Some changes to my meals…

Macromagician is lately going through some dietary changes, it´s been a bit of a wild ride…first with my oil-free (almost) no-dessert regimen (including no nuts and sunflower/flax seeds) which was designed by my macro teacher…and now switching to an upgraded and modified version which is more anti-candida oriented. So right now I am starting a sort of “macro anti-candida diet” for some time. I plan to get back to the original dietary plan which I had, but for now this is the regimen, because I realized that I am not treating the candida overgrowth strongly enough and the effects can be quite devastating. Diet alone (the idea of starving the yeasts by not feeding them the simple sugars they like best) might and might not work, depending on the specific case. Anyway, that´s my take on it, there is a lot of contradictory information on candida out there, especially within the macro community, so you just gotta make your own opinion on it in case you are struggling with this issue. Apparently almost all of us in these modern times have a candida overgrowth in our intestines (and not only there) to some extent, due to our common background of eating acidizing foods, combined with long-term/frequent medication use, pollution, stress etc. 😦

Thus, my new modifications are: introducing some natural antifungal remedies (such as coconut oil, which is used by some macro teachers/students and not by others; or garlic, flax and olive oil, lemon, apple cider vinegar, but also some spirulina/chlorella, barley grass powder etc.) and also a daily cleanse with grey bentonite clay which pulls out toxins from the body without being absorbed by the body, it literally just passes through carrying away the unwanted fungi and other harmful bacteria. I could (and might) write more about my anti-candida plan, but let´s get back to the food!

I wanted to let you know mostly because there might  be from now on less activity on the blog (let´s face it – the anti-candida diet is often very plain and not exciting in terms of interesting recipes) and also some of the ingredients might not be from the standard macrobiotic diet (such as above mentioned coconut oil which didn´t yet make it to the classical MB literature, but I believe it might one day, as it´s starting to be used more widely).

Yesterday my lunch was: sprouted and cooked sweet millet with gomasio (I am now soaking/sprouting all my grains for 24 hours to make them easy on the digestion), steamed veggies (green beans, carrot, daikon, turnip, leek, broccoli and collard leaves), long-baked onion/carrot/pumpkin drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and rosemary (baked for about 45 minutes, first under a tinfoil, then uncovered) and a salad of lettuce and rucola with a dressing of 2 tsp flax oil, 2 tsp apple cider vinegar, salt and black pepper (for 2 people).

 

Some simple daily meals…

Honestly, most of my meals are not fancy. Most of them are not from cookbooks. Most of them are not beautiful enough to be photographed. Most of them are rather quick and simple and they get rotated regularly, because I am not a full-time blogger nor a full-time macro cook 😀 Usually it´s something like this…

Pressure cooked rice and hato mugi – green beans sauteed with white (shiro) miso diluted in water – carrot roots and tops sauteed on water with a splash of ume plum vinegar – arame cooked in water to cover + shoyu to taste and some raw spring onion mixed in at the end

Pressure cooked rice with rye – leftover cauliflower/millet mash (check my blog for the recipe) – cubes of smoked tofu baked in the oven – umepaste stew ( cover bottom of a heavy pot with a thin layer of ume paste, then continue with a layer of thin onion slices, thin cabbage slices, grated carrot, chopped kohlrabi, finely chopped dill and about two inches of water, simmer under a lid on low until tender, mix in the end ) – nori condiment made from shortly simmering torn up nori sheets, shoyu, mirin and lemon juice

Sweet millet cooked together with cubes of hokkaido pumpkin – fresh rucola – hiziki cooked with water to cover + shoyu to taste + sesame seeds + thinly sliced onion + presoaked dried lotus – nishime of daikon ( with thinly sliced kombu, sliced dried and presoaked shiitake, 1/2 tsp shiro miso diluted in water and 1/4 tsp of lemon zest)

Pressure cooked long-grain rice with hato mugi and lotus seeds – lettuce, red radish, radish sprouts and lightly steamed green cabbage – roasted hokkaido pumpkin and onion sprinkled with cinnamon – leftover hiziki dish (see above)

