A Winter Warmer

This is a retake on a classic. I enjoy winding down in the evenings with a warm drink. And this is the simplest, and probably one of my favorites. I usually only make this version in the winter. Here we go, the big reveal. Hot lemonade. You read that right. Lemonade, but hot. Here’s what you’ll need and how to do it:

Lemons

Maple syrup

Sea salt

Hot water

Warm up some water. I usually get it just hot enough so that you can still sip it. There’s no need to get it too hot, there’s no steeping going on.

Juice a lemon into a glass. Add slightly less than an equal amount of maple syrup. Pinch in a tiny bit of sea salt. Add hot water to fill, and voila!

Warms the heart and soul. And great for digestion.

The Time I Made Grilled Cheese and Took 106 Photos of It

Comfort food is always the right answer, most of the time.  Especially when it includes cheese.  I make grilled cheese all the time.  It’s quick, it’s easy, and depending on what you do it can be medicinal.  That’s right, Medicinal Grilled Cheese.  If you use a good sourdough, with a good pesto and maybe some mustard.  You’re getting good fat, among other things, from cheese.  Some strong flavors from the mustard and pesto.  Potentially protein from the bread.  Sourdough is a fermented food, so I give it some leeway.

Except last night.  It was like 10:00pm and I was hungry.  I had gotten stuff to make cauliflower pizza, which has never worked great for me.  It’s been good and I always eat it, but it’s never been a crust substitute.  Then yesterday, I saw someone shared a video on Facebook of making grilled cheese with cauliflower bread.  So I had to do it.  I googled and found a recipe HERE.  And it worked out great.  I guarantee I will make it again.  Soon.

You’ll need:

Crust:

1 bag of organic frozen riced cauliflower

1/2 cup grass fed buffalo mozzarella

1 egg

2 cloves garlic

1 tsp ghee

1/2 tsp salt

black pepper

Grilled Cheese:

1 tsp ghee

2 slices “bread”

a bunch of cheddar cheese.  I used to much

You'll need to:

So we can break this into 3 major steps

1. Cauliflower Prep
   1. Preheat the oven to 450F.  
   2. Thaw the cauliflower.  I don’t like shocking it.  In a pan with a little ghee, warm up the cauliflower on medium heat.  You just want to evaporate some of the water.  I kept stirring it around for like 8 minutes and then just turned the stove off and let it cool.  
   3. When it’s cool to the touch, put it in a cloth, wringing it tight.  Get all the water out. I squeezed out at least a cup of water.  I could've gotten more with a better cloth I think.  The drier the better
2. Make the Bread
   1. Mix the dried riced cauliflower with a beaten egg, shredded cheese, microplaned garlic, salt and some pepper.
   2. Form into 4 slices on a lined baking sheet.  Mine were about 1/4” thick.  Bake for 16-17 minutes.  I took mine out at 16 but I think they could’ve gone a tad longer.  Let them cool to the touch.
3. Grill the Cheese
   1. Butter up the outside of each slice with ghee.  As you can see, the down side was much browner than the upside after baking.  I made 2 grilled cheeses.  One with the brown-out, the other yellow-out.  My recommendation is yellow-out.  It was a more even cook and held together much butter.  I mean better.
   2. Assemble
   3. Grill on high-medium-high.  I flipped each one twice.  The brown-out grilled cheese went on a little bit before the other, but they came off at the same time.  As you can see, it has taken on a new form.  I think there was too much cheese, too.  I cut the fat before I ate it.

At the end of the day, I’d say this was a positive experience.  Everything held together well.  Felt good after eating it.  All grass fed cheeses and ghee, pastured eggs and cauliflower.  Not too bad.  Don’t forget, dry the cauliflower rice as much as you can.

BioBiscotti or, Biodynamic Biscotti

This is the first and only time I’ve ever made biscotti.  Naturally, I wanted to use the highest quality ingredients.  At the time, I was able to find Isis Biodynamic Stone Ground Wheat Flour at Whole Foods, but no more.  I also used biodynamic can sugar.  The ghee isn’t certified, but I believe that it comes from a farm that follows most of the practices.  

