Did you know that Spring is a great time of the year to bring your ideas and dreams into life? If you have the chance to be around nature at this time you’ll notice the green fields of dandelions and the great variety of plant and animal life flowering around. Like your desires for this year, this spring of new life is enjoying the expansive nature of the season to bring their potential into fruition. Catch the wave!

HOW ARE YOUR SPRING SPIRITS?

Traditional Chinese Medicine places a big emphasis on the cycles of nature and on how our health and inner sense of harmony depends on our synchrony with these rhythms. 

Spring is the season of the expansion of energy and the growth of new life. We are moving from the dark and cold energy of winter to an explosion of plant life growing, and animal life mating…

Tender buds hanging from trees, tiny leaves of vibrant colors sprouting everywhere, a catwalk of flowers starting with the purple and white ones at the end of winter, followed by the yellow ones…. The resurgence of snakes from their nests, the coming back of migratory birds…

The reappearance of life on earth mirrors the emergence of dreams and desires which have been hibernating during winter. 

Are you in tune with the upsurging and expansive energy of Spring? Do you also feel the impulse to come out of your nest and bring about new life into the world? Or are you having a hard time leaving the comfort of the winter cave? Do you feel pulsating with ideas and desire, or else you are frustrated, anxious and feel incapable of getting a hold of this rhythm? Maybe you are feeling apathetic and are having a hard time finding the motivation to get things started, let alone moving… Or it could be that you experience allergies and what spring brings to you are physical manifestations such as sneezing, coughing, congestion in eyes and nose, fatigue…

Whatever it is that spring brings to you, we all get affected by the seasonal rhythms in one way or another. The way we go about the change, though, has the potential to maximize our chances to make the most out of the season, or to make us ill, weakened and taken aback. It is of vital importance that we adjust ourselves to the season and to its intrinsic characteristics if we are to feel physically healthy, emotionally vibrant and with our full capacity to manifest what we have been brewing during winter.

SPRING SPIRITS GOT STUCK?

In Chinese Medicine, Spring is linked with the liver, responsible for our direction in life and for planning the strategy behind the realization of our dreams and goals. The liver is also connected to our sight and, thus, to our capacity to “see” the path in front of us and lead us through it. 

On the other hand, the liver is responsible for the flow of our emotional and creative life. When the spirit of the liver, the Hun, is not allowed to expand this might result in a pathology called Liver Qi (Energy) Stagnation in Chinese Medicine. Manifestations of this stagnation usually come as emotional symptoms, such as feelings of anxiety and frustration at not being able to move forward in life in order to fulfill our desires, as well as irritation, impatience, moodiness, etc. 

Another cause of stagnation of energy can be congestion due to winter excesses, which causes sluggishness. As the body detoxer, the liver may struggle to clean the body and might need a little help in getting the job done. In such cases, we might experience fatigue, apathy, lack of motivation and inspiration, depression or low immunity. 

In all these cases our creative and emotional capacity to expand and manifest our dreams and plans into reality will be impeded. We might be unable to see ahead into our future with clarity, we might lack a sense of direction or a capacity to carry out our plans. 

HOW TO SUPPORT OUR SPRING SPIRITS

Our diet should be able to shift along with the seasons, just like the rest of our lifestyle and routines should also adapt to their characteristics. One of the principles of energetic diet therapy in Chinese medicine is to eat in accordance with the season in order to enjoy more well-being and vitality. 

How to lighten up your meals?

In Spring we will favor foods as light as the wind, which is the energy of the season and responsible for spreading the seeds which will grow into plants once they start germinating.

The fertility of the season calls for us to eat its native products: sprouts, tender stems and flowers, which also happen to be light and young.

In this same demeanor, we will cook foods lightly, using methods such as steaming, boiling or scalding. Thinking in sintony with the season, let’s imagine how our shoots won’t require long cooking times, as they are still tender, and how young plants tend to need a lot of water, so we will be wise to cook with more water than with oil. In fact, we will be using little oil in our cooking.

It is the time, along with the increase in temperature, to start incorporating some raw and fresh foods into our diet. Always keep in mind that an excess of raw foods, such as fruits and salads, is not good for our digestive systems in the long term. Chinese Medicine explains that raw food uses too much of our Spleen Qi in its assimilation process, which may weaken our digestive fire.

How to apply spring cleaning to our diet?

