizzle a little olive oil over the sweet potatoes.
Add a pinch of salt, cover and continue to steam for 10 minutes.
In a separate bowl mix all of the sweet ingredients together.
Pour the sweet mixture overtop of the sweet potatoes and continue to
cook until they become tender.
As the potatoes cook the sauce will reduce forming a sweet glaze.

Dry It, You'll Like It!

The benefits of dried mushrooms - Shitake, Maitake, Porcini, Oyster and Chanterelles,
just to name a few.

I love a number of cultivated and wild mushrooms. I like them sautéed with vegetables, in soups, in pastas, on sandwiches, and, of course, risotto. In addition to being delicious, mushrooms offer us a wealth of health benefits and are an excellent non-fortified, plant source of Vitamin D.

While mushrooms are yummy when fresh, drying mushrooms lowers their acidity, increases their levels of Vitamin D, and intensifies their taste. Unfortunately, dried mushrooms can be quite costly. Purchasing them from a cheap source is not a good idea

because you do not know the method used in the drying process and often they are treated with chemicals which is not good for anyone. In order to reap the nutritional benefits of this food, the mushrooms need to be sun-dried. My solution for quality control and cost effectiveness is to do it yourself!

Here’s a simple way to create your own sun-dried mushrooms at home. Be sure to use the best

quality mushrooms you can find. Once dried, mushrooms will keep indefinite when stored in a jar in a cool, dry place.

      To Dry Your Own Mushrooms: 

Fresh Oyster mushrooms, check out the gills!

• Find a nice spot that gets a lot of direct sun. I did this on my back porch. 
• Use a dish with sides (so the mushrooms do not blow away!) 
• Line the dish with a bamboo sushi mat. The mat is more natural and it allows more air to help in the drying process and prevent spoilage. 
• Next, place the mushrooms on the mat with the gills facing up toward the sun. 
• Cover the mushrooms with a second sushi mat. The mat allows the sun to seep through the cracks and keeps the bugs, birds and debris out. Covering the mushrooms also also helps to prevent them from blowing away.
•  Leave the mushrooms in the sun for at least 6 hours. 

If the mushrooms are not completely dried at the end of the day, bring them inside and leave on the counter overnight, then return to direct sun the next day. Depending on the thickness of your mushrooms, the drying process will take anywhere from one day to several days.

Fall Foods For Endurance and Flexibility

Now that labor day has come and gone autumn is upon us. We often think of the abundance of harvest vegetables available at the farmer’s market at this time of year. However, “fall abundance” can also include the many activities that we participate in such as: hiking, football, field hockey, lacrosse, cross country, rugby, soccer. Not to mention, of course, the abundance of dried leaves to be picked up in the yard!

One of my friends is a marathoner and triathlete. Since she is training for the Philadelphia Marathon in November, she asked me about foods that are good for endurance and flexibility. I decided to share my recommendations I gave her on the blog, given the abundance of physical activities and work that we do during this season.

Regardless of whether you are trying to keep up with your yard work, your children's’ activities, or you are training for a marathon yourself, including these foods in your diet will give you the endurance and flexibility you need to enjoy your fall season.


Susan’s dishes for Flexibility and Physical endurance:

Umm, the energy we get from of whole grains and vegetables!

• Vegetable fried rice 
• Beans cooked with sautéed vegetable
• Udon or Soba noodles with fried tofu and vegetables 
• Quick oil sautéed leafy greens, especially bok choy, collard greens, kale, broccoli and napa cabbage 
• Sautéed and simmered root vegetables (carrots and burdock or carrot, burdock and lotus root)
• Long steamed root and round vegetables (such as winter squash and cabbage)
• Quick steamed un-yeasted sourdough bread with nut or seed butter served with sauerkraut or pickles

PS: These dishes are tried and true as I have used them cooking for two of my male clients to enhance 

       boost their athletic performance.

Did you know that the food choices you make can help make balance with the season?

I’d like to say a big hello to all my friends. It has been a busy summer filled with rewards of work and play. Now that we are at the end of the summer, we begin to notice a subtle change in the weather as we welcome a little cooler temperatures. This just may be my favorite time of the year where we have nice warm days with comfortable slightly cooler nights. Perfect for a good night’s sleep.

All this being said, it is definitely time to make a few changes in your food choices in preparation for the cooler weather to come. We may find ourselves craving more sweets during this time of year. The weather, as it cools, has a contracting effect. A perfect example is apparent in nature as the leaves on the trees change color, dry up, and eventually fall to the ground. Our bodies also experience a similar contracting effect which often results in feeling more hungry, tired in the afternoon, and slightly more pressured. Eating a variety of good-quality sweets will help balance out this contracting process and make us feel more relaxed. When we align our food choices with the environment, it helps us to feel more comfortable and we are able to experience better health.

Here are some ideas of what to include in your diet during this transitional time and as the temperature continues to drop.

Chunky cabbage, onions and carrots, perfect for long steaming and stews!

