Homemade Coconut Yoghurt

At midlife we are busy!

Midlife women carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.

We often work full-time, are still raising families, carry the emotional load for our families, carry the mental load of the household, have aging parents, volunteer in our communities and, with empathy, fully feel in our bodies the more crazy, painful and destructive events happening in our world.

It is a challenge…and on top of all of this we want to take care of our health and bodies so we have enough energy to get through our busy schedules each day.

I am always looking for short cuts and strategies that work for busy midlife women day in and day our because our long term health is built on our daily habits.

So, here is a quick way to make your own dairy free yoghurt at home knowing that every time you make it your are and ensure you are getting a dose of health promoting probiotics.

Many of the women I work with at midlife, can no longer tolerate dairy in their diets and are looking for an alternative. As we age our digestion becomes ‘tired’, a very unscientific term that encompasses Leaky Gut syndrome, dysbiosis or imbalance in our gut microbiome and weakened digestive enzymes. This can look like gassiness and bloating after eating certain foods, undigested food in our daily poop and allergy symptoms.

It is why the first module of Menopause U, after we have got our mindset straight focusses digestion.

We are not what we eat but what we actually digest and absorb.

You can make ‘yoghurt’ very easily at home using a can of coconut milk and your daily probiotic supplement.

I wanted to create a yoghurt that contained a good dose of protein to balance blood sugar levels and ensure muscle maintenance at midlife so I added collagen powder to change the nutritional profile of the finished yoghurt.

I would also consider adding a small amount of maple syrup for sweetness and a pinch of cinnamon fro added depth of flavour.

Your will need to use the probiotics that come in a capsule for this recipe and not tablet form that will be cakey and need grinding down.

Add a 14oz can of full fat coconut milk to a clean jam jar and give it a good stir to combine the milk with the solid.

Break open the capsules on a high quality probiotic and pour the contents into coconut milk.

Add 3 tbsp of collagen powder if you want to boost the protein content.

Add a pinch of cinnamon or a tsp of Maple syrup if you desire.

Give everything in the jar another good stir to combine all of the ingredients and to get the probiotic fully mixed into the coconut milk.

Cover the coconut milk with a piece of muslin or another ‘breathable’ cover so the probiotic has oxygen to breathe and grow.

Leave the ‘yoghurt’ on the counter or in another warm place so the probiotic microbes can multiply and travel through the yoghurt. In this way you are maximizing and ‘growing’ probiotics and creating a functional food that is deeply health supportive. This is especially helpful if you forget to take supplements or do not enjoy swallowing capsules.

After 24 hours on the counter top the yoghurt should be kept in the refrigerator like any other yoghurt.

Serve the yoghurt with my granola recipe which you can find here and pile fresh or frozen anti-oxidant rich berries and cherries on top!

Let me know how you get on with this recipe/not quite a recipe in the comments below!

Japanese Cabbage Salad

There are two dishes that guarantee I am eating cruciferous vegetables and particularly white cabbage without gusto and without complaint.

One is Mexican Tacos with chopped cabbage slaw.

Two is the Japanese cabbage salad in a Japanese restaurant.

Both elevate white cabbage to something exotic and delicious, one with lime and salt and the other with a deeper aromatic umami flavour.

I wanted to recreate the salty, tangy sesame taste of Japanese cabbage salad at home and set about pulling the flavours together.

The humble cabbage is a superfood for midlife women as it contains a compound that helps to eliminate excess estrogen from the body. It is helpful to have in your mind, multiple ways that you enjoy cruciferous vegetables, ready for when you notice an uptick in hot flashes in your body and for that last hoorah of excess estrogen many women describe right before they enter full menopause.

So easy is this recipe that it is almost not a recipe at all! It relies on store cupboard aromatics, vinegars an oils to pull together the sweet, salty, sour punch to the taste buds found in this restaurant salad.

