Cavolo nero gratin in wholemeal spelt and oats milk béchamel sauce

This dish was not planned this week, but I had a pair of beers yesterday, and today it felt just right to have some healthy cleanse. Gratin is just perfect for when your body feels cheesy but deep down needs greens. So I played with cavolo nero, and won. Yum!

Ingredients:
– Cavolo nero
– Onion
– Garlic
– Oats milk
– Spelt flour
– Breadcrumbs

Procedure:
Boil cavolo nero until soft. Sauté with onions and garlic. Place in oven dish and cover with béchamel. I did béchamel sauce with oats milk and spelt flour this time, but soy milk would have been better because of its stronger flavor and whiter color.
Sprinkle breadcrumbs, olive oil and bake in oven.
Serve.

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Recipe review: Vegan Cream of Cauliflower (Gluten Free Vegan Girl)

“De som vill sjunga hittar alltid en sång” – Swedish proverb

Dill was never something I was much into, because my west-mediterranean family has never used it for cooking. Then I tried IKEA’s sauce for salmon and however unhealthy, I felt immediately in love with that lovely new taste behind the sugar. Now I only had to find a healthy dish it could go with, and came upon a recipe from the Gluten Free Vegan Girl. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present you: Vegan Cream of Cauliflower with Dill.

This adaptation of her vegan recipe uses dill and a bay leaf as herbs, oats milk as a non dairy milk (sorry it’s not gluten-free anymore), and plain water and celery instead of vegetable broth. If you are going to use celery, please choose organic at least for this once, conventionally grown celery has high pesticide residue. What I do is buying it at the farmer’s market, cutting it into pieces and freezing it, then I always have some in hand for when I need it.

For two servings I used:
– Half an onion
– Half a garlic clove
– A small potato (organic)
– Half a cauliflower (organic)
– Half carrot (organic)
– A quarter a glass of oats milk (just the one I had around)
– A little piece of celery (organic)

Directions:
– As she suggests: sauté onion and garlic in a pot until onion is transparent. Then added chopped potato and carrot and cooked a little longer. I always use olive oil, but try to keep it as low as possible, few drops, so never more than a tea spoon.
– The following thing was adding water, the cauliflower, a piece of celery, a pinch of dill, salt and half a bay leaf. Left boiling for some fifteen minutes. Blended. Added the milk. She suggests heating it up all again after the milk. I did not, was too hungry. In any case the soup was warm enough to keep warm even with the milk. So that was it.
– Serve.

My conclusion: an overall outstanding recipe. Comforting. Healthy. And if it can be this good after my wrongdoings, it’s so easy anybody can do it. Give it a try, sing-along and… Smaklig måltid!

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Menu Plan Monday ~13th to 19th Jan & Notting Hill shopping

Menu planning saves me time, money and makes my life simpler. It just needs some practice and discipline, but sharing it with the community around I’m and organizing junkie does help a lot. I eat a whole foods, plant based diet and tend to combine old favorites and new recipes, all simple, healthy and with modest seasonal ingredients.

This week we went to check the Notting Hill Gate Farmers Market with a friend. Since we arrived late, there was not much left, but we still managed to get some great veggies and fruits, plus this cute organic shop attached opens longer: Chegworth Farm Shop. Then we went for a walk around the Portobello Market and found the fruit and veg section from Elgin Crescent to Talbot Road, not organic but excellent produce. Ask for the price first, it’s not particularly cheap, we had to stretch our budget this time 😦  

The new exciting dish I’m trying this week is Braised Black Cabbage and Noodles in Black Bean Sauce from Shu Han, and we still have lots of pumpkin and cauliflower from last week. I totally loved the cauliflower soup from Solveig Berg Vollan, so I’m doing it one again!