I didn’t know this, the trick to biscotti is the double baking.  That’s what makes it super crunchy.  I’m not usually a biscotti fan, in fact before having this one I was never a biscotti fan.  But my boss at the time wanted biscotti, so he got it.  And so did I.  And it was good.  Happy baking!

Ingredients:

3 1/4 cups biodynamic wheat flour

1 1/2 cups pistachios

1 cup biodynamic sugar

1/2 cup biodynamic ghee

3 eggs (Apricot Lane Farms) 

1 Tbsp baking soda

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp sea salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Turn pistachios into pistachios bits.  I was joking with the mandolin, I just chopped.
3. In a stand mixer, cream butter, eggs, sugar and vanilla.
4. Mix in dry ingredients to form a thick dough, then fold in pistachios.  Split in half and form to flattish loaves on the baking sheet.
5. Bake fro 25-30 minutes.
6. Remove the biscotti and let it cool to the touch.  Cut into strips, separate and place the biscotti back in the oven for 10 more minutes.
7. Voila!

Sweet Potato Hash Browns

I love browned vegetables.  A few weeks ago, I did a spaghetti squash hash.  I had the same problem this time.  It didn't brown that much!  But I am getting better.  And I learned a few things in doing this recipe.

As I've said before, I love the shredded hash browns like Waffle House or ihop.  I was all gung-ho to do this, and then thought that shredding the sweet potato is going to be a bitch.  I quickly googled and found 2 good options, so I tried them both.  Two potatoes, two ways.  The first way, was using a Microplane.  Microplane is a branded grater.  It worked so well, that I used it for "mincing" and "dicing" the garlic and onions.  

The second way was to chop the sweet potato into smaller pieces, and then pulse it in the Cuisinart.  It worked, but was more riced than shredded.

2 shredded sweet potatoes

1/4 cup sprouted spelt flour

1 egg

1 diced onion

4 cloves minced garlic

4 tbsp ghee

big pinch of sea salt

black pepper

Shred the potatoes however you want.  Rinse them until the water is clear, and then squeeze out all the water. 

Combine all the vegetables, spices, half the ghee and flour.

Beat and mix in the egg.

Fry in the rest of the ghee on high medium high heat.  I didn't do so well at this part. I wanted it browner and crispier.  But it was still very good.  I also tried to make 1/4 cup serving cakes.  They didn't stay together, if you hadn't noticed.

Almond Butter Cookies

The other night I got a craving for something sweet, it was late and I wasn't going anywhere.  I'd already eaten a bunch of chocolate bars.  I wanted either ice cream or pastry.  So I looked around and figured I could whip together some almond butter cookies.  They were not bad!  In fact, they were good.  Here are the details.

So I used sugar, sue me.

You'll need:

1 cup almond butter

1 tbsp almond flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup chocolate chips

1 egg

1 tbsp ghee

1/2 cap of vanilla extract

big pinch of sea salt (or smaller if almond butter is salted)

You’ll need to:

preheat the oven to 350F

combine butter, flour, ghee vanilla and salt.  

cream the sugar and egg.  

combine.  

fold in chocolate chips

I made 4 large cookies, but it would probably make sense to make more, smaller

bake for 13 minutes.

The edges were slightly burnt, but just the edges, as pictured.  The bottoms were fine.  My error was having the rack too low in the oven.  I also actually had them at 375F for 11 minutes.  But I think 350F at 13 minutes would be better.

JingSlinger Inspired Hash Browns

This was more of an attempt at a recipe than a recipe.  I blame myself, not the instructions.  The hash browns were still great and I ate them and wished I had more of them, but they were not optimal.  For a first attempt, I’ll take it.

The original recipe is from the cook book Food with Benefits by Joy Coelho and Jay Denman.  I switched a few things up.  As far as the book goes, it’s amazing.  I’ve made several things, mostly desserts, and they’ve all been great.  I might have posted a recipe or two before.  If anything, their frosting.  I've made it several times.  2 words:  Ghee+Honey.  Among other things.

