New Year's Around the Corner - Digress from Glass

Today I'm going to digress from glass - New Year's is just around the corner and the media is filled with the annual "lose weight as your resolution" commercials. Ugh! As if extra weight didn't already make you feel bad about yourself, there's a commerical full of before and after pictures to make you feel bad. Ugh.



Yes, I've changed my diet but I wasn't spurred on by the ubiquitous New Year's lose weight resolution. I've developed a health problem that has forced me to re-evaluate my entire diet. I had thought the foods I ate were good, no junk food, no red meat, mostly vegetarian - that's good right? Wrong. Even though I was eating "health food" it was all highly processed. Not good. I can't eat processed foods anymore without a serious reaction. Or wheat. Or nuts and seeds. Or dairy (sniff sniff - I'm made of cheese you know and I grew up on a dairy farm). So, I've been on a mission to learn how to include unprocessed grains into my diet and find recipes that don't include meat and dairy...ummm that would be vegan recipes.

Right off the bat, I've been frustrated trying to find grain recipes. Most vegetarian and vegan cookbooks include a "grain" section that is primarily rice recipes. Rice is a grain but little if no fiber. It's like a potato, all starch.

At the health food store, I found a whole grain, Kamut. Very few recipes out there for it as well as other whole grains so I've had to be creative. One of the things I do with grains is to cook them in lemon broth. It gives the grains additional flavor and makes them a tasty addition when sprinkled on a salad. What is lemon broth? It's my own recipe:

Kamut in Lemon Broth

1 cup Kamut

2 and 1/2 cups vegetable broth

1/2 cup organic lemon juice


Cook the kamut in the lemon broth until all liquid is absorbed.


I cook up a pot of Lemon Broth Kamut and then place it in the refrigerator to sprinkle on my salads like the one below.

Yum!