Yummy yummy yummy I’ve got love in my tummy! Beet, carrot & ginger

Ok, good intentions are here to stay, so I’ll take my feedback seriously and try to post as much as I can. Today was a good day. Cause I stayed on track and it started really well. How? Easy! Start your day with an alkalizing, detoxifying juice!

This juice only needs some basic ingredients. Beets, carrots and ginger are peeled quickly, grab some of your greens in the fridge and off you go. Hint: I always wash all my greens and herbs immediately after I bought them and store them in airtight containers. That keeps them fresh longer and it’s super convenient just to take what you want out of your box ready to use it.

Btw: beets, carrots and ginger are all alkalizing, cleansing and encourage detoxing. Ginger is also used often to improve circulation (Hello fellow office workers!), antispasmodic (Don’t we need it all sometimes?) and anti-nauses which is great if you  are sensitive and go on a trip on a sailing boat (get yourself a flask of home-made ginger tea next time).

What you need…
(2 large glasses or 3 small ones)
Some beets (depending on size, I took 3), carrots (I took 2), half a thumb sized piece of ginger root, 2 handfulls of fresh coriander and mint (each) and NEVER forget a tiny splash of oil to get the vitamins and minerals out of the veg (I always take a bit of flax seed oil which is naturally rich in omega 3)

Optional: add your super foods of choice! I took maca powder & baobab powder (contains tons of antioxidants, including vitamin C)

What to do…
Juice the beets and carrots in your juicer. I’m quite okay with my cheap one but in the long run I’m sure it would be better to invest in a good one as you get more juice and less pulp. Then I add the juice to the greens, bit of oil and the super foods in my blender, add some water and mix it thoroughly.

By the way, I’m still looking for a nice way how to re-use the pulp, – ideas anyone???

Oven roasted veggies. So yummy. So easy. And easy is right :-)

There are so many complicated ways to cook. All kinds of techniques, recipes which take you hours and hours of preparation. You know what? I maybe like to eat them, but not to cook them. AT ALL.

For me cooking shall be easy, down to earth and no problem to prepare. And what I love most is spontanious cooking with what you have at home. As I leave to Austria tomorrow, I had a lot of veggies to use up from my visit to the farmer’s market last week. Gosh – and it was so worth it! For the second day in a row I made a vegetarian meal, which was so easy and tasty – just perfect for my taste, that I want at least to share one with you.

OVEN ROASTED VEGGIES with a quick sundried tomatoes dip (serves 2 hungry people)

Ingredients: veggies whatever your fridge gives you. I used 6 potatoes with the skin, a big piece of pumpkin, 2 carrots, 1 green pepper. Also works fine with any other vegetable like tomatoes, fennel, sweet potatoes, mushrooms etc.
For seasoning: rosmary, oregano, olive oil, sea, salt and pepper.

Method: preheat the oven to the max (220°C), chop up the veggies in bite-sized pieces and put them in one large or two smaller oven-proof dishes. Drizzle with olive oil and season with rosmary, oregano, salt and pepper. Also add some garlic and pieces of onion if you like. Cover the dishes with a double layer of aluminium foil and bake it for approx. 1 hour. Then take them out, take away the foil and put them back into the oven to make them crunchy and brown for another 20min or so. Prepare the dip in the meantime.

For the dip: half of a box of cream cheese (I like Philadelphia light), fresh herbs like parsley and coreander, some sundried tomatoes (in oil, not the Maltese salty ones, they are just too salty for my taste), salt and pepper, a bit of olive oil & milk to make it creamy.

A simple and sooooo delicious meal! Buon appetito 🙂

P.S. If you have leftovers, the cold roasted veggies also taste lovely on top of a salad or as a kind of cold antipasti.

broccoli salad. keep it simple.

