Tender and Spicy Green Soup

What I love about a plate of beautiful light soup is that everyone can choose their way of eating it. If you want to be filled for long then take a bun or add croutons and enjoy, if you need a light dinner - eat it just as it is and find pleasure in the lightness inside your body while it gets all the goodness from the vegetables. To my mind, an ideal choice for a late dinner!

Ingredients (serves 2):

4 celery stalks

1 yellow onion

1 green bell pepper

5 big handfuls of spinach

2 garlic cloves

1/2 teaspoon cardamom

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried mint

1 l water

cream or coconut milk (optional)

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Boil water in a pot and add sea salt to your taste. You will need 1-1.5 l water - you can boil 1.5 l, cook your veggies and before blending the soup pour out excess liquid not to have your puree too thin.

Chop your celery, onion, bell pepper and spinach and add them to the pot. Cook the vegetables over medium heat covered with a lid for 15 minutes until they soften.

Turn off the heat, add 2 whole garlic cloves and blend your soup - raw garlic will give it a nice contrasting hot note.

Pour the soup into the plates, add some cream or coconut milk if you want, sprinkle with some more freshly ground black pepper and enjoy!

Gorgeous Roasted Broccoli with Tahini Dip

People who just start eating healthy or do not eat healthy at all use to complain that greens are so untasty and empty in the taste that they will never be able to eat them with pleasure. To this I have a permanent response - with a good dip you can eat anything! Literally, anything. Start playing with dips and after a couple of months your body will ask for vegetables itself. You will discover their genuine taste and there is no doubt - you will love them.

Another tasty tip of cooking vegetables is roasting them. We are all used to see carrots, cabbage, onions and other gorgeous veggies in a soup, and most of the time - I'm sure - it's an over boiled soup, there is no surprise no one would love to eat those. My advise is to start with roasting - it's incredible how widely the taste of vegetables opens up when you put them in the oven.

Today's recipe combines both these tips - we have a beautiful dip and roasted broccoli. Tahini dip is an awesome way to enrich any vegetable dish. It's rather fatty but it contains only useful unsaturated fats, tahini itself is one of the top 10 fatty but necessary products for human body. So I promise, it's vegetable and it's tasty.

Gorgeous Roasted Broccoli with Tahini Dip

Ingredients (serves 2):

For broccoli:

1 medium broccoli head

10 garlic cloves

olive oil

sea salt

toasted sesame seeds for garnishing (optional)

For tahini dip:

1 heaped tablespoon tahini paste

2 garlic cloves

60 ml water at room temperature

juice of half a lemon

1 teaspoon sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 200ºC.

With the tip of your knife cut off the smaller stalks of broccoli from the larger central stalk, remove whole florets and then slice them into same sized pieces for even cooking.

Peel and wash the garlic cloves and add them to broccoli.

Toss the vegetables with some olive oil and sea salt and lay on a baking tray.

Roast your broccoli and garlic for 25 minutes.

To make tahini finely chop your garlic and mix it with all the other ingredients. Done!

Lay roasted broccoli and garlic on plates, sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and drizzle with tahini. Put the bowl with tahini dip beside and dig in!

Warm Lentils and Brussels Sprouts Salad

I made this salad yesterday for dinner, it was something like taking everything what was left in the fridge and mixing it all together in a bowl. And when I tasted it I couldn't believe I made it just like that - it was so tasty and delicious and tangy I hardly resisted having another plate!

The biggest trick here is a combination of cilantro and balsamic vinegar. It gives such a strong tangy taste - very much sour still live and green, it's just fantastic, you should definitely try it. It goes perfectly with a harsh flavour of roasted Brussels sprouts and mild green lentils. And in addition to a wonderful taste it's a smart balanced meal - you get proteins from the lentils and priceless dietary fiber from the vegetables and greens. Ok, run to the kitchen!

Warm Lentils and Brussels Sprouts Salad

Ingredients (serves 4):

400 g Brussels Sprouts

3 cups cooked green lentils

a bunch of cilantro

a little bigger bunch of flat-leaf parsley

1 red onion

balsamic vinegar

extra virgin olive oil

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Wash and cut your Brussels sprouts in halves, toss them with some olive oil, lay on a baking tray, sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper and place in the oven for 25 minutes until they become tender.

Thinly slice your onion, chop the greens, add about 1 teaspoon sea salt and mix together all ingredients in a bowl.