As I’ve said before, it’s nice when things are easy.  I love hash browns; the shredded kind like from ihop.  But I find the shredding part can be annoying, so when I saw this recipe a bell went off in my head.  No shredding.  The squash shreds itself.  And I think it has a better nutrient profile than a white potato.

What went wrong for me, was the lack of crunchiness.  But again, I think that’s my own fault.  I think maybe I didn’t have the heat turned up high enough, but I don’t want to have carcinogen hash browns.  The picture looks amazing, so I know it’s possible.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 spaghetti squash, scooped

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced

2 Tbsp ghee

black pepper

sea salt

Bragg’s Sea Kelp Seasoning

What you’ll need to do:

Preheat oven to 350F

Cut the squash in half, scoop out seeds.  Save them, or don’t.  Season a little.

Bake face down for 35-40 minutes

Heat frying pan with ghee, add onions and garlic and more spices

Scoop out the shreds into the frying pan

I tried to organize like little latkes, but I’m not sure if it worked.  I fried for a little, rotated and rotated and rotated and finally ate.  There were crispy spots, kind of.  

Untraditional Simple Guac

Just like everybody else, I love avocados.  The most frequent way I prepare them is guacamole.  I like to keep things simple.  Easy to make, easy to clean up.  This dip took under 3 minutes and is great for quick snacking.  I was going out to an event and figured the food might be suspect, and wanted to eat a little something before I left so I whipped this up, and thought I’d share it with you!  Great source of fat, got some ferments in there and it tastes great.  I paired it with blue corn chips with sprouted chia seeds.

You’ll need:

1 avocado

1 tsp miso

1-2 shakes nama shoyu

1 splash lemon juice

You’ll need to:

Mix

And enjoy!

Golden Latte

I am very confident in my Golden Latte.  In fact, I’ll put out a challenge to anyone that thinks they can make one better.  Golden lattes in general are lovely.  So warming and soothing.  I’m a sucker for warm butter in a cup.  The flavors are great and so are the health benefits.  They’re neuroprotecive, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-parasite, hormone building, enzyme rich.

There are many different ways to make golden lattes.  I think most people make a proper golden milk, but I don’t always do that and didn’t here.  I used a chaga and he shou wu decoction as the tea base, but you can use anything.  I also much prefer to use turmeric juice.  The flavor and color are just so much brighter.

2 cups hot tea 

1/4 cup pressed turmeric juice

1.5tsp ghee

1.5tsp coconut oil

2tsp honey

1.5tsp black sesame seeds

1/2 capful of vanilla extract

1/2tsp mucuna

1/2tsp reishi

1/2tsp shilajit

3 shakes ceylon cinnamon

2 shakes cardamom

2 shakes nutmeg

2 shakes clove

1 pinch of sea salt

1-3 black peppercorns

Throw it all in the vtiamix and blend!  And blend.  And blend.  Blend longer than you think.

An alternative is to use a chai tea.  You can take all of those whole spices and make a tea with that.  

Another method I recommend is making a simple nut milk, and then adding all of the spices as whole ingredients.  Black sesame seed milk is a nice choice.  You might have to microplane the nutmeg on the spot.  I used ground spices because it was slim pickings in my cabinet.

If you think you can do better, bring it on.  This Golden drink is sweet, it's tangy and will leave you feeling buzzed.  In a good way.

Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookies

As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m not a baker.  But I like a good cookie every once in a while.  Tate’s are my favorite, but I wanted to replicate them with my own version.  I did some research on how to make cookies crunchy.  What I’ve found is necessary to a crunchy cookie: butter, dry dough, baking long and low. These are the ingredients I used, but feel free to use any flour, sugar butter or anything else you want. The recipe will essentially be the same.

Here’s what I used.

2 1/4 cup sprouted spelt flour

1 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup biodynamic sugar

2 sticks pastured, cultured butter (room temp)

1 pastured egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

2 shakes ceylon cinnamon 

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2.  In a stand mixer, cream the butter, sugar and vanilla.  Beat the egg and add it to the mixer.