It was a cold February day and I chose to serve my Japanese cabbage salad with a small cutlet of local pork, beaten thin with a rolling pin and breaded by dipping in a beaten egg and Panko breadcrumbs. I fried my cutlet in avocado oil to make Tonkatsu pork and cabbage salad and served white rice and a small bowl of miso soup as a side.

This recipe is as much about pleasure as it is about the health benefits of cruciferous vegetables in supporting the elimination of excess estrogen for midlife women. It is about encouraging you to eat cabbage and to bring the pleasure of something you loved in a restaurant back into your home.

Ingredients

1/2 medium white cabbage sliced thinly
3 tbsp mayonnaise (Japanese kewpie mayonnaise gets you extra points!)
1 tbsp Apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp Maple syrup
2 tsp Tamari soya sauce
2tsp toasted sesame oil
2tsp Mirin (optional)

Instructions

Add all of the ingredients except the cabbage to a large bowl and whisk together to form a highly flavourful mayonnaise
Add the cabbage and combine to make a Japanese slaw.
Serve with Fried chicken or pork and rice.

Red Cabbage and Apple

I am on a mission to encourage midlife women to embrace the humble cruciferous family of vegetables and to include them in their menu rotation on a regular basis. We are talking, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, bok choi, Kale, collard greens, Brussels sprouts, watercress, rutabaga, turnips, radishes and arugula.

Get them in your belly!

We know from the science that cruciferous vegetables provide our liver with the compounds it needs to breakdown excess estrogen in the body which reduces our uncomfortable symptoms of peri-menopause and protects us from breast cancer.

The fibre found in cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower and kale also supports a healthy microbiome. Emerging research points to the microbiome as playing a hugely important role in packaging estrogen metabolites safely, to be removed from the body. The link between breast cancer and an altered gut microbiome has long been established and there is also evidence to show that a healthy gut microbiome supports our healthy body weight at midlife and reduces the amount of inflammation in our body.

The fibre in cruciferous vegetables protects us from colon cancer and is protective of our heart health, the number one cause of death for women.

Let’s do this thing and eat more cruciferous veg!

Studies show that in the UK only 9% of people get enough fibre daily and that drops to 5% in the USA. The majority of the fibre intake in both of these countries comes from grains in the form of pasta and bread. This is an indicator of the extreme lack of vegetables in our diet and attests to the fact that what we think is normal and healthy in our diet is deeply damaging to our immediate menopausal health and long term to our longevity.

We have drifted so far from foods that build health and it is delicious recipes that will draw us back.

This recipe for Red Cabbage and Apple is easy to prepare and contains the sweetness and the pectin fibre of apple along with the health benefits of red cabbage.

Red cabbage contains additional polyphenols in their gorgeous purple colouring which offer us further protection from coronary artery disease and inflammation.

The non-negotiable ingredient in this dish is the spice, star anise, which takes the flavour to the next level.

This side dish is perfect with chicken sausage and mashed potato and can be refrigerated and reheated through the week. I paired it with scrambled eggs and mushrooms to make a delicious blood sugar balancing breakfast!

This side would also be perfect with my Turkey and Herb Breakfast Patties either at breakfast or for dinner!

Ingredients

1 large red cabbage quartered and thinly sliced
1 red onion diced
2-3 apples diced
2-3 cloves garlic
2 tbsp coconut oil
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
3-4 whole star anise
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Using a large knife quarter the red cabbage and remove the core
Finely chop each of the quarters
Core the apples and dice
Dice the red onion
Finely chop or crush the garlic
In a large pan with a tight fitting lid, add the coconut oil and melt over a medium heat
Add all of the chopped vegetables and stir until the onion starts to soften
Add the star anise pieces and stir until you can smell the spicy aroma
Add the apple cider vinegar and tightly seal the lid onto the pan, turning the heat to low
Braise the cabbage and apple in the pan with the soice for 15-20 minutes until all of the ingredients are cooked through
Add salt and pepper to taste

If you want to take your relationship with red cabbage further ;) try my recipe for Red Cabbage Sauerkraut