Cooking with herbs...Herbal beef strog

Cooking with Herbs – Herbal Beef Strog

This is my herbal version of a classic Russian dish. Herbal beef Strog switches out cream for yoghurt, and by adding some Chinese herbs and vegetable chowder to the dish is still rich and hearty but more healthier than it’s original.

Purpose in Chinese Medicine:

Tonfiy Blood and Yin

It's got some warming herbs (pepper) as well as blood building dang gui, beef and

Yoghurt can moisturize and help Yin...as well as Huang Qi which is great if you get a bit of dry skin in winter.

Perfect Season: WINTER

Chinese Herbs Used:

Huang Qi – Astragalus

  Dang Gui – Angelica Root

These 2 herbs are super easy to get in Asian grocery stores. You will need to grind the Huang Qi into a powder in a coffee grinder yourself. If you can't grind it up, you can use it in the same way as the Dang Gui and take out before serving, but you might need to add more cornflower at the thickening end of the recipies.

You have two options with cooking, both methods start out using the frypan.

• cook in a fry pain – 30 mins cooking time
• cook in slow cooker – 5-6hrs cooking time. – this is better if you have the time, the meat will be more tender, easier to digest. A much better cooking method for a depleted person. (Spleen Qi, Blood or Yang deficient person)

INGREDIENTS:

1 Onion – red or brown

4 pieces of garlic

9-12 button /normal mushrooms

½ cup Greek Yoghurt

2 beef steaks (about 600-800g beef)

olive oil or butter

400ml Chicken stock

3 tblsp cornflower

250ml thick vegetable chowder stock (home made – see recipe)

3 pieces Dang Gui

3 teaspoons powdered huang Qi

3 tablespoons Woostershire Sauce

Black pepper, ground (about 10 grinds)

10 sprig of parsley

1. Dice onion and garlic. Sauté in Fry pan until browed    
2. Cut beef into strips and add beef strips to onion and garlic mix. Cook until beef is browned. Remove from pan and set aside. 
3. Wash and slice mushrooms. In fry pan, add a small amount of butter or oil and add sliced mushrooms, stirring until mushrooms are slightly browned.
   1. Use butter (if you have no dampness) or oil (have some dampness)

OPTION A: FRY PAN METHOD (Quicker)

1. In mushroom pan, add woostershire sauce, stir through mushrooms.
2. Add beef mixture
3. Add vegetable chowder (can be added from frozen and defrost in pan as you go), chicken stock, about 10 grinds of black pepper, 8 sprigs of chopped parsley (use the other 2 for garnish) and Dang Gui pieces. Stir thoroughly on medium heat.

Adding the vege stock from frozen cup

beef, mushrooms and chicken stock mixture

Chicken stock...add about 400ml

1. Mix through your powdered Huang Qi which will thicken the mixture slightly.
2. Cover frypan with lid, and let mixture simmer on medium heat for around 20 minutes, stirring as needed (do not let stick to bottom).
3. While this is cooking you can prepare and cook vegetables or pasta part of the stroganoff dish.
4. After 20 minutes the meat will start to become tender, and your sauce will be full of flavour. Before the last step, you will need to stir the dish and remove the 4 pieces of dang gui. They will look much more soggy than before. If you can’t remove them, it is ok to eat the herb, but it will taste rather woody, so best to remove it before serving to your guests!
5. The last part of the dish will be to thicken the mixture. Add 1 teaspoon at a time of heaped teaspoon cornflower and stir immediately. Around 3-4 teaspoons will be needed to thicken the mixture.

1. Turn off stove and add around ½ cup of Greek yoghurt, this will thicken the mixture and turn it the classic stroganoff creamy colour.

