Every spring, before the heat sets in there is a flush of vibrant edible greensappears – dandelion, nettle, chickweed, cleavers … You will find them popping up in gardens, hedgerows, verges and paddocks, at their most tender before they toughen and flower. Turning them into smoothie cubes is an easy way to save some of…
In my veggie patch, miner’s lettuce is the first signal for spring. One packet of seeds sown a decade ago, these delicate, succulent greens are now naturalised and pop up everywhere. As the seasons shift, spring greens bring fresh flavours, textures and nutrients back to our meals: the first tender leaves of the growing year,…
Rich, chewy Medjool dates split and filled with a mix of lightly toasted aromatic, digestive spices: fennel, cumin and cardamom, with warming crystallised ginger and crunchy walnuts, then finished with a dip in bitter dark chocolate This is an after dinner no-bake bite that’s sweet and sticky with a savoury, aromatic warmth running through it….
A pinch of fennel seed chewed after a heavy meal, caraway stirred into sauerkraut for digestion, peppermint tea brewed when you are feeling a bit “ick in the tummy”. Long before herbalists used the word carminative, people across cultures were managing bloating, wind and other digestive discomforts with the aromatic herbs and spices in their…
When you experience nausea, whether it’s a queasy stomach after a big night out, first-trimester mornings, or recovering from a bout of gastro , a zingy ginger ice block is often far easier to manage than a warm beverage. With coconut water providing a small amount natural electrolytes alongside ginger’s settling effect, these ice blocks…
For centuries, a small pinch of seeds chewed after a meal or prepared in a tea has been a go to remedy to ensure digestive comfort. This simple spice seed and ginger tea draws on the same kitchen wisdom we explored in Your Guide to Kitchen Carminatives. Fennel, caraway, star anise and ginger are central…
Long before “gut health” was a hashtag, people across Europe and South America were pouring a nip of bitter digestive tonic before dinner. My nana here in Australia swore by Swedish Bitters, the blend popularised by Austrian herbalist Maria Treben. Hugely popular in the 1980s, it was always on hand for when we were feeling…
Bitter greens are the dark, leafy, wonderfully wild-tasting plants that sit right at the intersection of food and medicine, including rocket, kale, dandelion leaves, endive, radicchio, mustard greens, Brussels sprouts, watercress, and sorrel. If you want the full case for why your body is actually wired to want them, that’s covered in Bringing Bitter Back…
Somewhere along the way, our modern Western diets edited bitterness out, trading it for processed foods that are hyper-sweet, hyper-salty and hyper-soft. But when we push bitter to the edge of the plate, we lose far more than a flavour. We lose a whole conversation between plants and our bodies. Because your body is actually…
Stand at your kitchen bench and look at your jar of bubbling sauerkraut, your spongy sourdough starter, your jellyfish-like kombucha SCOBY floating serenely (though often higgledy-piggledy) in its vessel of sweetened tea. Each one is alive, not as a single organism, but as a community. Bacteria, yeasts and funghi working together in an interdependent whole….