I couldn't resist...

Thinking about Autumn Eating got me super excited about eating round, seasonal foods, so of course I began salivating about butternut squash soup! Here's an amazing recipe I am going to try from Vegetarian Times as reposted on YogaJournal.com

Try adding some of the following items to make it a medicinal treat:

• astragalus (huang qi): boosts the Lung Qi, can help to prevent illness
• sweet potatoes: boosts the Spleen Qi, drains dampness
• pearled barley (yi yi ren): boosts the Spleen Qi, drains dampness
  

Vegetarian Times Issue: November 1, 1999 p.38

For an extra-special touch, toast the squash seeds to sprinkle over the soup. Rinse seeds, pat dry with paper towels, spread on a baking sheet and bake at 350°F for 30 to 40 minutes, tossing occasionally. This make-ahead soup can be frozen for up to 1 month.

Ingredients

8 servings

• 3 medium or 2 large butternut or acorn squash (4 lbs.)
• 2 (14-oz.) cans vegetable broth (1 qt.)
• 1 tsp. coarse salt
• 1/4 tsp. ground white pepper
• 4 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil or 3 Tbs. vegetable oil and 1 Tbs. walnut oil
• 24 fresh small sage leaves
• 4 slices firm-textured white bread

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut squash in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds; save seeds for toasting if desired (see above). Place squash halves cut side down on large baking sheet with sides. Bake until skins are browned and squash is tender, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Let cool slightly.
2. Scoop cooked squash from skins and transfer to large saucepan. Mash well with potato masher, then stir in broth and 2 cups water. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, stirring often. Season with salt and pepper and remove from heat. Soup should be as thick as tomato sauce–add up to 1 cup more water to thin if necessary. If you prefer a finer texture, cool slightly then puree soup in a blender or food processor. Let cool completely, transfer to container with lid and refrigerate at least 8 hours.
3. Up to 4 hours before serving, heat 3 tablespoons oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add sage leaves and cook until lightly browned, turning once, about 1 minute. Using tongs, transfer sage to paper towels to drain. Reserve oil in skillet.
4. Trim crusts from bread, discarding crusts. Cut each bread slice diagonally into 4 triangles, then cut each triangle in half to make 32 croutons total.
5. Heat reserved oil in skillet over medium heat. Add half the croutons and cook, turning once, until golden on both sides, about 1 minute. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in skillet and cook remaining croutons as before.
6. Rewarm soup over low heat, stirring occasionally. Ladle soup into bowls and scatter 3 toasted sage leaves over each portion. Garnish each with 4 croutons and serve hot.

Eastern Nutrition and the Heart

Here is a super helpful article from Acupuncture Today that discusses some ways to support your heart health using what I like to call "kitchen medicine." You do not have to confine your entire diet to what is discussed here, but incorporating some of these ideas into your existing diet may be a way to slowly transition toward a diet that supports your entire being.

I personally love the breakfast, especially before or after major events - the kinds that really tax you, leaving you sometimes disoriented, ungrounded, and anxious or agitated. Add some cinnamon twig for added warmth and invigoration.

Medicated Diet Therapy for Cardiovascular Disease

By Gordon Cohen, LAc

Angina, chest pain, dizziness, palpitation and high blood pressure are symptoms associated with cardiovascular disease. Medical science dedicates a great deal of effort and expense developing drugs, devices and procedures to combat the most common cause of death in both men and women.

These symptoms can be controlled, prevented and treated successfully using medicated diet therapy.

Medicated diet therapy is a special branch of Chinese herbology which uses food products according to their herbal properties to treat diseases. This combines the effectiveness of herbal medicine with the familiarity of foodstuffs. Many common foods have herbal properties, and many of the herbs first identified in source texts were barley, yams, dates, walnuts, figs, grapes and sesame seeds. Medicated diet is divided into two components, namely dietary drugs and medicinal recipes. Dietary drugs are individual foods. They are used to complement other, more detailed modalities. Medicinal recipes are complex formulae which are effective alone and also potentiate other treatments.

The most revered ancient texts of acupuncture and herbal medicine include dietary prescriptions. For example, in the Treatise on Cold-Induced Diseases, rice porridge is recommended to be taken concurrently with the first prescription of gui zhi tang.

