Pasta with kale and raisins

Lately, and for far too long I have been having lunch at my desk. This is WRONG.

 I think eating means appreciating each single bite, but also the way we eat and whether or not we can concentrate on what we are chewing , will influence our health and the repercussions are the famous bloated stomach, tiredness and so on (we should chew a lot, to make our food more digestible, and to eat less and feel more satysfied).

One in five workers in the UK never takes a lunch break, there is a culture of long hours and clearly this is very bad, in fact the time gained eating at the desk is a false economy, and apart from the health even the productivity really suffer for it.

Apart from this, it often happens to me to say " it's too dull and grey to go out" but that is so untrue. Even just walking around the area where you work (in my lucky case it's beautiful Notting Hill) with an umbrella can make you feel so much better!

Hold on a minute.. no you have no really thouht that I eat out of a plastic container? No, no, no that is beyond being wrong, that is forgetting that you are a human being! The food is dished out in a China plate as no matter what happen, my food is taken very very seriously :)

Whole pasta with kale and raisins

soak 1/4 of a cup of raisin in warm water (they are covered in vegetable oil to preserve them, did you know that?)

200 grm of wholeweat pasta

300 grm of Kale, cut in 2 cm wide strips

2 garlic cloves

1 dried chilly

salt

olive oil

Boil plenty of salted water, and cook the pasta (penne if you ask me) till they are al dente, 1 minute before it's ready add the shredded kale.

Heat up 4 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil, fry a couple of crushed cloves of garlic  with a pinch of salt till golden, add the crushed chillie.

Drain the pasta and kale and add to the spicey oil  and sauteè for a couple of minutes, add the rinsed raisins. Serve with a sprinkle of nutritional yeast if you like it.

I would like to apologize for not knowing that Gwyneth Paltrow has changed her habits, I  suggested to visit her blog, where she in fact has even a turkey ragu recipe... apologies for the sensitive vegans that have been directed to her site and found it disturbing! I still like the site especially the food pictures are excellent, I'd be interested to know if she took them herself. 

I am back (and it's going to get messy)

I am back, just back from the farmers market :) and also back writing this blog after... what seems like a lifetime. Did anybody notice? I am not sure, but definitely my friends did, which is really flattering :) 

I am not going to explain why it's just to boring to share, but I was still cooking, taking notes and getting generally excited about food. 

This weekend hasn't been the mot successful one in the kitchen, but instead of reading it as an Omen (I already binned a few cookies and no macrobiotic cookies are not good- you can't prove me wrong here), I thought if I decide to share then I have to make good stuff!

As a Sunday lunch  baked pasta is so satisfying, but just make sure that you have done your home chores before, as it is going to be impossible to mop the floors after these!

Jerusalem artichoke and walnuts vegan lasagne

Cook the lasagne in some salted boiling water (I add few drop of olive oil) cook for 5 min or according to the package, lay them on a damp tea towel and set them aside.

Peel the artichokes (we used 300 grams for 2 people)

slice them finely (3mm circa), heat a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil to a saucepan, and add one crushed clove of garlic and few sag leaves if available, after a couple of minutes add the jerusalem artichockes.

Cook till tender and leave aside.

Preheat oven at 250 C° and toast 1/2 a cup of  walnuts till golden (keep an eye on them as they burn quickly). Grind or like we did crush with a mortar and pestle.

Prepare the besciamel (white sauce):

I start with two tbs of flour in 250 ml of rice milk, cook whisking vigorously till thick (no lumps allowed!) add the olive oil, keep whisking and keep it dry thick and smooth. Turn flame off, grate some nutmeg, pepper and salt.

Now you are ready to layer!

1 layer of lasagna, 1 layer of besciamel and vegetables sprinkle the crushed walnuts, then another layer of lasagna and so on... as much as you like :)

On top of the lasagne I add some more artichokes and some nutritional yeast (it has an acquired taste try it before spoiling the whole thing)

Bake 180C° for 20 min or till the top layer looks golden.

We had it with some Nobile di Montepulciano, and felt strangely quite Christmassy!

This was the first delicious thing that I made the whole weekend.

wholeweat conchiglie with celeriac and seaweeds (apologies for the picture*)

Last night I came home from work at a ridiculous time, I managed to do some shopping at lunchtime (thanks to the fabulous Portobello market!) once I got home I just cooked all the vegetable at once, but it was too late to have anything more substantial then a miso soup. Eating after nine o’clock makes me feel tired the morning after, and it doesn’t really do for me.

Tonight I have a few almost-ready ingredients and I played with them and experimented pasta with celeriac.

I had:
Half a diced celeriac that I baked with 4 garlic cloves till tender
2 tbsp of hiziki seaweed soaked and boiled for 20 minutes
2 tbsp silken tofu
1 tbs nutritional yeast (but it can be skipped if you don’t like it)
200 grm wholeweat conchiglie
2 tbsp extravergin olive oil

Heat up the oil in a large pan, add the celeriac and garlic and the seaweed, cook till very tender, season with salt according to taste.
Cream half of the sauce in a food processor with the tofu (don’t add more then necessary to make the texture creamy!). Transfer back in the pan with the rest.

