Continued from last week…
- SMOOTHIES/ JUICES
Add a pinch of turmeric to your next smoothie, blend with your favorite fruits, dates or raw honey and enjoy the anti-inflammatory powers. The key to creating a smoothie you won’t regret is dialing down the turmeric, especially if you’re a turmeric newbie. So don’t make turmeric the star attraction until you’re ready for it. This is a good way to enjoy it for starters.
My juicer is one of the well-used appliances in my kitchen. So many of us tend to lean towards green juices or sweeter juices and totally forget that juicing turmeric is super awesome! You can juice turmeric alongside citrus fruits and ginger, and it also works amazingly well with dates, tiger nuts, green apple and lemon. Go for it girl!
- VEGETABLES
Sprinkle a teaspoon of turmeric onto your vegetables with a little olive oil or vegetable oil or soy oil or groundnut oil or coconut oil before you roast them. You can also add a pinch of salt. Any vegetables will work, from Ugu, waterleaf, bitter leaf, etc. This is a simple yet nutritious side dish that can add some turmeric goodness to virtually any meal.
- SPICE MIXES
I prefer to kick it from scratch and that means almost everything, including spice mixes. The spice mix that I blend most frequently is the homemade curry powder. It’s a mix of a variety of spices, including turmeric, cloves, nutmeg and more. You can also blend turmeric with any herbs of your choice with onion powder and garlic powder, etc play around it and see what you love the most.
- PORRIDGES
This is a great way to combine the comfort of turmeric with more vegetable power. Spice up your yam porridge or beans porridge with some ground turmeric, herbs and sea salt. You will love this.
- SOUPS AND STEWS
A rich stew and soup is one of my all-time favourite ways to enjoy turmeric. Not only will it give your soup a rich glow, but typically with all of the other ingredients slow cooked together, you rarely can even taste the turmeric. This is a great introduction to turmeric loving.
- SOOTHING SKIN/HAIR
We tend to forget that our skin is our largest organ and what we put on it can permeate through to our insides. Like I always say; you’re what you eat. It’s important to reduce our exposure to the chemicals in conventional beauty care products that we use on our skin and hair, but it’s equally important to lather ourselves in beneficial ingredients that will soak in to our skin. When used topically, castor oil can help heal injuries. Make a castor oil pack with turmeric to glean the anti-inflammatory benefits of both of these beneficial ingredients. And use turmeric water (after blending the peeled turmeric, blend, filter and use the water) to wash your hair. I think you’ll find that these easy ways to use turmeric can amp up your nutrition game and are accessible. Try them out and see what you think!
TURMERIC TIPS
Did turmeric stain your blender yellow? You have a couple options. You can do a quick blend with water and baking soda or try soaking with some white vinegar.
What’s better, fresh or dried turmeric? The best option is the one that is most readily available to you! For most of my recommendations you can use them interchangeably. The typical rule when swapping fresh for dry or vice versa is that 1 part dry spice is equal to two parts fresh. So 1 tsp dried turmeric is the equivalent of 2 tsp of fresh.
NEXT WEEK: HOW TO SELECT AND STORE TURMERIC (4)
To be continued next week… Don’t forget to like and follow me on all social media platforms.
Theresa Moses
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