Wonderful Wednesday

Just popping in to say hi & show you some things that made me smile extra big today!

My lovely sister is the best & helped me pot my flowers the other day. Now I can have a colourful start to my day EVERY day. Thanks Em!

 I enjoyed my favourite bread (organic sourdough rye with raisin & walnuts) with raspberry jam I made last summer for breakfast. Yum. Enough said.

I had a banana lying around (lol), so I decided to use it up in something delicious!
Angela's no bake chocolate macaroons were calling out to me. I had all the ingredients, except the dried/shredded coconut, so I swapped in rolled oats in the same quantity, and was just delighted. These are super easy to make. The hardest part is waiting to eat them while they're firming up in the freezer. Definitely a wonderful treat. I'll be making these again, probably playing around with some other ingredients too.

Have a lovely rest of the week friends!

Macrobiotic Black Rice Recipe

Often people associate Macrobiotics with brown rice. While the Macrobiotic diet is incredibly varied, brown rice does play a strong role, as it is a very balanced food that is easy to digest and full of nutrients. This week, we're taking brown rice out for a joy ride, and cooking it with something new: black rice!

Macro Mondays: Black Rice

Black rice is very very healthy! Like other whole grain rice, it is rich in fibre & vitamin Bs. But black rice kicks it up a notch, because it has tons of anthocyanin antioxidants because of it's dark colour, just like blackberries & blueberries. These dark plant antioxidants are potentially cancer-fighting. Black rice is also known as purple rice or forbidden rice, and has been revered in China for centuries

A big THANK YOU to my lovely friends Kenji & Harumi for sending it to me all the way from Japan :)

Me, super happy because I found a Japanese parcel in the mailbox!

It might have taken a few months, Kenji, but I finally made it, and we loved it!

This was my first time cooking it myself, and I can't wait to make it again. We made it in the pressure cooker with short grain rice (2 parts short grain 1 part black rice). We both thought that it added a really nice rich & sweet flavour. In fact, our leftovers disappeared really quickly!

Macrobiotic Black & Brown Rice [3 cooking methods]

Please Gather:

• 2 cups short grain brown rice, rinsed
  
• 1 cup black rice, rinsed
  
• 3.5 cups spring water

Soak the above for about 6 hours or overnight (you can soak it right in the Ohsawa pot, if you're using it, or in the pressure cooker, or in the saucepan if you're boiling).

Once it's done soaking, you're ready to cook!

*Please always follow your own pressure cooker's directions!

Version #1 - Ohsawa Pot

1. There needs to be 3.25 cups of water in with the rice, including the soaking water. I usually have to add in about 1 cup more fresh spring water after it's done soaking.
2. Add a pinch of salt, put the lid on the Ohsawa pot, and lower it into the pressure cooker. I usually add about 3-4 cups water to the pressure cooker, and rest the closed Ohsawa pot on the trivet that came with my pressure cooker.
3. Put the lid on the pressure cooker, and bring to full pressure. Turn heat down to the lowest setting to maintain full pressure, and cook for 30 mins. Take off the heat, and let the pressure come down naturally (10-20 mins).
4. Fluff up & serve.
   

Version #2 - Pressure Cooker with no Ohsawa Pot

1. You need there to be 5.5 cups of water in with the rice, including the soaking water. Add whatever you need to make up the difference.
2. Bring the rice to boil in the pressure cooker with the lid off.
3. Add in a good pinch or two of sea salt.
4. Fasten the lid, and bring it up to full pressure (2 bars in my kuhn rikon).
5. Keep on the lowest heat to maintain full pressure, and cook for 30 minutes.
6. Take off the heat, and let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes.
   
7. Release any remaining pressure, and then fluff up & serve.

Version #3 - Stove Top (boiling)

1. There should be between 5-6 cups of water in the pot, including the soaking water. You will most likely need to add 2 cups of fresh spring water.
2. Bring to boil, and add a pinch of salt.
   
3. Lower temperature until it's only simmering, and put the lid on.
4. Cook for 25-30 minutes, watching to make sure it doesn't bubble over.
5. If you need to add a bit more water, you can!
6. Take off the heat, and let the rice rest for 5 minutes in the pan, then fluff up and serve.
7. This is pretty much my basic brown rice, dainty pig style!

