Making Love in the Kitchen - Part Two

Despite being a short week thanks to Victoria Day, my week was busy and a wee bit stressful and upon arriving at Meghan's loft last night I realized that I wasn't the only one who was feeling the same way. It seemed that many of us participating in the session (Meghan included!) had had a bit of a rough day, so it was quite fitting that last night's theme was comfort food.

Meghan began with a talk about the reasons we turn to comfort food and the types of food choices people make when seeking comfort. This is something we've talked about many times at WW. Emotional eating is a habit that many of us need to work on. There was a great quote in our handouts: "we should not be getting our hugs from cake and ice cream". Oh so true!

There are so many non-food ways that we can seek comfort (or happiness, pleasure or whatever it is that we are looking for) and on a "bad day" it would more beneficial to take a walk, practice yoga, talk to a loved one or get a massage than turn mac & cheese or a donut. By practicing 'conscious eating' we can begin to tap into our feelings of physical hunger rather than emotional hunger.

We also talked about whole grains and spices. Meghan showed the group a variety of heritage grains and we discussed the benefits of soaking grains prior to eating (increases digestibility and begins sprouting process). Since going gluten free, it's been fun to experiment with new grains (buckwheat, teff, and amaranth so far) and I look forward working with more of them in the future.

The menu:

• Quinoa sesame crackers with coriander pesto
  
• Butternut squash, apple & ginger soup
• Pear & avocado arugula salad
• Cauliflower millet mash
• Digestive Kichadi
• Baked Apples

It was another great meal! I worked with Jillian on the digestive kichadi, which is a yummy stew with lots of veggies and freshly ground spices that is easily digested and can help to alleviate digestive problems. So far there have been no kitchen disasters except for the misprint in the recipe for the pesto which amounted in 1 1/2 tsp(!) of cayenne being added rather than a pinch - it was hot!!

Everything was really yummy! The salad was so pretty and I love the combination of the avocado and the pear with the greens.

The soup really reminded me of fall with the lovely combination of squash and apples. I really loved the texture and the creaminess of the cauliflower millet mash. The millet added volume and made it taste like it contained cream or cheese but didn't!

The kichidi was probably my favourite part (and not just because I helped to make it!). I loved all the veggies and the spices were incredible.

After having a bit of everything I was pretty full and decided to take my apple home to enjoy today.

It didn't make it to my house!

I ate my apple on the way home and it was incredible. It reminded me of warm apple pie - yum!

Overall it was another great class. It has been educational, delicious and somewhat therapeutic. Last night I really just needed to hang out with some fun people and enjoy good food. I am really looking forward to next week's class as we're talking about raw food and sprouting.

I leave you with a picture of my super tasty lunch and my reading material. It was a really great way to take a break from my day!