In Good Health: Classes with Lana

This recipe comes from Rebecca and is especially good for maintaining a strong digestive system (healthy Spleen Qi) and reducing dampness (water & mucus retention).    Strong Spleen Qi is the basis of ‘post-natal Qi’ and health.  Keeping your spleen strong ensures that your digestive system will have the ability to extract all the nutrients from your food so your body can stay well nourished.   This is a super tasty recipe –  enjoy!

Ingredients:

Organic, Unhulled Job’s Tears (from Peggy’s Petaluma farm in Marin)

• 2 cups Yi Yi Ren (Job’s Tears / Coix Seeds) – I had a heck of a time trying to find this and they were at Ranch 99 the whole time!
• 1 whole cooked chicken, including raw gizzard/giblets
• 3 large sweet potatoes
• 1 lb. kale
• 4 carrots
• 4 celery stalks
• 1 large onion
• 3 garlic cloves
• 2 bay leaves
• Some olive oil
• A bunch of water
• Salt to taste

This can be adapted to serve any size group.  The above makes a ton of soup for a large pot luck size.  You can use less ingredients to serve fewer folks.

Directions:

Hulled & Dried Job’s Tears

In a small bowl of water, soak Job’s Tears for 1-2 hours.

Remove all the meat from a whole, cooked chicken.  In the meantime, make chicken broth using the bones, gizzard and giblets of the chicken, the vegetables (carrots, onions, celery), the spices (garlic, bay leaves) and water.  While this is going on, peel and chop sweet potatoes to desired size.  Also chop up kale.

When the stock is done, fish out the chicken parts.  I tie the chicken parts together so I can easily remove them and keep the vegies in the base of the soup.  Strain the Yi Yi Ren, which should now look puffy and soft.  Add the Yi Yi Ren and the chopped sweet potatoes.  Cook until the sweet potatoes are at desired mush level.  Yi Yi Ren should still be a little crunchy.  Add cooked chicken and kale.  When I add the chicken, I like to shred it in my hands as opposed to chopping it.  I like the texture better.  Bring to a rolling boil then reduce heat and serve piping hot!

Bon appetite!

Rebecca

Tags: coix, digestion, healthy spleen, job's tears, kale, Spleen, sweet potato

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 13th, 2011 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Herbal Soup, Immune Booster, Soups & Stews, Spleen Tonic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.