Generously dress the salad with balsamic vinegar, add a little olive oil for a milder flavour and serve.

Bon Appétit!

Three Reds Quinoa

This is a classic risotto inspired recipe - the way of cooking quinoa here is based on risotto-making technique. I have a tendency and permanent desire to make everything more useful and healthy and this time it's risotto. I love risotto with its creamy texture and cheesy flavour but white rice is such a useless kind of food - I guess you can compare it with only fried potatoes!

So, I took quinoa. It's like a habit to me: if you don't know what to use - use quinoa! I took red quinoa. And dry red wine and red slow roasted tomatoes. And it became a Three Reds Quinoa. Delicate creamy taste and pure pleasure!

Three Reds Quinoa

Ingredients (serves 2):

1 cup dried quinoa

1 celery stalk

10 cm length piece of leeks

100 ml dry red wine

a handful of slow roasted tomatoes

1-2 handfuls of grated Parmesan

500 ml warm vegetable stock

extra virgin olive oil and sea salt

Directions:

Wash and rinse your quinoa and set aside.

Finely chop the celery and thinly slice your leeks. Heat some olive oil in a pan and add chopped vegetables. Cook stirring occasionally for 10 minutes over low heat - the veggies should soften but not color.

Now add quinoa to the pan and turn the heat up. Stir constantly for a minute and add the wine. When harsh alcohol flavours evaporate the quinoa will start to smell fantastic.

After the wine has cooked into quinoa start adding vegetable stock. Add it little by little taking 1 ladle of liquid at a time and letting it incorporate into quinoa. Continue adding the stock until quinoa is cooked. You might have some stock left, it depends and is totally fine.

When quinoa is almost done add roughly chopped slow roasted tomatoes and a handful or two of grated Parmesan depending on how creamy you want your dish. Stir well and take the plates.

Serve quinoa topped with a little more Parmesan and drizzle with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil.

Bon Appétit!

Quinoa Vegetable Rolls

The recipe I am going to share with you today is like most of my recipes totally adjustable to one's taste. Quinoa vegetable rolls are a gorgeous light still filling meal for detox time and you can choose any of your favourite veggies and even substitute quinoa with rice (brown, of course) and make the rolls in a more traditional way. My choice of vegetables is the simpliest - these can be found in anyone's fridge in any season. Feel free to adjust and please yourself with a beautiful lunch!

Quinoa Vegetable Rolls

 

Ingredients (serves 2):

For marinade:

4 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons water

2 teaspoons honey or brown sugar

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

a slice of raw beet (optional)

For rolls:

3/4 cups dried quinoa

1 carrot

1 beet

1 celery stalk

1 cucumber

10 cm length piece of leeks

a handful of spinach

7-10 cm length piece of ginger root

3 nori sheets
sea salt

Wasabi soy sauce for serving

Directions:

First step is to prepare the marinade.Whisk together white wine vinegar, water, honey or brown sugar and sea salt, devide the mixture into 2 halves and set one aside for dressing our quinoa.

Thinly slice the ginger root, mix it with a bit of sea salt and set aside in a colander for 5-10 minutes to let the juice out. After that rinse the ginger thoroughly and squeeze the rest of the liquid out of it. Now put the pieces into the marinade and place them in the fridge until everything else is ready. You can optionally add a piece of raw beet to the marinade and it will color the ginger pink. I like to make half of the ginger colored pink and leave the other half naturally yellow, it brightens up the whole dish even more!

Cook quinoa in unsalted water and when done dress it with the rest of the marinade. Set aside to cool.

Cut your veggies really thinly lengthwise.

When all the ingredients are prepared take a sushi mat, place it on the table with the slats lying horizontally and place a nori sheet on it with its shiny side down. Put a thin layer of quinoa over the side of the nori sheet closest to you. Put the veggies over quinoa and start to roll picking up the edge of the sushi mat closest to you, tucking it up and pulling it carefully to form a beautiful roll.

Repeat the same with the rest of quinoa and nori sheets, you may have some veggies left depending on how tightly you "pack" your rolls.

Using a really sharp knife cut small rolls and place them on a plate or a serving board. Remember to clean the knife after you cut every other piece of roll - it will make the cutting easier and the rolls neater.

Serve with pickled ginger, soy sauce and wasabi and enjoy!

