One delicious daily dose of veggies in a cup 🙂
1 tomato
1/2 bell pepper
1 small garlic clove
4 basil leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried Italian herbs
1 sundried tomato
1 date
1 tablespoon of sunflower or pine seeds, or nuts
Salt
Extra virgin olive oil
Lemon juice
Simply blend everything together with about 1/3 the volume of water, add salt, extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice to taste… enjoy!
Hey ho, today I thought I’d share a shakshuka-inspired dish with you.
I got to know shakshuka as an Israeli dish where you break and boil eggs in a delicious tomato sauce and serve with bread. All Israelis I’ve met love it and it is a staple food in most foreigner/traveler/backpacker oriented restaurants I’ve seen during my travels.
Here, I am adding a bottom layer of spiced kale and mushrooms (almost the last bit of last year’s forage harvest!).
Actually, this was just a quick way to do something nice for lunch and so I haven’t made my own tomato sauce but used a store bought jar of pasta sauce, perfect for the occasion. Sorry Israeli friends if I dissed your beloved shakshuka by doing so ;).
In a pan that will contain all portions and nothing more, heat: olive oil, a chopped piece of onion, some mustard seeds, kale, (dried or fresh) mushrooms.
Let the kale reduce in size, then add a thick layer of tomato (pasta) sauce. Lastly, break eggs on top (one for each person) and sprinkle with salt and Italian or Provence herbs. Cover with a lid (otherwise the eggs won’t solidify).
After 10 minutes or so, test to see if the egg white is solid. There may be fluid on top of your dish, don’t be fooled by this as it is probably just water from the tomato sauce and not raw eggs.
For serving, add olive oil, freshly ground pepper and fresh herbs (here: oregano).
With love,
Judith
This was one of those moments when all leftovers matched up to a perfect dish. Should work with a variety of veg and curry pastes, but be sure to add the pineapple (for sweetness) and tomatoes (for tartiness).
In our case, we had a piece of courgette, some canned pineapple, a few tomatoes, some sliced pieces of fennel and a handful of nuts & raisins.
We added 5 spoonfuls of penang curry from Thailand, tasted it and took out 3 again for it would have been way to hot otherwise :D. The real stuff from Thailand is definitely different from the ‘real stuff’ in our tokos here in Europe..
Anyway, you can’t really go wrong with this dish.. just fry the fruit & veg in the curry paste until they have a nice bite. This is one of those creations that taste even better the next day, so it doesn’t hurt to make a bit more than you need.
The fluid from the tomatoes and pineapple will make it nice and saucy. Add small cups of water if it dries out too fast. The curry should be shiny when you serve, not dry.
Even better if you can add some onion, garlic and ginger. That will spice it up bigtime, and I’m a big lover of spice.
As always… enjoy!
<3
While healing from Bell’s Palsy (a partial face paralysis) and chronic sinusitis, I notice my body feels like eating lots if roots, bulbs and brassicaeae.
So I threw together this dish which has many different veggies and a light yet tangy curry flavor to enjoy all the goodness of anti-inflammatory ginger, prebiotic onions and fennel, and anti-cancer broccoli, among others. I don’t mean to make any health claims here, it just feels extra good to eat this stuff these days and thought I’d share it with you.
Best to make this dish one day before serving, the flavours balance out real nicely overnight.
For 1 person:
Quart 1 onion, slice a few slices of fennel, roughly chop 1 stalk of lemongrass and 1 mild red pepper, thinly slice 1 garlic clove, 1 carrot and 1 small handful of ginger.
Lightly fry/simmer all of these (possibly together with a teaspoon of fennel seeds or aywain if at hand) in a tablespoon of coconut oil.
Cut one large tomato in small cubes and add to the fragrant mixture in the pan.
Also add 6-8 dried kafir lime leaves, salt, pepper, about three tablespoons of santen, a cup of water, one tablespoon of honey, a star anise and a pinch of cinnamon.
Stir until the santen has melted into the water to form coconut milk.
When nicely fragrant and heated through, add a handful of broccoli and cauliflower florets each. Then turn off the heat and leave the dish to rest in the closed pan. Stir sometimes. Enjoy the next day with rice. You can heat up the dish and make the sauce as thick or thin as you like.
Enjoy!
If you think this soup looks pale, you’re right. It did! However i’m sure it will give you a healthy blush, for it’s packed with vitamins and fibers.
One could say this is a gazpacho… yes, let’s call it that. But with a surprising fruity twist!
Now i’ll be quick and get this recipe out. After all, it only takes one minute to make. The blogpost should hardly take longer.
In a blender, combine:
Blend until smooth and serve. My vegetables came from the fridge and so the soup was at perfect temperature. Should be fresh but not very cold.
