But first – how I meal
I started to eat certain things at certain times when I was tipped onto The Beauty Detox Solution by Kimberly Snyder a few years ago by a friend (thanks Michela!). While it didn’t completely solve my digestive problems at the time, the analogy of “Porsche before freight truck” stuck with me.
The premise is, easy-to-digest foods before hard-to-digest foods — especially in the evenings, when I risk getting bloated and ruining my night’s sleep.
For breakfast I always start out with fruit and some kind of carb. Each week of the month I eat one type of breakfast, varying one week with a new recipe. For lunch I eat avocado toast with sprouted wheat bread, flax meal, hemp hearts, cilantro & olive oil, and then a dish involving more veggies and some kind of carb. For dinner I eat veggies and protein. No carbs, and no mixing proteins. Before lunch and dinner I drink 3 tsps of apple cider vinegar to prep my stomach to eat, and this is a godsend for digestion. I really notice when I eat out and how long it takes stuff to move through me when I don’t have ACV first.
You might be on the “but you’re supposed to start your day with protein” bandwagon, but I assure you, protein is in all foods (in varying degrees). I allow myself to eat the most amount at LUNCH when our digestive system is most at work. So contrary to most people I will never eat as much at dinner. I always have dark chocolate and golden milk on hand for when I still crave something sweet in the evening before bedtime.
All of the recipes I share with you I’ve tried at least twice and are “keepers” in my recipe box. I only believe in cooking good food, ’cause, let’s face it, life’s too short to eat stuff that tastes like shit.
The recipe
I got this one from Leanne Brown‘s Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day. The original recipe called for potatoes, but since I’m sensitive I’ve tried it with both sweet potato and yam, and now use sweet potatoes FTW. This makes 4-6 servings, depending on how big you like your rolls. She also used roti but since I couldn’t find any at my grocery store, I used naan instead, and am happier for it!
Ingredients:
1 tbsp vegan butter or ghee (I use Earth Balance or Melt)
1 tsp cumin or cumin seeds
1 small onion or 1/2 large, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp. ground or grated ginger
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 potatoes, chopped small
1/2 bunch kale, chopped without stems
4-6 roti or naan (I love Indian Life brand naan). Pita’s also doable.
Vegan raita or tzatziki (I use Michelle’s RawFoodz, but could use a great homemade recipe!)
Fresh cilantro
In a small bowl, mix the chopped garlic, ginger, turmeric, coriander, cayenne, salt (to taste), and 1 tbsp water.
Add ghee or butter to a skillet on medium heat. Add the cumin for 5 seconds, then add onion. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the spices to the onion and mix for 2 minutes. Add the potatoes and stir to coat them. Add 1 c of water and cover with a lid.* Cook for 10 minutes, stirring to make sure nothing burns. Add more water as needed to make the final mixture moist. Add the kale and stir until wilted. Taste and add more salt as needed.
To serve, scoop the mixture into the centre of your heated roti or naan, in an even line. Roll it up and serve with cilantro and dollop of raita/tzatziki on the top or side. I like to drizzle dressing on top and put the cilantro on it.
*I don’t have a lid for my pan, so what I do is up the heat to med-high and just add water as needed so the potatoes don’t stick.
Tip: If the potatoes get smushy during cooking, that’s still cool. I’ve had it both ways and it both tastes freaking amazing.
The combo of the cool dressing and spicy potatoes is amaze-balls IMO. The photo above shows it unrolled, without much dressing since I couldn’t get tzatziki at the store, and used leftover garlic dressing instead.
Enjoy!