It's purple. It's pretty. And I bet it would taste dang good with some adzuki beans in there too & topped with black sesame. And since my idea wheel is turning, I'm thinking that it's sweet flavour would make it amazing in rice pudding.

Have you ever tried / made black rice?

Some food for thought. Or rather, thoughts on food.

I've been thinking about something a lot lately:

I think it's really important to remember that there is no food that is inherently "bad" & no food that is inherently "good." 

Often, Macrobiotics can appear as a strict regime eliminating most foods that people are used to eating and creating strong rules about what not to eat. 

But, that isn't so, friends! Simply, food is food, and different food creates different physical & mental effects. These effects vary from person to person, your lifestyle, and also vary depending on the season & your geographic location, etc.

There are many ways to look at these varying effects, & Macrobiotics classifies foods on a yin/yang spectrum. Yin foods are expansive, they are great when it's hot out, and they also allow creativity to flow. Too much yin though, and you can be left feeling cold & jittery. Yang foods are more contracting; they are great for focused work, and good to eat when it's cool outside. But again, too much yang isn't good either, as you'll end up rigid and angry, and brittle like a twig! Foods that are in the middle of the spectrum have a even energy. But again: no food is bad, and no food is good. They just hold different energies, and once you know this, you can use food to choose the kind of energy you need or want. Macrobiotics is about choices, and is meant to gear you up to be able to eat freely and live the biggest life you can!

The most important thing to include in your diet is awareness: listening to your body feedback system.

For myself, I couldn't help but notice that eating certain foods made me feel really really crappy. That's how I got on this path in the first place. Eventually, I got an allergy test and it simply confirmed I was allergic to the things I already "knew."

BUT, you don't need a test: after you eat, listen to what your belly & body is saying. If it's not a good feeling, and this feeling is consistent, then maybe it's time to give your belly a rest and ease off that food. If you feel great, then keep doing what you're doing!

And don't forget another part of the equation:

Enjoyment

You could be eating all the most amazing "superfoods" in the world, but if you are grumpy, sad, and unhappy eating them, they won't do you any good. When you feel like that, you won't absorb the good, your digestion will suck, and you won't process & metabolize the food properly.

If you are happy, relaxed, and excited to eat what's in front of you, then your body actually prepares itself to digest, assimilate, metabolize and process it efficiently. This includes yummies like ice cream or chocolate cake: if you are really happy to eat it, and truly enjoy it while you do, you'll probably feel better afterwards than if you were eating oatmeal when you're upset. {And no, i'm not here to promote the ice cream only diet, but am simply encouraging you to really enjoy your treats & your oatmeal, when have them!}

I have personally experienced way less upset belly eating foods that i'm even allergic to, when I eat them with joy! I have also experienced feeling crappy after eating macro food while upset.

So, eat what you like! Enjoy what you're eating. The recipes I put on here, are on here because I truly love & enjoy them.

If you really love baked goods, choose the ones you really really want, perhaps homemade from scratch or from a delicious bakery, and then savor & enjoy them! There's a reason why "French women don't get fat," and that's because they savor what they eat, and feel great about it, without worrying about how much butter or sugar there is in it. It is just as possible to be unable to lose weight while strictly dieting & restricting your food choices as it is possible to be light in the body while enjoying whatever food comes your way.

A really interesting study was done that involved that kind of idea. I can't remember exactly where I read this, maybe in psychology class, so i'll just paraphrase what I remember:  they showed people from different countries pictures, and asked what the first word that came to mind was. One of the pictures was of chocolate cake. North Americans' typical 1st response included words like "guilt," "bad," "shouldn't" & Parisians' responses included "celebration," "love," "enjoyment." So do you want to eat guilt & badness or do you want to ingest love & celebration?

And so, this fine morning, I happily toast my coffee to you and your food freedom.

Lose the judgment. Lose the food rules. Whether it's Sunday Brunch with your mom's famous cinnamon rolls, pizza & wine with friends, miso soup, or a full-on Macro feast, eat your food with love, and after, pause to listen to your body for feedback.

Any thoughts on this? Personal experiences?