Tortilla Soup

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Cinco de Mayo is fast approaching so we all need to up our game and move beyond tacos and burritos as a celebration of Central and South American cuisine. Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in Mexico to commemorate the victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla. It is not the day that marks their independence as a nation, that’s September 16th. Rather, it celebrates the Mexican Resistance’s victory over a superior French force backed by Napoleon. It’s a symbolic victory and not even a National Holiday in Mexico.

The day has since been hijacked by the alcohol industry as a ploy to celebrate Hispanic culture outside of Mexico. Mexican culture is so much more that cerveza (beer) and margaritas. There is a diverse cuisine that has regional flavours and techniques suited to their climatic conditions. A vibrant street food scene has been taken by their chefs to the world of haute cuisine with three restaurants in the 2017 World’s 50 Best Restaurants serving Mexican food.

Pati Jinich, Mexico’s version of Jamie Oliver, says that everyone needs to have their own version of Tortilla Soup. I agree. I discovered this dish more than 20 years ago when I was living in South Florida, USA. It’s a great way to make use of leftover tortillas and tomatoes that have ripened from salad to cooking stage. It’s a light soup that has the ability to be refreshing on a summer evening and warming for a winter’s lunch.

Tortilla soup email

Tortilla soup is refreshing on a summers day or a hearty winter warmer.

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Migraineur’s Hot Cross Buns

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I only discovered hot crossed buns about 10 years ago. They were not part of my childhood growing up in America so it wasn’t until I met Stuart that I learned about this traditional bun served at Easter. He loved them but they are a minefield for migraine sufferers. I had to completely re-dux every recipe that I found and it’s taken me a good five years to finally perfect it. I’m delighted to share it with you.

Hot cross bun recipe 3

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SoCal a Migraine-Friendly Gem

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This meal was independently paid for.

I stumbled across SoCal while wandering around Neutral Bay one afternoon. It has a bit of a hidden entrance on Young Street, but the aqua blue door and walls to the stairwell beckoned me up for a look. I was warmly greeted, even though it was three in the afternoon, and I asked if I could look at the menu. The Octopus Tostada immediately caught my eye and the smell of the smoker lured me to keep perusing the menu. I fell in love at first sight.

Luckily it was that lovely down time prior to the prepping before the dinner rush, so I was able to have a bit of a chat to the chef Tomaz Salema Reis about the menu, cooking techniques and ingredients he uses. To his credit Tomaz listened intently to my tale, answered all my questions and even ducked back into the kitchen to ensure that the ingredients for the homemade BBQ sauce didn’t have preservatives. Recon mission was successful and we had a new restaurant to try.

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January 2018 Recipe ReDux: Every Migraineur Needs a Meat Grinder

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Welcome to a new feature; the Recipe ReDux. I am so proud to have been accepted into this community of dietitian and health professionals who write about healthy food choices. The great thing about this community is that all the writers are vetted to ensure their work is underpinned with peer-reviewed scientific literature, making it a one stop shop for your health minded recipes.

Once a month we are served up a challenge to redux, latin for brought back, a recipe into a more healthy version. For me this is a natural fit, as just about every recipe I come across I have to redux to make it Migraine-friendly. Sometimes I feel like my entire cooking career is adjusting and redoing favourites so that they don’t make Stuart sick. At least now I have a bit of an outlet for them 😁.

This month’s challenge is to share a healthy recipe highlighting a favorite kitchen tool, gadget, or gizmo that you received over the holidays, or an old tried and true appliance. My kitchen is very small so I don’t have a lot of space for appliances. I have to be very judicious in my kitchen gadgets. Needless to say I couldn’t justify anything new this year. So I’m going with one of the must have appliances for every household with a migraine sufferer (that’s one in four in case you were wondering)….a meat grinder. Keep on reading!

Migraineur’s Faux Mulled Wine

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I fell in love with hot drinks as a child. Their warm sweetness welcomed me after an afternoon of playing in the snow. A fixture in our house on the weekends was the old Betty Crocker Crock Pot filled with apple cider (nonalcoholic) and left to stew with spices and lemons. The smell wafted through the house. So deep is this memory the smell of apples and spice warms me from the inside.

moms crock pot

Thanks mom for sending through this photo of your vintage crock pot which was primarily used for spiced cider and chili. Though not at the same time.

One December I found myself in Sweden where friends convinced me to try the traditional glögg, a warm spiced wine, at the local Julmarknad in Skansen instead of my beloved spiced cider-which was also on offer. It was a wonderful grown up version of my childhood spiced cider that made it the perfect drink on that evening. A light snow was falling as we wandered the stalls in total darkness at 5 pm, munching on reindeer that had been cooked over an open fire while admiring all the handcrafted goods. The setting was the definition of Christmas, everyone should get to spend a bit of Christmas in a Nordic city.

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Slow Food: A Hedonistic Indulgence that is Good for Your Health

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I read an interesting piece a few months back about the positive effects of hedonism on health that rang so true to me that I simply must share it with you. Now before you go running off we need to get some definitions straight here. When most of us think of hedonism an image of debauchery, the extreme indulgence in physical pleasure, pops into our heads. Hedonism actually has its philosophical roots from the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. His school of thought promoted the savouring of moderate pleasures, respecting one another and showing <a href="http://Gratitude“>gratitude all while pursuing a harmonious life without riches or glory.

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Bomboloni aka Ricotta Doughnuts

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I’ve always struggled with birthday cake. I’m not that great a fan of cake in general, so the idea that I can have a special cake to mark the day of my birth doesn’t really appeal. As a child I was able to convince my mother that a birthday pie was appropriate. My birthday is around Halloween, so it wasn’t that hard to convince her that an apple pie would be just fine.

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Lamb Kofta: The Base for a Great Shawarma

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Shawarma. Yiro. Gyro. Kebab. One dish with a dozen names, and pronunciations. But no matter what you call it, there’s nothing like some well spiced kofta served up in a fresh flatbread and dressed just the way you like it to satisfy a late night hunger. It’s an end of night ritual across Australia to stagger towards the kebab truck and tuck straight into the luscious sweetness before getting a cab home. Keep on reading!