Rebecca Wood´s Fig Compote

This time I am again going to share a recipe which is not my own but is way too awesome not to mention  in this blog! It´s taken from the website of Rebecca Wood, a wonderful holistic nutritionist and author of the phenomenal “The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia”. It´s the best reference book if you want to know as much as possible about one single ingredient coming from the natural world (whether it´s a banana, quinoa or fava beans) – how to pick the best item, how to use it in cooking, how to store it, what are the medicinal properties, possible contraindications for certain illnesses etc etc etc.

But onto the recipe! You can read it here. I made the version using red wine (no need to buy a fancy one, any will do!) which reduced into a lovely thick sweet-and-sour syrup. For spices I used all – a cinnamon stick, star anise and whole cloves. It´s nice especially warm, but even cold is not bad at all. Great also with dried prunes!

Angela´s Cinnamon sweet potato chickpea salad with Miso rice

The last few days I´m testing (and adjusting) some recipes from Angela from Oh she glows – the first one to try was Cinnamon sweet potato chickpea salad. I made it more macro-friendly by substituting the coconut oil with sesame oil and only using a tiny bit of it – from a spray.

First I chopped up one medium sized sweet potato into cubes, diced a small onion and mixed these two ingredients in a bowl with about a cup of cooked chickpeas, 1/2 tsp sea salt, 1/2 tsp  cinnamon and a sprinkle of sesame oil. I placed the mixture on a baking tray lined with a silicone baking mat and baked it in a preheated oven on 220 °C for about 40 minutes. Unfortunately, the temperature was too high or the time too long (or I used too little oil), because it came out a bit burnt (especially the onions) and too dry – next time I will need to watch it closer! 😀 Nevertheless, it was a really yummy recipe!

I served the “salad” with pressure cooked brown rice which I cooked in water with diluted brown rice miso (about 1 cup grain to 1 1/2 cup water, and using 2 tsp of miso). I wonder if anybody before had the crazy idea of cooking rice in miso broth, but it tastes surprisingly like risotto 😀

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