Tasty Foods: Zucchini Hummus

I'm tempted to run upstairs and whip up a batch of zucchini hummus just so I can take some photos for this post, but I'm out of avocados and there are no grocery stores open after 10 PM in SOMA (don't get me started on the EBAY Now ads that make ZERO sense to me.  Who goes to the park, thinks they are starting to burn and orders sun screen for delivery in about an hour????? By the time your sun screen arrives you WILL have a sunburn, I'm sorry to say.). 

Rod and Judy were awesome enough to share the recipe they served for zucchini hummus when we went over for dinner at their place the first time. I have to say, I like it more than "standard" hummus, and I really like hummus. 

Zucchini hummus is amazingly light and doesn't have the same heaviness that a bean based hummus has (though I guess you may be okay with that fullness). It's raw, it's vegan and it's delicious.  

I made two batches for our wedding. Originally I was going to make a double batch using the recipe from ibreatheimhungry, which is pretty darn delicious on it's own. It was the morning before the wedding and I had a couple of avocados that needed to be used so I decided to throw them in the mix.  

Zucchini hummus + Avocados = AMAZING!  

The original recipe is as follows.  I made it the first few times using my Ninja and it took a while to really break everything down and get it smooth.  We got a BlendTec (of Will it Blend? fame) and it made short work of the hummus (about 45 seconds).  Play with what you've got to find out how awesome this recipe is.  

It's amazing as a dip but I've also discovered how rad it goes with just about everything. Top a steak with it. Top a chicken breast with it.  Breakfast sausage?  It's delicious. 

ORIGINAL LOW CARB HUMMUS (from ibreatheimhungry.com)

Ingredients:

4 cups peeled & chopped raw zucchini

3/4 cups tahini (sesame paste)

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, peeled

2 teaspoons kosher salt (or to taste)

1 Tbl ground cumin

Combine all ingredients in a blender and puree until thick and smooth.  Taste and adjust seasonings to your preference.  Pour into a shallow bowl and garnish with parsley, paprika and a drizzle of olive oil if desired.  

My modified version of this recipe swaps out the 1/4 cup of olive oil for 2 avocados.  The remaining ingredients remain the same as do the instructions.  
 
This was one of the first non-AIP foods I tried eating and it appears I can tolerate seeds (sesame paste), which made me really happy.  Cumin is technically not AIP friendly, but I was going a bit nuts and just wanted "regular" food. I haven't had any sort of noticeable reaction to this recipe, so it's in regular rotation. 
 
Speaking of AIP, I think I need to get back to being super serious about it. For days now, my sinuses have been swollen (they feel like they "pop") and I've had terrible headaches. I'm not sure if it's the pressure changes due to the rain or what, but I'm pretty miserable. Loosening up made getting through the wedding a bit easier, but I really need to isolate foods to find out what is tolerable and what is not (the sunbutter cookies I came up with last week were amazing. Hopefully they weren't the issue). 

Sovereign Silver Part II

Okay, after a ton of sleep (and Sabrina The Teenage Witch) yesterday afternoon and last night, I feel doubleplusgood.

I know sleep is an integral part of the body's healing process, but I also think the Sovereign Silver nasal spray had something to do with it as well.  I had been masking my symptoms with cold medicine all weekend, which did me no good and I kept feeling worse.

I used the nasal spray 5 times yesterday (7 times is the recommended for short term immune support - being sick).  By the time I went back to bed last night (I spent most of the day in bed), I was able to breathe through both nostrils and the crud was making its way out of my body.

I had been trying desperately to netti pot for days with no real luck getting anything through.  Well, it started moving yesterday evening after 2 doses of Sovereign Silver.  By the late evening the crud was no longer chartreuse, it was only a pale green.

This morning when I woke up, I could actually breathe.  Through both nostrils. I didn't wake up all night long due to congestion.  I felt well enough to go put some seeds in the ground (only some chard seeds this morning) while walking the dog.

Oh by the way, I did another round of Lavender essential oil/cotton in my ears when I went to bed.  My ears do NOT hurt at all today.

Seriously, I feel doubleplusgood today.

I'll keep track of how I feel for the rest of the week.  Sovereign Silver may be worth adding to my usual arsenal of immune builders that includes ferments, cod liver oil, coconut oil and honey.

Sovereign Silver

I don't get sick often, but I have been fighting something off for more than a week.  I have to say over the weekend, I lost the fight.  Hard.

I had been feeling under the weather (mostly congested) for about a week and then over the weekend the congestion increased even more and spread to my chest.  When I was first feeling ill, everything was still clear... over the weekend it turned green.  I had homework to complete and worked diligently through the weekend even though I was exhausted, cranky and just didn't feel good.

This morning I woke up with a wicked ear ache. I'll suck it up most of the time when I'm sick, but when my ears hurt, I am a baby.  I did some looking around online and found some herbal/natural earache remedies.  I didn't want to take the time to infuse olive oil with garlic or place half a clove of garlic in each ear (there were also some smelly onion based remedies as well).

I finally found a suggestion of putting a few drops of essential oil on cotton and placing that in your ears.  I used lavender (still pungent but not quite garlic).  I put the cotton in my ears, put on a hat to cover my ears and went to work..

I have to say that my ears hurt slightly less by the time I got to work, but overall I was feeling entirely worse.

I left work to go home and rest, but first I made a stop to the vitamin shop in Redwood City.  I picked up some Sovereign Silver nasal spray.

I've heard good things about colloidal silver, especially when it comes to fighting infection, in the natural health circle.  Sovereign Silver is a silver hydrosol.  Here is what their website has to say about it:

"A Bio-Active Silver Hydrosol™, such as Sovereign Silver or Argentyn 23, represents the ultimate refinement and purity of the colloidal silver category. It is the suspension of a high content (96%) of ultra-fine, positively charged silver ions (Ag+) in only pharmaceutical-grade purified water. This is not to be confused with ionic silver, an inferior form of neutral silver/silver salt that is in solution (dissolved), rather than in colloidal suspension. The positively charged silver ions (cations) in a Bio-Active Silver Hydrosol™ remain in suspension, maintaining their fully active state for use within the body."

A dose is 20 sprays for an adult up to 7 times a day depending on your needs. Here's the dosing schedule:

20 sprays x 7 times a day for short term immune support (when you are sick)

20 sprays x 5 times a day for long term immune support (long term stress on immune system)

20 sprays x 3 times a day for immune building (when you are surrounded by sick people)

20 sprays x 1 time a day for maintenance (otherwise healthy)

I took the first 20 sprays in the car before I left Redwood City.  

It started to feel like I was getting some of the crud moving, but I just assumed it was because I sprayed a liquid up my nose.  

I came home, made some tea and went to bed still feeling awful.  After an hour or two, I got up to use my netti pot (which really hadn't moved much mucous in the last few days).  The crud started breaking free.  

I used another dose of the Sovereign Silver spray and went back to bed. I've spent the entire afternoon/evening in bed, which I detest.  

I have to say that by about 8 p.m. I am breathing a bit better, the mucous is a far less toxic shade of green and my ears hurt far less than they did this morning.  

I'm not sure if it's placebo effect or what, but I definitely feel better than I did when I got up this morning and when I got home from work this afternoon.