Episode 21: 3 Fun Recipes with Essential Oils

Lena’s Recipes

Sunrise Smoothie:

¾ cup frozen raspberries
½ cup frozen peaches
3 cubes of ice
1 cup of almond milk
½ tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup water
3 drops of Tangerine essential oil
*Blend everything together and store in the fridge

Overnight Power Bowl:

1 cup of quinoa
2 Tbsp chia seeds
2 Tbsp almond butter
1 Tbsp honey
1 cup of your favorite nut milk
1 drop of Pink Pepper essential oil
*Pour everything into a serving bowl and let sit in the fridge over-night. Top with blueberries and sliced bananas.

Spring-time Spearmint Salad Dressing:

2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp of honey
2 drops of Spearmint essential oil
2 drops of Basil essential oil
4 drops of Lemon essential oil
Pinch of Sea Salt and Pepper
*Mix everything together and store in the fridge.

Transcript

Hi my name is Lena Schwen and I'm a Diamond in doTERRA and a holistic nutritionist. I'm also a mom of four little boys, eight and under. We have twins in the middle and they're six.

And about six and a half years ago when I was pregnant with them. I was right in the middle of teaching high school and had contractions and lo and behold I ended up going into labor and having my babies 12 weeks premature. It was a really tumultuous time in our lives. We even categorize it as BT and AT because everything before the twins and after the twins is so different. Our family doesn't look anything like the way it did before. And part of that is just being thrust into this world of the NICU and not being able to navigate where we were or how to really care for our babies.

Becoming Their Advocate

One thing that I learned is I had to become their advocate. I had to be their voice because they didn't have a voice. And so in doing so I had to learn the vernacular of the hospital and all the different medications they were on and the different support they were getting from their doctors. And I very quickly learned that their bodies weren't going to respond the same way as other babies. Or even themselves being twins, they didn't respond the same way to two medications one from the other. And so I wanted to explore different options and find solutions that could support their body through this process. And more importantly bring them home to us because that's all we really wanted was for our babies to survive and come home.

And the most beautiful thing happened as we started to incorporate essential oils and different products from doTERRA. We learned really quickly that their bodies were responding in the most positive way. And eventually after four months we were able to bring them home. And through their first year of recovery we continued to support them with essential oils and with the different products from doTERRA that have been transformative in our lives and in our family and through that process.

Supporting Our Bodies with Whole Foods

I also learned how important it is to support our bodies with whole foods and things that could really benefit and heal the body on a cellular level. And a lot of that comes from the kitchen. Right? It comes from putting food on the table that you know is going to support the family and support the body and give us the very best results that you can have. And sometimes that's difficult. It's really hard because, you know whether we eat foods in season or out of season it always seems like there is something to be said about the quality of the foods that we have.

Cooking with Essential Oils

And so I love that we can add essential oils into the mix within the kitchen to help promote and up-level the health benefits that we're getting from our foods. Some of the things that we like to incorporate are really simple sometimes it can just be adding essential oils to your water or giving it that extra flavor in a marinade or maybe you're making a rub or some kind of oil infusion with avocado oil or extra virgin olive oil and then mixing in some essential oils with that. Or sometimes I love to spice things up with a salt blend and it could be sea salt mixed together with some lime or lemon and just adding some extra zest into the flavors of your meals.

But what's so fun and all of that is that you do get to promote much better health benefits in doing so. So I'm going to talk a little bit about three specific oils that going into the spring time are a perfect way to kind of marry the two ideas of flavor and spring and those three today are Tangerine, Pink Pepper, and Spearmint. And as I kind of discussed those three I want to share with you three recipes that I love and that my family loves their tried and true. They're not just ones I'm sharing with you because I think they'd be a good idea. They actually taste really, really good.

Why Cook with Essential Oils?

So first let's explore the idea of what essential oils are when it comes to using them in the kitchen. We already know that they're an aromatic compound, and they are so potent, so powerful, and they are effective especially when we use doTERRA essential oils they are Certified Pure Tested Grade™, which means that they are higher quality than any other essential oil you could find out there in the market. And that can sometimes be confusing because there are so many out there, but there are these beautiful levels of testing that doTERRA puts the oils through that make it so that we can fully trust and understand that they are effective.

