Brown Rice With Nettles, Lemon & Walnut

CONSTITUTIONAL & METABOLIC INSIGHTS

Robust and rugged, Brown Rice with Nettle Walnut Pesto imparts the hardy strength you need to feel great through the fall. Nettles naturally taste a little salty, giving this dish a "salt of the earth" strengthening effect. As your autumn schedule starts to stack up, this recipe puts you back in rhythm with the earth's reminder to slow down. Feel as strong as a powerful, stable brown bear traipsing through the forest after this nourishing meal of wild nettle, grounding brown rice, and warm, rustic walnuts.

Hearty Strength

Nettles offer a hearty earthiness to this rustic dish. This is a rough, tough plant that brings its strength as a gift for your body. Don't let the prickly nature of the plant fool you - nettles provide a stellar nutritional profile to build stamina. This wildly abundant plant packs more vitamins and nutrients than most give it credit for. Nettle is great when the back-to-school and work activity takes away time for self-care. Adding nettles to your diet offers a delicious way to infuse the body with the strength of the wild. It is also famous as a blood & yang tonic that can be used to fortify your body after menstruation, childbirth, or other blood loss, giving you strength and energy. To increase your rugged strength and build fall immunity, nettles are the way to go.

Get Ready for Winter with Warming Walnuts

Preparing for cooler weather is a ritual of sorts. You find the extra blankets in storage, trade your summer tank tops for long sleeves, and browse the market's shelves for familiar comfort foods. Believe it or not, walnut is a great choice to bring home this fall. Walnuts are warm and invigorating. A fireplace warms the hearth around it, and the stones provide long lasting, durable heat through the night. Similarly, walnut creates a long lasting fire within. Rich in healthy fats, walnuts also provide slow burning fuel that keeps your metabolism strong all day long.

Have you ever chewed a walnut slowly? First you taste the rustic tannins on the surface of the night. Later, you experience a layer of warm creaminess as you start to extract the oils from the meat of the nut. Walnut's rich creaminess and warmth helps your body prepare for cold weather by building its reserves for winter. It's important to enjoy these warming, building foods in autumn so you feel fortified and ready to take on cold weather and flu season. Warm, nourishing foods like walnut are especially desired for Vata disorders (such as the common cold) that are due to cold and deficiency.

Why Eat Whole Grains in the Fall?

Brown rice is a hearty addition to your autumn table. But have you ever wondered what makes brown rice brown? In brown rice, the hearty bran layer and the germ is kept intact. The germ is the part of the seed that germinates, and it contains all the vital nutrients and mineral of the seed. The bran contains the fiber. White rice is stripped of both.

That's why brown rice, and whole foods in general, are more nourishing to your hungry body. That's also why whole foods in general have more taste. However, the density of brown rice can be hard to digest, causing gas and bloating. To improve digestibility, soak your brown rice by placing it in a bowl of water the night before. When you're ready to cook the rice, start cooking it on the stove while you chop, blend, saute the other ingredients. These two steps will also greatly reduce brown rice cooking time so you can enjoy your meal.

In this recipe, the zest of lemon and pungent spice of black pepper further stimulate your digestion so you can process rice more easily. However, if you have sluggish digestion or are recovering for illness, choose white rice instead.

A Note on Nettles

Nettles are rich in fiber and have even been used to make durable clothing! While you may shy away from the idea of using a stinging plant, in many traditional societies it was customary to sting oneself with the nettle plant as a way of relieving the pain and inflammation from conditions such as arthritis. The compounds found in the nettle sting serve to improve circulation and lymph flow in the joints, but you need not sting yourself to enjoy the benefits! Cooking the nettles in a soup provides many of the wonderful qualities of the nettle plant to your body in a deliciously edible way.

You can often find nettles growing near stream beds wild, or in 'guerilla gardens' due to their popularity. Try growing some on your property. If you don't have access to fresh nettles, dried ones or even tinctures will do.Leave a Comment / Question

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