• Start your day with a nice bowl of warm porridge. My  favorites this time of year are steel-cut oats with pure maple syrup, soft millet cooked with sweet vegetables or soft polenta with fresh sweet corn (GMO free of course).
• Start including some millet into your diet. Although millet is not so commonly known it works with all of the sweet vegetables and happens to be delicious with any meal. As an added bonus, the leftovers are easily incorporated into a puréed sweet vegetable soup, or formed into cakes and fried for a tasty entrée. 
• Emphasize sweet vegetables in your cooking such as onions, cabbage, sweet potatoes, leeks, and carrots. As the weather grows colder, winter squash comes into season which is both delicious and versatile.
• Regularly use cooking styles that enhance the sweet quality of your vegetables, such as long steaming, or sautéing and simmering. These cooking styles help bring out the natural sweet taste of the vegetables and offer longer lasting, more substantial energy which is important for the cooler weather to come.
• Finally, continue to enjoy seasonal fruit, but consider cooking it a few times a week. The rich flavor of poached peaches, baked apples, or even a fruit crunch are all perfect at this time of year and will satisfy almost any sweet craving.

Kabocha squash, onions and green cabbage, all sweet and delicious!

Hello, and update

Some of you may be wondering where I have been these past few weeks. My schedule took off in late spring and I haven’t had a chance to stop and post until this week. Here’s some of what I’ve been up to. In addition to teaching the Strengthening Health Institute’s regular seminars, I taught a hands-on sushi making class. Despite the meltingly hot weather, we had a packed house, and I think that a great time was had by all. I’ll be doing more cooking classes like this one at The Strengthening Health Institute,   so be sure to check out our websites for updates and please register early because space is limited and the classes fill quickly!


In June, Denny and I went to the West Coast to teach and counsel. Our first stop was in San Diego, where we had 2 lectures and a cooking class held at Casa de Luz, a vegan community dining and educational center. Our classes were a big hit. We were fortunate to also have a little play time which we spent connecting with some good friends and having fun with our family members who live in San Diego. Next we headed north to Seattle,WA, where we had a weekend seminar of lectures and cooking classes. Seattle in the summer is beautiful! The weather could not have been any more perfect with cool nights and warm days. The seminar was held at a sustainable farm called 21 Acres. The building is "green" with a market on the first floor and a commercial kitchen, dining area and conference space on the second floor. It was the perfect place for macrobiotic cooking classes. I must say I was very impressed with the whole concept and even excited about the self-cleaning toilet! The people in Seattle are both hip and receptive to our teaching which makes for an overall great experience. And, since all work and no play makes Susan a dull girl, we did get to spend some fun time with our friends and have a quick tour of downtown Seattle.

When we returned to Philadelphia, we had Strengthening Health Intensive
and the June session of our CCP seminars. I was lucky to fit in a Phillies’ game
over the Fourth of July weekend.

July is another exciting and busy month for us as Denny and I are off to Taiwan. We were invited by some new friends to explore the local, traditional foods and offer insight on the best ways to adapt a macrobiotic practice to the local environment. I am looking forward to exploring the Taiwanese cuisine. My goal is to learn a few new recipes and adapt them to plant-based cooking. I’ll be back in Philadelphia briefly at the end of July, to teach the July session of our CCP seminar, before heading off to the Kushi Summer Conference. I am going to try to post a few times during my travels this month, so stay tuned...

Strengthen Your Digestion with Naturally Fermented Foods

In honor of Philadelphia Beer Week (which is happening this week), and as a continuation of last week’s discussion about the link between healthy breasts and good digestion, I would like to talk about natural fermentation today. Making naturally fermented, plant-based foods a regular part of your diet will help strengthen and activate your digestion, and will build healthy intestinal flora. The macrobiotic diet is abundant in naturally fermented plant-based foods. You might already be familiar with miso, shoyu (also known as soy sauce), tamari, and pickles. You might not be as familiar with tempeh and natto, but they are naturally fermented bean products (and excellent protein sources). Umeboshi plums and umeboshi vinegar (a savory vinegar) are other fermented treats from Japan that are highly prized for their alkalizing abilities. Of course good-quality, micro-brewed beer also is a great source of natural fermentation!

I recommend that my clients have miso soup almost daily to help strengthen and activate their digestion. I also recommend that my clients have a small portion of naturally-fermented pickles on a regular basis. However, don’t overdo it on the pickles and the miso-- both are salty, so go easy! Luckily, you only need to consume a small amount of these foods in order to reap their amazing digestive benefits. I would like to add that it is important to distinguish between naturally-fermented pickles made with vegetables and sea salt (lactic acid fermentation) and pickles made with vinegar and sugar. While dill pickles might be tasty on your sandwich, they do not have the same health benefits as lactic-acid fermented pickles. You can read more about natural fermentation on the Real Pickles website. Real Pickles makes excellent pickles-- I highly recommend their sauerkraut and their red cabbage pickles! All this being said, sauerkraut is probably the easiest pickle to incorporate into your diet. If you are feeling adventurous you can make it at home, or you can purchase it at your local health food store. My two favorite sauerkrauts are Real Pickles and Goldmine.


Recipe for Quick Umeboshi vinegar Pickles
*This recipe can be used to pickle vegetables or tofu.

