Tag Archives: melissa

cooked, main dishes

Asparagus Mashed Potatoes

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I have to admit I wasn’t very familiar with asparagus, until my taste buds got to taste some very well prepared bits of this rather luxurious vegetable. I was pretty fascinated not only about the taste, but also the texture and colour.

And so I had to try some at home, this time using ghee instead of butter and a few of my latest favourite flavourings that match well with the starchiness of the potatoes – the chosen accompanying veggie. It goes like this:

I cut the potatoes in medium to small pieces and put it to boil with salt and turmeric. In a large pan I gently fried very fine chopped ginger and garlic along with a spoonful of green curry. Everything in ghee. I added the asparagus (partially peeled and cut in half) and continued to sautée everything together with a bit of water over medium heat. Meanwhile, the potatoes were almost ready and so I poured almost all their water out and put it aside. When the asparagus was fairly tender I mixed it with the potatoes and their remaining liquid and left it to cook for a few minutes more. I seasoned it with kaffir lime powder and, at the end with fresh melissa and rucola leaves and spring onions. Some lemon zest or a juicy green salad goes together perfectly. The combination turned out delicious, filling and yet subtle in taste! hope you’ll like it too 🙂

list of ingredients:

  • potatoes
  • asparagus
  • ghee
  • turmeric
  • ginger
  • garlic
  • green curry
  • kaffir lime powder
  • melissa & rucola leaves (optional)
  • spring onions
  • lemon

 

drinks, raw

Green Start to The Day

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Everybody agrees upon the high detox power of greens. And there’s no better way to start the day than with a big mug of green smoothie. Trust me, you will feel the effects in no more than a week: more energy, lighter body, brighter eyes! It is true that you need a good blender for that, but it’s totally worth it.

There’s no real recipe for green smoothies, just two basic rules:

  • try not to mix sweet fruits (banana, dried fruits) with acid fruits (citrics, pineapple, pomegranate, tomato) *
  • try to alternate daily the types of leaves you use (read here why)

You can actually have any kind of greens you wish, even the ones that wouldn’t taste so good in salads, like radish, kohlrabi or carrot. Not to mention the incredible array of wild edible greens! If you do have access to something like this, it would make the best detox ever.

Just add the fruits and the leaves in the blender, along with a few cups of water and mix until you get the specific smoothie texture.  My usual add-ons are:

– one or two tsp of spirulina/ chlorella powder (any other green powder is welcomed)

– a handful of mint, basil or melissa leaves

– grated ginger

As much as you can, try to go with local, seasonal ingredients. If you’re a first timer, start in summer, so you can have plenty of fruits and greens to choose from.

some smoothie making snapshots

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more about food combining here, here and here – depends how far you want to go with it 🙂

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dressings, raw

Summer Salad

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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