3.  Combine the dry ingredients, and mix them with the wet.  Then fold in chocolate chips

4.  Scoop onto baking sheet, and bake for 10-12 minutes

5.  Voila!

While these cookies aren’t as nutrient dense as bee pollen (maybe that could be an addition!), they are a lot better for you than most chocolate chip cookies out there.  They’re easy to make and only require a few basic ingredients.  And personally, I think they taste great.  At first I was disappointed at the crunchiness level, but as they cooled they definitely crisped up.  Enjoy!  Don’t forget to subscribe!

Comforting Baked Pasta

I grew up in a pretty Italian family, so I’ve grown to love pasta.  Aside from making my own, the best I’ve found is Delallo pasta made with brass plates and biodynamic wheat.  Sounds good to me!  Today it was cold and rainy and I was looking for something warm and comforting.  Luckily, I had enough supplies to whip together baked macaroni and cheese and broccoli!  It’s pretty balanced, considering it has a starch, fat and vegetables.  Like my grandma always said, pizza is the perfect meal!  Here’s how to make it happen

Makes 1 dish

Here’s what I used. I encourage you to be creative and use whatever you have on hand!

1/2 pound Delallo Biodynamic Fusilli

1 cup Yellow Barn Biodynamic Tomato Basil Pasta Sauce

1 head of organic broccoli

1 organic onion

2 cloves organic garlic

2 tsp organic grass fed ghee

1 chunk (maybe 1 cup) Parmigiano Reggiano 

1 chunk (probably 1 cup) Jasper Hill Alpine Cheese

1 pinch sea salt

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Boil 5 cups of water

2. Add half the bag of pasta to the boiling water, turning down the heat. Strain after 5-6 minutes, you want it al dente. Mix in a teaspoon of ghee to prevent sticking

3. Dice onions and garlic. Sauté lightly in ghee.

4. I find the best way to combine the cheeses, is to throw them in the Cuisinart.

5. In a bowl, mix broccoli, onions, garlic cheese and sauce.

6. Combine everything in the saucepan and pour into baking dish

7. Bake for 25 minutes, and then broil for on high for 2, just to crunch the top. But be careful!

This is the pasta dish I make most often with slight variations.  It’s a dish that’s very satisfying, and I feel good eating it.  You could argue about the pasta, but it’s easier not to.  The ingredients are all high quality and nutrient dense.  Biodynamic farming doesn’t only produce the best products, it also happens to be really good for the planet, so there’s that too.

One Pot Whatever

I call this One Pot Whatever because I don’t know what it really is.  It’s kind of like a stew, but a little bit brothier.  Anyway, it’s very good and really easy to make.  This is designed to taste good and make you feel good.  Feeling good is also a product of the easy clean up!  Here’s what you’ll need to have and need to do:

Have:

4 cups water (spring, distilled)

1.5 cups sprouted rice

1 head of broccoli 

1 onion

2 carrots

2 cloves garlic

1 piece kombu

1 Tablespoon organic grass fed ghee

and then per serving:

1 teaspoon miso (unpasteurized)

1/2 cup grated parmigiano reggiano

1 splash nama shoyu

1 sprinkle Braggs Sea Kelp Seasoning

Do:

1. Slice and dice onions and garlic, sauté in ghee in soup pot until they’re warmed up.
2. Add carrots and sauté until onions are translucent.  Add water and kombu.  Bring to a boil.
3. Add rice and lower to medium heat for 15 minutes.
4. Remove the kombu and stir in broccoli and butter.  I do this because I don’t like when the kombu breaks up.  Let this simmer for another 10 minutes.  Add butter.
5. In serving bowls, add miso, cheese and shoyu.  Ladle the stew into the bowl, and mix!
6. Enjoy!

Super Quick and Easy Broccoli Snack

Even when I don't have anything in the fridge, I have broccoli.  I love broccoli.  I love it steamed, I love it raw, I love it grilled.  Almost any way you can think of preparing or not preparing it, I'll like it.  Broccoli should be in everyone's diet.  That's a blanket statement I'll get behind.  It's great for your hormones, for liver detoxification and can help fight cancer.

One way that I like to prepare my brocc, is just broiling it.  Here's what I do.

