July 25th, 2012
This post is also available in: French
Here’s a juice we cannot get enough of this summer. When heirloom tomatoes begin to shine in their rainbow of colours, when cucumbers are sweet and herbs are in abundance – that is the time for this healthful drink.
All the credit for this juice goes to my husband, a lover of V8 in the past. I especially like it with the addition of dill, it’s such a characteristically summer herb. Include some salt and pepper to spice things up, my husband even likes to add Old Bay. As you can imagine, this juice could also satisfy a Bloody Mary fan. You know, minus the kick.
I didn’t specify any amounts in the recipe. All of the veggies included, especially heirloom tomatoes, have a crazy size range in the summer. Just try to have an even ratio or use more of your favourite vegetable for a stronger taste.
We’ve been having a very rainy summer with loud daily thunderstorms. We wouldn’t mind it wasn’t for Paloma’s newly developed fear of thunder and lightning. Otherwise a very brave girl, she weeps under the blanket for the whole length of a storm. Hopefully she will grow out of it soon. Any similar stories among the crowd?
Garden Juice
summer tomatoes
cucumbers
bell pepper
celery
carrots
fresh herbs such as dill, parsley, cilantro, mint, oregano
sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, any other spices of choice
You will probably need a juicer that is not centrifugal – single or double gear. When juicing, alternate soft and hard vegetables and herbs, using a fruit attachment. Add salt, pepper, and spices to taste at the end. Simple!
Tags: carrots, cucumber, drink, juice, pepper, raw, recipe, savoury, tomato, vegan
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June 24th, 2012
This post is also available in: French
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that the shorter the season of a certain food, the more magical it appears. It’s true for figs, cherries, summer tomatoes, and most other jewels of the earth, really. It’s certainly the case with fava beans, those brilliantly green peas of the giants.
Seeing them in stores here in Florida is such a rare occasion, that when I recently ran across favas, I wanted to come up with a fun and bright salad to properly celebrate them.
I’ve heard about the surprising combination of vanilla bean and balsamic before, and finally decided to try it out in the dressing for this timbale. The two make for a very interesting vinaigrette – slightly sweet and incredibly fragrant. If you are a balsamic lover, increase the amount of it in the dressing, as I tried to keep it light.
I also thought it would be fun to present the salad in the form of timbale, it definitely makes the eating experience more special.
We just got back from San Francisco – talk about falling in love all over again. Plenty of fresh fava beans at the markets there, along with the sweetest of cherries, peaches, apricots, and a myriad of the most otherworldly greens. We’ll have a Travel Notes post up next week. Meanwhile, enjoy the favas.
Fava Bean Timbale
(serves 4-6)
1 cup fresh fava beans – shelled and peeled
1 cup fresh corn kernels
2-3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon (optional)
2 medium cucumbers – peeled, seeded and cubed
1 cup purple cabbage – finely shredded
lime
8-10 radishes – cubed
handful cilantro leaves
3 tablespoons chives – finely chopped
2 tablespoons sesame seeds – unhulled and optionally toasted
zest of 1 orange – optional
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
I used raw fava beans in this recipe, but you can also blanch the shelled beans in boiling water for a minute before peeling them. Corn can also be boiled, as opposed to raw, for 4 minutes and then rinsed under cold water before cutting kernels off the corn ear. Chop fava beans into 2-3 pieces each. Mix them with corn kernels, tarragon, and a generous pinch of coarse sea salt, leave to soften.
Place the cucumbers in a colander, sprinkle with salt and leave to release juices. Mix cabbage with a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lime juice, massage for a couple minutes with your hands and set aside.
Vanilla Balsamic Vinaigrette
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 tablespoon each balsamic and apple cider vinegar
seeds of 1 vanilla bean
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice
1/2 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
drop of sesame oil (optional)
sea salt and pepper
Whisk all the ingredients together in a small bowl.
Assembly
In a bowl, combine all the vegetables with the cubed radishes and the rest of the timbale ingredients. Pour in about one third of the vinaigrette, mix to incorporate. If making a timbale, place the ring mold of the size you like (I used 2 1/4-inch in height and 3 3/4 in diameter) on a plate and pack the salad inside the mold. Place a jar filled with liquid on top and let it stand for 10-15 minutes. Carefully remove the mold and repeat the process to make more timbale. Drizzle with remaining dressing, garnish with chives and sesame seeds. Serve with microgreens or any fresh salad greens.
