This recipe is an adaptation of one I first made about 30 years ago (in my vegan days) from The American Vegetarian Cookbook from the Fit for Life Kitchen by Marilyn Diamond. Better hot but also good cold IMO!
There have been many incarnations of this soup in my life, including as a staple at the health food deli where I worked–along with a catering job–to finance an 8-week trip to an ashram in India (that, my friends, is a story for another time.)
Lately I’ve simplified the soup to the bare bones for a quick and delicious low allergen side dish. Sometimes I have this with a side of tempeh, sometimes chicken, and it’s a really great side with salmon.
(more…)
Inflammation affects many things and aging is one of them! But can we do anything about it? Absolutely.
Watch for some ideas. And feel free to contact me if you have any other questions about inflammation you’d like me to address in future episodes!
I originally found the recipe for Scrumptious Halibut Fish Tacos on Epicurious about 4 years ago. I bookmarked it and have gone back at least a dozen times. This time though, I wanted a slightly less expensive fish for a weekday meal so I asked Lyf at Flying Fish Co what he thought would work well. It took him about 5 seconds to choose Pacific ling cod. It was fresh, never frozen, about half the price of halibut, and Lyf was 100% sure. And really, who am I to doubt the fishmonger?
There are a few other changes I made because I didn’t want to buy pre-julienned carrots or non-organic broccoli slaw. And next time I’m going to make my own tortillas. I bought a tortilladora about a year ago (I’m a sucker for kitchen gadgets) and my first try was a disaster but I really need to get back on that.
I served the tacos as shown with a side of refried black beans. My five year old came up with that idea and was thrilled it helped everything “stick” so well inside the tortilla. And if you wanted to make this even lower in carbs you really could serve the fish over the slaw and skip the tortilla.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 lb Pacific ling cod (these fish are actually unrelated to cod) or other mild but meaty fish cut into pieces about 1 x 3 inches.
- 1-2 T Olive oil
- ‘Flour’ for dredging fillets. Before my GF days I used whole spelt flour for this but now I just use corn meal or nut flour.
- 1 bag of corn tortillas, or homemade
SLAW DRESSING
- 1/2 C fresh lime juice
- 1/4 C honey
- 2 T olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tsp. cumin powder (better fresh ground from seeds but not necessary)
SLAW
- 1 1/2 C thinly sliced red cabbage
- 1 C shredded carrots
- 1/2 med. red onion thinly slivered
- 4 T rough chopped cilantro (on the topic of kitchen gadgets, just bought these– love!)
GARNISHES
- 1 sliced avocado
- 3 scallions diced
- fresh diced jalapeños (optional for the spicy)
Instructions
- Assemble slaw, mix dressing ingredients and whisk , pour dressing over slaw and let marinate while you prepare the rest of the dish.
- Pour corn or nut meal onto large plate, add cumin, salt, and pepper. Dredge fish.
- Heat up a stainless or cast iron skillet with olive oil and cook fish until just cooked through.
- Heat up tortilla on hot cast iron pan or directly on electric burner.
- Put slaw on tortilla and top with fish and garnishes.
I serve with lime wedges, avo, refried black beans (amy’s are my favorite), scallions and fresh jalapeños.
Enjoy!
Dr Samantha
Even though spring is on the way, we are still dealing with our shorter, darker winter days. More darkness. Less sunlight.
Although I don’t mind winter, the turning inward, the quiet, the darkness, around this time every year my body and mood start responding to the long winter. Even if my introvert self likes the season, my body is ready for the sun. Ready to be outside again. Ready for longer, brighter days.
Here’s the deal…sunlight stimulates cells in your eye that connect to your brain. The part of your brain it affects is known as the “master clock.” This master clock coordinates the biological rhythms in our bodies. This includes sleep-wake cycles, hormone release, neurotransmitter production, digestion, body temperature, and a host of other important bodily functions.
Things can really get thrown off in the winter when we have less sun.