We don't want to waste our money on an essential oil that tells us it's going to help us calm our body when in fact it doesn't do anything at all. We want to make sure that we're investing our money in something that has value. And I've seen firsthand by going to these farms and experiencing the benefits of these oils and how they truly are so effective and the farmers and the different planting and love that goes into these farms that they see; it's like a fine wine really. The chemicals and the process of distillation and all that goes into creating these oils for us. It's such a beautiful, beautiful process.

So what's really cool about that is that essential oils being so high in potency and in effectiveness you need a lot less of them when you're using them in the kitchen. So I'd like to think about, you know if you're using an herb, an essential oil of that same content would be about 50 to 70 times more potent. So things like Cilantro or Rosemary, Thyme, Marjoram all these beautiful essential oils you can use in your cooking are just going to be more effective than they would be if you were to use them in their whole food form.

How to Add Essential Oils to Your Cooking

So taking that into consideration just make sure that you use what we call the toothpick method if you are new to using oils in the kitchen take a toothpick and just slightly poke it through the orifice of the bottle get it wet and then mix it into your dish that way less is more and if you need more you can always add more later. Right? I also suggest to people to not put essential oils in when the temperature of the food is too hot. You want to make sure that you add oils at the end or if it's a cool dish even better, then you know that the chemical constituents within the oil will still remain intact.

So touching on that, adding essential oils really opens up the realm of culinary possibilities, and it's so easy to do. I love that we don't have to have everything on hand fresh that we can have these amber bottles in the cupboard of the kitchen and add them to any meal and it's going to transform the flavor and make it super delicious.

Sunrise Smoothie with Tangerine

So one of the ones that we love to use every morning is Tangerine and Tangerine uplifts the mood and boosts energy and promotes positive behavior. And who doesn't want that, especially as a mom, right? We all need that.

So essentially what I like to do when it comes to the Sunrise Smoothie is kind of have everything ready to go in the freezer so I don't feel like I have to, you know, have fresh raspberries all the time in the fridge especially because fresh raspberries are not always in season but when they're frozen, we know that they were picked in season and so they're going to have the highest nutrient quality and content.

So I stick three quarters of a cup of raspberry into that blender with a half a cup of peaches. And by the way I'll provide the recipe for you in the comments so don't worry about writing this all down. It has a cup of water, a cup of almond milk, a tablespoon of honey and then three to four drops of Tangerine.

And let me just tell you how delicious the sunrise smoothie is. It serves my entire family and obviously you can double the recipe if you have a bigger family and everyone loves it and drinks it up and it has the perfect amount of flavor and nutrition to start the day on the right foot.

Overnight Power Bowl with Pink Pepper

So once the kids are off to school and I have run a couple of errands, I generally start to get hungry again and I need a mid-morning snack. So the night before I love to make my Overnight Power Bowls and it is so tasty. I know you're going to want this recipe. Pink Pepper is perfect to have in this recipe because it helps to calm and support a healthy nervous system as well as a healthy blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

So the recipe is actually really simple. The night before you're going to put out in a nice size serving bowl a cup of quinoa, two tablespoons of chia seeds, a cup of your favorite nut milk, could be cashew, macadamia, almond milk, coconut milk even. And about a tablespoon of honey, which sounds like a lot but up to your discretion if you don't like things as sweet as I do. And then just one to two drops of Pink Pepper and you're going to mix that in, set it in the fridge overnight, and then the next day when you go to have it it's already ready to go. You don't even have to think twice about it. You can add some fresh blueberries and maybe chop up a banana and put that on top. And it's the perfect, perfect morning snack.

Spearmint Salad Dressing

Lastly, I want to make sure that I touch on Spearmint. Spearmint is a lovely flavor to have this time of year. I feel like it goes so well with Basil and Lemon and makes the most perfect salad dressing. So I'll make sure to share that recipe with you.

But one of the reasons why I love to use Spearmint in our recipes is because I have learned especially with my boys that when you have proper digestion, you sleep better, you're a healthier person, and their mood definitely improves. So Spearmint is the perfect essential oil to include in a recipe because it helps support healthy digestion and occasional stomach upset.

So with each and every one of these essential oils you'll notice there that there are health benefits and that's such a marvelous thing to couple when you're feeding your family. So as you give these recipes a try and as you go into this beautiful spring season just remember that you can use essential oils in the kitchen to help promote a healthy and beneficial life.