Breakfast Tea for Balancing Blood Sugar

Recipe courtesy of Rossana from our No Sugar Cooking Lesson and Breakfast in Honor of Diabetic Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor. This infusion is made from blueberry leaves and cinnamon. Add a touch of blueberries, and you have blood-sugar-balancing beverage that will send you to tastebud heaven.

Recipe for 1 quart of infusion
1/3 cup fresh blueberry leaves
1 cinnamon stick

Add ingredients to a quart-size glass jar. (Reused pasta sauce or pickle
jars work beautifully. Make sure they don't smell like it though.) Add
boiling water to the very top, and cover. The leaves and the cinnamon
bark will soak up that water as it's fibers open, so you'll need to "top
off" the jar with water in about 15 minutes. Wait until the mixture
cools - overnight is best - so that the cinnamon and blueberry leaves
impart their full medicinal value to the water. Reheat (but don't boil!
it changes the flavor) or enjoy with chilled blueberries. Yummy
sugar-balancing goodness! It's the best tasting medicine you'll ever drink.

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No Sugar Breakfast in Honor of Diabetic Sonya Sotomayor

In honor of our new diabetic Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, we gave a cooking lesson on how to create breakfasts that are low in sugar, but high in deliciousness. This is recipe 1 of 3 that was devoured (with lots of moaning) on Sunday morning.

Green Sausage Wraps

Wraps: Romaine lettuce or any broad dark green leaves

The filling:
1 or natural sausages
1 sweet red pepper
1/2 sweet green pepper
2 tomatoes
1 zucchini
1/2 red onion
1/2 cup parsley
olive oil
1 or 2 cloves of garlic (to taste)

Sauce:
1 tsp lavender
2-3 tablespoons mustard
1/2 cup olive or sesame oil
1 pinch ground cardamom
1 lemon

Cut peppers, onion, tomatoes and zucchini thinly and add to a skillet. Add water, and cook on high heat. Pour 1 tablespoon of olive oil on top, garlic and sausage on top of the veggies to the skillet. Stir occasionally until the mixture is the consistency that you like. Should be about 5-10 minutes.

Let the mixture cool a little bit and stuff the romaine leaves with it. Add parsley on top. Eat. Enjoy. Prosper.

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Patty Pan Squash and Artichoke Saute for Breakfast

If you are lucky to discover patty-pan squash in your local farmer's market, supermarket or your own garden, scream "Eureka" A much flavorful and delicate flavor that the other summer squashes, it tastes amazing with artichokes, spinach, tomatoes, eggplants or any other vegetable you want to combine it with.

Ingredients:
1 patty pan squash
frozen artichoke hearts
eggplant or vegetable paste
avocado

Sautee patty pan squash with artichoke hearts until tender in water. Add a tiny amount of olive oil on top when nearly done. Fold cooked vegetables into the eggplant paste, and add chunks of avocado to give the dish more substance. Enjoy.

or you can eat this with your favorite protein - beans, sardines or breakfast sausages.

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Cherry Kisel for Breakfast - Even Presidents Love it.

Obama and Putin sitting down to breakfast in Moscow:

"The two leaders, however, appeared to hit it off over a breakfast of eggs, smoked beluga, black caviar, olady [pancakes] with cranberry jam, quail-stuffed pelmeni [dumplings], tea brewed in a samovar, cherry kisel and homemade ice cream for dessert. The meal, which was scheduled to last 90 minutes, stretched on for more than two hours." via The Moscow Times

Epic breakfast. You will have to use your imagination to recreate the quail-stuffed pelmeni and get an actual samovar for the tea, but here's a recipe for Cherry Kisel, since cherries are now in season here!

The traditional recipe uses sugar and potato starch. This recipe uses honey and kuzu root, but I imagine one can use a low-glycemic sweetener, like stevia as well.

2-3 cups cherries or other berries
6 cups of water
4 tbsp kuzu
1 tbsp raw honey

Boil cherries in water until water turns red and the cherry taste is unmistakable in the water. In a separate bowl, combine 1/2 cup of cold water with 4 tablespoons kuzu root. When it becomes a mixture, combine with the juice. Heat for 3 minutes and then turn off heat. Cool, strain and refrigerate for a cold drink.

For a different texture, you can try mashing berries inside, creating a cherry smoothie.