For instance, at this time of year we produce less serotonin—one of our brain chemicals that affects mood and energy levels. Also when there is less light, we produce more melatonin, and this can make you feel groggy and fatigued, even as early as 4:00 PM in the winter! If that wasn’t bad enough, you are also getting less vitamin D as this comes from sun exposure. Low vitamin D for some people can cause feelings of depression. Fortunately, you can help yourself escape the darkness.
Look, see how much fun I had?! Don’t worry, Ian’s not creepy, he’s awesome!
I had a fun and fabulous time recording some videos to help celebrate the publication of Overcoming Overwhelm for my publisher, Sounds True. Instead of flying out to their studio in Colorado (that would have been a lot of fun, but also a lot of missed patient time), we agreed that I’d do the filming locally—with videographer extraordinaire Ian from Vertica Productions, and they’d do the production on their end. Gads I love the power of the internet! 🙂
Deciding not to travel to Colorado is an example of how I choose to live my life based on my OWN values. While I’m thrilled to be a published author and enjoy honing an online presence, I value my patient work too, so my life requires thinking outside-the-box to make it work, and thankfully, this usually works well!
I was able to have my husband there with my to help me stay present and focus on the work at hand, rather than worrying if my glasses looked goofy or whether my hair had all the flyaways!
This video features a reading from my book.
Yours in health,
PS you can see another video on the book page! More to come. ♥
About adrenal fatigue: 
We have known for many years that the chronic production of adrenaline can lead to long-term problems including premature aging, attention issues, fatigue, anxiety, and depression. The chronic production of cortisol can cause immune dysregulation, weight gain—particularly around your belly, digestive symptoms, depression, headaches, and reproductive issues.
Over time there is a risk that your body will lose the ability to respond properly to stress overall. Naturopathic and other holistically minded physicians refer to this loss of ability to respond appropriately to stress as ‘adrenal fatigue.’
The Endocrine Society doesn’t believe that adrenal fatigue exists, and has released a statement that it is not a “real medical condition.” They claim that saliva testing (the method that is typically used to screen for adrenal fatigue) is inaccurate, though studies have shown that it is actually a very accurate way to measure both cortisol and DHEA (another one of our stress hormones.)
This unfortunate response by conventional practitioners often keeps them from fully acknowledging and assessing the impact that stress can have on our systems. We have ample evidence in scientific literature showing that prolonged stress has a negative impact on our bodies.
In the end, it matters less what the medical professionals call it, than that we understand that chronic stress does, in fact, impact your health.
Last fall I had a new client who was diagnosed (without any testing) by her chiropractor with adrenal fatigue. She made an appointment with me for a second opinion. After working with her for 6 weeks and educating her about how I would typically approach the kind of fatigue she had, she ended up following up with her primary care armed with ideas to discuss. As I suspected it turned out that she had sleep apnea. Did she also have an aberrant stress response? Probably. But it wasn’t the cause of her fatigue. Her fatigue was due to her sleep apnea, higher carb/lower protein diet, and lack of exercise.
I believe that we all have some amount of adrenal fatigue given the nature of modern life. That said, I also think that alternative practitioners blame adrenal fatigue for energy issues with patients and clients when the problem is actually overwhelm.
The take home is that you may very well have adrenal issues and your practitioner or properly educated and trained coach should rule out other and address reasons for your fatigue as well. I often recommend supplements for adrenal support. And dealing with stress accumulation. And adjusting diet to make sure blood sugar is stable.
Keep your mind open but don’t get attached to a ‘diagnosis’ that is ‘the answer’.
Feel free to reach out via my contact form if you have questions.
Or if you want to set up an appointment to address your own overwhelm or figure out why you’re tired, or your hormones seem to be out of whack, you can do that right here. I’ve got you.
Yours in Health,
Add more energy to your life every day.
Get 7 days of energy-infusing practices delivered to your inbox, FREE!