      

OPTION B: Slow cooker option:

4. Place mushroom mix and beef strips mix to your slow cooker.
5. Turn slow cooker onto low heat
6. Add woostershire sauce, vegetable chowder (can be added from frozen and defrost in pan as you go), chicken stock, about 10 grinds of black pepper, 8 sprigs of chopped parsley (use the other 2 for garnish) and Dang Gui pieces. Stir thoroughly.
7. Mix through your powdered Huang Qi which will thicken the mixture slightly.
8. Cover with lid and let simmer on low heat for 5-6 hours.
9. After 5-6hrs, give the slow cooker mix a stir and and remove the 4 pieces of dang gui. They will look much more soggy than before. If you can’t find them to remove them, it is ok to eat the herb, but it will taste rather woody, so best to remove it before serving to your guests!
10. The last part of the dish will be to thicken the mixture. How thick you want your stroganoff to be and how thick it already is will depend on how much cornflower you need to add. Add 1 teaspoon at a time of heaped teaspoon cornflower and stir immediately. Around 3-4 teaspoons will be needed to thicken the mixture.
11. Turn off the slow cooker, and add around ½ cup of Greek yoghurt, this will thicken the mixture and turn it the classic stroganoff creamy colour.

Beef Stroganoff can be served in a number of ways. It is generally to rich to eat by itself, but can be served as a pasta sauce, with rice or with steamed vegetables or vegetable past (made from zucchini, squash and carrot etc)

RECIPIE IS COPYWRIGHT MARIE HOPKINSON 2017. Reproduce only with express permission 

Winter flu in spring? Why you get sick in the change of season

Why are flu’s and cold just as common, sometimes more common in spring as they are in winter? 

Why do we get winter colds in warmer weather like spring and summer? 

Chinese medicine has some answers.

As one season ends, another comes. Yin into yang, yang into yin.

While it’s normal around this time of year to rain periodically, its certainly alot colder than it should be for the end of the first month of spring.

The transition between hot and cold seasons is always variable.

The change of season time is when we are the most vulnerable to get sick with cold and flus. One reason could be because lessen our vigilance as the warmer weather approaches. The longer daylight hours, the warmer nights tell us spring is on it’s way and our body can loosen up a bit, which might then open the door to pathogens more easily.

Learn about how Chinese medicine views cold and flu’s in more detail here.

Tips to help lessen your risk of getting sick:

1. Wear a scarf – this will protect your neck from wind and cold invasion.
2. Wear lots of layered clothing. Getting caught out without enough clothes exposes your body to the cold environment. Layers means you won’t be overdressed and get too hot, but you can feel comfortable by not getting unnecessarily too cold either.
3. Have warm clothes ready – Resist the urge to wear lighter clothing just yet, and remember to bring your jacket if your day is likely to turn to evening.
4. Treat symptoms early – herbs and acupuncture are much more effective, and less treatment is needed, when you get to symptoms early on. Marie practices a style of Chinese herbal medicine that has specific formulas for various stages of the common cold and influenza. Even allowing time for rest and recovery instead of “soldiering on” at early stages can often lessen symptoms.

5. Careful when sweating
As spring actually approaches, its the time to do more exercise. Exercise opens our pores, allows sweating so if you’ve already started revving up your exercise and you do come out of the gym on a cold or wet evening (like tonight as I write this email) be extra careful not to expose your hot, wet (sweaty) skin to the environment. Have a shower and change clothes or ensure you have a jacket to protect you as you get to the car. Be careful of running around, getting hot and sweaty in the cold weather.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This information is provided in public interest of keeping people as healthy as possible. Common sense should always be applied. Too much of anything can be hazardous to health. This information is not intended as a substitute for medical advice or diagnosis by a health practitioner. If you have a health condition, you should check with your health care practitioner before using foods as medicine treatments, if you are in any way unsure about the suitability of the food agents, herbs or recipies for your body. In an medical emergency always contact emergency services, call 000 in Australia.

