Very green soup

I love it how the cold weather gives us a chance to make thick stew-like vegetable soups, very warming! And I like how green this soup looks 😀

 

half a medium broccoli head, cut into florets

1 medium onion, diced

half a portobello mushroom, cubed

about 3/4 cup cubed hokkaido pumpkin

handful of chopped kale

half of a smaller parsley root, cubed

half of a medium carrot, cubed

a small handful of small brussel sprouts, cut in halves

a 2 inch piece of wakame seaweed

a couple of sage leaves

2 or 3 heaping tsps of dark miso, diluted

salt

 

First sautee the onion on a bit of water with a pinch of salt until it softens, then add sage leaves. Continue with adding the hard vegetables – carrot, parsley root, pumpkin and also the mushroom, cover with water to submerge and cook for about 10-15 minutes. Add more water, broccoli, kale and a piece of wakame and cook for another 5 minutes. Take the pot off the stove and blend with a handheld mixer until the soup is mostly smooth, but it´s nice to leave some chunks if you like that. Add brussel sprouts and bring back to boil. After about 3 minutes (if the sprout halves are really small, this is enough) turn the flame to lowest setting so the soup stops bubbling, add diluted miso and gently simmer for 5 minutes.

I served the soup with pressure cooked rice and hato mugi (1:1 ratio) and some sauerkraut.

 

 

Thyme flavoured mussels with greens

After a long time I pulled out another seafood dish, since I had cooked mussels stored in our freezer… Seafood is very yang and contracting on the macrobiotic scale (though not as yang as other meat, not even as salmon or tuna), so I made sure to have plenty of vegetables to go with them!

1 cup of cooked mussels

a few cm piece of leek, finely sliced

a piece of fennel, sliced

a couple of chopped up green beans

a handful of chopped kale

dried or fresh thyme to your liking

1 tsp lemon juice

oil, a few drops

 

On a tiny amount of oil sautee the sliced leek and add a bit of water (or juice from the cooked mussels, which I used) and thyme. When the leek is softened, add mussels, green beans, fennel and towards the end kale, which should cook only shortly. Keep adding water as neeeded. Season with lemon juice. The dish doesn´t need salt because the mussels release quite a lot of saltiness on their own. I served the dish with leftover cooked rice and millet (1:1 ratio) oven baked until crispy, and a little bowl of grated raw daikon and a few fresh fava beans (blanched for a minute or two and then peeled). The raw daikon helps lightening the dish as well.

 

 

 

 

Cinnamon-almond rice milk pudding with kuzu

 

This is really an indulgence of indulgences!! 😀 Warning: although this could pass as a macrobiotic dessert (it uses a grain milk and no sugar or dairy), it doesn´t mean it´s “healthy” and you should be eating it on a regular basis, it´s really a special treat for those in good health 😉 I shouldn´t actually be eating it either, but hey, I needed to use up the rice milk which was hiding in my cupboard for months! This is REALLY simple, but not so quick and you need to watch it a bit while cooking…

1 litre rice milk (or other non-dairy milk)

about 3 tbsp almond flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

pinch of salt

1 tbsp kuzu starch diluted in a tiny amount of cold water

Pour milk into a large pot (in case your milk starts bubbling too much…) and bring slowly to boil on a medium flame. It should be boiling only gently! Add salt and almond flour, stir well. Keep watching the milk as it boils down to about 1/4 of the original amount, stirring occasionally, especially towards the end when the almond flour starts sticking to the bottom. Mix in cinnamon and diluted kuzu, stirring constantly so that the starch doesn´t make lumps. Bring back to boil and allow to thicken. Pour into bowls, eat warm or let cool down. You can garnish the pudding with additional almond flour or almond flakes, or cinnamon or anything…

Makes two servings

 

Winter vegetable-chickpea stew

This cold January weather really called for a hearty long-cooked bean and veggie stew…so here it is! You need

about a cup of cooked chickpeas

a cup of chopped kale

a handful of small brussel sprouts cut in halves

half of a portobello mushroom, sliced

a cup of hokkaido pumpkin cut in cubes

one small onion, diced

one-inch thick slice of daikon, cut in diagonal slices

half of a carrot, cut in diagonal slices

half of a parsley root, cut in diagonal slices

1 tsp dark miso

1 tsp ginger powder

one inch piece of kombu seaweed

salt

First sautee onion with a big pinch of salt on a bit of water, until soft. Add kombu, carrot, parsley root, daikon, chickpeas, mushroom and hokkaido pumpkin and stir for a little while. Add enough water so that the vegetables are nearly submerged and cook on a medium flame for about 15-20 minutes, without a lid, until most of the water evaporates, then you can put a lid on. When kombu softens up, take it out, chop finely and return to the pot. When the pumpkin is almost soft, add brussel sprouts and kale, cook 5 more minutes. Season with ginger powder. Turn flame on lowest setting so that the water stops bubbling. Add diluted miso and simmer for 5 minutes. I served this lovely fragrant stew on a bed of pressure cooked rice with sweet rice.

