Tag Archives: garlic

Pasta Delight

Zucchini is something you either love or hate. Some people may feel extremely queasy while others simply relish its rather flabby texture. When I say this, I refer to squash or zucchini tagliatelle because this is how you can make it resemble the traditional pasta. All you need is a peeler to peel off fine layers of squash until you get to the seeds.

The result should look like this

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Now think of a nice sauce to accompany the so-called pasta.

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You can play around with tahina, mustard and olive oil or simply try out one of the vegan mayonnaisesAnother equally healthy alternative is a ketchup made out of tomatoes, olive oil, dates and salt.

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Season it as you wish – garlic, basil, thyme, pepper, etc – and add some protein if needed – crushed walnuts, almonds or sunflower seeds, previously soaked and strained.

Gather a few more vegetables that keep a firm texture (pepper, red cabbage, carrots, peas, spring onions or garlic) and there you have your pasta delight!

Adding the greens (dill, rucola, parsley, etc)  or some sliced tomatoes at the very end will save them from getting completely mushed into the sauce.

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All you have left to do now is slurp, slurp!

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I prepared this dish so many times and each time it turns out a little bit different. Hope the pictures serve you well, but above all trust your imagination!

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Creamy Soupy

Whenever I feel like having something warm, I go for a soup or a puree. The difference between them is only in the amount of liquid you’d add (plain water or the water in which the veggies have boiled). My favorite ingredients are red lentils, root vegetables – carrot, celeriac, parsnip, beets, etc – and pumpkin. And of course plenty of seasonings: ginger, garlic, cumin, turmeric, pepper, chilly, sumac, etc.

Even though I usually go straight to the same method of preparation as in raw food – mixing the ingredients all together – I learned that one of the main tricks of creating flavor when boiling vegetables is to add the seasonings while the process is going on. So, depending on what taste you want as dominant – sweet or spicy – bring the spices to the boil. If you have black or white cardamon seeds, cinnamon bark or bay leaves, these will definitely make the difference. Also adding some onion or garlic at this point will considerably enrich your dish flavor.

When the lentils and veggies have boiled – you can cook them together or separate – just mix everything in your food processor, add a bit of oil, salt and lemon juice and check if it allows more seasoning. Rather than adding too much oil, lemon or salt, focus on the spices 🙂

Here are a few of my favorite recipes:

Red lentils & sweet potato puree

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list of ingredients

  • red lentils
  • carrot
  • sweet potato
  • grated ginger
  • ground cinnamon
  • ground cumin
  • ground black pepper
  • olive oil
  • salt
  • lemon juice
  • sumac and ‘leurda’ (wild garlic) for serving

Pumpkin coconut puree

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list of ingredients

  • pumpkin
  • carrots
  • celeriac/ parsnip
  • grated coconut
  • grated ginger
  • ground cumin
  • olive oil
  • salt
  • poppy seeds/ black sesame for decoration

Red lentil cream with turmeric (photo in the post header)

list of ingredients

  • red lentils
  • pumpkin
  • parsnip
  • onion
  • cinnamon
  • grated ginger
  • ground turmeric
  • chilly powder
  • olive oil
  • salt

 

Marinated Mushrooms

Either way you take it, mushrooms are great. Some of them taste light enough to have them raw – like champignons – while others require cooking as they’re a bit heavy. Have you ever thought of saving their  natural enzymes while having the best taste? *

There’s one easy procedure to do that – it’s called marinating and it refers to the changes of taste and texture undergone by food during long hours spent in a seasoned acidic liquid. I usually use olive oil, lemon juice and soya sauce and then add dry thyme, garlic or even dates – for a sweet twist. You can think of spices such as ground turmeric, nutmeg or cumin, but just be sure you don’t get all exotic; unless you really master tastes & flavors! My new favorite seasoning for the mushroom marinade is sweet smoked paprika – it just builds up so much taste! (most probably reminiscent of bacon aroma :))

Once you start adding the composition to the mushrooms (if there’s not enough liquid, just add water) you’ll see how they turn tender and shrink.  Leave the marinade overnight in cool place or in the fridge and then add it to your favorite salad.

list of ingredients

  • olive oil
  • lemon juice
  • soya sauce
  • optional: dry thyme, crushed garlic, turmeric, nutmeg, cumin, dates

Here are a few ideas for some truly gourmet raw mushroom dishes:

Like any other respectable protein, the mushrooms get along very well with carrots 🙂 Feel free to experiment any dish with these two, along with your favorite greens. Lots of greens.

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And this is how the pretty forest mushrooms in the above picture turned out: a dish with shredded cauliflower & carrot, red peppers, turmeric and salvia leaves.

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A sample of the smoked paprika marinade, mixed with whole grain brown rice and served with green onions.

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And another sample of a different marinade, made out of soya sauce, dates (crushed or paste) and only a bit of lemon. This is how red onions look like after spending some time in this thick liquid.

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* special warning

if your mushrooms are picked up from the forest, be sure to check if they require to be cooked over heat. some of them might be poisonous when raw!

Hummus + Tabbouleh = Love

Who doesn’t love hummus? This middle eastern creamy stuff makes everybody lick their fingers in amazement. And of course it goes perfect with his sister salad, the juicy tabbouleh.