This a nice and quick starter for a summer evening dinner. Some green herbs would have been nice. Mint or basil and parsley, probably. That’s for next time. I love these little experiments.
A few days ago, i found a leftover of soup in my fridge. I wanted to finish it, but felt like eating something more substantial than soup. I took a small oven dish and put in a handful of quinoa, some dried tomatoes, a rosehip, some herbs and spices and then poured in the soup. Wow.
The trick is to combine any tasteful, light soup with quinoa (or couscous, or bulgur) and herbs and put in the oven. Here we have a tomato soup from soup veggies, tomato paste, cooked chick peas (half of those mashed) with cumin, paprika and laurel. If you like spicy food, now is the time to add some harissa or curry paste.
In an oven dish, make a 1 cm layer of quinoa/couscous and for every person, add about 1/2 tbs curry powder, 1/2 tbs sundried tomato, some cinnamon, some kaffir lime leaves (or thinly sliced lemongrass, or grated lemon rind) and other herbs and spices to your liking.
Combine with (leftover?) soup so that there is 3 cm of food in the dish, stir gently and put in the oven, about 30 mins at 180 C.
Even better the next day; reheat with a little bit of soup and serve with crunchy lettuce.
You know that camping feeling? Living with little, in a tent or caravan, wearing flip flops to the toilet, wet grass tickling your toes… That’s me right now! Not because i’m on holiday, but just because i CAN.
Well, and because my relationship broke up.
I went to live somewhere i can be with my feet on the ground: in a friend’s caravan (thank you!) on the premise of another friend thank you too!).
Now that i am processing and waving bye to nine years of love and also some mutual pain, too much pain in the end, many things are shifting. Sadness, incomprehension and especially: all the more love. Everything is open. And what happens? A world of new opportunities, new possibilities and new encounters is appearing. Wow. And yes: outch :(.
As i’m embrazing the raw truth, much of my food here is also raw. It’s full of life and has all sweet and bitter tastes life has to offer. Every morning i wake up in my caravan, make a nice pot of tea and then blend a smoothie of vegetables, fruits and other healthy ingredients (check this one, for example: Morning glory power smoothie). Quick and easy, beautiful start.
Raw is also the soup i’m sharing today: gazpacho with carrot. Throw all ingredients in the blender together en put itin the fridge for a while. So make sure to use clean ingredients; the carrot used in the soup was cleaner than the one in the picture. (My friend who saw the pic wanted you alt to know that. So now you do ;).)
(cold tomato soup)
serves four plates
Blend
4 large tomatoes
one half bell pepper
one half onion
one carrot
handful of basil
small handful of celery leaf
one garlic clove
two tablespoons tomato paste
some water
Add pepper, salt and herbs to taste. You may also want to add some sweetener.
Cool in the fridge while preparing the rest of the meal.
Enjoy!
A week and a half ago i met superchef Michael in an ayahuasca workshop. I’m not sure whether it was his fantastic guitar music and drumming and singing, or his wild ginger hairdo, his wonderful little daughter, the zucchini spaghetti he and Ariella served us, or all of the above, but since then i’ve felt a little bit in love – with the whole wide world.
Of all those beautiful things, there was one that i could recreate at home. Spaghetti made of zucchini, isn’t that brilliant? Now that i’ve encountered it, it seems to be everywhere. But until last week the thought had never occurred to me.
I make spaghetti from zucchini now using a julienne cutter, which i got for only € 6,95.
Here you go, my version of the recipe by Michael and Arielle (from Restaurant Golden Temple in Amsterdam):
Cook some tomato chunks (ca 390 ml) with herbs in a pan and cook slowly until the sauce thickens and tastes a bit more sweet. Roast 100gr of roughly chopped walnut in a dry pan. Chop 8 dried tomatoes with a small handful of pine nuts, a tablespoon of fresh parsley and one tablespoon of fresh basil. Stir in the tomato mixture with the tomato sauce.
Cut one zucchini into spaghetti strings. Drizzle with some olive oil and lemon zest (grated lemon rind).
Put the zucchini on a plate, spoon on the tomato sauce and to with walnuts and some pepper and salt and olive oil if you wish.
Zucchini with walnut (oil) and lemon rind is really a winning combination. Try it!
Fry a small onion in some oil until it’s brown (but not burnt). Add a small clove of garlic, fuinely chopped. fry for an additional 30 secs and then add the tomato chunks.
In stead of onions, you can also use black semi-dried olives. Make sure to use good ones. The ones we in Holland get in the supermarket, are not good. Go to a specialist and taste a few different varieties. You’ll be amazed by the differences in taste and say goodbye to the salty supermarket crappy ones forever!
