1 – 2 – PESTO!!!

One of the greatest things of living on a mediterrean island is the fresh herbs which are not only much much cheaper than at home in Austria, but also so much richer in flavor & smell! Last week I got a huge bunch of super fresh basil as well as rucola from one of my favorite veggie shops in Sliema, George’s. After doing some salads and juices I was afraid of not using up the good stuff in time. So the idea for pesto was born!

Now that I finally made my own pesto myself for the first time I am actually surprised I’ve never done it before?! It’s so easy and quick, and most important SOOOOOOO unbelievebly YUMMY!!!

Check it out yourself next time you get the chance to get a big bunch of one or the other, or both.

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All you need:

• Big bunch of basil/ rucola
• 1-2 cloves of garlic depening on your taste
• Your best olive oil extra vergine
• Sea salt, fresh pepper
• Freshly grated parmesan
• 1-2 hands full of nuts (I took pine nuts for the basil pesto and cashew nuts for the rucola pesto so they get a different flavor)
• Ev. sqeeze of lemon

What to do:

Carefully clean the basil/rucola, wash and dry it. I love to use my salad spinner for this to ensure it’s really dry. Grate some fresh parmeggiano, peel and crush the garlic. Roast the nuts. Start processing the leaves and the garlic, later add the nuts, only at the end add oil slowly until you like the texture. Take of the processor. Mix the paresan carfully until you’re perfectly happy with the consistency, season to tase with salt, pepper (ev. chili if you like it hot) and ev. a sqeeeze of lemon juice. Put it in a jar, keep it in the refrigerator and use within a week.

Both pestos have a very particular intense flavor. You can use them as a spread, as a dip, in sandwiches, in salad dressings or, as we did it, with barbequed stuff e.g. grilled chicken, grilled halloumi cheese or vegetables. Ah yes, and pasta – but that’s something I’m hardly ever having on these hot summer days!

ENJOY : )

Summer buckwheat salad 2.0

Riding on my buckwheat wave I made my second batch within a week! This time I must say I liked it even better than the first one… if you try them both, let me know which one you prefer… but this time the sweet of the dried currents and the bite of the almond flakes make eating this light salad even more fun! The greatest thing is not only that all ingredients boast of health and flavour, but also that if you have the buckwheat ready prepared this meal is made upso fast, you don’t even need 10min, promised!

What you need:
(serves 2)

• 1 cup of buckwheat (I like to do this in the morning when I get my morning wheat grass to start the day)
• Water for soaking
• Half of a pepper (I think in this one the orange is perfect in the color mix)
• A chunk of red cabbage
• A small bowl of green peas
• Half of a feta cheese (I like sheep or goat as I try to reduce cow milk as much as I can)
• 1 spring onion
• A handful of dried currants
• A handful of almond flakes
• Olive oil
• Apple cider vinegar
• Sea salt & pepper (freshly ground)

What to do:

Put the buchkwheat in a bowl and cover it with water, let it soak for 2hours or a bit more. Drain the rest of the water. Chop the vegetables and feta cheese. Mix with the buckwheat, add currents and almond flakes. Dress with olive oil, apple cider vinegar, season to taste with sea salt and fresh pepper.

Enjoooooooooooooy!!!

Detox week 1. A first conclusion & a lovely new favourite salad.

Today a week ago I started with my detox. No sugars, no alcohol, no dairy, no white flower, no yeast and a 70% – 30% ratio of alkaline – acidic food to sum it up really briefly. In the beginning I felt quite lost. My favorite cooking methods like frying, baking with cheese – not allowed. So, it feels a bit like learning to cook a second time! After shopping all my new “basics” which means tons of grains, seeds, nuts and even more veg I felt well equipped and ready to explore new territories 😀

The first days were pretty awkward. The green smoothies in the morning were the easiest, you mix different greens with 1 apple and water, that’s it. If you like you can add cucumber, celery sticks and one day I tried to make my own almond milk out of soaked almonds and water. But the rest of the day turned out to be a bit more difficult. Lots of the stuff needs soaking so you have to plan ahead. No good for people who work from home like me and normally just go to the fridge when they get hungry! However, some of the grains came out nicely, some less (my amaranth with fresh spinach more looked like baby food) but I survived and felt tiny steps of improvement and broke myself more into the new way of cooking.

When it comes to recipes I only wanna share one thing with you this week, an amazing, super yummy salad and it’s totally alkaline and fits the diet perfectly. More photos of my experiments in the photo gallery below.

Super yummy salad with sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, fresh peas & a lemon tahini dressing

Ingredients (served 6):
Different lettuces, 3 sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, fresh peas (peeled), kale (cut in bite sized pieces without the stem), coconut oil, sea salt
For the dressing:  Mix fresh lemon juice, olive oil, tahini (I used the dark one), fresh ginger (finely chopped) and sea salt

Method:
Steam the veggies shortly so they still keep a crunch (apart from the sweet potatoes, they may be a bit soft), put coconut oil on top and sprinkle with seasalt when they are done and hot. Let them cool off. Prepare the plates with your lettuces and spread them nicely. Add the dressing. Arrange the steamed veg. Drizzle with some additional olive oil. Sprinkle if you like  – I used shelled hempseed and crushed whole hempseeds which are a vital source of fatty acids, fibre and protein.

Bon appetite!

(Thanks Mich, for the lovely inspiration, just LOVE the sweet potato – coconut oil combination <3)

P.S. If you are interested in seeing a list with alkaline – acidic foods, I am using the list on The PHMiracle website, developed by Dr. Young the kind of guru when it comes to the alkaline diet. Another website I really liked is Energiseforlife.com where a young guy called Ross takes it further with a bit of a younger, fresher approach.

Crispy cauliflower crumble.

Everybody knows crumble. Crumble with apples, with pears, with rhubarb, with apricots and many more. One thing they all have in common is that they are sweet. As you might guess from the name, this cauliflower crumble isn’t. It’s savory and full of lovely spices. It’s another dish, invented because of using seasonal veggies – and it came out really really nice. Might sound weird – but give it a try, it’s worth it!

Ingredients:
1 big cauliflower –  broken into florets, 1 large onion – peeled and diced, 1 fresh green chilli (or dried if you don’t have fresh one) – finely chopped, thumb-sized piece of ginger – peeled and diced, 3 tbsp of oats, 2 tbsp sunflower seeds, some cumin, mustard seeds and coreander seeds, curry powder, sea salt, cayenne pepper, some Dukha, 1 knob of butter, 1/2 pack of feta cheese – crumbled.

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180° C. Steam the washed cauliflower until al dente in a steaming basket (approx. 7min). Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Roast onions on medium heat. Add the ground cumin, coreander and mustard seeds – fry until they start poping. Add fresh ginger and green chili and finally some oats and sunflower seeds to roast. Now add curry powder, sea salt, cayenne pepper and 2,3 thin slices of butter. Mix with the steamed cauliflower and put the mix in a baking dish. Top with feta and sprinkle with Dukha if you get it somewhere (if you don’t have it skip it or mix it yourself – it’s delicious). Put it in the oven until the feta cheese is nicely getting brownish.

Enjoy 🙂

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 😉