BEAUTIFUL BEETROOT.

With the busy lives we lead currently the whole idea of community takes on a different bent.  We use social media to connect with our friends and family and neglect to give them a call or go over and visit them face to face.  So when a little red headed five year old stands at my fence calling out “Hello, hello!” with increasing intensity, hopefulness in his voice, I am heartened to know that the neighbourhood I live in is still in tact.  I am always excited and encouraged to have the neighbourhood kids lean over the fence when they see me in the garden watering or pulling weeds and ask if they can come in and look at the vegetables.  So this week when the children from down the street were over for another visit to coerce our son for a turn on his Xbox, I distracted their interest by telling them it was time to pull up some beetroot.

There has been sufficient rain and copious amounts of sunshine to ensure that the little rosy cheeks of the beetroot were starting to push up through the soil.  I had a copy of the latest Earth Garden magazine earmarked with a beautiful beetroot and chocolate cake recipe that I was dying to try for lunch box treats.  So off we trotted into the garden and Tommy pulled the biggest one out by the variegated leaves and held it up for my approval, grinning from ear to ear.  It wasn't quite as big as I would have liked so we opted to pick some beans instead of disturbing the growth of the other beets.

He went back to the Xbox and I grated and measured all the ingredients for a delicious and healthy staple, my Carrot and Beetroot cake, as the beetroot wasn't sufficient for the other cake that I was hoping to make.  Soon Tom was back in the kitchen to help with the mixing and addition of ingredients, enjoying the attention and for me it took me back to my days as a Home Ec teacher as I explained processes and answered questions as we made the cake.  Now while Tom might enjoy the growing, watering, harvesting and even the cooking of vegetables, mention the words “carrot” and “beetroot” in the same sentence as “cake” and he is not the least bit convinced!  So our beautiful desert remained untouched until husband and friends arrived and our son was able to pry his hands from the Xbox controller.

One of my favourite recipes using beetroot is Jamie Oliver’s Food Processor Salad.  I call it Rainbow Salad and I have altered it for my taste by omitting fennel bulb and substituting yellow zucchini.  Basically you set up the grater attachment on the food processor and grate a small beetroot, a red carrot, a yellow zucchini, a green zucchini and as luck and centrifugal force would have it the salad is created in layers for you right in the bowl.  Gently invert onto a plate and serve alongside your favourite dressing.  I make Jamie’s Tarragon and Yoghurt dressing to go alongside as it gives tang and a bit of bite to what is essentially a modern take on coleslaw.  My sister in law after asking me how I made the salad was amazed that you could eat raw beetroot as she had always boiled it first….

Whats so great about raw beetroot Tanya?

MMMMMM Beetroot, you can beet an egg but you can’t beet a root apparently, well at least that is what my husband always says when he is adding beetroot to our vegie burgers!

Don Tolman refers to beets as “The Vegetable Jewel”, so I have a vision of the 7 Dwarfs singing “Hi Ho Hi Ho it’s off to work we go, to find the jewel of the vegetable kingdom, Hi Ho Hi Ho Hi Ho”. (Sorry if you now have that tune stuck in your head)

Beetroots are loaded with potassium, magnesium, beta-carotene and folate.  Fresh beetroots have at least twice as much potassium and folate and other nutrients as canned beetroot. You also need to consider when using canned beets is the added sugar, other nasty’s and of course the issue that the lining of the cans are not BPA free.  Fresh beetroots are beautiful in juices, salads and you can also bake them like a potato.

Other Benefits Include

• Works for cancer

• Protects your heart

• Controls blood pressure

• Conquers kidney stones

• Strengthens bones

• Prevents gallstones

• Treatment of gout and jaundice

• Anaemia

• Disorders of the bladder and kidneys

Beetroot leaves are also yummy and nutritious, cut the tough part of the stem off just below the leaves, warm in olive oil or coconut oil add a little Bragg’s All Purpose Seasoning, Celtic Sea Salt and your beet leaves, sauté till they are soft, enjoy like that or you can add to omelettes, stir-fry, warm salads. Have fun with this and experiment with different dishes, you will be surprised how they add colour and texture to your meal.

Another wonderful and fun thing to do with beetroots is hand dying natural fibre cloths, sheets, or whatever tickles your natural fibre fancy. The results are always different and you are not harming the environment or your family with harsh chemicals.  Love and Light Tanya ox

So ditch the tinned, sugared beets and try a bunch of round and raw and enjoy the benefits!  Do you have a favourite beetroot recipe?  Let us know in the comments below.

Grow sustainably, eat mindfully, live passionately.

After the success of the first harvest from my new improved crop circles filled with nutrient rich organic potting mix, I have been keen to get them going again and providing the family with some fresh produce.  Last year I allowed just two cos lettuce plants go to seed in the hopes that they would refill the garden bed with more lettuce plants without me having to buy another packet of seeds.  In the winds that prevailed the little parachutes floated away from the mother plant and landed in abundance.    

The Summer has been a scorcher and nothing was sprouting.  Even weeds were dehydrated, shrivelled and withering in the heat.  Come early February however and the seasonal afternoon thunderstorms began in full force.  Water tank was overflowing and the first little sprouts of hundreds of cos lettuce plants began to appear over night.  Now of course they aren't planted in neat little rows, are way too close together, but what I have learnt since the last season is to use the crowded seedlings while the leaves are young and tender in salads and thereby create the space for the remaining plants to achieve their full potential.

