Botanical Kitchen - Karina Hines

08/25/2026

Tomato Recipes + Health Benefits | Love Tomatoes

This week’s menu celebrates summer sun-ripened tomatoes, which are at their best right now, full of flavour and made for simple seasonal cooking. Pair them with fresh herbs like basil, sweet corn, peppers, green beans and garlic and you have the foundation for so many easy late-summer meals.

Tomatoes are a good source of lycopene, a protective carotenoid antioxidant. Enjoy them raw when they are ripe and juicy, roast them to concentrate their flavour, or cook or serve them with a drizzle of olive oil. Lycopene is fat-soluble, and pairing tomatoes with olive oil helps make the carotenoids more bioavailable, supporting their absorption.

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My website has 100s of free recipes to explore with lots of food-as-medicine education. Choose a path that feels aligned with you - I hope you cook yourself something fabulous this week!

08/08/2026

Wild Maine Blueberries
Bowls of red and blue hues bring you the vibrant flavours and colours of summer, rich in protective phytonutrients and antioxidants that support your health on a cellular level. Wild blueberries, plums, raspberries, beets, red cabbage, borage, eggplant, potatoes, carrots, radicchio and tomatoes are just some of the seasonal fruits and vegetables that are abundant, flavourful and full of goodness right now.

Eating a wide variety of colourful, antioxidant-rich, high-fibre plant foods provides an abundance of vitamins, minerals, fibre and protective phytonutrients that work together to support a healthy gut microbiome, protect cells from oxidative stress, reduce chronic inflammation and help lower the risk of many chronic diseases.

It’s the peak of wild blueberry season here in Maine. Maine is the leading producer of wild blueberries in the United States, harvesting around 90 million pounds in a good season, although yields vary from year to year. While most people only ever get to enjoy frozen or dried wild blueberries, it’s such a treat to buy them fresh from local farms or, if you’re a forager, head out and harvest your own.

Wild blueberries are wild, not cultivated. They have evolved naturally over thousands of years in response to their environment rather than being bred for size, sweetness or yield. Like many wild plants, they produce an abundance of protective phytochemicals to help defend themselves against environmental stresses such as insects, UV exposure, changing weather and disease. Their naturally small size gives them a higher skin-to-flesh ratio, where many of these protective compounds are concentrated, making them one of nature’s most nutrient-dense berries.

Scatter your table with wild flavours and rich red and blue hues. This week’s recipes will help you make the most of the stunning variety of seasonal produce that’s abundant at the height of summer.

07/27/2026

The fruits and flowers of summer, plated, sums up this week's menu, showcasing simple, nourishing and creative ways to bring summer foods and edible flowers to the table. Daylily flowers bring a little drama to simple summer fruits, while nasturtiums add a floral, peppery spice and a bright pop of colour to a plate of summer vegetables. Bean, tomato, and corn dishes finished with culinary herb flowers add another dynamic layer of flavour.

You don't need to be a master chef or master gardener to add a touch of fun and flair to your everyday dishes. With a few pots of herbs, some basic summer vegetables and a creative spirit, you can make a little culinary magic and have fun with the wonderful fruits and flowers of summer that are abundant right now.

If you are not a member and want to check it out my food as medicine membership offers a 14-day free trial so you can follow an anti-inflammatory eating style and the growing season each week and leverage the healing power of food through your member portal + toolkit.
https://www.botanicalkitchen.com/about-botanical-kitchen.../

07/23/2026

My Summer Kitchen
This week Chef's Table + Whole Plant Life Members Menus
It’s always a joy having summer fruits, herbs and greens kicking around the kitchen. I have been making lots of blended summer fruit parfaits and high-protein whipped vanilla tofu cream, which is my new favourite thing this month. It makes a perfect base for summer fruits in place of yoghurt and is excellent dolloped on plum & almond skillet cornbread or roasted rhubarb, all of which have been in my kitchen this week. It’s nice having something “light and creamy” in the kitchen that’s high in protein, has minimal ingredients and whips up in a literal minute. I have also added a probiotic to it several times and fermented it on the bench for 24 to 48 hours to develop a little tang from those gut-healthy bacteria. I am lucky, I have an amazing local tofu company here in Maine that is locally made, non-GMO, organic and all the things, Heiwa Tofu

Rhubarb gets a “spring food” label, but as all good gardeners know, it has a long growing season. I love this salad in summer as it’s lovely and refreshing, as is chilled roasted rhubarb for breakfast, dessert or a snack.

