Tuesday 22 February 2011

A quick, healthy, beautiful and delicious salad




En Français au bas de la page!

This morning, my mom asked me to give her easy and quick salad recipes.

Not only easy but also nutritious and healthy.

I have been working on salad recipes for a while as i am preparing a little e-book, but i wanted her not to have to wait until it's finished to be able to start making healthier choices.

So i went to my kitchen, and to be honest, i did not have very many ingredients left in my fridge, so i whipped up a really easy and quick carrot salad.

What i think is a great help to get great meals done quickly is to always have a few ingredients in your cupboard that you can keep for a long time and from which you can pick and choose when you want.

For example i always have:

- Extra virgin olive oil
- Dijon or grainy Mustard
- Apple cider vinegar ( i also use balsamic a lot although it's not raw)
- dried herbs and spices
- sun dried tomatoes
- olives
- tahini
- sea weeds
- Pumpkin seeds
- sunflower seeds
- all sorts of nuts...



you could have much more but this is a good base, little by little you'll add your own to it.

So here is today's recipe, a carrot and baby spinach salad.

Carrot and baby spinach salad

serves 2

2 large carrots
3 handfuls of baby spinach leaves
1 handful of pumpkin seeds
1 handful of sunflower seeds

Dressing:

1 TBSP Grainy mustard
2 TBSP Balsamic vinegar (or apple cider vinegar if you want it completely raw)
3 to 4 TBSP extra virgin Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Peel the carrots. With a vegetable peeler or a julienne peeler, make ribbons, or thin "spaghetti like" strips with the carrots. Mix the carrots with the spinach leaves and the seeds.

To make the dressing put the mustard in a little bowl, add the vinegar and stir. Then slowly add the olive oil while stiring. Add salt and pepper to taste. Adjust the seasoning. At this point you can add some dried herbs or some chillis or anything you like in the dressing.

Just before serving, add the dressing to the salad and mix well.

Divide into 2 plates and enjoy!

Bon appétit!

En Français:


Ce matin, ma mère m’a demandé de lui donner des idées de recettes de salades simples. Non seulement simples mais aussi bonnes pour la santé, belles, délicieuses, et légères.

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Recipe testing day and walnut and mushroom paté recipe


Muhroom, walnut, red cabbage
 En Français au bas de la page!

Last tuesday i had a big recipe testing day.

It's alsways very exciting to spend the day in my home kitchen to experiment with raw food.
Today i decided to make a LOT of food, instead of testing only one recipe, i thought it would be great to actually have a proper testing, and picture day. A day like that allows me to let my creativity come out, and ideas pop up all along the day as i make recipes up. 

Because i was going to end up with a lot of food and didn't think i should eat it all by myself, i invited my local friends to share it and to hear their feedbacks!

Some people asked me how i come up with ideas, and how i make up some recipes. Well really, i am not sure anyone can say that they ever completely invent a recipe. It's always a blend of influences from finding ideas in books, experience in kitchens, but also smells, colours in everyday life, and other past experiences.
Everyone has something to say and i believe everyone can create.

So let your imagination take you!
Here are a few pics of what i prepared, and i am giving you the recipe for the walnut and mushroom paté. You do not need a dehydrator to make it.




Raw eggplant curry

raw goji berrie and coconut macarons

Blueberry and cashew "cheesecake", raw.

Walnuts are best eaten very fresh as they go rancid very quickly. If you can get some fresh walnuts and crack them, that’s wonderful.


In the market look for the nuts that should feature bright brown color, compact, uniform in size and feel heavy in hand.Walnuts go rancid when exposed to warm temperatures for long periods of time. Heat causes the fat in walnuts to change structure, which creates off odors and flavors. Fresh walnuts smell mildly nutty and taste sweet. If your walnuts smell like paint thinner, you know they’re rancid. And if they’re rancid, you should throw them away. You can store your walnuts in the fridge I an airtight container. Wait to shell or chop walnuts until you’re ready to use them. The same applies for ground walnut meal; don’t grind walnuts until you’re ready to add the walnut meal to your recipe. This will help maintain great flavor.




Walnuts are a great source of Omega 3 fatty acids and are very poor in carbohydrate.
These nuts are packed with many important B-complex groups of vitamins such as riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B-6, and folates.
They have a high content of Vitamin E, a powerful lipid soluble antioxidant, required for maintaining the integrity of cell membrane of mucus membranes and skin by protecting it from harmful oxygen free radicals.
They also very are rich source of minerals like manganese, copper, potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc and selenium.



Walnut and mushroom pâté


2 cups/ 240g of walnuts, soaked in water overnight, drained
1 stick of celery
3 large Portobello mushrooms
6 sun dried tomatoes, soaked in water for about 20min and drained
1 lemon juice
2 TBSP olive oil
2 TBSP Tamari
Black pepper


Slice the mushrooms and marinate them in the mixture of olive oil, lemon and tamari. Set aside for about 3Omin.

In a food processor, mix the soaked and drained walnuts with the celery, the drained tomatoes and the marinated mushrooms. Blend and season to taste with black pepper, salt if needed and a dash of olive oil. Simply adjust to your own taste.
You can serve this pâté as a dip, or fill some chestnut mushrooms with it. Have fun!

It will keeps for about 3 days, in the fridge.


En français...


Mardi dernier fût une journée dédiée à essayer des recettes, plein de recettes !


C’est toujours très excitant de passer la journée dans ma cuisine à expérimenter avec la cuisine crûe. Il y a tellement de combinaisons possibles !

D’habitude j’essaye une ou deux recettes, plus, je ne peux pas tout manger seule…

Mais cette fois ci, je voulais vraiment faire de cette journée une journée un peu folle, avec plus d’une dizaine de recettes à écrire et goûter et beaucoup de photos à prendre !