Preheat the oven to 350 (I know I said broil, but we'll get there)

Break up the broccoli into big two-bite size pieces, placing them on a baking sheet.  I used 1 head here.

Squeeze half a lemon over the broccoli, and pour over about a tablespoon of melted organic grass fed ghee.  Mix.

Sprinkle on some red pepper flakes and salt.

After 5 minutes, remove the broccoli and mix it all up again.  Now we broil.

Put the sheet back in, under the broiler for 7 more minutes.

I like to sprinkle some parmigiana regianno on top, and then place it back under the (off) broiler for another minute or two.  These will be a little al-dente.  That's by design.  Even if you're going to eat totally cooked broccoli, eat a few pieces of raw as well.  The enzymes make the constituents in the broccoli work much more efficiently.

And enjoy!

Roasted Red Peppers

Roasted red peppers can add a nice to sweetness to almost any dish.  They also happen to be really easy to make.  There’s no need to buy store bought when you can prepare them yourself.  For one thing, the nutrient content will be higher.  You’ll also be saving money and packaging.  What you’ll need:

1 red pepper

1 knife

1 cutting board

1 broiler

Directions

1. Cut the top and bottom off of the pepper.  Then cut the pepper vertically in half, and then each half, in half.  Filet the lining out, if you must.
2. Place under broiler on high for 10-15 minutes.  Until the skin is charred.
3. Take the peppers out and place them under bowl.  You want to trap the moisture in.
4. Let them cool 5-7 minutes, or until cool to the touch, and peel the skin off.
5. Slice and enjoy!

Bread and Spread

Not only do sweet potatoes taste great, they're great for you.  In the winter, they become a staple of my diet.  One way I try to keep it interesting, is to switch up the preparation.  Fries, hash browns, latkes, in kitchari are all ways I like to use sweet potatoes.  But last night, I made a spread.  It was really fast and easy.  The most time consuming part was just baking the sweet potato!  This spread is painfully simple; I feel guilty calling it a recipe.  It's a baked sweet potato with caramelized onions, butter and salt and ceylon cinnamon.  That's it.  Here are the specifics.

1/2 of an onion

1 sweet potato

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 a tablespoon organic grass fed ghee

2 pinches of salt

2 shakes of cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  Bake the potato.  Mine was on the smaller side and spent about 30 minutes in the oven.

Dice and caramelize (lightly!) the onions with a little ghee.  I say lightly because this is already a sweet spread.

Take the potato out of the oven, letting it cool to the touch.  The skin should just call off at this point.  

Place the sweet potato in a bowl with the onions, butter, salt and cinnamon.  Mix with a fork.

Voila! Sweet Potato Spread!  I think this could go well with goat cheese, but I didn't have any.  I spread this on Iggy's whole wheat sour dough.  I love Iggy's, they use high quality ingredients like unbromated flour.  They make many really good baked goods actually  Try a croissant if you get a chance!  I lightly toasted the bread so it was crunchy, but not burnt.

Grain-Free Honey-Sweetened Blueberry Muffins

I’m not really a baker.  I didn’t start to experiment with baking until I was working for Matthew Kenney.  And even then, I fucked up a lot of baked goods.  Even socca.  One of my favorite things that did work out, were these muffins.  Although, having eggs made them not his favorite.  But they’re my favorite.  These blueberry muffins are really easy to make and require only a few minimally processed and nutrient dense ingredients.  They’re light, not too sweet and perfectly satisfying.  Below I’ll spell out the details.  It’s my variation of a Nourished Kitchen recipe.

2 cups almond flour

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

6 eggs

1/2 cup honey

1 Tablespoon butter

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Mix the dry ingredients.

Mix the wet ingredients(minus blueberries) in your KitchenAid Mixer.

Add and mix the dry and wet ingredients.

Carefully fold in blueberries.

Place the batter into the muffin tin.  I like using the cookie dough scooper.

