New Year, New You
Cleansing Chicken Noodle Soup. Photo: Fiona Feasey
As each new year happens upon us and life speeds up all over again, I feel more and more determined to jump off and opt out. Surely staying at home and tending your own patch, growing rows of vegetables and nurturing your own family is the best possible thing we can do for our own and our family’s wellbeing.
An old magazine article says “Health is not just a physical state, for it involves the mind, the emotions and the spirit. The truly healthy person is one in whom all these elements are well balanced.” And as Melissa Coleman often repeats in her memoir, This Life is in Your Hands, her pioneering father often said “health insurance is served on the table with every meal”.
As we enter another year, determined to make it a better one, with all the usual optimistic resolutions flowing forth and the extra weight of festive abuse sitting snugly on our hips, we have all the evidence necessary to make the change. With this in mind I have been browsing some cookbooks on detoxing, and now realise that maybe “reducing” would be kinder on the soul than the deprivations most of these cleansing detoxes require. Even the “gentle” detox made me blanch, and as we all know, we should never start something to which we cannot remain committed.
So I’ll just keep buying the books and reading about other folk who have gone off the national grid and built themselves a straw-bale solar-powered home, and wonder if maybe one day we too might realistically swap the remote control for the rotary hoe, stop all the racing around in the car for some homemade bread and a wedge of unpasteurised cheese, and finally realise the words of David Henry Thoreau: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.” In the meantime, we can work on the body and soul by feeding it the best food we can lay our hands on, and at this time of the year that’s not too difficult.
Cleansing Chicken Noodle Soup
8 cups of chicken stock
2 stalks of fresh lemongrass, tough outer layers removed, the inside finely sliced
3cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
6 whole kaffir lime leaves
A small bunch of coriander stalks, washed and bruised
10 black peppercorns
2 fresh chilli, finely sliced
3 spring onions, finely sliced
The kernels cut from two corn cobs
2 ripe but firm tomatoes, each cut into 8 wedges
2 small bok choy, coarsely chopped
2 chicken breasts, thinly sliced
¼ cup of lime juice
100g vermicelli noodles, cooked as directed
Fresh coriander, coarsely chopped
fresh mint, coarsely chopped
Lime wedges to serve
Combine the stock with the aromatics (the lemongrass, ginger, lime leaves, coriander and peppercorns) in a pot and cook over a medium heat until reduced by one third. Strain the stock into a clean pan and discard the solids. To the stock add the chilli, green onions, sliced chicken and corn. After a minute add the tomatoes, bok choy and lime juice. Cook for another minute before tasting for seasoning. Place the cooked noodles in deep bowls and ladle the soup over the top. Garnish with the coriander and mint and serve immediately. If you want to do it in pioneer fashion, serve in a wooden bowl with some home-on-the-range-bread!
~~~~~
This recipe is based on one by Gillian Polson.
No-Knead Pioneer Bread
4 cups of wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1¼ teaspoons of dry yeast
½ tablespoon of honey
½ cup of warm water
Place the yeast, honey and warm water into a small bowl, stir and leave for 10 minutes to activate.
Place the flour into a large bowl and sprinkle the salt around the edge of the flour. Make a well in the centre of the flour and into this pour the dissolved yeast, honey and warm water.
Gently stir the mixture, adding more warm water as you go until you have a sticky but firm dough. Leave the mixture in a covered bowl for 60 minutes on the kitchen bench (the actual instructions are to leave the dough out on the bench and talk to it in passing).
After one hour, turn the dough out onto a well-floured bench top and shape into a smooth round loaf (You could also make plaits, rolls or pinwheels at this stage, but it’s best to start with the simple loaf). Now make a few slashes in the top of the loaf with a sharp knife. Place into a hot oven (220°C) for 20 minutes and then lower the temperature to 180°C for another 15 minutes. Remove the loaf when it sounds hollow on the bottom when tapped. Allow it to cool on a wire rack before slicing.
Fiona Feasey