Some things are so simple that you tend to forget about them. Many dishes of our childhood are of that kind and when you finally eat them again you just can’t believe why it has taken you so long to pull them out of the dusty drawer 😉

A lovely simple Broccoli salad is one of those meals. Super easy to get in winter you can find broccoli in every veggie shop or veggie van. The best way, in my humble opinion, is to just wash it and then steam it with a bit of water in a steaming basket. It goes very quickly (like 5-7min), fits every pot and keeps the broccoli itself still alive instead of washing out all the good ingredients it has to offer us for our well being: vitamin B3, B5, C, E, folate, beta carotine, calcium, iron, zinc and suphoraphanes! It’s a real powerhouse for our immune and nervous system and a great weapon against many diseases like cancer, it supports the digestive system and cleans the liver as it’s also detoxing. But enough of praising the broccoli… just try it and see yourself – you’ll probably end up fighting about getting your half as me and my BF 😉

Ingredients: 1 head of broccoli, washed and cut into mouth-size pieces, sea salt, olive oil of best quality, 1 lemon, some freshly grated cheese e.g. Pecorino.

Method: Steam the broccoli in the steaming basket with a hint of sea salt. After 5-10min take it out and cool it with ice cold water. Like this the color and nutrients stay alive. Drizzle with olive oil, some more sea salt, fresh pepper and the juice of one lemon. Mix and grate the Pecorino on top. Enjoy luke warm, you’ll see sometimes the bowl doesn’t even make it to the table 😉

winter time, risotto time!

Winter is cold, even in Malta. This time of the year you want something warm, comforting, which makes you feel cosy and to be enjoyed with a glass of lovely red wine. For me a risotto is just the perfect food these days. I always think, no.. it’s a lot of work, but actually there’s nothing cosier on a dark cold winter day than stay at home, open a bottle of wine, put on some nice music and start cooking a risotto. Perfect with some nice company as you don’t really have to focus much on the cooking!

What I also like with risotto is the fact that you can actually throw anything in it what your fridge gives you. Left overs of wine, any kind of veggies and cheese. Doesn’t matter if you went shopping or not, I guess you’ll always find something you can make a risotto with.

In my case I wanted to use up a box of mushrooms and a lovely bunch of green asparagus. So I cleaned the asparagus and shortly cooked it in boiling water with some salt and lemon and kept the water for later. The cut up mushrooms I fried in a pan with some olive oil, oregano, thyme and seasoned with salt, pepper and a tiny bit of balsamic vinegar. In the meantime I fried the cut up onion slowly on medium heat, added the garlic and the risotto rice until fragrant nice and shiny. Then start to top up with liquids, but only as much to cover the rice. During you finish the veggies and set the table never forget to top up with liquids. When everything is ready (ca. 20min later) and the risotto rice is al dente add the knob of butter, the grated cheese and some of the veggies. Stir it, so the cheese melts, and decorate on a nice plate with some of the asparagus and mushrooms on the side. Lovely with some salad and wine. Enjoy with some nice company and music 🙂

Ingredients:
1 box of mushrooms
1 bunch of asparagus
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 cups of risotto
liquids: left overs of white wine, 0,5l of veggie stock (I used the asparagus stock)
olive oil, knob of butter
salt, pepper
some nice herbs e.g. dried oregano & thyme, rosmary etc.
parmesan or similar cheese (grated)

‘ wurstnudeln’ a simple but delicious pasta.

Do you also hate it to throw away left overs? I really do and that’s why I always try to make out something nice of things left over from a party or a meal. Recently a friend brought some nibbles which were little skewers of cheese, fruit, sausages and ham. Funnily everybody ate the cheese and fruit but not the meaty stuff. So what to do with all these little pieces of smoked ham and the mini sausages? Then I had a great idea – and I just knew my BF would love it too.. it’s more of a male dish, but every now and then I enjoy it too…

In Austria we call it ‘Wurstnudeln’ (pasta with sausages’). You fry a big onion slowly in olive oil and a knob of butter, cut all the left overs of cut meat or sausages (even after a BBQ etc) and add it to the fried onions. What’s really nice is to add a fresh fennel bulb which is cut in very thin slices. This is a thing Italians do in a similar dish but they use Salsiccia instead of the ham and sausage leftovers. Add a gulp of white wine (leftovers in opened bottels are perfect for cooking too!) and let it simmer a bit on low to medium heat. Add some pepperoncino, sea salt and fresh herbs if you have, e.g. parsley comes really nice..  you’ll see it just smells divine!

In the meantime coo the pasta (small ones as Gnocchetti Sardi, Farfalle or Fusilli are perfect) al dente, strain and add them directly into the pan with the fried onion – ham mix. Stir a bit so the pasta can soak up all the yummy juices and enjoy with some grated cheese on top. Lovely with a green salad!

Buon appetito!