Savoury glutenfree sauerkraut-tempeh pie

Yep, I do love the combination of sauerkraut and tempeh and I came up with the idea to use them as a stuffing for a savoury pie, which turned out to be a not-at-all-bad idea 😀 You will need

1/4 cup glutenfree oat flour (or very fine oatmeal)

2/3 cup brown rice flour

1/3 cup buckwheat flour

1/3 cup sesame oil

about 250 g naturally fermented sauerkraut

about 50 g tempeh

2 medium onions

1/2 tbsp tamari

black pepper (optional) and salt

 

Combine the flours and add a big pinch of salt and oil, stir well with a spoon, the texture should resemble wet sand. Add cold water as needed to form a dough that is possible to knead by hand into a firm ball which doesn´t fall apart too much (this is not so easy as it is glutenfree dough without any binder, but I wanted to keep it simple and without additives).  Set aside in a cool spot. Slice onions into thin halfmoons and sautee on water (add during the cooking whenever they start to stick) with a big pinch of salt, you will need to sautee at least half an hour so the onions gets nicely caramelized. About half way through add tempeh grated with a grater (coarse, not fine), stir frequently, add about half a tablespoon tamari, adjust salt and add fresh ground black pepper to your liking. Take half of the dough and place it into a round low greased baking form (like for sweet pies) and form an even layer while pressing. Prebake on 200°C for about ten minutes. Cover the dough layer evenly with well-drained sauerkraut and then with a layer of the onion/tempeh mixture. Form the other half of the dough into a flat disc and place on top of the pie (you might have to do this in more steps as the dough is not stretchy). Bake on 200°C for about half an hour.

Parsnip tahini fries

I really love collecting and reading recipes – I don´t so often cook from recipes though. This is a bit of an exception. I was inspired by the parsnip fries recipe on Oh She Glows (which is a great vegan food blog, though it´s not macro food), but I made an adjustment and used tahini instead of a nut butter.

It´s so easy and nice!

Just cut one big parsnip into thick matchsticks, place into a bowl, add half a tablespoon of oil (I used sesame oil) and a heaping tablespoon of tahini paste, mix thoroughly, season with salt. Transfer to a baking tray with parchment paper (or a non-stick tray) and bake on 200°C for about 45 minutes until the fries get crispy.

Mashed teff with chickpeas

Somehow it occured to me to mash my teff * with cooked chickpeas and I think it was a nice idea so I am sharing it 😀 For flavour I added a tablespoon of tahini paste, chopped fresh parsley and salt. For mashing I used a potato masher.

I served the mash with quick sauteed vegetables: red radish, leek, carrot, daikon, green beans, green cabbage, chopped kombu (leftover from cooking the chickpeas), seasoned with tamari and lemon juice and topped with a sprinkling of hemp seeds.

* pressure cooked for half an hour with a triple amount of water

Czech sauerkraut soup with tempeh and one more dish…

Yep, I am back on track with my macro cooking after the ten day rice fast!! 🙂 Feels sooooo good to be back in the kitchen preparing all the yummy food, and not just grains with grains, but also soups, beans, veggie meals and ummm, yeah, some dessert…once in a while 🙂

The traditional Czech sauerkraut soup is something I really love and sometimes I attempt to make a macro version. This time I decided to also record it for you 😀 The original version calls for potatoes and sausage, but obviously I omit those without any negative side effects…

You will need:

1 medium to large onion

1 medium to large carrot

1 small or half of a bigger parsnip

about 300 g naturally fermented sauerkraut

caraway, salt, paprika powder, a few leaves or one twig of sage

mirin, ume plum vinegar, tamari

dark miso

about 1 tbsp brown rice flour

tempeh cut into small cubes

oil (optional)

First sautee onion chopped into halfmoons on a bit of water (I am limiting my oil intake, but feel free to use a little amount of oil of your choice)and to soften add a bigger pinch of salt . Stir while adding rice flour and more water if needed, to create a very light bechamel type of soup base. Then add a generous sprinkle of caraway and paprika powder (the soup should be light red in the end) and a twig with a few leaves of sage (dried or fresh), at the end of the cooking you can take the sage out if you used the tough twig or if you don´t want the leaves floating in your soup. Add diced carrot and parsnip and drained sauerkraut (if you like it less strong, flush it a few times with water to get rid of the salt and acid). Cover veggies with water and let boil gently for at least half an hour. Add more water depending on desired soup thickness. Season to your liking with tamari, mirin, ume plum vinegar and diluted dark miso (I used a full tablespoon). Top with cubes of tempeh either dry-roasted on a pan or deep-fried in oil, and afterwards sprinkled with tamari (best is to buy a oil/vinegar spray).