Bake for 25 minutes

Pesto Grilled Cheese

While that JB quote may be questionable, this grilled cheese is not.  Originally, I was going to make plain grilled cheese and serve it with sauerkraut or pickles and call it a totally fermented meal.  But when I opened the fridge, I saw I a jar of pesto, staring me down.  I think this is a good example of food that's not generally considered healthy, but can easily be turned into a more nourishing meal.  Sourdough whole wheat bread made from unbromated flour, raw local grass fed cheese, pesto and I ended up going with dill pickles.  Fatty and fermented.  Doesn't get much better than that!

1.  Have good bread, cheese, pesto and fermented vegetables at hand.

2.  Turn on panini machine (I know I took a cheap shortcut), or melt some ghee in a pan on medium/high heat.  On the higher end of medium/high.

2.  Slice bread and cheese, apply pesto to one half of bread.  Add cheese and place the matching slice on top.

3.  Apply heat to sandwich.  The panini maker is nice because you don't have to flip.  But it's also non-stick.

Warming up with a Hot Tonny

We tend to get sick in the winter because we spend less time outdoors, in the sun and grounded. I would say most people are also less active in the winter.  I'm not excusing myself from any of that.  So it's the middle of January, it's cold out and I've felt better.  I've heard several people swear by the Hot Toddy this season so far, and tried on in Montana.  Not bad!  And I think there's something true about it helping with colds.

Today, feeling slightly under the weather, I went out to get some comfort food and decided to get hot toddy supplies.  Traditional hot toddy I think is warm water, lemon and whiskey.  Or something like that.  I switched mine up.  I made a clove, ginger and turmeric tea.  Just sliced the roots up, brought the water to a boil and then down to just under a simmer for a while.  Until the water was pretty yellow.  

I wore a cape for the duration of this recipe

I like using distilled water because it really draws out the flavors/nutrients.  The ginger is great for settling the stomach, and helps get blood flowing.  Cloves also aid digestion, but have antiparasitic, antioxidant and anesthetic properties too.  I added turmeric mostly because I love the flavor.  I guess we'll focus on it's mood-lifting properties, because that's always nice,  I don't think I need to go into the benefits of honey and lemon, as I think they're staples in most people's diets.  Hope they are anyway.  Combine all that with a little alcohol, which acts as a decongestant and delivery system and you've got a cold-fighter that will also help put you to sleep.

I poured a little bit of Four Roses into my biggest glass.  Four Roses is Kentucky bourbon made with 100% non gmo corn.  That's great!  I don't know anything about liquors, but I know this is non gmo, not a bad flavor and cheap.  Alcohol can be a great delivery system, in small quantities and can also help clear heat from the liver.  I squeezed a quarter of a lemon into the glass and dropped it in.  I poured the tea over, adding about a half a tablespoon of raw honey and a cinnamon stick.  I don't think it's ceylon, but it's a nice effect.  I don't usually like adding honey to hot things, but I do enjoy this hotter rather than colder.  I want to break a sweat.

I had pulled out a few options to add, but only went through with the colloidal silver.  The lemon essential oil can be strong, and the turmeric extract, while great, can be tough to work with.  Colloidal silver is great for a number of reasons.  It's antiviral and antibacterial.  Why do you think people originally made silverware.  If you're not eating off silver, I highly recommend it.

Sorry if this post is disorganized, I had a hot toddy while I wrote it.

Cordyceps: My Mountain Savior

It’s my own premade mix (with corcydeps!) in the jar!

Cordyceps traditionally grows at high altitudes, so what better place to eat it than at a high altitude!  Cordyceps is a mushroom that’s been used since the beginning of time, about 12,000 ago.  Just kidding.  It’s been around for a while, I mean it’s a mushroom so it’s probably been around in some form since before Earth.  It contains hypoxanthine, which according to NASA, originally formed extraterrestrially.

Anyway,  it became more widely known in the 18th century, and modern science has allowed us to research how and why cordyceps does what it does.  There’s a lot out there on cordyceps, so buckle up.

What does cordyceps do?  Depends who you ask.  If you ask someone in Chinese Medicine they’d say it nourishes yin and yang jing, strengthens kidneys and tonifies qi.  If you ask a caterpillar it would probably say it’s a killer. If you asked an Olympic athlete they’d tell you it’s that little suttin suttin that puts them over the edge into the winners circle.  If you asked an Olympic athlete they’d tell you it’s that little suttin suttin that puts them over the edge into the winners circle. 