Detox will be key in allowing our bodies and minds to make space for these new tender sprouts that are our dreams and desires for the present year. That’s why we talk about spring cleaning. The season invites us to get rid of everything that is taking too much space, that is heavy, that is not serving us, etc. both in our bodies as well as in our minds and hearts.

Green leafy vegetables, specially the bitter ones, have traditionally been used to detox the liver, and they happen to be available in Spring, like dandelions. Coincidence or design? It doesn’t cease to amaze me that sometimes we get exactly what we need from the plants available at a specific moment in time and that the clues about how to live in harmony with the season and make the most out of it come from the direct observation of nature.

How to keep our expansion in moderation?

If the energy expands faster than necessary, there is a risk of «fire», a concept in Chinese medicine that can manifest itself in the form of heat in the upper part of the body, allergies, hyperactivity, anxiety … One of the main signs of that excess are emotional expressions such as anger or irritability.

To counter this excess, eat sour. The sour or acid taste has a tendency to internalize and, thus, balances the expansion movement. We can find the acid taste in many fruits, especially citrus.

WHY DO I LOVE TO COOK WITH THIS SPICE IN SPRING?

Even if Chinese Medicine uses green as a color to represent the energy of the season, I love the radiance and vibrance of the puissant orange of turmeric for Spring.

In the first place, Turmeric (Curcuma Longa) is spicy, a taste that has an affinity with spring, since it enhances its expansive energy. It does this by promoting peripheral circulation and sweating, that is, helping energy rise to the surface and externalize. This is why spicy foods sometimes make us sweat.

As a spicy plant, turmeric (Yu Jin in Chinese) unlocks, frees, and helps us move blood and qi. Therefore, it is suitable for preventing qi stagnation. In addition, the energy movement refreshes the blood, which helps to reduce the inflammation of the liver and helps it in its detoxification function.

RECIPES TO SUPPORT YOUR SPRING SPIRITS

STEAMED VEGETABLE SALAD WITH TANGERINE AND TURMERIC VINAIGRETTE

Ingredients for the mandarin and turmeric vinaigrette

(recipe inspired by the Blueberry vinaigrette from Kami McBride’s Herbal Kitchen book)

· 3 cups apple cider vinegar
· 1 cup mandarin orange wedges
· ½ cup fresh tangerine peel **
· ½ cup fresh turmeric root, finely chopped *
· 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
· 1/2 to 1 cup of honey

*Tangerine peel and turmeric are suitable for preventing and treating qi stagnation, so this vinaigrette has an anti-stagnation action

**It is important that the tangerine skin that we use to make the vinaigrette is made from organic fruits, since harmful chemicals accumulate especially in the skin of the fruit.

Ingredients for steamed vegetable salad

· Artichokes
· Asparagus
· Beetroot
· Lentil sprouts
· Sunflower and pumpkin seeds
· Other possible ingredients that we can add to this spring salad: raw green vegetables, such as spinach or dandelion leaves that we can collect during a walk (making sure they are in a clean area free of pesticides), or mint

Preparation

1. The vinaigrette has to be prepared in advance: a month in advance would be ideal, although I will marinate it for just over three weeks.

To prepare it, we will peel the tangerines and turmeric. We will cut the segments, the tangerine skin and the turmeric into small pieces.

We will put the pieces of mandarin, tangerine skin and turmeric in a glass pot, if possible it has a plastic lid, so that the vinegar does not oxidize it. We will also add the fresh ground pepper. Then we will pour the vinegar into the glass pot, paying attention that the liquid covers the mixture.

We will shake the mixture and leave it in a cool and dark place. We will shake it from time to time and make sure there is enough liquid to keep the mixture covered.

After a month, we will strain the mixture and add the honey to taste.

2. We will clean and cut the artichokes and asparagus and steam them (I used a bamboo steamer inside a conventional pot). We will prevent the peeled artichokes from oxidizing by keeping them in a bowl with water and lemon juice.

3. We will cut the beets (I used already cooked beets). We will mix the steamed vegetables with the beets, the lentil sprouts, the pipes and the other ingredients that we want to add to the salad.

