The Kiwi Mental Kitchen

This cacao chili comes from the comfort food section of the book the happy kitchen . It is a very rich chili with both red wine and chocolate as enriching agents. I know that the idea of putting chocolate in chili seems rather unusual but don't knock it until you try it. This chili had my husband saying his chili, which is famous among our friends, has finally been defeated. With there being 3 adults in our household I had to increase the recipe by a half though I must have over done it as there were leftovers. With this, I made a cornbread that, while still very tasty, I was rather of unhappy how it came out. I will post a recipe after I get the kinks out. All in all a 10 out of 10 meal with room for technical improvement thought the flavors are brilliant.

I grew up in a household that never ate seafood that wasn't fish and, up until tonight I had continued that trend in my own cooking. I have always said I don't like other seafood but I recently realized that really I was too scared to try them. Having realized the ridiculousness of that I decided to remedy that. I made and adaptation of The happy kitchen's  satisfying prawn penne with broccoli. I had to make some major adaptations to this recipe to have it today. Locally a series of floods wiped out most of the broccoli making it very hard and expensive to get. Because prawns cannot be produced locally that can be a bit pricey. In the end, I substituted frozen spinach for the broccoli and shrimp for the prawns. In the future, I would use less lemon juice as in the end, the sauce was a little sharp. Also, I found out that shrimp are ok and even nice. I would not say they are a new favorite but they are definitely going to continue to be part of our n...

This recipe is taken from The Happy Kitchen  because I do not want to breach copyright I will not be posting the recipe here unless I make big changes to it. The cost of goats cheese locally is too high for our budget so I  switched it for cow feta. Also when I went to get out the onion I realized ours had gone off, so I ended up with no choice but to omit it. The first thing I noticed is that it did not go as purple as the picture in the book, I believe this was due to how much flesh was exposed when I boiled my beetroot. The beetroot was fresh from my garden but we have had a very damp end of summer and start of autumn and it has effected anything even slightly above the ground, because of this I had to trim more than would usually be the case. The walnuts really make this dish, it would be a little bland without them. The cheese and the beetroot balance each other nicely and even with brown rice, you can achieve some risotto creaminess. This was the first risotto I...

The following is adapted from the happy kitchen but I have rewritten them in a way and order that prioritises the most difficult or hardest to remember for me.  Eat mostly plants: make most meals half plant and of those plants predominately veges Keep an eye on blood sugar levels: Be aware of how food effects your blood sugars and don't forget to eat Get the right balance of protein and use more fish: Decrease meat portions at dinner and rely less on animal meat Vary your diet: this includes vary what grains you are using. Use herbs and spices Add nuts and seeds wherever possible Eat for your gut: include probiotic and prebiotic foods Fats are friends especially Ω3 Relax and enjoy food Avoid sweeteners and additives This list lives on my fridge as a reminder whenever I'm cooking.

Hi I'm Sarah and I've had a rough 7 or so years, on and off, with my mental health. Over these 7 years I have been both on and off medications as my doctor and I were working out what was going to work for me. Whatever a doctor and patient decide I feel nutrition can be complimentary. During this time I have picked up tidbits here and there about how food and nutrition can impact mental health but I have never really been able to synthesize it together into some sort of plan. I recently stumbled upon The Happy Kitchen  by Rachel Kelly with Alice Mackintosh, thanks to an interview Rachel did with the BBC that got played on Radio New Zealand National . I have found this book to be a great synthesis of the research I had come across to date as well as a few new things as well. While this book has a great collection of recipes and is a great starting point for nutrition based around helping mental health, some ingredients are hard to get here or they are beyond my family budget. Th...