It is SUCH a lovely day, here in the UK.  It`s been a cold and wet winter so the sunshine today and the heat on our skin has felt divine.
The nights are still cold enough to need the log burner on though, so I am still tending to favour the hearty, warming foods for our evening meals that have got us through the winter.  
​So here is what is on our evening meal list this week - 

This is creamy because it uses coconut milk.  No dairy involved.  I am going to omit the arrowroot powder.
I`ll be doing this with some broccoli and greens on the side and some home made potato wedges

This makes my mouth water just looking at it!
If you are dairy free, you will want to remove the feta, unless you aren`t sensetive to feta.  Some people find that they can tolerate feta and sheep milk products ok.  Unfortunately, I am not one of those and avoid all dairy.  I might add in some pine nuts to the stuffing, if I can open the bag without my little girl noticing or they will be gone in a jiffy!
I`m going to add some basil also and serve this with kale, broccoli and green beans.  I might do some baby potatoes with it also.
When buying salmon, remember to pay a little extra if you can and get the wild salmon.  Farmed salmon is heavily burdened with chemicals.  I have decided to buy a salmon side rather than individual portions.

Yum!  I`ll be doing this with a great big bowl of salad.  Little one and I won`t be having bacon, but my partner will gladly tuck into some as a treat.  Bacon is a contentious food really... it contains nitrates which are linked to cancer and other illnesses.  My partner is as fit as a flea and has absolutely no health conditions, so the odd rash  here or there is acceptable for him.  If you are on an anti-inflammatory diet then you should avoid bacon.
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Quite a few Paleo recipes use ghee.  That`s ok if you aren`t totally dairy free.  If you are dairy free like us, just substitute it for a little olive oil.
I`ll be doing double the fish portions per person and maybe even triple for my partner who doesn`t get filled up very well on fish.  There`s lots of omega 3 in mackerel so we`ll be getting a good dose of essential fatty acids from this dish.
I`ll be doing potatoes with this, possibly slightly roasted.

I`ll be adding some eggs on top and baking them in the Shakshuka at the end of the cooking time.  I`ve also doubled up the mount of canellini beans.

That`s it from me for another week... what ever you are up to, enjoy!

Love and health,

Eve x

Hi Folks, here`s this week`s meal plan.  

We have a birthday in the house this week.  My little one has turned 10.  Crikey me, I have no idea how that happened so quickly,

Birthdays are hard to keep healthy but I`m going for dairy free, fried chicken in a basket ( I had no idea that the coating in fried chicken is milk!)  I know that doesn`t sound too healthy and the coating definitely isn`t, but it`s her birthday.  The chicken is organic and she`ll have a lovely salad with it so I don`t feel too bad.  I`m doing a great big fruit salad for pudding as she is such a fruit fiend.  I also have a dairy free carrot cake for her.

So, let`s begin...

Oh, I really love a one-pot meal.  This one has lovely Greek flavours.  I`ll be serving this with brown rice.

We hardly ever eat pasta in our house, but I fancied it this week.  I`ll be cooking this with gluten free pasta and a plant based cream alternative.  I`ve also opted to add in some extra smoked salmon for a bit of a smokey flavour.

I`ll be doing this vegan dish with gluten - free tortillas for me.  I have found a new brand and have pinned my hopes on them that they will be good.  The others I`ve had in the past are pretty rubbery and dry.
I think this dish would be easier if the rice was made upfront or even a day before, so that`s what I will be doing.

Prawns are a good source of Zinc, which is hard to get from food, particularly if you don`t eat red meat.  I think I might get moaned at about this one as neither Mark or Bella are fans of quinoa, but hey ho... if they`re hungry, they`ll eat it.

Well, that`s it for another week,

Love and healthy as always,

​Eve x

 Happy international women`s day one and all.   I thought I would take this day to share my story.

I`m Eve, Naturopathic Nutritional Therapist, mother, partner in crime to a wonderful man and child of the universe.

Several years ago, I got really ill. 

I was told when my little girl was very small that I had a genetic condition that would affect everything made of collagen in my body. Well - that`s just about everything from your eyes, heart, intestines, womb, skin, joints and everything else in between.

I used to faint A LOT. My brains messaging system to my blood pressure was a bit wonky. After many stays in a neurological hospital in London, it eventually was figured out and I was told that I had Ehlers Danlos syndrome (EDS) and Hashimotos.  This had been worsening over the years and started to rear it`s head in my 30s.  A bit like a car starts to go a bit wrong as it gets older.

At one point things got really bad for me. I literally couldn`t get out of bed. Every time I was vertical, I would faint.
I thought my life was ending, it was THAT bad.
The fatigue I felt was like I had been hit by a bus. It was truly awful.  Initially, I succumbed to the diagnoses and went down a hole of depression about it.  Life felt really like an uphill battle.

One day I was given a book all about the power of nutrition. It changed my life. I thought it was worth a try and I stocked the house up with ingredients I`d never heard of and so many fruit and vegetables! I bought a nutribullet and was juicing like crazy.  

After seeing how many people end up crippled with EDS, both with joint and organ problems, I decided that was NOT the route that I would take.