P1080241After experimenting with different ways of preparing these dishes, I arrived at these basic rules:

1. the hummus

– forget about making hummus if you don’t have tahina (sesame cream) – you should always add it in generous amount – as well as a good quality olive oil

– part of the secret resides in how you boil the chickpeas. first of all, do it yourself: canned stuff won’t hold a tad of your energy :))

– always soak the chickpeas overnight (the more the better) and preferably boil it over the pressure cooker. add salt and whole spices for enhanced flavor

– keep the water in which they boiled handy and add it progressively during the preparation until you get a fluffy texture

– play around with spices: cumin, garlic, zatar, sumac, nigella seeds; I always choose to add ground cumin or crushed garlic into the composition, whereas I keep the other spices as add-ons

– balance the taste with enough lemon juice and salt, otherwise your hummus will turn out too heavy (it’s a pretty heavy dish anyway!)

– use a high power blender or your immersion blender to get the right texture; it can take in plenty of liquid (the chickpeas water & lemon juice) but make sure it doesn’t turn too watery. i’ve discovered that adding red lentils (around a quarter of the whole quantity of chickpeas) will help a lot in achieving a soft fluffy hummus.

2. the tabbouleh

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– the main ingredients should be: parsley, tomato, (cucumber), red onion, bulgur (cracked wheat), olive oil, pomegranate juice/concentrate or lemon juice

– depending on your taste, you can decide upon the quantity of each one; however, the main one is parsley and you should use it abundantly (especially because the citric acid contained in the pomegranate/lemon juice will half the initial quantity you started with)

– don’t add too much salt or you risk loosing the unique sweet & sour flavor of the salad

– alternatively, you can use buckwheat instead of bulgur. even cauliflower rice works out well, but then it’s something else than the original 🙂

– garnish it with pomegranate seeds or some nice olives

And if you don’t have bread – a good homemade bread or pita – try for once to have the hummus on spinach leaves. It could look like this 🙂

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Or you can simply go for your favorite salad as a side dish

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list of ingredients

1. hummus

  • chickpeas – soaked overnight and boiled until tender
  • tahina
  • olive oil
  • lemon juice
  • salt

optional:

  • cumin, garlic, zatar, sumac, nigella seeds

2. tabbouleh

  • parsley
  • tomatoes
  • (cucumber)
  • onion
  • bulgur / buckwheat
  • olive oil
  • lemon juice/pomegranate juice or concentrate (careful at the preservatives inside!)

optional:

  • pomegranate seeds
  • olives

Summer Salad

IMG_8497Summer is the best season for tomatoes. Actually, the only one! I’ve always preferred to avoid the out of season tomatoes, as I never know what kind of fake substitutes I’ll get in the supermarkets. I wait instead for the rich tasty ones of august and the crooked sunburnt ones of late september (grown directly in the fields). So delicious!

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I usually chop it directly into any kind of salad, but I do enjoy a lot to prepare a tomato based dressing – some might call it a soup 🙂 I mix it in the blender with some of the following: olive oil, mustard, tahina, garlic, fresh basil, thyme or melissa. You can even incorporate hydrated nuts (sunflower seeds, walnuts, almonds, etc). The result is a rich dense dressing ready to be poured over a fresh greens salad or to be scooped with cucumber, squash or carrot sticks.

 

 

 

Here the beet root surprised me with its heart shaped stems 🙂

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You can add zatar or grated orange peel into the greens salad for an even more fresh taste.

 

list of ingredients

  • ‘real’ tomatoes
  • olive oil
  • mustard / tahina
  • fresh basil, thyme or melissa
  • nuts (sunflower, walnut, almonds, etc) – previously soaked overnight

 

Go Red with Beets!

Beets are just amazing! I remember that during my childhood it was the only vegetable I use to consider it rather awkward. Maybe because most of the times we were having it roasted and served with grated horse radish?

Anyhow, since I’ve discovered beets are to be consumed raw, it doesn’t seem I’ll get bored of them anytime soon. I love to turn it into spirals and marinate it in soya sauce, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and thyme, like Cynthia taught me to do it at the beginning of my path. Adding sesame or hemp seeds at the end creates a pretty nice effect!

 

You can leave the beets to marinate overnight.

One of the things you should have in mind when preparing beets is that there’s no way back from red! Once you add another vegetable – either in the marinade or in the mixing – it will sooner or later become red. So instead of throwing everything into the beets salad, better leave the rest of the vegetables or greens for a side dish. Or, if you want to create a reddish coloring, choose something like cauliflower or sprouts and mix it right before serving .

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list of ingredients

  • beetroot (grated or spiraled)
  • olive oil
  • soya sauce
  • lemon juice
  • dry thyme
  • crushed garlic
  • sesame/ hemp seeds

Cashew Pate

Ever since I’ve encountered cashew I found it intriguingly soft and exotic. The best part of it is that you can easily turn it into a salty spread or a delicious desert.  Either way, be generous with the lemon juice.

For this one I used fresh mint, garlic and salt. Put the hydrated nuts into the food processor, add the seasonings and mix well.  I was inspired by the way my mother use to stuff the peppers with soft cheese and then slice it, but I have to admit the texture here is not firm enough as the cheese 🙂 Better serve it as a spread on any kind of peppers or leaves.

If you don’t have enough cashew, you can easily incorporate some grated coconut and carrot. Instead of fresh mint, use dry one or simply mint water . Just get rid of the garlic and you’ll get a pretty fancy spread.  Serve it with pomegranate seeds and juice and you’ll have a winner for the dinner!

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list of ingredients

  • cashew nuts, soaked for a couple of hours
  • fresh or dry mint/ mint water
  • lemon juice
  • salt
  • option 1: garlic
  • option 2: grated coconut and carrot + pomegranate