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.

Millet-pumpkin mash and tahini vegetables

How delightfully simple macrobiotic cooking can sometimes be! You don´t always need to go for five or six different small dishes, sometimes less is really more…

I just cooked up some millet until soft (achieved by cooking in a 1:3 ratio of grain to water), adding small chunks of pumpkin in the beginning. After about 20-30 minutes of cooking both can be mashed up with a potato masher or surikogi (wooden pestle), anything that works…Serve with or without gomasio. It´s a really lovely combination, so sweet and nourishing!

As a side I made water-sauteed matchsticks of carrot and kohlrabi, with salt to season and some organic corn kernels thrown in, and a spoon of tahini to add extra flavour and texture.

Homemade falafel

Falafel is one of my most favourite foods, something so deeply satisfying and reminding you of your sweet junkfood past, yet it´s very macrobiotic at the same time! 😀 Ok, not if you eat it three times a week, as it´s still deep-fried food, but once in a while…after a long walk in freezing weather like today….

It´s also really simple, as long as you don´t forget to soak your chickpeas overnight (or at least for a couple of hours, I think 12 hours is a good bet though). I soaked 100 g of chickpeas in a double amount of water, drained them and then added the rest of the ingredients: a bunch of parsley leaves, 1/4 tsp of salt (next time I will use 1/2 tsp probably), 1/2 tsp paprika powder, 1/2 tsp cumin powder, a tiny pinch of chilli powder, one (or two) garlic cloves and one small roughly chopped red onion. Usually there are also fresh coriander leaves in the recipe for falafel, sadly those are not available here at this time of the year, if you want good quality and not supermarket vegetables…Put all in a big bowl or pot. And now comes the tricky part: making a rather smooth paste out of this bunch of ingredients, using an immersion blender. It actually works, but you have to have a bit of patience, move with the blender up and down and let it rest every now and then so it doesn´t overheat. It definitely worked better than in my big blender which would need water to run, but the immersion blender strangely enough doesn´t :-p Then let the mixture rest for a few hours (I´m not sure why, but more people told me this, so I guess something magical happens!). Later on, heat up your deep-frying oil and create about 3-5 cm in diameter large balls, adding breadcrumbs to the mixture if needed. My mixture was too thin so I added some glutenfree crumbs. Fry until dark brown, otherwise the inside will not be done enough (remember – it´s just soaked and not cooked chickpeas).

I served the falafel with bulghur with raw pink radish and green daikon cubes mixed in (to help digest the fats) and a dip made of tahini, mustard, salt and ume plum vinegar 🙂

Baked pears stuffed with tahini-miso filling

This dessert is so amazing!! And prepared so quickly at the same time! If you like baked apples or pears, you will surely appreciate it…

Just cut a pear in half, scoop out the intestines  😀 and create “holes” big and deep enough to put some filling inside. Place the pears with the peel down into a baking dish with maybe half a cup of water in it, to prevent burning.

Mix one teaspoon of tahini with one teaspoon of rice malt and half a teaspoon of sweet white miso. Spoon the filling into the prepared holes. You can cover them with some of the scooped out pear flesh so that less of the filling spills during baking.

Cover the dish with tin foil and bake covered for 30 minutes on 190°C and then 15 minutes uncovered on just 175°C. The pears should be very soft, with a melt in your mouth quality 🙂 It might be a little bit messy with the filling, but I actually like a bit of a messy dessert 😀

Carrot butter

This recipe comes from Kristina Turner´s “The self-healing cookbook”, which contains quite many awesome recipes, unfortunately not so many oil-free ones for my current diet 😀 This one has a bit of tahini, so it´s not completely oil-free, but it´s just one spoon 😉 And you can also definitely pass on the tahini!

My boyfriend recently succeeded in his sourdough project and created a wonderful homemade sourdough bread which was calling for some sort of spread. The carrot butter is very easy to make and more sweet than savoury.

Steam 3 or 4 cups of carrots cut into thick rounds of smaller chunks, for about 20-30 minutes until very tender. Then blend in a blender with about half a cup of water (I used water from the steaming, which had a bit of a carrot aroma) and a pinch of salt. Transfer to a pot, heat up, add 1 tablespoon of kuzu (diluted in two tablespoons of cold water), whisk vigorously to avoid lumps, and bring to boil. Simmer for a few minutes while stirring. For a more creamy consistency add one (or two) tablespoons of tahini. Store in a jar in the fridge.

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

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! 😀