Ingredients:
1 part of umeboshi vinegar
3 1/2 to 7 parts of water  

*Some brands of umeboshi vinegar are more salty than others. This is the range I would recommend

 and can be adjusted to taste.

Preparation for pickled vegetables:
Cut vegetables and place in a pyrex bowl or glass jar. Pour the liquid overtop and
allow the vegetables to sit for a minimum of 3 hours or longer. Keep the pickles with the liquid, refrigerated in an air tight glass container.
*Note: Harder vegetables will keep longer, while softer vegetables need to be consumed more quickly.

Healthy Breasts

In response to the recent news of Angelina Jolie undergoing a double mastectomy as a “preventative measure” for breast cancer, I would like to offer an alternative solution to a problem and fear faced by many women. The thought of getting breast cancer or any other cancer for that matter can be

devastating for women and their families. However, there is a solution that allows us to feel empowered, pro-active, and fearless. 

The key point I would like to make is that our diet and lifestyle is the best preventative medicine. Hippocrates, the founder of Western medicine, said “let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food". I believe this quote to be true, as people who are not as excessive with their intake of food tend to live healthier lives. The scientific proof of this is well-documented in T. Colin Campbell‘s book The China Study. It is undeniable that our diet and lifestyle have a direct impact on our health.

In my field of Diet and Lifestyle Counseling, I use a means of Oriental Diagnosis, which uses physiognomy and acupuncture meridians as a way to assess a person’s overall condition. While this type of diagnosis does not use fancy equipment, it is quite accurate. A skilled practitioner is able to detect a potential problem long before it is detected by medical testing. Thanks to this type of diagnosis, my clients are able to make dietary and lifestyle adjustments to cleanse their bodies, strengthen their blood and immune system, and restore their condition back to balance. Many of our clients have had complete success in recovering their health naturally, while others choose to combine medical treatment with a dietary approach to healing. Macrobiotics is not opposed to Western medical treatment when needed. It is my experience that that the two approaches to health can be complimentary. My clients who have had medical treatment heal and recover more quickly when they eat well.

In Oriental medicine there is an up-down correlation between different organs in the body. Each organ system is seen in pairs. For example, the lungs are paired with the large intestines. The breasts, while not exactly part of the lungs happen to rest on top of the lung area so there is also a correlation, which simply means that the key to healthy breasts is having a healthy digestive system. When we eat excessive foods, such as meat and dairy, combine it with sugar and other refined sweets it is just a disaster waiting to happen. If a problem does not develop in the breasts, sooner or later, a problem is likely to manifest in another part of the body. This being said, having a mastectomy is not the cure to prevent cancer, rather it is a set up for a problem to develop elsewhere. I would like to send a message to all women and say, let’s take care of our breasts and our entire body by eating a plant-based diet, or at the very least, by eating more grains and vegetables.

For healthy breasts (and a healthy body) here are my top “Power Breast” foods:

1.Whole grains, especially brown rice, millet and barley.
   *Grains strengthen the digestive system and are low in fat. 

2. Have a bowl of homemade miso soup 5 to 7 times a week.
   *Miso soup is very easy to make, it takes about 10 minutes to
     make and is very strengthening to the digestive system.
     Miso soup helps to build good intestinal flora and cleans the intestinal villi.        

     A small bowl a day helps keep the doctor away!

3. Eat one serving of quick steamed leafy green vegetables 5 to 7 times a week.
    *Quick steamed greens are rich in minerals and fiber which helps the overall functioning of the

     digestive system by keeping it clean and active to do its job eliminating excess.
     Just remember, do not overcook your greens, they need to be crunchy!

Below is a recipe for millet cooked with sweet vegetables.
This is a miso soup recipe from a previous post.

Millet with Sweet Vegetables

Millet is a whole grain with overall “settling” qualities. Energetically it is very helpful for breast problems because it helps to draw excess from the upper body and allows it to discharge naturally through the digestive system. As an added bonus, it is also very balancing for the central organs and especially helpful in stabilizing blood sugar.
Ingredients:
1/3-cup of diced onion
1/3-cup of diced cabbage
1/3-cup of diced carrots
1 cup millet; washed several times to remove any debris
3 1/4 to 4 cups of water -When serving millet as a breakfast porridge use 5 cups of water
A small pinch o sea salt - about 1/16 of a teaspoon

Preparation:
* Place onions on the bottom of the pot with just enough water to cover and bring to a boil. Add a tiny   

   pinch of sea salt (literally a few grains) and cook 5 minutes or until the water begins to evaporate.
* Layer cabbage, then carrot and millet on top of the onions.
* Add water and another tiny pinch of sea salt.
* Cover and bring to a boil on a medium flame.
* Place a flame deflector underneath the pot and simmer on low for 40 minutes.
* Remove grain from the pot, place in serving dish and cover with a sushi mat.
* The texture and consistency should be slightly moist and fluffy.

Here are some of my favorite Millet and sweet vegetable combinations:
Onion and cauliflower
Onion, leeks, parsnips
Onion, sweet potato
Onion, cabbage, parsnip