Chinese medicine organs and some words are capitalised to indicate they are different to the biomedical understanding of the organ. In Chinese medicine each organ represents the system of function according to ancient principals of understanding, including the channel system, spiritual, mental and physical functions. The traditional understanding of Chinese medicine organs is actually a functional system often encompass many now biomedically defined aspects such as lymphatic and endocrine (hormone) functions that are attributed to that organ. A lower case letter of an organ will indicate it’s reference to the biomedical organ. EG Kidney  (the Kidney functions of CM) and kidney (biomedical/physical kidney).

This article is written by Marie Hopkinson, the Chinese Herbalist & Acupuncturist at Metro Health and Medicine in North Perth. Marie is available for consultation by calling 1300 132 830 or email info@metrohealth.com.au or http://www.metrohealth.com.au/new2/make-an-appointment/ 

(C) Marie Hopkinson 2016 Reproduction permissible only with express permission of author.

How would you rate your health right now?

If you said  “I feel fine”, your probably in the great majority of people. Fine is ok, it’s liveable. Often we don’t know what great or fantastic can be because we settle with fine. Not just our in health, but in lots of areas in life.

When my phone contract ended in October last year, I didn’t get a new iPhone, cause the one I have is fine. It’s doing the job I want it to, despite dropping it numerous times it didn’t get a crack screen, and I did not think it was worth the expense of getting a new one. In marketing they say “fine is the enemy”. If the thing you have already is fine then we, as customers, settle for that. We often don’t see the need for a new one, an upgrade or something different.

Over the years of treating hundreds of people with Chinese Medicine, I often see people come in with all kinds of health problems they describe as “fine”. In the course of the consultation you find out they have aches and pains, digestive and bowel problems, and symptoms that they did not class as a problem or think was bad enough for them to book an appointment for. “Oh I’ve always had this old shoulder pain” or “that chronic back pain (they have had for 5 years)… that’s just a 3/10, I just have to live with that”.

Just because you’ve had constipation for as long as you can remember, doesn’t make it normal!

It’s not that we chose or want these lingering health problems, but if it’s not terrible, sometimes we just live with them, telling ourselves it’s fine.

One of the things I love about my job is seeing the changes that Chinese Medicine can do. I love to see people the week after a treatment, that has dramatically changed their life…when people go from fine to fantastic. Now that doesn’t happen with every patient, but when it does, they are literally jumping for joy.

Sometimes we live with things that are fine, and don’t even realise that we could be fantastic.

When was the last time you discovered something and said to yourself “why didn’t I do this earlier?” I do that in business all the time. When you stumble upon something so fantastic, you couldn’t believe it would change your life so much, and then you think back to how you settled with “fine” before.

If you think your health could be better than fine why not check out my website for my free, self help ideas, and as always, we welcome you to make an appointment where we can work together towards your health goals.

More about Marie, and making an appointment for Chinese Medicine can be found on  the Metro Health website: www.metrohealth.com.au

The difference between acupuncture and acupressure for morning sickness symptoms.

Acupressure for nausea is very common. You can buy acupressure based bands in many travel and airport stores for instance which work on treating the pressure point "Neiguan Pc 6". In my clinic as an acupuncturist over the years i've heard many patients say they tried the bands but didn't feel any real effects. When they have had acupuncture for the same condition it had a much more pronounced effect on the same symptoms so why might this happen? Lets take the example of treating morning sickness for example. 

MORNING SICKNESS

Morning sickness can also lead to tiredness, if the symptoms of dry heaving, nausea and vomiting make it hard to hold down or eat food. Tiredness can come from not bieng able to digest enough foods. Acupuncture and acupuressure is a commonly used treatment for morning sickness. Even if acupuressure does not work to releive the symptoms, there is a big difference between the two therapies.

Acupuncture can access the bodies Qi (Energy) in multiple places at once, while acupressure can only access it in one point at a time (as you press each one). While some treatments of self acupressure can be powerful, there can be many reasons why acupressure dosen't work for morining sickness.