Sunday

• Lunch: Pumpkin rice
• Dinner: Vegan potato omelette

Monday

• Lunch: Courgette cream and stir-Fried Swiss Chard
• Dinner: Raw mushroom salad

Tuesday

• Lunch: Vegan Cream of Cauliflower Soup and Sautéed kale with garlic and carrots
• Dinner: Braised Black Cabbage and Noodles in Black Bean Sauce

Wednesday

• Lunch: Onion soup and chickpea burritos
• Dinner: Mushroom Soup

Thursday

• Lunch: Broccoli Soup and grilled endives
• Dinner: Pumpkin soup

Friday

• Lunch: Raw Gingery Carrot Tomato Soup and Roasted Brussels Sprouts
• Dinner: Millet stuffed eggplant

Saturday

• Lunch: Black rice with seaweed
• Dinner: Beetroot hamburger

Superfast healthy vegan ice cream

Contrary to most recipes you’ve seen online for ice cream, this one does not contain dairy, sugar nor sweetener neither you need expensive ice cream machines. Tastes delicious and it’s done in a flapping of a butterfly!

It’s amazing how sweet a banana can be. And it absolutely does NOT make you fat. No matter what you read in superficial magazines about the sugar content. I might disagree with Debra Waterhouse on women needing chocolate, but her book was right on this and many other things. Banana sweetness it’s packed in really good fiber and vitamins, plus (I quote wikipedia) “Bananas are an excellent source of vitamin B6, soluble fiber, and contain moderate amounts of vitamin C, manganese and potassium. Along with other fruits and vegetables, consumption of bananas may be associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer and in women, breast cancer and renal cell carcinoma”.

So: Go bananas and treat yourself with a healthy ice cream for a change!

You’ll need:
* A sprinkle od oats milk. My favorite, but any other non dairy milk of your choice will do.
* Frozen banana. Most people freeze their bananas unpeeled. I don’t. I peel, slice it and freeze it in a plastic bag. Then you only use what you need, or thicken if you overdid the oats milk, you got me!
* Chopper attachment blender. My chopper is strong enough, but alway check if yours can handle ice.
* (Optional) Berries either fresh or frozen and mint leaf

Procedure:
Drop in blender the equivalent of a frozen banana per person and a sprinkle of oats milk. Chop. Serve.
Decor with tiny mint leaf and berries. If you use frozen berries like I do, get them out of the freezer some minutes before, so they will be softer when you serve.

This dish does melt fast, so be fast taking your instagram picture 😀

Barley with veggies

This is the story of a barley who wanted to be a soup. If fact, it wanted to be the Mushroom-Barley Soup from @cyberpenguin. As much as I’m excited to find a fellow cooking flightless bird, I messed it all up. So the water ended up evaporating. No soup, just boiled barley with veggies.

Tasted great though. I guess that’s the beauty of cooking, mistakes become discoveries, and I’ve discovered a different dish to enjoy.

Barley with mushrooms, carrots, courgette, split peas and chickpeas
Ingredients
– A teaspoon of olive oil
– Leek
– Mushrooms (don’t need to be organic)
– Carrots
– Courgettes
– Organic wholemeal barley
– Dried split peas
– Chickpeas (I boil them in bulk then freeze them. So they are ready when I need some)

Instructions
Cut, sauté and boil. As always I’m a mess with proportions.

Healthy snacks & board games

A minute to prepare, has 5 times less kcal than chips and bakes while you play. Not only my gests loved yesterday my healthy geekness, but I also did really well at The Settlers of Catan 😀

Potatoes are great nutritious food, unfairly misreputed as fattening because of oily chips and sauces. Baked at home keep low-fat and filling while conforting (more on McDougall’s Starch Solution).

Only drawback of potatoes is their lack of fiber, so I try to compensate keeping their skins on (better organic) and adding gounded flax seeds. This also fortifies with extra vitamins, let me hear a *YAY*. Add pepper or paprika for great spicy taste.

Baked low-fat potato chips

Ingredients for 4:
– 1Kg of organic potatoes 750kcal
– Teaspoon of olive oil
– Teaspoon of gounded flax seeds
– Pepper or paprika
– Salt

Procedure:
Heat up the oven. Cut potatoes. Add seasoning and oil. Mix with your hands. Place in oven. Play! Snack! Play!