Kuzu drinks soothe the stomach and other inflamed membranes and are known as remedies for digestive upset. If your body is hot, and inflamed in the summer, this might be a great cooling drink. When taken regularly, kuzu drinks strengthen a weak digestive system and reduce symptoms such as frequent indigestion and intestinal gas.

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Strawberry Breakfasts are in Season

In season: Strawberries!

Latin name: Fragraria vesca

Most of us are pretty familiar with strawberries -- they look like the fruits in this picture: little, red, and juicy with tiny seeds nestled in its skin.

But did you know that the strawberry fruit has a cooling nature and has been used to reduce fevers and other hot conditions within the body? As within, so without: for example, if you have a mild sunburn, you can rub a fresh cut of strawberry over the affected skin to reduce the redness.

Another time-tested use for strawberry fruit was to remove discoloration from teeth. Simply rub the berry on to them and allow the juice to remain on for about five minutes. Afterwards, rinse with warm water to which a pinch of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) has been added. (There was no mention of the frequency of this remedy. As strawberries are so delicious, I'd use that as an excuse to do this about once a day.)

Carl Linnaeus, a renowned botanist from Sweden who lived in the 1700's, proved that the fruit was even useful for relieving rheumatic gout!

What's not commonly known is that the Strawberry's leaves are also high in Vitamin C and astringent. As such, they can be brewed into tea to alleviate diarrhea. Hooray! But even if you're not challenged by this ailment, you can still enjoy a cup of strawberry leaf tea - perhaps chilled with mint and fresh lemon for a cool lemonade?

Strawberries’ notable minerals: folate, manganese, potassium; notable vitamin: C. (Comprehensive nutrition facts on strawberries at NutritionData.com)

You can check out more folklore than you ever wanted to know at VegParadise

Sources:
* A Modern Herbal, volume II. Mrs. M. Grieve, ISBN 0486227995

* Nutrition Data: http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/2064/2

* University of California Museum of Paleontology for Carl Linnaeus' biography -- www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/linnaeus.html
* University of Illinois extension: http://urbanext.illinois.edu/strawberries/history.html

* VegParadise: http://www.vegparadise.com/highestperch45.html

* Photograph: Johnnyscriv at iStockphoto

Sighing Strawberry Oatmeal with Coconut Milk

Tools You need:
A stove & saucepan (optional)
A small knife
A bowl and spoon

Ingredients You Need
Milk – rice, almond, soy, cow, goat, etc
Strawberries
Maple syrup or honey
Coconut milk
Rolled oats
Ground spices like cardamom, cinnamon, or ginger.

Do this
Optional: Put your milk on the stove to warm up. Keep it on low - medium. You will need about 1/2 – 3/4 cup.

While it’s heating, grab your bowl and cut up as many strawberries into it as you like. Add some coconut milk (I use about 2 heaping tablespoons), your honey or maple syrup, and about 1/4 - 1/3 cup of rolled oats. Add your spices, if you like.

Pour the milk over your breakfast. If you chose to heat it, wait about 1 minute for the oats to get soft. If you pour it in cold, wait 2-10 minutes, depending on how soft you like your oats. (I’ve been known to eat it right away.)

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Crackers and American Cheeze - the Healthier Version

How do you satisfy a craving for a sweet, flavorful cracker with cheese when you can't have gluten (wheat) or dairy?

Cracker ingredients:
1/2 cup shredded coconut, 1/2 cup flax powder, 1/2 cup sunflower seeds, 1 tablespoon tahini, 1 teaspoon spirulina, 1 tablespoon of raisins, 2 small carrots, 1/2 sweet pepper, 1 tbsp cold pressed coconut oil

Cracker recipe:
Process everything in the food processor. Spread onto dehydrator sheets in thin crackers(or oven at the lowest setting) and dehydrate until solid and crackery like consistency.

American cheeze ingredients:
raw macademia nuts, 1 small raw carrot, 2 cloves or more - a lot of garlic for the funkiness, sea salt and a pinch of turmeric

American cheeze recipe:
Process everything in the food processor until it's spreadable.

Top with sprouts or your favorite vegetable.

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Breakfast Lab Pancake Sunday

Imagine breakfast by robots - ingredients perfectly measured, no emotions, mechanical efficiency of a toaster magnified 100 times... getting your pancake cooked to a perfect crisp, just how you like it.

If you see me cook, with the ingredients spilling everywhere, and songs, and lots of arm waving, you'd think it would be dull watching a robot make okonomiyaki.

But I don't think so. Robots are cool.

(Sample okonomiyaki recipe here)

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