If you have been receiving my little weekly love notes to your inbox lately you will know that we (Frase and I) just moved house. Its a great beachy coastal house with a big back yard. Its awesome, but, man is it freezing. Seriously. I am all for rugging up in winter, give me a cozy beenie and some soft-as-hell woolly socks any day. However, when you are wearing so many layers you begin to resemble a Michelin man and normal moment becomes compromised (think Arnie trying to drink a glass of water, you get the picture) it is comforting to remember that delicious, amazing, naturally occuring herbs and spices have your back.
So, I decided to throw together a little list of my favourite common and easy to find herbs and spices you can incorporate into a wide variety of dishes to make sure your internal fire stoked over the colder months.
These wonders help to boost circulation, keeping warm blood pumping to the places you feel the cold most (your digits and extremities). Not only that. These beauties can also aid digestion, reduce inflammation and fight free radicals as well as lowering blood pressure and boosting that all important immunity to keep those winter sniffles away.
- Chilli – Add to curries, soups, raw lasagne, pasta sauces or raw chocolate (yum!)
- Garlic – Add to salads, roast root veg, sautéed kale and spinach and the list goes on.
- Ginger – Delicious in Dhaal, teas, soups, veggie dishes.
- Cinnamon – Add to your morning smoothie, quinoa porridge, veggie stews, vegan mousse.
- Rosemary – Add to roast rood veg and pumpkin with some sesame seeds and garlic. You can’t go wrong.
TIP: Most of these are super easy to grow yourself (Chilli, garlic and Rosemary) and now is a good time to plant!
I’d also love to share with you my easy peasy recipe for a cozy warming morning drink:
Ingredients:
Juice of one lemon
Small knob of ginger, grated
teeny tiny sprinkle organic chilly powder (and I mean teeny TINY, unless you want to blow your wooly socks right off)
teaspoon of real maple syrup (optional)
Hot water ( rested in kettle for 5 mins after boiling. Boiling water kills the vitamin C in the lemon juice)
Method:
Stir and let steep for 3 minutes.
Warning: this is a full flavour warming concoction with amazing health benefits. Add more honey as desired if you are un accustomed to the intense flavours.
Seriously how freeken amazing is real food? There are foods that ground you, foods that energise you, foods that cleanse and detoxify and these foods that warm you up. Just saying.
What practises do you use to keep warm in winter? Dry body brushing is another winner when it comes to improving circulation to help keep you warm. I wrote a blog post on this a while ago here
x Harry
Image found here