1. Incorrect point location. One common reason is the point location is wrong. Neiguan Pc 6 (called Pc 6 becuase it's the sixth point on the pericardium channel), is a common point for nausea. it's used in treating travel sickness and you will often see the bands you can put around your wrist to supposedly stop the nausea. If the band is in the wrong place, or the tightness of the band isn't sufficient to press the acupressure point then no effect will likely take place.

Location of Pc 6 Neiguan is deep between 2 tendons

2. Not enough or correct stimulation of the point. Points are deep in the body not on the skin. Another common reason why acupressure fails some people is that they don't obtain the Qi (Energy) of the acupuncture points by the pressure. An acupressure practitioner (also called a tui na practitioner) is a skilled practitioner of Chinese Medicine (in China it's a 5 year course) and they use around 28 different techniques, all with many hours of repeated, dedicated and specific training to be able to get the Qi (energy) of your body in the acupressure points. Not to say a layperson can't get the Qi, there is just a bit more skill involved than finding a point and pressing on it.

3. Wrong point for the pattern. In Chinese medicine, morning sickness doesn't have a one-size-fit's all diagnosis. When you see an acupuncturist they don't do acupuncture points for morning sickness. they do points for your pattern of disharmony thats causing the morning sickness. Two common patterns are "Liver Energy invading the Stomach" and "Deficiency of energy and blood leading to weakness of the Spleen and Stomach energy"

Essentially with nausea and vomiting, there is a mechanism of action problem with the Stomach Energy. Stomach Qi (Energy) should go down. When Stomach Qi goes up, we call it rebellious Stomach energy. Rebellious Stomach Qi can cause nausea, vomiting, refulx, acidic regurgitation and even epigastric pain. There are other points used for different reasons why the Stomach Qi has become rebellious. Often a combination of points is needed to have a thereaputic effect (as with acupuncture) rather than one point at a time (possible with acupressure).

By the way, the location of Pc 6 Neiguan is 2 cun* above the crease of the wrist, on the inside (medial aspect) of the wrist. *a cun is a measurement used in Chinese medicine, based on your body. 2 cun is is two fingers (of your fingers) spaced slightly apart. (1 Cun is the width of a thumb), so Neiguan, PC 6 is:

The point is that if you've tried acupressure for morning sickness before and it didn't work, it does not mean that acupuncture won't work. Also, that a more targeted or specific approach of acupressure could still be effective. It's worth seeing a professional, qualified practitioner of Chinese Medicine if you are suffering with morning sickness in pregnancy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Marie Hopkinson is a Chinese Medicine Practitioner, Practicing from her clinic in North Perth, WA- METRO HEALTH AND MEDICINE. Marie can be consulted for appointments, while in-person is preferred, Email /phone consultations can be arranged. Marie has been practicing since 2000, completing initial 3-year course in Chinese Medicine at the Perth Academy of Natural Therapies in WA. Marie has been to China for additional training in the Hangzhou Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital (Hangzhou Shi Zhong Yi Yuan) twice as well as completing a Master of International Health at Curtin University in 2006. Marie is passionate about the effective practice and understanding of Chinese Medicine and enjoys the opportunity to educate patients about the benefits of self-help aspects such as diet therapy, as well as teaching Chinese Medicine at the Endeavour College of Natural Health.

For more info about booking an appointment with Marie CLICK HERE.

For more info about conditions treated with Acupuncture, and Chinese Herbal Medicine CLICK HERE.

Healing Vegitarian Paleo Salad

This salad is an unusual mix with a really delicious taste, and only takes 15-20 minutes to prepare.

THIS RECIPE IS VEGETARIAN, PALEO Diet Friendly Options, GLUTEN-FREE, and HEALTHY in a CHINESE MEDICINE sense. IT CAN NOURISH SPLEEN QI, NOURISH YIN and mildly CLEAR HEAT. Combines cooked and raw, eaten Warm.