Optionally, you can also serve timbale as a salad, without molding it. In this case, simply slice the cucumbers and radishes and leave fava beans whole. The rest of the recipe stays the same. Serve in a purple cabbage leaf for a nice presentation if you like.
Tags: fava, raw, recipe, salad, savoury, tarragon, vegan
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April 22nd, 2012
This post is also available in: French
Say hello to our next guest bloggers, the Alkaline Sisters. Julie and Yvonne write a beautiful blog, where they inspire readers to cook pH balancing dishes with their delicious recipes and vibrant photography. Ever since discovering the Alkaline Sisters, and later Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Diet, I’ve been giving my meals a lot more thought in acidic and alkaline terms. Make sure to visit Julie and Yvonne’s blog to find more wonderful, healing recipes and stunning food photography. Here is Julie:
Sometimes it’s kinda nice for a change to nibble on finely textured veggies cuz somehow they seem to have a different kind of flavour when they mingle in fine shreds. That’s what I’ve discovered from my extensive veggie preparations. I end up experimenting with an array of textures, from finely diced, roughly chopped or shredded, to spiral noodles, thinly sliced and julienne cuts. Each texture seems to give the veggies a unique taste sensation exposing more or less surface area of the veggies in a recipe. Several flavours tend to marry more easily when finely cut. Incorporating fine sprouts like broccoli, radish, garlic or alfalfa adds yet another character.
Experimenting with select veggies that will julienne nicely or pass over a mandolin like fennel & apple w/ parsnip or perhaps a combo of peppers, jicama and carrots can yield pleasing flavours. A special peeler like this is an easy way to julienne most any vegetable (with short or long strokes) except small radish sized veggies which work best on a mandolin.
You can enjoy this small dainty salad as a nice opening to a meal or alongside another main dish. It’s a yummy recipe that will help to increase your nutrient intake with living enzymes, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and antioxidants all the while alkalizing the body to balance your pH which in turn will help to minimize symptoms of disease.
We’ve always been told to eat our veggies since we were kids, right? But now that we’re adults…. we get to enjoy creative pretty salads to get our nutrients versus mushy peas and kaki coloured broccoli! So off to the kitchen and dust off a few of those gadgets and make your veggie flavours mingle and dance! You won’t regret it!
Petite Slaw of Celeriac, Broccoli Sprouts, Meyer Lemon and Thyme
(Makes 4 petite salads or 2 grande salads)
1 tsp zest of meyer lemon
juice of 2 meyer lemons
1/4 cup cold pressed avocado oil
2 drops liquid stevia or 1 tsp maple syrup
pinch fine Himalayan salt
pinch of black pepper
1 medium celeriac root – peeled and julienne cut
1 cup broccoli sprouts
1 large carrot – peeled and julienne cut
4 radish – julienne cut on mandolin
5 stems fresh thyme – leaves removed
1/2 c raw walnuts – roughly chopped
In a small bowl combine lemon juice, avocado oil, stevia or syrup, salt and pepper. Set aside. In a medium bowl toss julienned celeriac, carrot, thyme leaves and sprouts to gently mingle the veggies together (you may have to carefully pull the sprouts apart and toss veggies by hand). Chill until ready to serve. Place in individual serving dishes and whisk the dressing once again and drizzle generously over veggies. Garnish with a sprig of thyme and serve.
It’s been a pleasure and an honour to be here sharing tasty healthy food with Golubka readers, thank you for stopping in.
-Julie
www.alkalinesisters.com
Tags: celeriac, guest post, meyer lemon, raw food, recipe, salad, savoury, sprouts, thyme, vegan
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April 8th, 2012
This post is also available in: French
Happy Easter! Today’s guest post is by the beautiful Elenore from Earthsprout. She compares her approach to cooking as painting on the plate using nature’s colours, and we could not agree more. Elenore’s commitment to the most natural ingredients is incredibly inspiring, and her positive energy – absolutely contagious. If you haven’t yet visited her wonderful blog, you are in for a real treat. Elenore Bendel Zahn, your official tree hugger and sassy health gal. As both a Raw Food/ Natural Nutrition coach and an Organic Gardener, Elenore spreads knowledge that can heal both You and Mother Earth. Her home is in the very south of Sweden where she works with her company Earthsprout and its various Greenylicious projects. At the moment she is soon to be releasing her carefully handpicked Raw Food product “Nordic Superfood Mix”, working one-to-one with clients, creating their custom made Adventure changes and whipping up health boosting flavor explosions for www.Earthsprout.org
I have to admit… While I can sit and admire green buds and colorful leaves for hours, when it comes to food, I tend to get easily bored (whaat!?). This is why when I realized what amazing flavor treasures and inspiring people where hidden in the world of food blogs I got really excited (almost as excited as I am when riding on a raw chocolate high) and decided to join. This is how Earthsprout was born. Now I use the site to play with the wonders of nature and let it flow of all passion and playfulness that, according to me, life and crazy health is all about.