Cook the pasta in salty water till al dente, drain and transfer into the sauce, stir till the pasta is all covered in sauce and add sprinkle with yeast.
This sauce is filling and delicious, it has a sweat taste and I believe that my Italian friends are never going to try it… it’s too much of a twist on the holy Italian pasta!

Together with parsnip celeriac is one of those vegetables that I never tried before moving to London, I have to say that it may be looking completely unappealing but it is great to make soups, stews and roasted.
The macrobiotic approach of “local and in season” (but also just common sense) is forcing me to think about new ways to prepare all the british winter vegetables, so expect more parsnip, kale, carrots and celeriac in the next few days… and no no tomatoes or aubergines I am afraid!

Days are so dark in November that my pictures are getting worst, my apologies if they don't look tempting, but they are still very good dishes!

My broccoli cream is really the best, FACT

November evenings were made for soups. Cycling back from work in the mad traffic on Euston road the idea of a cream of roasted vegetables, a soup of carrot and coriander or a miso one seem like a prize after an hard day.
When I was a child I dreaded sundays because of the awful meat broth that together with Minestrone was the only soup my mum seemed to know.

These days for me the winter vegetables are an endless resource and making a soup is so quick and rewarding that there is really no excuse to buy a supermarket's one.

My broccoli cream:

2 medium broccoli cut into small pieces(I use the whole of the broccoli)
1 sliced parsnip
2 small white onions
1 tbsp of extravirgin oive oil
1 tbsp of caraway seeds
1 tbsp rice flour

Sautee' the thinly sliced onion till transparent, add the vegetables and enough water to cover them, bring to the boil and lower the flame.
Cook till soft, add the flour, salt and olive oil and either transfer into food processor or use a hand one.
Serve with caraway seed and a slice of sourdough bread.

The Bento Box

I don’t know what is all about but it seems that all the food blogs are written by people that are working in offices, that dread their canteen or café and that bring their own food to work in their bento box.

I personally prefer the ones that are filled with rice on the bottom and some pickles and veg on the top layer, I don’t like to bring a thermos with the soup, but today my soup in a jar spilled all over my stuff so I better re-consider this…
My Lunch box is from the Japan Center yes it is my favourite place and I try to go as much as I can (if you have read any of my previous post I am sure that you know it)!

Also if you are not just a foodie and you are interested in design and fashion to buy or just to browse, the JC it is dangerously near Dover Street market… a more expensive side of Japan!

Anyway, here my Bento Box is filled with sauerkraut and blenched Chinese cabbage on top, and parsnip on the bottom layer, a slice of Sauer dough (I am baking again!) and off to work!


Baked yummy parsnip:

Slice the parsnips in thick slices
Place slices in a baking dish add ½ inch of water and 1 tablespoon of shoyu over the slices
Bake 200C° for 35 to 40 mins till soft



The parsnip cooked in this way is so yummy that you’d wish your lunchbox were bigger!
Would you like to get an ide on how to pack your food? Some people are really clever

On a macrobiotic support and how to love a winter squash

I have joined a yahoo group that I find very useful and I can’t wait to share it with the world, it’s full of good suggestions recipes and interesting stuff about macrobiotic, as that is a field where you can never know enough, please join:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/moderndaymacrobiotics
and you will receive their newsletter, it’s called modernday macrobiotic and it has been setup by Simon Brown (that wrote the gret book with the same title) it's great as nobody would insult you if you ask silly questions and there are some very intelligent and interesting people, a pleasure to read!

In one of the newsletters there was a recipe that I thought would warm me up in these chilli evening (we have managed not to turn he heating on yet!!):
Squash and sauerkrut:
Dice winter squash, 
Add a 0,5 cm of water to a heavy pot, add few drops of sesme oil. 
Add a small piece of rinsed kombu and a pinch of salt.
Cover, and bring to a boil on a high until the squash is soft, then just bifore turning off the flame add 2 tablespoon of sauerkraut (for two people) mix and serve, it is important that you don't "cook" the sauerkraut as you would kill all the ferments.
This is a simple dish but people love it because of the sweet and sour combination! I served it with rice and leeks with barley miso…

A fresh start: my autumn

Autumn is an incredible season, I never used to like it that much, and I think it’s really the fact that I am getting older. I wake up really early in the morning and cycle along the canals to my office, sometimes it doesn’t even seems to be in London.
The sky is of such a deep blue everything seem more clean and intense, not just the colour, but the air and the smells, even cycling is like a new adventure every morning (I am happy I didn’t move into an houseboat though!)
I invited some friend over last Saturday, and I offered them a dessert that has got a bit the mood and the colours of this season, it’s a great one as it has no added sugar, but it’s deliciously spicy.

Poached pears with raspberries and Vanilla:

Cooked fruit is the nicest way to enjoy it with the weather getting chillier
All you need is to peel some medium size pears, and core them, fill them with roasted and chopped hazelnuts and fresh raspberries (my pears were a bit small)

In a large pan add 2 cups of apple juice, a tablespoon of vanilla essence, a cardamom pod and some cinnamon sticks.
Add the pears and put on high flame.
Let it simmer for 25 minutes (first 10 with a lid on and then without to evaporate the excess liquid).