It’s probably most famous as a lung tonic.  It helps your body use oxygen more efficiently.  That makes sense to me.  It grows in a lower oxygen environment, and can help us thrive in a lower oxygen environment.  For example, 8500 feet above sea level like I am right now.  I’m writing this article now because I want to highlight how cordyceps helps me adapt to the thinner air.

Di Tao cordyceps comes from regions of China even farther from the sea than that.  Like 12,000 feet above the sea!  However, cordyceps is much more than a lung tonic.  It’s great for your heart, containing adenosine, which is actually prescribed for arrhythmia.  That also helps with ATP synthesis and energy production.  It’s been shown to help the liver, which in turn normalizes hormone levels and cholesterol.  It’s also been shown to help fight cancer, specifically reducing leukemia and lung cancer tumor sizes.

For this trip, I premade a mix.  But I made sure it's cordyceps heavy.  There's also some astragalus in there, another great lung tonic.  It's so dry out here, qi flow can be more easily upset.  There's also some reishi, he shou wu and mucuna because you can't really go wrong with that trio.  And also some eucommia bark, to keep my knees strong and flexible on this ski trip.

I’ll expand on this more later, I gotta hit the new urban booter.  There’s a fresh foot of powpkapow, can’t let it go to waste!

Big Willy's Christmas Waffles

What most people don’t realize, is that it’s easy to turn traditional recipes into healthy ones! At least healthier ones.  Today’s Christmas morning, and my dad is the breakfast-maker of the house.  He loves waffles.  So he made waffles!  They’re really simple to make, and his own recipe.  Here it goes.  This will make 3 large waffles.  You might notice his hands are dirty.  He just replaced the muffler on his car.  When I asked him, he said he’s working on building up his immunity.  I think we may just need better soap.

You’ll need:

1 Cup Sprouted Spelt Flour

1 Cup Whole Milk, get the best you can.  He used Jersey Cow milk from the Berkshires

1 Egg, pastured

2 tsp Baking Powder-Aluminum Free

1 tsp Ceylon Cinnamon

1 Dash of Salt

Additionally:

Cultured Grass Fed Butter (or Kerrygold in this case) + Maple Syrup

Combine the dry ingredients

Beat the egg and add it to the mixture along with the milk.  My dad didn’t beat the egg.

While not my first choice, my dad prefers to use the electric waffle maker with a non-stick surface.  I’d make them with the cast iron waffle maker on the stove, but I was hungry and beggars can’t be choosers.

They took about 3 and a half minutes at the 4.5 out of 6 setting.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!  I love them.  I’m eating as I type this.

Then Coffee

I'm a huge coffee fan.  I love it, but I am sensitive to it.  I only drink coffee in the morning, and never more than 2 cups.  Otherwise I can get over-stimulated.

I usually make a huge tonic elixir in the morning,  Not today.  I need to re-order!  So here's a recipe for a minimal Herbal Bulletproof Coffee.  Here's how I do it:

When I get home, or a few hours before I go to bed, I'll take my pot, and light it.

Just kidding, I'll take my pot and add about a tablespoon of chaga dust and a tablespoon of prepared he shou wu chips.  Then I'll add 2-3 cups of water.

I like to let it sit for a little before turning the heat on.  I think it's important not to immediately put it on high heat.  After sitting for 15 minutes or so, I'll turn the heat on.

I bring the water to a boil or there about, and then turn the heat off.  Done for the night.

Next morning, I'll wake up and bring the water to a boil.  While that's happening, I'll grind beans.  

Ground beans go into the French Press.  I try to pour the decoction, leaving the plant material in the pot.

I'll have it sit until it's cool enough to drink.

I put a tablespoon of ghee, a tablespoon of coconut oil, a pinch of salt and like half a tablespoon of honey in the blender.  Coffee goes in, lid goes on, blending occurs.

And BAM! you're good to go!

Thanks for reading!