I reassessed my life to see what was actually important and got rid of anything that caused stress or anxiety. I took natural supplements and gradually my light inside started to glow again.

My recovery wasn`t fast, but it happened. There`s still things I work on absolutely every single day and I still faint a bit, but i`m in a place of vitality now, thriving, thanks to the power of nature.

I retrained after this to help others.  My EDS really affected my fertility and I was so lucky to eventually have a successful pregnancy with my little girl.  Because of this, I was naturally drawn to women`s health, fertility and children`s health. 

I absolutely love making a difference to everyone I help, and there`s nothing more joyous than receiving a text message from one of my ladies telling me that they have finally conceived.

I want you to know that when you are given a diagnosis, you will need a period of adjustment where mentally you have to delve into the details of it, and probably scare yourself senseless.  But after you have gone through this process, you can move on from that  and start to explore other avenues regarding your health.  

Sending you love and health as always,

Eve x

wow!  It`s March already. 

We had some glorious and much needed sunshine at the weekend and our bikes came out for the first time this year.  We had a lovely trek around our local woodland, it really was beautiful.  The ladybirds were out of hibernation and there was even an early tortoiseshell butterfly or two.  

March has arrived and we are back in a cold front again though.  You know what they say about March here in the UK?  If it comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb (and vice versa).  Meaning if its a bad start to March then it will end gloriously (and vice versa).  I wouldn`t say that it is a bad start to March, just a cold one, so we shall see.

Well... here we are again then.... this week`s menu at my house.

I have to explain a few things about our eating habits... Mark loves meat.  All kinds of meat and would happily eat it everyday.  I was vegetarian from being 11 years old.  I was vegan for a couple of years whilst healing from a health condition, but in recent years after studying nutrition and biomedical science in great detail, I have adapted to having fish and organic chicken.  I can`t bring myself to eat any other type of meat though.

Non of us have dairy.  Mark has always had an aversion to it from being little and I am severely intolerant to it. My little girl seems to follow in her dads footsteps and really isn`t keen either.  

Am I worried about calcium intake? Not at all. 

There`s so much calcium in our food if we eat a nutritious and varied diet that it isn`t an issue at all.  Also, unless you buy organic dairy products, unfortunately you are consuming secondary antibiotics and what ever else is given to cattle on a regular basis.
​
Many people are really intolerant to dairy products.  You can read about dairy intolerance here .  As we age, the levels of lactase that we produce (an enzyme that breaks down lactose in dairy products) declines.  This happens very quickly after the age of around 2 years - the age when mother nature thinks we should be weaning from our mothers milk.  For this reason, many people find dairy difficult to digest.

Whilst Mark and Bella enjoy wheat products and have no reactions to them, I choose not to eat anything with gluten in.  I`m also very careful in keeping the amount that they eat to an absolute minimum.

​Gluten will cause problems in everyone`s digestive tract, even if you don`t feel symptoms from eating it.  Gluten causes problems with the gut-brain connection and can really affect mood balance, energy levels and blood sugar balance.  It is a substance that we haven`t evolved to eat in the way that we do.  I`m also intolerant to it so avoid it at all costs.  Every time you eat a food you are intolerant to, you are basically flooding your system with cortisol and inflammatory chemicals.  As we know, inflammation is the root cause of all disease, so if you are intolerant to something - don`t eat it!!!
You can read more about avoiding gluten here.

Ok... first meal coming up.  Thank you, once again to all the recipe creators out there that save me so many headaches.

Just click on the pictures to go to the recipe.

I always seem to get drawn to leeks in the spring.  This casserole has leeks and white beans in.  I`m going to add some potatoes on the side.

This is a lovelf, fresh feeling meal to have in early spring.  Be careful though - Orzo contains gluten  
I will be making some rice on the side with some mint in to have instead of the orzo.  I`ll also be making my own version of tzatziki using plant based yohurt.  
The orzo is pretty filling so no need to make anything to go with this dish.

This is actually a traditional Mexican breakfast meal, but food is food and my ethos is - you can eat any meal at any time!  We need to break away from the brain washing and conditioning that puts breakfast articles of very little nutritious value in the "breakfast" pigeon hole.  If you want casserole for breakfast - go for it!  Have what you like, when you like - providing it is nutritious and fuelling your body the right way.

Anyway - I absolutely love Mexican food and this makes a really good evening meal.  I won`t be putting this in individual pots, I will be doing it all in one shallow dutch oven I have.

​

It`s a good idea to eat oily fish twice a week.  It`s an easy habit to get into if you just plan one or two evening meals a week as a salmon or mackerel dish.  There`s also herrings and sardines that are oily fish.  I tend to get the other serving in my family during lunch times or breakfast and usually use mackerel somewhere or other.

This dish is so fragrant and tasty.  I`ll be doing it with jasmine rice.

​

We had this Jamie Oliver curry a couple of weeks ago and we all really enjoyed it, so we are doing it again.

Well - that`s about it folks.  I have a birthday in the house during this week`s menu, so one dish may well get changed up a bit, we`ll have to see.

Have a great week.

Love and health,

​Eve