I created this recipe with a friend who was post-surgery recovery in mind, to aid warding off potential infections. Both Hyssop and Mint have heat clearing functions. Hyssop has historical use dating back to the Bible, where it is often referred to in ceremonial cleaning and cleansing people of infections diseases.

INGREDIENTS:

1 can chick peas

1 purple sweet potato

1 regular sweet potato

~1/4 cup pecan nuts

~1/8 cup pistachio nuts, un-shelled.

4 tomatoes

sprig of fresh hyssop

sprig of fresh mint

Pepper or lemon pepper

METHOD: 

1) Cut up one large sweet potato (or two small sweet potatoes, I like to use half white/purple one and half the regular orange sweet potato), boil in pot on the stove until soft - 10 - 15 minutes.

2) Prepare the salad dressing

• Finely chop one sprig of fresh Hyssop and 1 large sprig of fresh mint.
• Add a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil (about 30-50ml)
• Add a large handful of pecan nuts and 2 teaspoons of un-shelled pistachio nuts
• Grind some pepper or lemon-pepper into the salad dressing mix.

3) Cut up tomatoes, and any additional variation ingredients

4) Combine Tomatoes (and any additions) with 1 can of chick peas (drained) in a large, heat proof bowl.

5) once cooked potatoes are soft (but not mushy) remove from heat, strain water from them set aside in strainer ready to add at the very end.

6) Pour salad dressing mixture over the ingredients, stirring thoroughly,  then add potatoes and stir the mixture around carefully to ensure all combined but potatoes don't go mushy.

VARIATION INGREDIENTS:

1/2 Purple onion - Moves Qi (chee or energy) for Liver Qi Stagnation

PALEO DIET OPTION - Remove Chick Peas and increase cooked Vegitables, adding variety from Purple carrot, carrot or pumpkin. Baby Spinach leaves can be added just before serving.

Preventing Disease & Staying Healthy with Chinese Medicine

Prevention is one of the most important aspects of Chinese medicine. When practitioners assess their patient, they are looking for signs and symptoms of disease, and also signs that illness or health may be out of balance.

Key diagnostic areas to detect disease BEFORE it arises, are the tongue and pulse. In addition, by keeping a healthy diet and lifestyle, a greater state of health can be achieved. Chinese medicine takes into account seasonal factors, and diseases that can easily arise due to weather conditions.

A known flu-prevention treatment is Moxa on the acu-point St 36. It's name Zusanli, means “three leg mile”. This point was named when Chinese soldiers massaged the point, they found they could walk another 3 miles! In the weeks leading up to the change of season, this point can be acupunctured and warmed with Moxa (a herb which sits on the needle and warms the point). Although this is a different point, the photo opposite shows how such an acupuncture /moxibustion treatment might be done.

Chinese medicine theory observes two main causes of disease or poor-health in the body. Internal and External causes.

External Causes - known as the six pathogenic factors. Avoiding Wind, cold, damp and heat etc will help to avoid getting sick. How, you ask?

1) Wearing layers of clothing to ensure you are not too hot or cold especially when the weather changes.

2) Keep out of drafty areas/direct A/C or fans. ESPECIALLY at night! (Otherwise you may wake up with a stiff neck or sore lower back.

3) Protect the lower back/waist by making sure clothing fits around this area!

Internal causes of disease are considered by CM to be things such as emotions, inactivity, and poor lifestyle.

Emotions - over thinking (or worry) knots the spleens energy. The Spleen, in Chinese medicine, helps the Stomach to separate the pure and impure parts of food. The Spleen gets weakened by over-thinking, which can result in a low appetitte. The body can be further depleted because it can’t properly absorb nutrition from food.

Overeating is a common lifestyle factor in cause of diesaes. Not just leading to overweight or fat, but when we overeat we must exercise harder to burn the excess calories, thus making our bodies work unnecessarily harder. Two Chinese medicine quotes to consider are: "curing and nourishing come from the same source" and "when you eat, satisfy only seven-tenths of your hunger”.