The ingredients of medicated recipes are selected according to classifications defined in traditional herbology. These are according to the nature of the flavors and the associated organs. Sweet, sour, bitter, salty, bland and spicy determine types of herbal function and target particular organs. For example sour ingredients target the liver, while bitter ingredients target the heart and are anti-toxic in action.

The nature of food refers to indications of metabolic response and determine potential side effects. These are described as cold, cool, neutral, warm and hot. Red chili pepper is hot in nature. If applied to the skin, a sensation of warmth will be perceived. When ingested, it will produce an elevation of body temperature. It can cause increase of night sweats, but is useful in treating chills. Mint leaf is used to treat sore throat. Its cool nature produces the familiar sensation associated with mint flavoring.

Ingredients are also selected according to their roles in the actions of the recipe. These are categorized as follows: chief, deputy, assistant and envoy. The chief ingredient in a recipe determines the recipe's main function. An example would be meat in any recipe. The deputy supports the chief action and adds a secondary function. This would be the beans in chili con carne. Assistants enhance the effect of the chief or deputy (helping assistant).They can also reduce harshness or toxicity (opposing assistant).Onions, which improve the function of qi-tonifying meats such as beef, are helping assistants. Fresh ginger is a very potent antidotal and will neutralize actual poisons found in herbs and foods, as an opposing assistant. The envoy directs the formula to a specific anatomical location and harmonizes the flavors of the recipe. Round-grain polished rice is sweet and neutral. It harmonizes the flavors of recipes. It also activates the middle burner, which makes it an ideal envoy.

After differential diagnosis using tongue and pulse signs, dietary drugs are selected, and the chief, deputy, assistants and envoys chosen. For example, a patient presents symptoms of chilled extremities and a desire for warm liquids, accompanying palpitations. A pale bluish or swollen tongue accompanied by slow pulse indicates yang deficiency or cold accumulation. Treatment should tonify yang and disperse cold.

The treatment of cardiovascular disease is one of the more important uses of medicated diet therapy. Coronary artery disease is considered to be an excellent target from the aspects of prevention, cure and recovery. Treatment falls into two subcategories: individual foods, and medicinal recipes.

Coronary artery disease is differentiated by TCM into two categories: excess and deficiency. The main dietary drugs for the heart are shan zha, xie bai, bai he, long yan rou, sang ren, fu ling, suan zao ren, ju hua, rou gui, gan jiang, da suan, kun bu and hai zao. These are used alone for blood stasis, qi deficiency, yin deficiency, yang deficiency, qi stasis and phlegm stasis. Dietary drugs are taken as snacks, condiments or flavoring for rice porridge. More complicated recipes are offered for comprehensive treatments.

For example: hawthorn and wild garlic porridge is used to treat obvious precordial pain with qi deficiency. Sargasso, soybean and kelp soup treats coronary disease accompanied by hypertension and high cholesterol. Ginseng, red sage and hawthorn spirits treats blood stasis and qi deficiency. Honeyed Extract for Nourishing the Heart treats deficient yin and qi, as well as blood stasis.

The best way to take advantage of food herbology is to prescribe daily menus which offer more options than breakfast, lunch and dinner. Here are some examples:

Breakfast: Red date and wheat-berry rice porridge. This wholesome nutty porridge strengthens and regulates the heart qi. Red date is the chief. It is sweet and neutral, and activates the heart, spleen and stomach. In this recipe, it nourishes the heart qi. Wheat berry is the deputy. It is sweet and cool, and activates the heart and lung. In this recipe, it regulates the heart qi.

Lunch: Carrot, macrostem onion and celery porridge. This savory rice porridge is especially effective to treat coronary disease accompanied by precordial discomfort .Macrostem onion is the chief. It is spicy bitter and warm. It activates the lung, heart, stomach and large intestine. In this recipe, it regulates the qi in the chest. Carrot is the deputy. It is sweet and neutral, and activates the lung and spleen, and tonifies the five organs. In this recipe, it strengthens the heart. Celery is also a deputy. It is sweet, bitter and cool. It activates the stomach and liver. In this recipe, it regulates the blood vessels.

