Wholegrain porridge

I was reading the column "the green kitchen" from Richard Ehrlich on the Times magazine last week, we got this delivered together with our food shopping, and it was interestingly about using rice leftovers. The article is not yet online, but it is very much about re-using rice without killing yourself with harmful bacteria that can develop if the rice is not carefully packed and stored in the fridge. I shall link the article as soon as available.

For people that have an interest in a macrobiotic lifestyle, grains leftovers have always been a treasure.

"Re-use the grain from the day before" recommend all the macro teachers and the classic books.

My favourite way to reuse grains and re-energize them is by using them as  porridge.

I cannot imagine a more energetic breakfast then a hot bowl of porridge with a spoon of sugar free preserve (in the picture is a currant one!).

Exact recipes are not really possible (it depends on the leftover grains).

In the picture: quinoa and brown rice porridge.

2 cups of leftover rice

1 cup of leftover quinoa

7 parts of water or 6 parts and 1 part of rice milk

add the water to the grains bring to the boil, turn the flame down and let simmer till the water is absorbed. You want to cook the grain in a heavy weight pot (I use Le Creuset cast iron pot).

I enjoyed my porridge with  few roasted walnuts on top, preserve, blenched apples, but the combinations are endlesss.

For a savoury breakfast, try steam kale, few drops of tamari, seaweeds, gomasio etc...

Even the dark sky at 7 am is more bearable after a good breakfast!

Rice bells with spring vegetables

What a great day...

Saturdays can be extraordinarily lazy and still give you a full sense of achievement, if this make sense?

I had a bit of a cleaning with my new flatmate and then she gave me a full body massage as she is studying to be a masseur, I always believed in God, now I even think that he cares about my well being :)

You will hear more about my flatmate as she is a great individual that happen to be on the Internet at the right time!

Once you get an hour massage all your energy is refreshed and you feel like you could do anything or even just read in bed all afternoon, but no this wasn't the case.

I made a nice Saturday lunch that was yummy and had a sprig touch.

I just found an old magazine during the cleaning, it got stuck behind the bed as cookery magazines are my bed time reading- weird I know, let's move on.

Rice bells with spring vegetables- for two

1 cup rice 

1 bunch asparagus

1 bunch spring onions

1 3cm piece of ginger

2 medium size new potatoes

bunch of radish (they are 10 in the UK)

some mint leaves

Boil the rice with double the volume of water till the water is all absorbed.

Seam the asparagus till cooked but crunchy (I steamed on top of the rice for 8 minutes)

Chop the stems in small pieces leave the tips to decorate.

In  a large saucepan (everything will fit in it once the rice is cooked), fry the sliced onions with the grated ginger in 4 tablespoon of olive oil.

Once the onion is cooked (7-8 minutes) add the diced potatoes and cover till soft (about 12 minutes) add some water if necessary.

Mix rice, asparagus potatoes in the pan add the radishes quartered.

Shape using bowls or ramekins, decorate with mint and asparagus tips and more radish.

I served immediately  with mache salad.

From an old "cucina e salute naturale" a great Italian magazine... not available in the UK, but always available at my mum house!

On a sunny Saturday

The best thing about living somewhere where the weather is almost always depressing is that it comes as surprise when it isn’t. Everything seems easier when it’s sunny!
On Friday night I didn’t sleep very much I was kept awake for most of the night by teenagers that were dancing and stomping and shouting on the flat above. Mummy was probably away and they are only sixteen so I didn’t feel like arguing and just accepted that on Saturday I would have been shattered. And shattered I was when the delivery company delivered my new bed!
So it was a sunny morning and I was finally saying bye bye to my futon.
Did it get even better? Yes my lovely friends put the bed together without me having to do anything :D
So as a reward for their hard wok I put together a little lunch, something maybe too summery but the day was glorious and all I fancied was salad!

