Autumn Recipies - Huang Qi Hotpot

This simple, Autumn Huang Qi Hotpot can be made as a soup or chowder-type casserole dish and can transition the body through the Autumn to winter seasons. Also It’s Paleo, Vegetarian and Vegan friendly, and gluten free.  

Season: Autumn, Winter

Flavours: Sweet

Element: EARTH

Purpose: Nourish the Spleen and Stomach,

Can be modified for Liver Energy (Qi) Stagnation, Dampness and Blood Deficency (xu).

Cooking style: slow cooking – moistening.

Prep Time: 15-20mins

Cooking Time: 3 to 8 hours in slow cooker.

The Sweet herb of Huang Qi (Astragalus) is a tonic to the Earth Element – the Spleen and Stomach Organs. Here, I’ve combined it with another similar herb that can be used in cooking called Dang Shen or Codonopsis. Dang Shen is similar to (Ren Shen) Ginseing, but much cheaper which makes it suitable for cooking. These two herbs are a tonic to the Spleen organ / Earth Element and are moisturising to your body which is great for the season of Autumn (associated with Dryness). Because these herbs are essentially bits of wood, you don’t want to eat them, so you can pick out of the mixture before serving or place in a muslin bag during the cooking process.

INGREDIENTS:

Root vegetables:

1 Sweet potato

1 small or half a big purple sweet potato

2-3 carrots*

1 onion, or purple onion*

1 small turnip*

1 small parsnip*

*alternately, buy a “soup pack” of veges from the fruit and vege store and use that plus the sweet potatoes.

METHOD.

Cut all vegies into chunks and place into the slow cooker.

2) Add a handful of Dang Shen and 3 strips of Huang Qi

3) cover with water, so water is almost covering the vegetables. Ensure the dry herbs are fully immersed in the water

4) Place on low heat overnight (for 6-8 hours) or high heat for 3-4 hours until vegetables are cooked.

5) Remove bits of Huang Qi and Dang Shen before eating.

Modifications:

Without moderation, this food is a bland, spleen tonic, It’s not intended to be too flavoursome. It’s perfect for someone who has the weak spleen energy or earth element. There is a little bit of pungent flavour coming from the onion and

For more flavour, ½ to 1 cup of chicken stock can be added and the same amount of water removed.

• For deficiency of WOOD ELEMENT or Blood (Xue), add the chicken stock as above and change the carrots to purple carrots if available.
• For Dampness, take out 1 of the sweet potatoes and add ½ cup of barley.
• For (Liver) Qi Stagnation, add more pungent flavours, Upon serving whilst piping hot, add fresh coriander and/or lots of fresh spring onions.

Marie Hopkinson, Metro Health and Medicine©

Beat the Heat

If you live in Australia, no doubt you know it’s summer. Where I am in Perth, it's been up to 44 degrees already! Did you know that the weather is significant in the cause of disease according to Chinese medicine? 

Heat is one of “6 Pathogens”, that can invade the body and cause disharmonies. Heat can commonly invade the channels of the neck, face and throat causing sore-throat, hayfever or seasonal allergies. Symptoms of heat include pain – usually severe or throbbing, as heat dries up fluids it can cause body fluids to congeal. For example phlegm will get thicker, yellow or sticky, urine can become more concentrated, darker and the tongue will get redder and more dry (as the moisture of the mouth can be dried up by Heat).

Heat clearing foods can be used as a preventative during the hot weather. Fruit & Veg that are watery and not too sweet like Watermelon, cucumber, lettuce are good at keeping away heat invasions. Drinking Chrysanthemum (Ju Hua) honeysuckle(Jin Yin Hua) and dandelion (Pu Gong Ying) herbs (by themselves or add to green tea) are more targeted ways to clear heat – especially from the face and throat.

Heat can invade not only via the environment but from our diet also. In Australia this weekend (26^th January) we are coming up to Australia Day – a time of national celebration where the classic Aussie thing to do is to drink alcohol. Alcohol’s nature is essentially warm-hot, so combining lots of drinking with warm weather is a perfect environment to cause Heat-invasion disharmonies. Intoxication from drinking can cause what we refer to in Chinese medicine as “toxic heat”. 

Diarrhea, vomiting, breakouts of acne are all common hangover symptoms which essentially come from the self-induced toxic heat invasion. The simplest way to avoid this is to drink less! Space drinks out with water, use some self-control, and enjoy Australia day. If you do find yourself suffering the effects of a toxic-heat hangover Chinese medicine employs more “detox” methods to clear out the toxic heat. Our Tong Kuai Hangover tea is based on the idea of clearing toxic heat from the digestive system via the bowels. Watermelon is a good hangover food as well.