Shoyu bouillon and melted mochi nishime

I consider myself a bit of a soup freak. I used to really dislike soup as a kid and always wanted to skip it and go straight for the main course, but in the Czech culture soup is pretty important and is not to be skipped 😀 Well…in the last years I learnt to make soup that I actually enjoy. No – I love soup! And I could totally live off it…

Like this shoyu bouillon… Normally I stick to miso soup in a thousand variations, but I wanted to give this a try. And it was a good idea I will repeat again soon. So simple! For two people, just boil water and add: about 5 cm piece of kombu, about 2 cm piece of broken up wakame (I crush it between my fingers), fine strips of leek, daikon cut in cubes and one fresh chopped shiitake mushroom. Boil for about 5-10 minutes, then take out the kombu (you can use it for nishime or for cooking grains/beans), add one 1 cm thick slice of tofu cut into small cubes and 2 tablespoons of shoyu (for 2 bowls of soup). Garnish with fresh chopped parsley.

For the main course I made sweet millet into which I added (in the last 5 minutes) diluted brown rice miso to simmer and in the end mixed in fresh chopped parsley; and nishime of turnip, carrot, topinambour (Jerusalem artichoke), onion, parsnip, sweet potato and celery root. At the end I mixed in diluted shiro miso to simmer for a few minutes, together with a small cube (about 5 X 5 cm) brown rice mochi, grated on a grater with bigger holes. The mochi melts and it all becomes a lovely naturally sweet gooey mess, ehm, mixture! I learnt adding mochi to nishime from a friend of mine and it was a great learning moment…

6.1. Lunch, dinner and dessert :)

For lunch I could re-cycle the black bean dish from yesterday (see previous post), it was very nice mixed into water-sauteed vegetables (paksoi, leek, pointed cabbage and two types of green beans – flat and pointed ones), seasoned with a tablespoon of tamari. As a side I had sweet millet cooked together with chunks of hokkaido pumpkin (my favourite sidedish just after brown rice!) and fresh rucola (arugula) and olives to compliment the meal.

For dinner I decided to bake a fish in tin foil (since we have a wonderful big oven now :-D). I seasoned the slices of codfish (I buy only MSC certified fish) with a bit of salt and an organic herb mix which is sold specifically for seasoning fish. On top I sprinkled a generous amount of thin sliced onion and fennel, wrapped all inside the foil and baked for 30 minutes covered and then 15 more minutes uncovered so the fish and veggies could get a bit of a “tan”.  I served the fish with blanched greens (paksoi, pointed cabbage and mixed in raw rucola) and quinoa mixed with fresh parsley leaves (they add a nice colour contrast). It was really yummy!

I even made a decadent dessert…very quick and easy rice crispie dessert! In a saucepan over a low flame I liquified 2 parts of tahini with 1 part of maple syrup and 1 part of rice malt, stirred in a handful of cashew nuts and a cup of brown rice crispies (puffed rice). I spooned the sticky creation onto a wooden cutting board covered with baking paper and evened it out a bit, something like this…

It´s best to let this dessert cool in a fridge before attempting to cut neat squares with a sharp knife. But to be honest the dessert didn´t become as solid as I would have wished, making it hard to cut slices which don´t fall apart. There is lots of room for improvement but the taste was great! 😀

5.12. Fava bean hummus anybody?

I reeeeally love hummus. Yet, I DID not plan to make it that day. It kind of…happened. I soaked fava beans overnight, then spent a looong time peeling their irritating skins off (they are too hard to digest), pressure cooked them for 45 minutes, and…they turned into something resembling porridge. They just totally fell apart. Too long cooking time, I assume. Anyway, that was their way to tell me to make hummus. So I heated them up in another pot (there was more than enough water still), added salt, cumin powder, lemon juice, chopped garlic (optional) and a good spoonful or two of tahini. Just a few stirs, some minutes to let it thicken, and voila, fava beans hummus is born! Really good stuff! Not the same as chickpea hummus, but not worse.

As a grain I had sweet millet cooked with hokkaido pumpkin (just 20 minutes and it´s ready). And I blanched some chinese cabbage, green beans and kale with it.