Beautiful Raw Detox Salad

I am not a vegan or a raw food eater, I enjoy weekend meals with meat and bread much but I love sometimes to stick to their principles for just a meal or for a couple of days. To start a morning with a beautiful green smoothie for a full of energy day or to have a plate of raw greens and sprouts for dinner after a hard day - it's always so good for your body!

Yesterday I cooked a lovely light detox salad for dinner - greens, veggies and a light dressing are a perfect meal for a detox menu. If you deside to go detox - bookmark this recipe, it's absolutely beautiful!

Raw Detox Salad

Ingredients (serves 2):

2 handfuls baby spinach

1 raw beet

1 carrot

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

1 grapefruit

1/2 cm thick ginger root

1 teaspoon za'atar

a pinch of curcuma

extra virgin olive oil

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Squeeze the juice out of your grapefruit into a bowl. Finely grate the ginger root and add it to the juice. Peel and thinly slice the beet and shave the carrot to have really thin, almost transparent slices of veggies. Place them into the bowl with juice and add a pinch of curcuma. If you are using a red beet it will color the carrot, so if you want your carrot to stay orange simply use 2 separate bowls. Set aside to marinate while preparing everything else.

Lighly toast sesame seeds in a pan to open their flavor. Mix them with za'tar and set aside.

For the dressing mix extra virgin olive oil with a little of liquid in which your veggies are marinating. I took the liquid from the carrot bowl again not to color everything red. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper, taste and if necessary adjust the quantities of ingrediens used. Classic proportions are 3 parts oil to 1 part acid but you are certainly free to adjust to your taste.



Mix your spinach with lightly marinated veggies, sprinkle with sesame seeds and za'atar and dress the salad. This is a gorgeous meal for a detox day - light and full of vitamins and diet fiber.



Beets are extremely good for detox: the beta cyanin cleanses your liver and helps your body to eliminate toxins which will prevent you from building-up excess fatty deposits if you eat raw beets regularly. Carrots are greatest antioxidants ever, they have a huge anti-aging effect. Spinach helps to develop immunity. Grapefruit and curcuma speed up your metabolism and help you to burn calories. The dish looks like a health heaven, doesn't it?

And the key point of a successful detox (any successful beginning actually) is to care of yourself  and love yourself. And your greens :)

Bon Appétit!

Passover Coconut Fish Stew

This time during Passover it felt like the Passover itself was unusually easy, from preparing the house for the holiday to living whole 8 days without bread, granola, grains and other beautiful things you can't use during Pesach. I think I finally achieved the meaning of the holiday - the holiday of freedom, "big" freedom in general and "small" particular freedoms from stuff like foods and habits! It's nice to be independent of stuff and be happy and satisfied just because you're happy and satisfied, for no particular reason. The state that everyone should tend to achieve one day.

And speaking of foods today I am going to share with you an icredible fish dish that I prepared for one of the Passover meals - Coconut Fish Stew with tropical notes, healthy, light and absolutely delicious!

Coconut Fish Stew

Ingredients (serves 5):

300-350 g fish fillets like cod or sea bass

1 yellow onion

1 red bell pepper

2 medium tomatoes

1 cup chopped pineapple

a few spring onions

1 head of garlic

half of a coconut

200-400 ml coconut milk

1 lemon

1 tablespoon potato starch (actually any other starch will be fine, I used potato starch because of Passover)

paprika

sea salt

extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Take half of your garlic and finely chop the garlic cloves. Cut your fish fillets into small cubes, place in a bowl, add chopped garlic, squeeze half a lemon over them, mix well and put away to marinate until everything else is ready.

Heat a little olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan, thinly slice your onion and add it to the pan. Slice the pepper and rest of garlic and add them to the pan stirring occasionally. When the vegetables soften add roughly chopped tomatoes, pineapple and spring onions and thinly sliced coconut. Mix well, let cook for a couple of minutes and add the fish.

After that you have to cover everything with liquid. Here's the thing: it's nice to add at least a little coconut milk for sweetness and more of coconut flavour, and the quantity of coconut milk depends on how sweet and coconutty you want your stew. Simply add right for you quantity of milk and some water to cover the fish and vegetables, or simply use only coconut milk or even only water.

Generously add sweet paprika and sea salt, then a tablespoon of starch, mix well and bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and let simmer for 10-15 minutes. Garnish with a few thinly sliced spring onions and dig in, it tastes like heaven!

Bon Appétit!