Dinner: Saffron and black-chicken rice porridge. This savory porridge nourishes the yin and invigorates the blood. Black chicken is a chief ingredient. It is sweet and neutral, and activates the liver and kidney. In this recipe, it nourishes the yin. Saffron is the other chief ingredient. It is spicy and warm, and activates the heart and liver. In this recipe, it invigorates and nourishes the blood. Round-grain polished rice is the envoy. It is sweet and neutral, and activates the spleen and stomach. It harmonizes the ingredients.

This menu offers a variety of dietary drugs presented in the most effective manner to support other treatment. The ingredients used in medicated diet are common foods that are readily available in grocery stores. Medicated diet therapy can be frequently used in conjunction with other modalities of traditional Chinese medicine. By including it in treatment of heart disease, the practitioner can potentiate the effectiveness of herb and acupuncture prescriptions and improve their outcome.

As the summer approaches its end, you may be feeling heavy-limbed, sluggish, irritable. Try including kitchari in your diet as a way to give yourself a gentle cleanse while not depriving your body of nourishment.

Cleansing Kitchari: from www.yogajournal.com

This Indian comfort food provides strength and energy while you're fasting.

By Alison Rose Levy

In America, downing a hearty grain dish would not be called fasting. But in India kitchari—a soupy porridge made from rice and mung beans, lightly spiced with ginger, cilantro, and other spices—is considered a fasting food and is used to purify digestion and cleanse systemic toxins.

Ayurvedic physicians often prescribe a kitchari diet before, during, and after panchakarma, a rejuvenative treatment that cleanses toxins stored in bodily tissues as it restores systemic balance. Kitchari provides solid nourishment while allowing the body to devote energy to healing. You can safely subsist on kitchari anytime in order to build vitality and strength as it helps balance all three doshas. For restless vata, the warm soup is grounding; for fiery pitta, its spices are calming; and for chilly kapha, it provides healing warmth.

Ayurveda believes that all healing begins with the digestive tract, and kitchari can give it a much-needed rest from constantly processing different foods while providing essential nutrients. The blend of rice and split mung beans offers an array of amino acids, the building blocks of protein. Its mixture of spices is believed to kindle the digestive fire, the Ayurvedic description for your innate digestive power, which can be weakened by poor food combinations.

Kitchari tastes like a cross between a creamy rice cereal and a light dal, or lentil soup. If it is a cold, blustery day or you are feeling under the weather, a steaming bowl of this classic Indian comfort food can both warm up your bones and restore sagging energy. Everyone has his or her own special method of making kitchari. Ayurvedic Cooking for Self-Healing (The Ayurvedic Press, 1997), by Usha Lad and Vasant Lad, offers a half-dozen kitchari recipes, including this one that was adapted for Yoga Journal:

First, rinse one cup of split yellow mung beans and soak for several hours. Set aside. In a blender, liquefy one tablespoon of peeled, chopped ginger; two tablespoons of shredded coconut; and a handful of chopped cilantro with one-half cup of water. In a large saucepan, lightly brown one-half teaspoon cinnamon; one-quarter teaspoon each of cardamom, pepper, clove powder, turmeric, salt; and three bay leaves (remove before serving) in three tablespoons of ghee, or butter.

Drain the mung dal and then stir it into the spice mixture in the saucepan. Next, add one cup of raw basmati rice. Stir in the blended spice and coconut mixture, followed by six cups of water. Bring to a boil, cover, and cook on low heat for approximately 25 to 30 minutes until soft.

If you are feeling especially warm, irritable, and sluggish, consider removing the coconut and the warming herbs: cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, and clove powder. Try emphasizing the mung beans and even mung bean sprouts, grated daikon radish, and aduki beans. Experiment!

Some other nutritional ideas for beating the heat while being good to your body:

• Drink: peppermint tea, cucumber water, lots of water infused with lemon, dandelion root tea, green tea
  
• Eat: light meals consisting of steamed vegetables and whole grains, like amaranth, couscous, quinoa, barley
  
• Avoid: dairy, beer, hot and iced coffee with cream (yummy as it is, it'll create more stagnation and dampness in your system)

At the same time, approach what you eat with joy, remembering compassion for yourself and moderation in ALL THINGS, especially when working on your health!