Narelle White - The Elegance of Elements: A Vegetarian Cookbook

NARELLE WHITE

The
Elegance
of Elements

A Vegetarian Cookbook

Copyright 2016 Narelle White.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-0189-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-0190-9 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 07/05/2016

Contents

THE ELEGANCE OF ELEMENTS A VEGETARIAN COOKBOOK

ELEMENTAL COOKING (Cooking within the elemental cycle of life)

By: Narelle White

Illustrations: Bee Murphy

Mandalas: Jo Tito

This book is a celebration of vegetarian food and is written to share the joy of cooking wholefoods with you.

Drawing on lifes experience, Narelle hopes to provide an abundance of delicious food ideas, give you relevant information around food and its healing / restorative properties and provide you with the tools for transformation to flow into your daily life.

Using the insights of Feng Shui, Traditional Eastern Medicine and modern nutritional therapy, her aim is to help you understand, achieve and practice balance through the fine art of preparing and serving food to your family and friends. Harmony with the world around and within us is possible with good food and good friends to share it with.

NARELLES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank-you to my children for eating the food that was prepared for them from conception.

Thank-you Nikki Jennings for the hours and hours of typing and her daughter Star for being tolerant while her mother was working on the book.

Thank-you Julie Simpson. We spent many hours creative cooking together and collaborating when our children were young.

Thank-you Jo Tito for bringing it all together in the final stages and the amazing mandalas.

And my darling friend Bee for the most gorgeous illustrations that truly excite me, for her creativity and ability to give me the elegance that I needed for the book.

All the people in my life from around the world who have enjoyed the food that I have created.

Thank-you mother nature for providing the food to be inspired by.

INTRODUCTION

Food is a major part of our lives and the kitchen is the source of nourishment our Earth centre.

To be able to transform what we eat and drink into usable amounts of pure energy is paramount which then fuels our brain and body for happiness of soul, and gives us the ability to have plenty of energy or vitality for each day to achieve what we need in our life.

Feng Shui is a popular tool that is used to align ones living and personal spaces with the larger sense of cosmic order. This cosmic order comes from the understanding of Eastern sages and philosophers and has withstood the test of time to be relevant in todays lifestyles.

Environmental surroundings, sounds, colours, smells, movement of Air or Water, tastes and space (or the lack of it), are all important in achieving and preserving a balance in our busy lives.

Narelle offers you recipes divided into elements and colour with insights that are nutritionally sound for the body, mind and spirit. Bon appetit!

Before you delve into this book you will need these basic supplies:

Tamari

Tahini

Pomegranate Molasses

Ghee

Coconut Oil

Olive Oil

Aged Balsamic Vinegar

Sea Salt

Chermoula Paste (Spice Mix)

Fresh Ginger Root

Coffee Seed Grinder

Food processor

A book, yes even a recipe book that uses Traditional Eastern Philosophy, must include reference to Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang are terms of relativity and are needed to understand how to achieve balance and harmony. It is a gauge by which health and happiness can be measured according to Huang-Di, the legendary Yellow Emperor. For example if you are hot - you need to cool down, not get more steamed up. If there is a lot of activity in your house, serving up warming and activating foods can increase the available energy and overstimulate an already busy system - think of what happens when you give the kids a lot of sweet food before bedtime! Have you noticed that after icecream at night, the children have nightmares?

When we understand the relationships of things we can easily see how they are out of balance and do something to promote harmony. Sounds easy doesnt it? However in practice, its sometimes hard to find that balance. If we are energy deficient/depleted and we eat food that is not nourishing enough or we drink coffee in the afternoon to keep us going, we will stay tired and depleted - so we need to eat foods that put more energy in than we use, to restore balance.

Presentation, lighting, colour, sound and environment can put energy in - or take it away. A lovely meal eaten in a busy train station could end up being more energetically exhausting than the same food enjoyed in beautiful and peaceful surroundings.

Everything that is has a relationship with everything else. Think of a wheel, the outside rim, the spokes and the inner hub. They are all separate things but are also part of something larger. In the same way, we are individuals and part of the human race. We are all connected and what we do and what we eat, matters.