The next day for lunch I had rice cooked in a pressure cooker together with amaranth (1:1 ratio), sprinkled with gomasio. I made a kinpira out of diagonally cut carrot, burdock root and parsnip, seasoned with tamari. And to add some lightness and yin I shortly sauteed chopped green beans and leek and made a sauce out of 1 teaspoon of white shiro miso, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of mirin 🙂

Brown rice fast – day 10

This is really funny, yesterday I totally forgot to write my blogpost – about the last day of the rice fast! 😀 Maybe you can tell I was too excited at the prospect of starting to cook normal food again…

Yep, I just said it – the whole tenth day of the fast was just me focusing on the transition back to a regular macro diet. I must say that I was surprised though that until the very last day I managed to ENJOY my rice, especially in the form of the morning porridge, but even the regular rice, just with some gomasio and pickles. Yes, I did get bored and I did crave for some variety and especially for freshness and juiciness, but that doesn´t mean I started disliking rice…I was a bit afraid that might happen and that would be really sad because rice truly is the king of grains which I wish to love for the rest of my life. But luckily this went well – I still like rice, I just want to eat more than just rice from now on.

The discharge that the rice fast brought up was much milder than I expected, meaning that the rice fast is not a drastic measure to induce toxin flow out of your body… I did experience some minor aches and cramps in my middle organs (stomach, pancreas, spleen, liver), I did have some untypical bowel movements (both constipation and diarrhea),  some bigger skin breakouts than usual, some chest pain and quite a bit of mucus coming out from my sinuses. But none of that was very dramatic, just a bit unpleasant and annoying.

My mental state was for most of the time pretty calm and centered, with some slight depression at times, but also nothing really dramatic. What I felt more was general tightness, a bit like mentally shrinking, collapsing inwards. I must say I wasn´t very social during these ten days – I felt a much bigger urge to just stay at home, relax, do some light work, take a short walk or exercise, but nothing too exhausting. It was really a need to focus on myself and not interact too much with the outer world. I am really happy I didn´t have to go to town or to social meetings, except for some very few occasions which I handled just fine.

One of the best things that I learnt during the fast was chewing well – at first it was hell, resisting the urge to swallow and also my jaws hurt very much for a day or two, but then all improved. I stopped counting pretty quickly but I still paid a lot of attention to making my food liquid, I think.

I can´t say I´m absolutely thrilled by the results of the fast – I expected a bit more discharge and I also expected to feel and look really well after the ten days. Instead I am still kind of weak and tired and in the need of replenishing my energy.  And I am still discharging. I think it was not the very best idea to do this fast at this time of the year when energy in the environment is scarce and cannot support you. Also I would probably not feel so cold if I was doing this in a warmer time of the year.

But I don´t regret the experiment as it taught me a lot about myself, my eating habits, my real nutritional needs…I learnt to appreciate my food much more, chew my food better, I became better aware of the energy in the food. I think I finally stopped seeing food primarily as a source of sensory pleasure but more as a source of life energy and its manifestation in the complex web of nutrients it provides us with. So yes, I would do it again, and I probably will, when the weather gets warmer. I will probably eat not only rice, but also other grains, for example millet or barley.

Today I had my first bowl of miso soup, together with my rice porridge with gomasio and some olives and some fresh rucola. How exciting! Especially the freshness of the rucola was so wonderful! Now for lunch I´m gonna make adzuki beans with pumpkin (yes, pumpkiiiiiiin!), millet and probably some sauteed veg, can´t wait. I´m definitely not going to indulge in not-so-healthy meals for some time, at least for a week I want to be reeeeally careful…it´s a bit of a continuation of the fast actually, eating only very centered alkalizing foods 😀

 

Brown rice fast – day 9

Tomorrow is my last day, can you believe that?!? I can´t 😀

I really don´t know what to write anymore…today was remarkably uneventful…I was at home tidying and reading and making a new batch of gomasio, so I didn´t have to endure any cold or long walks as yesterday – on days like this fasting is really easy 😀

I must thank the rice fast for introducing me to long-cooked creamy rice porridges, I am hopelessly in love with them…especially with the mixed in goma shiso and umepaste…the perfect “morning cereal”. For lunch I had steamed rice with gomasio and takuan pickle and the same for dinner (but with salty pickles).

Tomorrow stay tuned for the wrap-up of this big experiment! I will definitely be fantasizing about what I´m gonna cook on Sunday!! 😀