Golubka is one of those brilliant sites that I can simply sit in front of, read, enjoy (and drool a bit) so imagine my excitement when Anya asked me to contribute to this space of “Food that takes love”. Um, yes please! So here we go, gorgeous!
For this very special occasion I decided to put the current Swedish spring on a plate (it was snowing yesterday but still) and play with the contrast of fresh -makes my cell dance- greens and hearty BBQ seasoned Grissini. This dish will tell you exactly what is going on outside of my window using both flavor, texture and overall appearance to paint the picture. And let me tell you, I was not the slightest bit bored while eating…
Fun & Fabulous Facts
For those of you who does not know me, I have a hard time making food that does not contain any superpowers at all. I mean, what fun would it be creating meals out of uber-processed ingredients or meat from sad animals? My goal is forever and always to lure out the glitter in everyone’s eyes, give some balance to Mother Earth and let our food become a smash-hit for everyone on this planet! You on board? This is why Raw, Pure, Whole and Vegan foods suit me so well. They give me a full palette of gorgeous colors to paint your plate with while boosting beauty, longevity and love at its very core.
You have all heard about the wonders of greens and all greatness that comes with munching on them regularly. This is why I will not go over it all again. See this as a little reminder that you are so worth living in your fullest potential, and the greens? The best shortcut ever!
I for one know that I can fly far far off on Raw desserts but when I down a huge green juice, that´s when I feel the most satisfied. Fact is our bodies all long for the alkalinity that glorious greens give us since most of us tend to hang around on the sour side of the pH-scale. Many (if not all) of our so called chronic dis-eases have their breeding ground in a sour, oxygen lacking, inflammatory environment. Guess what the solution is? This greenylicious herb soup! Alright, not solely that, but all the wondrous gifts of nature that up our oxygen-game making it hard for imbalances to occur and making it easy for you living in all the greatness that you are.
Raw Greenylicious Herb Soup (Makes 1 litre)
This soup will (apart from blow your mind) serve 10 peeps as an appetizer or 4 hungry ones as a dinner. You could actually eat it as a green smoothie on the go but it shows its best sides when dancing together with the heavy seasoned bread sticks. Duh ;)
1.5 medium sized Avocado
2 stalks of Celery, finely chopped
1 large handful of roughly chopped Cilantro
1 small handful of roughly chopped Mint
1.5 cup Coconut water
1 cup cold water
1 small tsp of Himalayan salt/Celtic sea salt
1 tsp freshly ground Black pepper
Some fresh garden cress for decoration and final flavor touch
Cut and scoop out the avocados in a large bowl or a high speed blender. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix with a hand blender or in the high speed blender. Keep refrigerated.
BBQ Grissini (Makes 16, 7 inches long bread sticks)
1 cup Sunflower seeds
1 cup Golden flax seeds
2 tablespoons Black sesame seeds (ground for decoration)
Soak the Sunflower seeds and flax overnight in separate bowls, using approximately 2 cups of water for the flax (the amount of water covering the sunflower seeds does not matter). Rinse the sunflower seeds thoroughly, put in a large bowl together with the flax “dough” and blend with a hand blender or in a high speed blender. Make the BBQ spice and blend again until fully incorporated. Make 7 inches long grissini & sprinkle the black ground sesame seeds onto them. Put them on a non stick paper/Teflex sheet and dehydrate in a dehydrator for about 18 hours (flip them over after 10 hours). Done!
BBQ-spice
3 small cloves of garlic
0.5 tsp smoked paprika powder
0.5 tsp black pepper
1 pinch of chilli
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp ground coriander seeds
2 tsp dried oregano
1.5 small tsp salt
Press the garlic cloves and add all spices to the sunflower/flax “dough”.
So, known and unknown friends I hope you will all enjoy this foodie illustration of the Swedish spring and hop on over to Twitter, Facebook or Earthsprout if you have any questions, fun ideas or stuff like that. Looking forward to hear from you, honeys!
–And a final thanks for the beautiful Golubka family for continuously presenting inspiration that makes all our hearts sing!– Much bliss and love /Elenore
Tags: guest post, raw, recipe, savoury, soup, vegan
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