In the crop last year I had an abundance of lettuce to the point that I couldn’t even give away all that was produced from the seeds that I planted all at once.  And of course I didn’t thin them out like the packet suggested, because when the little plants were growing I got so excited that I couldn't bring myself to.  So I didn’t.  They all grew too close together and that meant rot and bugs.  Wastage.  Yuck I hate that.

So this time, I’m making my favourite salad every day in order that none of my free lettuce goes to waste.  I want to share the recipe with you.  Don't be deceived at how simple it is.  It is the perfect accompaniment to Turkish Pide, any steak, roast or equivalent, and the nutritional qualities are intense.

EASY COS, FETA AND LEMON SALAD

Ingredients:

washed and torn salad leaves, small ones, I use cos because I can or mignonette

spray extra virgin olive oil

squeeze organic lemon juice

grind Himalayan Salt Flakes

crumble organic Danish feta

Method:

Place lettuce on plate, spray with oil to give shiny appearance (and because of health benefits), squeeze over lemon juice to taste, grind over the salt, garnish with crumbled feta.  Voila!

Because health is an important part of my Healthy, Wealthy and Wise commitment to my next fifty years on the planet, I have enlisted the help of a co-author who is my nutrition and healthy living “go to” girl.  

“Tanya, what’s so good about this salad?”

Thank you Captain Julia, for entrusting me as your co-author and “go to” girl, I love it and I am deeply honoured.

Firstly I am a big believer in keeping it simple as you have done, this way you can really enjoy the flavours without too much going on for your taste buds.  Also for those who find it way to easy to visit a drive through or local take away with the main focus on fast rather then whole food nutrition, this is a fast and healthy alternative, with the pleasure of making it yourself.  

I am all about easy, healthy, passionate food that is made with love, so having said all of that lets look at some of the nutritional benefits of this yummy salad.

Cos lettuce also know as Romaine is packed with vitamins and minerals, it is the boss when it come to lettuce. It has a low kilojoule content and high water volume, an excellent source of  

VIT A (in the form of beta-carotene), folate, VIT C, manganese, chromium and a very good source of dietary fibre and potassium.

This is a heart healthy green.

Olive oil is 77% monounsaturated fat, the good kind that helps rather than hurts your body, and is rich in VIT E.  Extra virgin is the best.

Here are some benefits from Olive Oil 

• Protects you heart
• Promotes weight loss
• Eases arthritis – oil you joints, topically and internally
• Combats cancer
• Battles diabetes
• Smoothes skin
• Helps with gall bladder problems
• Halts hunger pangs

Isn’t it interesting to note that the type of fat you eat at lunch could effect how hungry you are at dinner!

I love LEMONS, if you say that like Oprah does when she gets excited about something, it sounds great, feels good and you will get the gist of my enthusiasm for them.

Lemons are your best friend, of all the citrus fruit lemon is the most potent detoxifier, it kills intestinal parasites such as roundworms and dissolves gallstones.  Other health benefits include:

• Eliminate kidney stones
• Combats Cancer
• If taken in the morning is know to improve liver function
• Stimulates digestive juices
• Relieves constipation
• Asthma
• Headaches
• Pneumonia
• Arthritis
• Breast health
• Good general blood and body purifier
• The juice also aids in the removal of old drug residues (poisons) from the body

Lemons are beneficial to the heart and circulation, stimulates the adrenal system and increases the vitality of the kidneys.

Personally I start the day with warm filtered water including the juice from an organic whole lemon, a small piece of organic ginger and organic raw honey.  It gets your metabolism going and clears out your pipes, all of them, yeah, giddy up.

Salt intake is vital; water and salt regulate the water content of the body.

Salt is effective in

• Stabilising irregular heart beats and is essential to the regulation of blood pressure (despite what we’re told)
• Vital for the clearance of mucous from the lungs (essential for asthma cases)
• Supporting respiratory health
• Rapid healing of infection
• Balancing sugar levels in the blood (an important element for diabetics)
• Reduce the signs of ageing
• Promoting healthy pH balance in your cells, particularly your brain cells
• Generation of hydroelectric energy in the cells (the body’s power source)
• Absorption of food particles through the intestinal tract
• Sinus health
• Prevention of muscle cramps
• Salt is critical for making the structure of the bones strong (osteoporosis is largely the result of a shortage of water and salt)
• Regulating you sleep, it naturally promotes sleep
• Supports your libido

There is so much more I could talk about when it comes to salt.

I always carry in my handbag a BPA free container filled with Don Tolman’s Ra See Salt.  I use this if I have lunch out rather then that dirty table salt, or if I feel tired I just pop a pinch under my tongue, also if I am exercising and I need a little boost, under the tongue it goes.

I am a vegetarian, transiting into vegan, at this point though I still consume cheese, mainly from goats, organic and raw when possible and definitely no animal remnant.

Feta consist of riboflavin, protein, calcium, phosphorus, VIT B12.  Cheese can also help in the prevention of tooth decay, cheese contains compounds that neutralise acids in the mouth, and it also helps with heart burn.

Who would think that Julia’s yummy simple salad was action packed with all that goodness.

For more in depth knowledge on whole foods, I highly recommend you have a look at Don Tolman’s website www.dontolmaninternational.com.

Wishing everyone organic love and light.

Tanya

Wow!  Every time I spend time with Tanya I learn so many lessons.  I hope you all feel enlightened and ready to try an easy salad with so many health benefits as you join me on the path to living a little healthier, being a bit wiser and having a richer life for doing so!