Recipes For the Great Turning

This is a guest post from my dear friend Dee Holden and her friend Dori.

“I work in a health food store and am being asked often for advice on how to proceed and protect ourselves from the possiblity of nuclear fallout from Japan.

May we all digest the information provided to us and look within to find our own truth in regards to how to proceed. Regardless of whether you feel concern the recipes and info below are certainly good medicine. My sweet sister Dori, a gifted intuitive healer has shared this wonderful article. Thanks Dori!”

Hi West coast friends,

We are living in some intense times- the earthquake and nuclear failings in Japan is just part of it.  Just little peep about things you can do to help support your body (and spirits) right now. As you’ve probably heard, there may be some radiation moving across the pacific in the next weeks heading towards the west coast from Japan. To keep going, be alive, and not shut down, we need courage, nourishment, and support- make a pot of soup! (and can I be a grandma for a minute and say if you haven’t made an emergency kit, please do?)

YOUR Nutritious FRIENDS in TIMES OF NEED:

1. SEAWEED: eat nori, put wakame, kombu, and hijiki in your soups and stews, make crunchy kelp brittle with it. The iodine in kelp helps protect your thyroid and other glands from radioactive uptake and in general is one of the most magical, medicinal foods on earth, grown by the O.F. (that’s the Original Farmer also known as the Sea!)

2. MISO: good medicine full of live cultures, amino acids, minerals, and protein. I’d recommend making a big pot this week, having a bowl everyday and feeding it to all your friends, neighbors, and weirded-out co-workers (like one time when I brought my lunch to work and someone said it looked like a terrarium). recipe follows below.

3. MUSHROOMS: strengthen your immune system with some shitake mushrooms, sauteed or in soups. Mushrooms are the genius healers of the forest- they know how to bring everything (on earth and in the tiny microcosm of your body) back into balance.

4. Eat vegetables, especially DAIKON radishes and BURDOCK root- stick them in your soup too or make a shredded salad (recipe below). Daikon has been used for drawing out radiation, post nuclear fall out- it’s cooling and detoxifying. These will make your liver fall madly in love with you.

5. WATER: DRINK it. lots of it. take BATHS in epsom salt and baking soda (1 lb of salt, with a bit of baking soda 2x week). Cry. (see #8)

6. IMMUNE support: do the things you know boost your immune system- sleep well, eat garlic and Vitamin C rich foods, and go easy on the sugar, please.

7. FERMENT: buy or make homemade sauerkrauts & kim chi or trade with someone who does. This weekend some friends and I had a fermenting party and made buckets of crunchy apple, juniper berry and cabbage kraut, pickled ginger beets, and spicy kim chi. it’s fun to massage vegetables in community. These lively foods have the probiotics your gut needs and wants and are deeply nourishing and restorative. my favorite cookbook on this subject: Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz

8. LOVE: send prayers, love, healing thoughts for those who need it most. Instead of freaking out or shutting down, let your anger, fear, and grief flow- it’s what makes us human and feel connected to what’s going on in the world right now. Crying is a potent way to detox, friends.

9. HERBS: if you want to get herbal, some great allies are nettle tea, cilantro (eat a lot of it or take a tincture- it helps draw heavy metals out ), and milk thistle (helps your liver process toxins). Also Yarrow Environmental Essence from FES is a beautiful formula to support the body in environmental disasters.

Recipes:

Magical Medicinal Miso* Soup

Saute one onion, sliced thin til translucent. Add water, seaweed of choice (I like Kombu and Wakame), shitake mushrooms (dried or fresh), burdock root, carrots, and any other hearty roots you like. Simmer for 25 minutes.

I like to add shredded or sliced ginger near the end, so it’s strong, and some garlic. You can also add greens, like kale or spinach.

Because you don’t want to boil your miso, I usually put a large dollop of miso paste in my bowl and then pour the broth on top to dissolve it.

Drink bowls and offer bowls to all your loved ones and neighbors, kiddos and pets, family and friends.

*I live about 20 minutes from the best miso factory ever, South River Miso, which is made in barrels with lots of love and magic.

Get your Daikon

Easy Shredded Salad

Shred 1 carrot and 1 daikon radish

Mix with sesame oil and a little umeboshi vinegar (also a great medicine!), sesame seeds, whatever fresh herbs you’ve got on hand (I love mint or cilantro), and a little tamari. Eat and feel alive and well thanks to the plants, the sun, the water and the farmers.

Sesame Kelp Brittle

Another seaweed recipe courtesy of the folks at She Sells Seaweed, given to me by my friend Angie.

~1/2 Cup Brown Rice Syrup

~1/4 Cup Olive Oil

~Dash of shoyu soy sauce

~1 cup sesame seeds

~1/2 Cup crushed Almonds

~1/4-3/4 cup or to your liking of finely crushed kelp (set oven on low heat and bake kelp for 10 min or until crisp and grind in food processor)

~2-3 tsp of fresh finely chopped ginger root

Heat syrup, oil and soy sauce in small sauce pan. When mixture begins to foam up add seeds, nuts, kelp, and ginger, and stir thoroughly.

Line a large cookie sheet w/parchment.

Spread mixture onto parchment and then cover with another piece of parchment and roll out flat w/rolling pin (or glass or jar!). Remove top parchment.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes

— and then for the last few minutes check every minute until golden. Remove from oven and rip away parchment after 5-10 minutes. Break into pieces and enjoy!!

Take good care, everyone.

Love,

Dori

Dori Midnight
community folk healing + magic + apothecary www.dorilandia.com

http://midnightapothecary.blogspot.com

Also:

David Wolfe is suggesting these herbs and nutrients: Kelp, ginseng, ashwaganda, chlorella, zeolites, fulvic acid, supplemental iodine, sea salt, reishi mushroon, lots of water, Vitamin C, magnesium and selenium.