Cold Summer Borshch

Cool Down With Vegetarian Borshch on a Hot Summer Day

4-5 beets
2 carrots
2 celery stalks
1 potato
1 onion
dill
1 can brown beans
sour cream

Chop up and cook beets, carrots, celery, potato, dill and onion in a large saucepan full of water. Add brown beans and simmer for 1-2 hours. Cool overnight in fridge. Blend mixture in a blender (optional). Add sour cream (or plain yogurt). Dress with more chopped dill and serve.

Fresh Home-grown Basil Tops Home-made Wheatless Pizza

Home-grown basil grows beside tomatoes and petunias in thriving urban garden

Home-grown herbs and vegetables in your balcony garden

My fresh basil plant grew indoors for awhile, until I could tell it was time to put it outside. So I created a combined herb and vegetable garden in one of my long balcony planters this year, planting basil beside a tomato plant, and even planting a hanging petunia plant beside them for color. Everything grew together comfortably and each species seemed to thrive without killing off any of the other. A truly model ethos for an  urban garden!

Home-made gluten-free pizza with fresh red pepper, cheese, and fresh herbs

Home-made gluten-free pizza made with brown rice flour

Home-made gluten-free pizza, made without wheat, is made with about 2 cups of a combination of brown rice flour, potato flour, and sorghum flour; then 1 package of yeast, 1 tsp of sea salt, and 1 tsp of xantham gum - and that's pretty much it. You just add 2 eggs (or 2 egg-replacements, as I did), 1 1/2 cup warm water, 2 tbsp olive oil to the yeast, stir, and then mix it all together with the different flours and other dry products. Mix it well. Roll the dough into 2 balls, cover and let stand in a warm place for 1/2 hour to let it rise. 

Afterwards, flatten each into greased pizza pans, and cook just the pizza dough for 5 to 7 minutes. Then bring it out of the oven, spread tomato spread for pizza on the dough, cut red peppers, cheese, fresh sage and basil, and put on top. Bake the pizza for another 20 minutes. Makes two 12-inch pizzas.

Buy Fresh Food and Fast Track to Wellness

Buying fresh food and cooking it will put you onto a fast track to wellness. Buying fresh can be a little more expensive than buying canned or frozen foods, but with a little comparison shopping you can keep your costs down, and it's worth it. Not only do you eliminate many preservatives and chemicals from your diet, it tastes better and you get more protein for your buck.

My 89-year old mother is an inspiring role model for wellness 

I also come from a family of fantastic cooks who all cook real food and buy fresh.

In the past year my mother has sent me three wonderful books on diet, Wheat Belly Cookbook, Moosewood Restaurant, and Moosewood Restaurants Cooks at Home. I don't know if other families are like this, but may of my family's emails, phone conversations and visits have some discussion of great recipes in them.

And it has paid off - at 89 my mother looks about 70, is extremely sharp, has the energy of a 50-year old, and is a great role model for Wellness Over 40.

Back in the 1970s no-one in our family was allergic to wheat

On the other side of the family, my Ukrainian grandmother was another great role model and lived into her mid-90s.

Not only did she buy fresh and cook real food, she grew most of it herself in her legendary garden.

When our family celebrated Ukrainian Christmas Eve on January 6 each year, all of the 12 meatless dishes were home-cooked by my grandmother.

Back in the 70s when this picture was taken, no-one in the family had wheat allergies yet. Was wheat different back then?