Red cabbage, apple & cranberries

Stuck with a basket of cranberries, got this idea zapping. Contrary to what I remember, the recipe from the food network has no apple. Whatever, recipe mutation is part of the fun.

Mediterranian as I am, didn’t know any cranberries other than the irish band until I faced them in the local supermarket. We love fresh berries, or we did, before we experienced some could be so sour. Yeah, cultureshock. The result of cooking them without sugar is… just ok. Better than expected though. And Hey! The colours!

Ingredients:

• Half a red cabbage
• An organic apple
• Handful of cranberries
• Olive oil
• Salt

Preparation:

Cut cabbage and apple. Throw into pot with less than a teaspoon of oil and salt. Stir. Cover. Low heat. Wait ten minutes. Throw cranberries. Cover. Stir. Wait for five minutes. Serve.

Spinach catalan-style

Check this medieval catalan recipe and get spinach nutritional value with a sweet touch. ¿Did you know raisins and pine nuts were already popular on mediterranean cultures in medieval times? Nowadays some people do add garlic, onion or ham, but we’ll stick to the classic version.

Ingredients:

• Fresh organic spinach from the farmer’s market
• Pine nuts
• Dried rasins
• Olive oil and salt

Preparation:
We will clean, cut and scald spinach (boil for less than one minute). This will ‘cook’ it and will allow us to reduce the frying time. Spinach nutritional value is at its best when fresh, steamed, or quickly boiled.

In a pan, sauté pine nuts and raisins in olive oil. Olive oil is healthier but try not to overdo it, I use here less than a teaspoon.
Drain spinach, cut and add to pan. Cook for less than 5 minutes.

I like to accompany this dish with boiled organic wholemeal buckwheat, not only goes well together, but also takes more or less the same time to be done. Other options are eating it with bread or using it as a filling for vol au vents, canelloni, lasagna or as a topping for pizza.

Bon profit and remember:
“Qui guarda quan té, menja quan vol” – Valencian proverb

Vegan organic muesli with rolled oats, oat milk, kiwi and blueberries

Kind of a porridge without heat.

If you don’t do dairy and can’t stand soy youghurt like me (phew) you might think muesli is not for you. However, a bit of oats milk did wonders this morning. Plus, rolled oats, contrary to what I expected, does stay firmer than corn flakes.

Damn, I’m getting addicted to oats.

Ingredients:
– Organic rolled oats
– Organic oat milk
– Organic blueberries
– Organic kiwis

Directions:
– Peel and slice kiwis
– Add to a bowl with rolled oats and blueberries
– Little oat milk will work like ‘glue’, sticking everything together. Overdoing milk will turn it into a soup
– Promise you get used to using no sugar

Blueberries porridge with oats milk and flaxseeds. No sugar added.

I had never tried porridge untill I came to UK few months ago, and it quickly conquered me. Inexpensive, filling, helathy and fast. Everything a granola vegan needs. Now it seems I’ve been having this kind of breakfast all my life.

Real scottish porridge can be as simple as salt, water and oatmeal but modern times have added milk, honey, sugar or fruits. My favorite fruit to add is banana. Never imagined boiled banana could taste so yummy. Also blueberries are great, but remember buying organic ones, conventionally grown berries are known to cointain huge amount of pesticides. I’m trying to stay away from refined sugar, honey, agave and substitutives (find here why) so if I have a sweet tooth, then I’ll add grapes or dried apricots too.

Flaxseeds are not compulsory, but since I do a teaspoon a day, it’s a great place to hide them.

This one had:
– Blueberries
– Organic oatmeal
– Water
– Organic blueberries
– A teaspoon of flaxseeds

Directions:
– Throw everything into pot (I never ever measure, bad habit)
– Boil for less than 5 minutes
– Serve

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