4. Finally, we will season the salad with the mandarin and turmeric vinaigrette.

VEGETABLE BURGER WITH TURMERIC MAYONNAISE AND BEET BREAD

Vegetable burger ingredients

(recipe adapted from Veggie Desserts’ Spinach and Pea Burgers recipe)

· 2 cups of cooked lentils approx. *
· 2 cups of peas approx. (I used frozen peas and thawed them by boiling them) *
· 2 cups cooked spinach
· 1 onion
· 1 1/2 oat flakes approx.
· Some wild garlic leaves (allium ursinum) **
· Salt, pepper, dried garlic, etc. to dress
· 3 handfuls of sunflower and pumpkin seeds

*Legumes are a good source of protein in spring, a time when we prioritize plant products over animals because they are lighter. This coincides with the fact that spring is the breeding season and therefore there is no hunting.

**We can substitute the wild garlic for another herb that we want, such as parsley. If we decide to use wild plants, we must be careful to identify them correctly. Wild garlic, for example, can be mistaken for other poisonous plants.

Turmeric mayo ingredients

(recipe adapted from Simple Vegan Blog’s Vegan Mayonnaise recipe)

· 1 cup of sunflower oil
· 1/2 cup of soy milk
· 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
· Half a teaspoon of salt
· 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
· Pepper to taste

Beet bread ingredients

(recipe adapted from the recipe for yam bread in the book Heaven’s Banquet by Miriam Kasin Hospodar)

· 25gr of fresh yeast – what would be a packet of fresh yeast (or 1 packet of dry yeast)
· 2 tablespoons warm water
· 1 cooked beet, crushed
· 2 tablespoons of panela sugar
· 2 tablespoons of melted ghee
· 1 teaspoon salt
· 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
· 1/4 of cup of walnuts
· 2 cups whole wheat spelled flour and 1/2 cup whole wheat rye flour

Preparation

1. For the vegetable burgers, we first put the lentils to cook. Defrost the peas by boiling them for a few minutes and steam the spinach. Meanwhile we cut the onion.

We pass the oats through the food grinder until we get flour. We also crush the onion (we can also cut it into small pieces if we want the hamburgers to have more texture), the wild garlic, the peas and half of the spinach (we save the other half to give the hamburgers texture)

We mix the crushed food until obtaining a dough, and we add the cooked lentils, crushing them a little with the fork, the pipes and the salt, pepper, etc.

We form hamburgers with the resulting dough and cook them on the grill (or in the oven).

2. For the turmeric mayonnaise, we mix the oil, soy milk, apple cider vinegar and turmeric powder in a blender along with salt and pepper to taste.

3. For the beet bread, first mix the yeast with the water, let the mixture rest for a few minutes and then mix again.

Add the crushed beet, the brown sugar, the melted ghee, the salt and the turmeric and mix. Then come the walnuts. And finally the flour.

Knead for about ten minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.

We cover the dough with a damp cloth and let it rise for about two hours in a warm place.

Once it has risen, we give it the shape we want, place it in the oven tray on baking paper and let it rest for 30 to 45 more minutes, while the oven heats up to about 190º.

Before putting the bread in the oven we can make some cuts on the top to help it grow. We bake it for about 45 minutes.

4. We can serve the burgers between a couple of slices of beet bread, with turmeric mayonnaise and the garnish we want. I have added grated carrot. Other possibilities are: steamed asparagus, green soybean sprouts, grated beets, etc.

«CHEESECAKE» DE «MATÓ» DE CABRA CON CÚRCUMA Y NARANJA AMARGA

Ingredients

Base

· Half a cup of toasted walnuts
· Half a tablespoon of honey
· A pinch of salt

Filling

· 85 gr of mató
· 1 tablespoon of honey
· A pinch of salt
· ¼ teaspoon turmeric
· A pinch of pepper
· ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
· About two tablespoons of milk
· ¼ tablespoon ghee

Preparation

1. For the base, we toast the walnuts in the pan and, once they have cooled down, we process them in the food grinder. Then we mix the crushed walnuts with honey and a pinch of salt.

2. For the filling, we mix the ingredients and pass them through the blender.

3. To assemble the cheesecake I chose individual cups. Another option would be a larger container and prepare it for sharing. First we will press and flatten the base, with our fingers or using the base of a spoon, at the bottom of the container. Then we will add the filling and smooth it.

4. Finally we will add the bitter orange marmalade topping. We can decorate with a pinch of turmeric.

SMOOTHIE IN ORANGE

Ingredients

· 1 tangerine
· 1 carrot
· Half a teaspoon of fresh turmeric
· Half a teaspoon of ghee
· ¼ teaspoon stevia powder
· 100ml oat milk

As easy as adding the ingredients in the blender and pressing the button to process them!