The purple carrot salad is a good one you can make with whatever leafy greens, herbs and edible flowers you have. Make a protein bowl or plate up this week’s salads and top them with whatever grilled protein you have and love. I suggest the Rosemary Pepper Seared Steak. The lemon mustard potatoes are a great dish made with fresh-dug spuds.

I hope you enjoy bringing summer flavours into your kitchen this week and that you try the whipped vanilla tofu cream, if tofu is part of your food style ~ it’s fabulous!

If you are not a member and want to check it out my food as medicine membership offers a 14-day free trial so you can follow an anti-inflammatory eating style and the growing season each week and leverage the healing power of food through your member portal + toolkit.
https://www.botanicalkitchen.com/about-botanical-kitchen.../

06/28/2026

Chive flowers are a gorgeous edible blossom. Use them as a garnish, dry them or infuse them. As they're only around for a short time, you can preserve their delicate flavour long after the flowers have faded.

My Chive Flower Vinegar is fun to make and one of my favourite seasonal kitchen projects. Simply infuse fresh chive flowers in a light-coloured vinegar to create a beautiful pink vinegar with a delicate chive flavour for salads, vegetables and dressings throughout the year.

White balsamic vinegar is my favourite, but rice vinegar, white wine vinegar, champagne vinegar and raw apple cider vinegar are all excellent choices.

If you're looking to add extra food as medicine benefits, choose raw apple cider vinegar. It's also perfect for making shrubs, fire cider and herbal tonics.

A simple way to preserve the beauty and flavour of chive flowers in a bottle.

The recipe is in this week's Chef's Table & Whole Plant Life, alongside Nasturtium Salad, Strawberry Rhubarb Oat & Quinoa Bake, and a few other fabulous in-season food as medicine recipes.

My food as medicine membership offers a 14-day free trial so you can follow an anti-inflammatory eating style and the growing season each week and leverage the healing power of food through your member portal + toolkit.
https://www.botanicalkitchen.com/about-botanical-kitchen.../

06/25/2026

Happy Solstice! This week of the solstice, with our longest days and the rising warmth of summer, calls for fabulous frozen treats. So how do you enjoy "ice cream season" and stick with your healthcare support reset mindset and an anti-inflammatory eating style?

It's easier than you think. It takes less than a minute, tastes amazing and helps keep us on track with an anti-inflammatory eating style while reducing low-grade inflammation, stiff joints, digestive issues, mucus, fungus + nasty bacteria, supporting balanced blood sugar... among other things!

Pure Tropical Botanical Bowl
A pure tropical blended fruit bowl that is just as good as any bowl of ice cream or sorbet, without all the added sugar and processed ingredients + additives.

You can customise it with your favourite toppings, or add a few dollops of cashew cream for extra creaminess. The flavour combinations are endless. Think of it like making a super-thick smoothie.

A Vitamix with a tamper is the best, quickest + easiest way to do this. Other high-speed blenders will work too, like a NutriBullet or Ninja. You may need to add a little more liquid to get the blades spinning; just add a little at a time.

Here's a free solstice recipe for you:
https://www.botanicalkitchen.com/recipes/pure-tropical-botanical-bowl/

A pure tropical blended fruit bowl that is just as good as any bowl of ice cream or sorbet without all the sugar, fat and things....

06/23/2026

It's days like today that I'm grateful that I'm chef... a quick lunch I cooked for myself in between doing all the things.

Sesame, dulse & chilli crusted fresh tuna over a celery, daikon & avocado salad with a ginger, soy, gochujang pan sauce. Ready in 20min....

Also very grateful for Harbor Fish Market Maine Coast Sea Vegetables 🙏🙏🙏❤️❤️❤️ they are the best!! I love the amazing food in Portland Buy Local

06/20/2026

A free recipe to help you make the most of strawberry season and buy local strawberries from your farmers' markets and farms -- the pick-your-own deals are usually very good.

Real strawberries in season are the best, and for those not-so-perfect, a little squishy ones, this recipe is fabulous!!

Strawberry Bircher Muesli
Traditionally, bircher is made with grated apples; this recipe uses strawberries to make a delicious heart-healthy spring breakfast that’s perfect for using up those very ripe, not-so-perfect strawberries.

You can squash the berries with a fork or blend until smooth in a blender. The yoghurt adds probiotics for your gut health and creaminess to the bircher muesli; if you don’t have fresh strawberries, frozen will work; ideally defrost first.

https://www.botanicalkitchen.com/recipes/strawberry-bircher-muesli/

Strawberry Bircher Muesli recipe uses strawberries to make a delicious heart-healthy spring breakfast. Use dairy or plant-based yoghurt.