So I got inspiration from the millet tostadas from Susan Marque:

The tostadas are really easy:

1 cup millet
3 cup water
1 pinch of salt

cook the millet in the water till it has absorbed it all, pour it in a baking dish and level it so that is all even, let it cool down.
Cut in squares and fry in a little olive oil. The millet would hold together even without frying it as long as you don't dry it out too much if you slightly overcook it it becomes really unpleasant though.. it's a fine line.

I served it with:
Jerusalem artichokes: peel, slice and bake with 2 tbsp of Shoyu and ½ cup of water

Adzuki beans, soaked overnight, simply boiled with added parsley

Sliced avocados (I know tropical, bad macrobiotic rating!)

Pressed carrots:
Finely grate three carrots, add a pinch of salt and a finely sliced onion. Put a dish on top and a weight and leave for a few hours. Add cumin raisins and lemon juice.

In the beautiful daylight those colourful plates were so joyous!

Semi whole spelt pasta with Hiziki seaweed and capers.

When I bring my lunchbox to work, the most common qustion is always: “where do you find the time to do that?”
I believe I just plan ahead and while I have a shower, make a phone call or answer to my private emails at home I simply cook some brown rice, everything else is more or less quick, ok, there is the sourdough, but that’s normally a weekend thing anyway ^_____^
For pulses I just put them in water before I go to bed, and steaming or blenching are two cooking methods that make everything faster!
I have to admit that when I come home from the office sometimes I just want to eat immediately, but still I want something healthy and that doesn’t make me feel tired or bloated after, so here’s a good one:

for two people (or for dinner+lunchbox for the day after)

½ cup hiziki (Hijiki) seaweed
200 gr whole spelt spaghetti
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablesppon shoyu or tamari soy sauce
a handful of capers
Coarse crystal sea salt

Soak the seaweed for 25 minutes (it will double the volume), then drain I and boil it in water for 25 minutes.
Finely chop he garlic, heat up the olive oil and fry the garlic till pale golden, stir in the capers, the seaweed, and the shoyu ,turn the heat to very low and let it simmer for other five minute with a lid on.
Boil the pasta in salted water, till “al dente”, and drain.
Stir the spaghetti into the seaweed sauce.
Serve hot.

My pasta is from Probios

Sourdough bread

When you follow Macrobiotic, you mainly eat whole grains. Whole grains are more nutritious than cracked, milled, or flaked ones.
People that eat wholegrain hardly ever have cravings as their energy is released slower, 60% of my diet is based on brown rice, millet, wheat, amaranth, quinoa, as this is the food I feel is natural for me to eat and I can have it every meal without failing.
I eat bread sporadically and this is one of the several reasons why I like to live in the UK, in Italy there is just bread everywhere, and if it’s not bread is focaccia or pizza and either you decide you want to live an ascetic life and don’t go out anymore or you just cope with it : )
Having said this even I sometimes feel like making bread, but I just find the smell of commercial yeast such a put off…
So I made my own sourdough.
I love the fact that in Italian sourdough is called Pasta Madre that means “mother dough”, and indeed this is going to be the mother of your bread for (hopefully) long long time. The commercial sourdough bread is outrageously expansive and you can find it in natural food shops or in very few local bakeries but making in your house is a complete different experience.
The idea is: flour+water+warm temperature= bacteria = natural yeast = bread that is easy to digest.
How many people auto diagnosed themselves wheat intolerant? But are they really or is the yeast in those horrible commercial English bread loafs? (they even come in a plastic bag… yuck)
I have got no intention of writing my recipe for the sourdough as the Internet oozes with suggestions and very good step-by-step recipe.
Personally I am fascinated about this as I am about any fermented food. I just find the whole bacteria culture an amazing natural phenomenon, so I am a big fan of Miso, sauerkraut, umeboshi and beer ^____^

So this is the recipe that I follow from egullet, and now I have been using my starter twice, and it works wonderfully, my only suggestion is “love your starter”.



Dan Lepard is my baking hero.

Have fun and bake! (The weather is going to be miserable this Bank Holiday so you may as well turn the oven on!)