Yield: 6 to 8 cups
Prep time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp butter, coconut oil or olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried dill
5 new potatoes, cut into 1/4" to 1/2" cubes *
2 carrots, sliced or chopped *
2 yellow squash or zucchini, chopped *
3 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
1 bay leaf
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup sour cream, at end (optional)

Directions:
Heat oil in a 4-quart pot. Add onion, celery, hard veggies like potatoes and carrots (if using), cumin, and dill until veggies are soft. Add squash and/or additional veggies and cook till soft. Add stock, water, bay leaf, and salt. Bring to a boil. Simmer 15 minutes or until all veggies are soft (check those potatoes!).

Remove bay leaf. At this point, serve the soup in bowls, or puree in a blender or with a handheld blender if you prefer a creamy soup. Add a dollop of sour cream to the bowl just before serving.

Note: for those experimental types, try adding different veggies, greens like kale, chard or cabbage, asparagus,  peppers, more onions, and other herbs and flavor combinations you enjoy. Throw 1/2 cup chopped, cooked chicken in there as well to add protein.

• exercise
• time spent in nature
• prayer and meditation
• read a book
• take short breaks for deep breathing throughout the day
• yoga
• massage

Personalize this list with your own favorites!

Another aspect of wellness is looking at your satisfaction in your relationships. Does your career drain the life from you? Have you misplaced the chemistry with your partner that attracted you to begin with? If these are not healthy, you may find yourself battling stress and succumb to illness, weight gain, insomnia, indigestion, or other physical ailments.

Last, and certainly not least, is keeping yourself nourished through healthy and nutrient-dense foods. Take stock of your pantry and refrigerator. Read the labels on those packages. If a food has more than 5 ingredients or contains something you cannot pronounce, chances are it is not very healthy for you! What do I mean? Foods with a slew of ingredients are highly processed. The processing of foods takes something good from the earth, removes natural enzymes and nutrients, adds chemicals, preservatives, time-stable partially hydrogenated fats, and other additives to prolong its shelf life, and you end up with a box of "food" lacking nutrition. Foods labeled as low-fat often make up for the lack of fat (and therefore taste) by including flavorings such as MSG, refined salt, and refined sugar from corn, or completely fake sugars, to trick your body into thinking it's getting real nutrients. The body wants natural fats and flavors found in whole foods, when instead these processed foods contain nothing but fillers and toxins like MSG and trans-fats that interfere with your body's brain function and metabolism. Your body was designed to eat REAL foods. You truly are what you eat!

I challenge you this month to spend some time reviewing three things: how often you care for yourself, what your interactions with others are like, and what fills your pantry (and your belly!). All of these aspects make up the full picture of wellness. Your health is your best investment. Rather than rely on the pharmaceutical industry and medical establishment to fix problems, take action and empower yourself to be fit, well, and enjoy a healthy long life. Make time NOW to be well!


(Excerpted from FITR Wellness June 2011 newsletter. Want to receive monthly inspiration, recipes, and healthy tips? Sign up for my newsletter!)

Yield: 2 quarts
Prep time: 5 minutesTwo one-quart jars of beet kvass. The lefthand jar contains beets and garlic, and is on its second brew. The righthand one is beets only and is darker because it is the first brew from the beets.
Time till ready: 2 to 3 days

Ingredients:
3 medium-sized beets (size of your fist), quartered
1 tbsp sea salt
1/4 cup whey *
5 whole cloves garlic, peeled (optional)
filtered water

Directions:
Thoroughly wash the beets. Place into a 2-quart glass jar with the salt and whey (and optional garlic cloves) and add filtered water. You can divide the recipe between two 1-quart jars if that's what you have on hand. Cap and let it sit at room temperature (68-72 deg F) for 2 to 3 days. It's ready when the vapor pressure of fermentation pushes the metal lid upwards so that it won't dent in if you push on it. Room temperature allows the healthy lactobacillus bacteria can multiply; in summer (or a warm kitchen) the fermentation process takes ~2 days and in winter 3 or 4 days. The cool thing about this is that once you've finished all but an ounce or two of the kvass, just refill the jar with water, cap, and set it on the counter another two days. You'll get a brew slightly less strong but still healing. Discard the beets after the kvass in the second jar is gone. You can use 1/4 of the brewed kvass as your starter for the next batch instead of whey.

I have to admit, I LOVE it with the garlic. It adds a smooth flavor that is very un-garlicky, not spicy at all! I was quite cautious with the first batch, so I made one quart of beet kvass with garlic and one without. I definitely prefer the garlic.

* What is whey? Whey is the liquid protein from milk. You know when you open a cup of yogurt and there's that yellowy watery stuff on top? That is the whey. Whey is the starter that gets the lacto-fermentation process going in the beet kvass (and in many other ferments). Buy 1 quart of high quality plain or vanilla flavored yogurt, preferably full fat. Over a 1 quart glass bowl place a strainer and line it with a cotton or linen cloth. (Such as an old cloth napkin. Don't use a fuzzy towel unless you like to eat fuzz.) Pour the yogurt into the cloth-lined strainer and allow it to sit at room temperature. The whey will drip out and you are left with your very own thick yogurt (the consistency of Greek yogurt). If you let it sit for several hours, eventually you'll have yogurt cheese in the cloth, which can be used like cream cheese. Yum! (In this recipe, instead of whey, you can substitute an equal amount of coconut kefir, such as that made by Inner-Eco and sold in Colorado at Vitamin Cottage.)







Ingredients:

• 6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 small tart apple, cored and chopped
• 1 bunch steamed broccoli
• 1/2 cup milk or cream
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1-ounce blue cheese, crumbled
• Pinch freshly ground nutmeg

Directions

Place the bacon into a 10-inch straight-sided saute pan and set over medium-high heat. Cook bacon until crisp and brown. Remove bacon and all but 1 tablespoon of the fat from the pan using a slotted spoon. Decrease the heat to low. Add the onion and cook just until they turn semi-translucent, approximately 3 minutes. Add the salt and apple and continue to cook for another minute. Add the broccoli, cream and mustard and cook just until the broccoli is heated through, approximately 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the bacon, blue cheese and nutmeg. Serve immediately.

Adapted from Alton Brown, Food Network