Wild salmon and vegetable salad

I´keep it short and just tell you what I mixed all together:

-canned wild salmon (please please do avoid farmed salmon contaminated with antibiotics, colouring agents and pesticides)

-rucola leaves

-blanched kohlrabi slices

-blanched chinese cabbage slices

-blanched diagonals of parsley root

-raw baby carrot slices

-chopped chives

-whole black olives

-fresh green peas

-raw fennel bulb, leaves and stems both, finely chopped

And a dressing of olive oil, salt and balsamico vinegar

Served with boiled sweet potatoes

Vegetables with arame and lemony kuzu sauce from Sweetveg

Today I am just going to link to a post from one great macro blog with recipes you should definitely try! This time the Sweetveg blog inspired me to try a modified version of the “Vegetables with arame and lemony kuzu sauce“.

I followed it quite closely, except I didn´t have celery stalks, so I just omitted those, and instead of the rutabaga (which you cannot find here) I used parsley root. I also used dried/soaked lotus root slices and dried/soaked/sliced shiitake mushrooms (both are suggested at the end of the original post to be used in this recipe). I´m not sure which cabbage was used in the original recipe, but I had the “curly” savoy variety which works great in stews. I  didn´t have daikon so I used black radish, which is just another member of the radish family and has a more sharp and earthy taste than the daikon.  The sauce I followed exactly. As a sidedish I made a rice/amaranth mixture with roasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds.

Sauteed kohlrabi and celery root with lemon

This is such a simple meal but still something you probably never thought of! I certainly didn´t and I was surprised how two vegetables can create such a satisfying dish.

First you have to grate your two vegetables: one medium celery root (grate fine) and one bigger kohlrabi (grate coarse). Pour a couple tablespoons of oil in a deeper pan or pot, place the celery root inside, turn on the flame and sautee the celery root until lightly browned and fragrant, adding a pinch of salt at the beginning. Add the grated kohlrabi and stir-fry until it is softened as well. At the end sprinkle with lemon juice to your liking – the lemon adds a great final touch so you don´t have to be afraid of it!

I had the veggies with some rice and dulse seaweed flakes sprinkled on top.

Poppy seed millet with sauteed brussel sprouts

Ever tried pairing poppy seeds and millet? Poppy seeds are a big thing in this country (we used to be pretty famous for their production), but they´re mostly used as a sugary filling in all kinds of baked goods or as a sprinkle on top of savoury buns and bread rolls. In Czech macro desserts they are often used paired with millet and stewed fruit or some other sweet stuff. This time I wanted to mix them with millet just to make a usual grain sidedish and I must say I like it even though it might need some getting used to! 😀 The poppy seeds do lend a very distinct flavour, which I happen to love..

I mixed millet and poppy seeds in a 1:1 ratio and just boiled them together in a pot of water with a pinch of salt (grain to water was 1:3), for about 20-30 minutes.

As a vegetable dish I first blanched brussel sprouts halves – very shortly, maybe 30 seconds, just until they got bright green. Then I transferred them onto a pan with heated oil and sauteed them, stirring often and with the addition of some black Indian vulcanic salt, until they got a bit of a golden surface. I seasoned them with freshly cracked black pepper. I also blanched a few large chunks of daikon, longer than the sprouts, to bring out the daikon´s sweetness. Delightful simple dish 🙂

Vegetable stew with smoked tofu and sauerkraut

Here goes another “complete macro plate”! A very warming filling meal great for any cold day…

I first sauteed some sliced onion on oil with a pinch of salt and then added roughly chopped veggies – carrot, burdock root and green savoy cabbage, and sauteed them all for a while together, in a heavy cast iron pot. Then I added cubes of smoked tofu and a substantial amount of sauerkraut. I filled the pot with enough water to almost cover the vegetables, sprinkled some dried thyme and tamari soy sauce on top, put the heavy lid on and let the stew gently simmer for perhaps half an hour. Towards the end I heated oil in a pan and after it warmed up I stirred in a couple tablespoons of corn flour to create a base for a simple thickener for the stew. Once the flour starts turning golden and emitting a roasted smell, you can carefully pour in some water until you get a thick creamy sauce. Stir well to prevent lumps from forming while cooking the sauce  for a couple minutes. When the stew is ready, mix the sauce into the veggies and tofu and cook all together for another five minutes or so. Done!

I also had some steamed chinese cabbage to balance the heavy grounding energy of the stew, served with a sauce of white (shiro) miso, tahini and lemon (you could eat the sauce raw, or let it come to boil in a little pan, that way the miso will be easier on your digestion). There was also pressure cooked brown rice with roasted sesame seeds.

Marinated vegetable oven fries

Since I try to avoid potatoes for their weakening effect and alkaloid content, I like to make oven fries from all kinds of vegetables, of course, not all of them are suited for this purpose. What works great are pretty much any root vegetables, especially carrot and parsnip. Also sweet potatoes, naturally, because they resemble standard potatoes so much. Also pumpkin, because it´s so high in starch. That´s actually the main criteria: it has to be starchy! 😀

Here I cut up carrot, pumpkin and sweet potato into the shape of french fries and marinated them for a few hours in some oil with salt and ground cumin, lovely, trust me! 🙂 Then I baked them on a tray in the oven, using a parchment paper, and turning them every 10 or 15 minutes to bake evenly. About 180-200°C and 30-50 minutes should work – but every oven is different.

I had the fries with millet cooked together with some already cooked dried chestnuts (yeah, they really were somewhere there!) and gomasio.

Kohlrabi sautee with mustard and Spicy sweet potato fries

Just a tiny inspirational post…

Coarsely grated giant kohlrabi sauteed together with sliced onion on some pumpkinseed oil, with a pinch of salt and mustard mixed in at the end

Sweet potato cut into fries, drizzled with oil, salt and cumin, baked in the oven until crispy, turning at times

Rice pressure cooked with amaranth and sprinkled with gomasio

Store-bought seasoned tempeh baked together with the fries

🙂

Baked vegetables with mediterranean herbs

Don´t you just love the smell of vegetables roasting in the oven after being infused with a marinade containing fragrant mediterranean herbs? I certainly adore that smell…

Here I cut up onion, pumpkin, carrot and red beet and marinated them for a couple hours in olive oil (just enough to coat), some sea salt and a generous amount of dried oregano, basil, thyme and rosemary. Then I baked them in the oven until they got cooked through and browned a bit, stirring at times to allow them to bake evenly.

I had also some lentils cooked with bayleaf and salt and the grain was a rice/amaranth mixture with nori flakes to top.

Carrot and onion with whole cumin seeds

This is really almost not worth posting, but it was droolworthy in its utter simplicity:

Brown rice

Green peas cooked until creamy with some salt and apple cider vinegar

Sliced caramelized onion, sauteed on oil and whole cumin seeds, then added carrot slices and sauteed some more

The whole cumin seeds add a wonderful fragrant touch I wouldn´t expect and it´s very different than ground cumin 🙂 Anyway, it´s one of my favourite spices!

Parsnip french fries and buckwheat with cabbage

Missing potato french fries? Well, just make them from parsnip as I did, you´ll be surprised how similar the taste and texture are 🙂 I deep-fried mine until crispy and then gently sprinkled them with sea salt (something I don´t normally do, salt is better absorbed in the body when cooked into meals).

I had the fries with buckwheat which I cooked with some tamari soy sauce and oregano, for about 15 minutes in a double amount of water, under a lid and on a low flame. About five minutes before the end of the cooking time, I placed some cut up curly cabbage leaves on top of the grain so it can steam through.

I also had some raw green daikon to better digest the fried food.