Yesterday evening I taught another live cooking class on the anti-inflammatory diet. It is always wonderful to connect with so many people in person and share information and recipes to help others shift into a new level of health and well-being. But how does one actually shift into a new level of health and well-being? It starts with a single step towards restoring health. Every time you take a new step towards your future self and resolution of your health condition, you are in the process of restoring your inherent well-being.

Chicken soup with dumplings is a classic meal that has its origins in Germany. Growing up, my mother would make large pots of chicken soup with dumplings all winter long, using the lengthy process of slow-cooking a whole chicken to make a nourishing broth, and then removing the meat for the soup and adding spoonfuls of the dumpling dough to the simmering broth. I still remember standing at the stove, watching the dough puff up as it cooked in the broth!

It's peach season! Yellow peaches, white peaches, and nectarines are all in abundance right now. What better way to use them than in a galette? Galettes are rustic, free-form single-crust pastries with either a sweet or savory filling. They are much easier to make than pies, which require a bit more precision. This gluten-free and grain-free galette uses a slightly sweetened version of my wildly popular flakey grain-free pie crust recipe and is filled with fresh peaches that have been tossed in a small amount of maple sugar and ground nutmeg.

Looking for an easy, nutrient-dense meal you can make at the end of a long day? This simple sheet pan meal uses garden vegetables and wild salmon, and it can be prepped and cooked in under 30 minutes! Salmon is a rich source of a carotenoid called astaxanthin. This potent compound is also found in crab, shrimp, lobster, krill, and salmon eggs (roe), however, wild salmon contains the highest concentration of this potent anti-inflammatory compound.

Nettles are one of the first wild foods to emerge in the spring, and, undoubtedly, one of the most nutrient-dense wild plants! They thrive in rich, moist soil, and in sunny locations. You may find them blanketing a deciduous forest floor in early spring before the tree canopy emerges, or in an open, mowed field.

Matcha, or powdered green tea, is one of the most powerful antioxidant superfoods you can consume. Matcha is a concentrated source of a specific group of polyphenols called catechins. You may have heard of EGCG, or epigallocatechin gallate. EGCG is a catechin found in concentrated amounts in matcha—much higher than regular green tea!

What you put on your skin is equally as important as what you put into your body! This homemade body lotion, or body butter, is incredibly easy to make and will deeply nourish your skin. Your skin is the largest organ in your body and absorbs everything you put onto it. It's so easy to make your own skincare products using simple unprocessed ingredients. The base of this body butter recipe is shea butter. This solid fat comes from the nut of the African shea tree.

Cold and flu season is upon us! How can you support your immune system so it can function at its best? Your immune cells, like all other cells, require good nutrition and lifestyle habits to function properly. A nourishing whole foods diet, strong digestive system, good sleep practices, good hydration, blood sugar control, and the addition of supportive nutritional supplements all work together to promote a strong and functional immune system.

One of the most powerful things you can do on a daily basis for your long-term health and well-being is to cook most of your meals at home with whole food-based ingredients. The second step in taking control of your health and using food as medicine, is to remove the foods or food groups that are irritating your immune system.

The process of dietary change is often a winding road full of forward movement intermixed with drawbacks to old ways of eating and living. This process of change creates contrast, eventually leading you to crave feeling good over the foods that once made you sick. Food is powerful medicine!