Curry Butternut Squash Soup featuring Coconut Milk

Coconut milk is my new love. Creamy and sweet and oh so fatty, it hits the heart right in between the om and the ah. It's like the perfect balance of the yin and the yang, or not really, because there is nothing yang about it. You can use it just like you would cream or a heavy milk, yet with a nutrition profile that is astounding. Without regard to the fat content, coconut milk has many benefits that will send your heart soaring and your taste buds gleaming with an inner smile all the way down to your belly.

Following are some of the health benefits of coconut milk:

Manganese Ya! Manganese is an amino acid that gets sucked out of your body due to glucose intolerance. I attribute many blood sugar imbalances to the intoxication gluten can cause, yet it may not be 100% for you if you are reading this and hesitant to believe it. This is my experience and a testimony from years of personal and professional research, and so if it does not resonate, leave the rest to discover for yourself! Manganese is in coconut milk and so you may assure your bones and brain they can have a party because the coconut is going to offer you one! As well, grains, legumes and nuts provide manganese.

Flexifies the skin and blood vessels! No one wants to find their blood has become stagnant, their veins hard to access or their circulation cut down to only in their torso. You want strong arms to support your body, arms to help lift you up (and hands to express through). The copper and vitamin C in coconut milk will encourage flexibility in the blood flow of the body, which means everywhere so drink up!

Your Daily Boost! Coconut milk is high in phosphorus which strengthens bones. So practice yoga and drink/cook with coconut milk for strengthening bones and preventing bone loss.

Keep your blood-a-flowing! Anemia is a common cause of lethargy and over-exhaustion due to a lack of proper mineralization. One cup of coconut milk offers 1/4 the RDA of iron.

Free your mind and the rest will follow! Stressed out in your mind or body? Check your magnesium, perhaps the cause of pain in your neck or back is that your diet is causing your nerves to withdraw from their natural flow of beauty. Coconut milk provides plenty of magnesium to relax your muscles and send healing sparkles of light to those areas which maybe harboring the plague of your current situation. Perhaps coconut milk in some soup tonight?

Full Belly, Full Heart! Coconut milk provides plenty of fiber, which fills you up quicker and may aid in reducing the need to eat more than your body is ready for. So eat more fiber (coconut milk!), ultimately eat less overall.

Silly Seli - what? Selinium is an important antioxidant which reduces inflammation in the body, especially surrounding the joints. So, more coconut milk, especially if you have arthritis - it is observed the people with low levels of selenium may suffer from rheumatoid arthritis.

Pot-ass-what? Potassium, or foods containing potassium (if you break that word apart, it's funny, right?) is a blood pressure reducing-agent that comes naturally in coconut milk.

Immune me, please! I spent a semester in college in Tanzania and once was forced to lie back @ camp and miss a day of beach hiking (hiking on beaches to "island hop" around various un-inhabited aka desert islands) due to a major fever. I went hiking on my own and came to a village known for it's incidences of elephantitits. That's another story, but for now, know this: they gave me coconut to drink and said it would take my pain away. It did, however my taste buds weren't quite mature enough to think that coconut milk was magical. Once I broke through to the other side, now my immune system is in high gear and I haven't been sick since (in 10 years!).

Zinc your taste! Zinc is the key to healthy taste buds, as well as plays a role in promoting the health of the prostate gland. DRINK MORE COCONUT MILK!

Now for the main squeeze :

Butternut Squash Curry Soup featuring Coconut Milk

Ingredients:

1/4 cup onions, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 T ginger
1/4 t curry powder
1 t coconut oil
1 c butternut squash
1 t coconut oil
1 cup water
1/2 t sea salt
2 T coconut milk

Heat oil until smoking. Add onions, garlic and ginger. Saute until fragrant and clear. Add curry powder, saute 30 seconds. Add squash and water. Simmer and cover for 15 minutes or until squash is soft. Blend. Add coconut milk (optional). Simmer for 2 minutes. Add more coconut milk for a creamier consistency. Serve warm, garnished with cilantro.

Super yum.

Black-Eyed Peas and Dating Luck

I need some luck. My dating life needs some luck. I questioned my mom the other day when she said her usual: well, good luck with that. As if that she is not in support, does not need to hear the outcome and can see the potential mistakes her rebellious daughter is making. Oh, well and I am much like her, except I prefer to live a large life and to explore the unknown (at times with vigor more than fear;).

I was supposed to have a date over for dinner tonight. This is someone I really dig, and am sad I won't be with him tonight because all weekend I have been nursing an infection and need to rest. Went to the doctor this morning and was prescribed antibiotics and yes, it is time to be kind and so gentle with myself. I was choosing some wild men to be involved with lately, thinking that dating means going out drinking and staying up LATE. Oh, well, this marks the first night of my new dating life. Cooking, home, connecting authentically and staying away from men with helicopters (for tonight:). The last guy was fulfilling an agreement that yoga instructors have some special healing power. He charmed me into his story and invited me to escapade with him to Venezuala, Germany, Dubai (all this summer). I was not in. I told him: money does not impress me. Nope. And now I know that I meant it.

Babylicious Black-eyed Peas

1/2 cup black eyed peas

1/3 cup diced carrots

1/3 cup diced onions

3 cups spring water

1 postage size piece kombu

1 t sea salt

luscious greens: broccoli, kale +/- collard greens

Rinse black eyed peas and soak in 1 cup for 5-8 hours. Drain.

Add to pot. Cover with remaining 2 cups water. Bring to boil. Skim off foam.

Add carrots and onions and kombu. Lower heat to low and cover.

Simmer for 30 minutes.

Add: broccoli, kale or collard greens and simmer 4-5 more minutes.

Add salt and cook for 3 minutes.

Serve warm, with bread or perfect brown rice.

Garnish with scallions.

Yum....yum...yum!

Cooking for Mo

I have a new private cooking client this month named Mo. He has become my best friend and I his, well, we'll just say maybe it's a mutual muse we'd both like to claim in each other. I will say, it is one of the best things that has happened to me in 2011 and I will have to get his testimonial to provide viable feedback. First of all, it's made me see how many recipes I have stored inside of my brain. He asked me to cook 3 meals a day for a month. I thought no sweat, and after 6 days, the sweat became daunting, so we reassessed our system and for now, it's working that I make sure he is stocked, and he can take care of meals he chooses to eat out or make himself leftovers. I learned that there is no such thing as perfection and that people know what they love with food, and I can make healthy food delicious, he loves it AND, I don't need to worry about going overboard about doing what I don't know because I know a lot! Ok, enough cheese. What works? I dunno other than I am working on a cookbook filled with seasonal, SIMPLE, vegetarian dishes that will blow your mind!! And teach you how to use your intuition to guide your choices in the market, stock your kitchen so you are prepared for the times when you don't feel like cooking to when you have too much time on your hands and want to stay out of the play dough, and simplicity is what turns on your palate...stay tuned...

Make it yum,

love,

Waller