What shall I cook today?

After very mild Christmas, it seems that  winter has finally arrived to Cyprus. Winter is the  time to nurture our bodies with strengthening energies that boost our inner heat.

 We need more fire, longer cooking time, saltier condiments without forgetting yin  condiments to give polarity and  dynamism to our dishes. Most important, we need to listen to our bodies and not be afraid of experimenting in the  pursuit of our own personal balance.

 Some  suggestions for winter menus:

• Miso soup + stewed chickpeas with millet balls + Onion and carrot kimpira

• Pumpkin soup + buckwheat with artichokes + Salad of boiled green vegetables and grilled tofu

• Onion soup + pressure cooked brown rice with aduki and pumpkin + steamed leeks and carrots

• Vegetable broth + Pasta with shell fish +  Salad of green leaves and pickled cabbage

  Festive desserts with almonds: 

Almond and date "polvorones"

I would like to share with you some  delicious festive desserts with almonds I found in the blog delicooks.com. The blog has all sorts of recipes and among them I found one I particularly like because besides being delicious, it has none of the "wrong"  ingredients that would ban it from a macrobiotic cookbook. Since the blog is in Spanish, I have translated  the recipe in English for non Spanish speakers.

Ingredients:

300 gr. raw almonds 
135 gr. dates

Directions:

1. Soak the almonds for 48 hours.
2. Drain and peel the almonds.
3. Place them in a baking tray and dehydrate until they are completely dry.
4. Place the almonds in a food processor and blend until you get a very thin  texture (not flour though) .
5. Remove the stones from the dates and add them to the almonds and blend.   
6. Shape the "polvorones" with the mixture.
7. If you want to keep them for some time, you can dehydrate them completely. 

"Polvorones" are typical Spanish Christmas sweets.

Autumn is here

Although the days are still quite hot in Cyprus, we have been able to feel the change of the season for some weeks now.  Our routines have also changed:  we are back to work or school.  We need to adapt to these changes and get ready for the autumn months. If we fail to do so and continue with the same rhythm of activity we had in the summer and go on eating daily raw salads and fruits, having cold drinks what will most probably happen is that, as soon as we have the first cold days of the season, we will catch a cold or even the flu.  So it is the time to strengthen our immune system and balance all the Yin excesses of the summer.   

 Some tips to go with the new energy around us:

• Increase salty condiments such as sea salt, miso, soyu, umeboshi.  I know the days are still quite hot in Cyprus, but we can start eating our miso soup in the evenings.

• Reduce  macerated, pressed and raw  preparations and introduce cooking techniques such as steaming, sauteing, stewing, pressure cooking, tempura.

 

• Favour the beans, grains and vegetables that have  autumn colors and a sweeter taste: millet,  chick peas, pumpkins, onions.

Enjoy the autumn!

Inspiration: healing success stories

Click on the link below to read 

some healing success stories

from people who adopted 

the Macrobiotic diet and lifestyle.

 

Healing success stories
 

Fruit in the summer

Summer offers a wide variety of delicious fruits with a high content of water  and  refreshing energy. However, a diet consisting only of fruit or with  an excess of it  will make us feel very tired after some weeks and with little energy. Some ways to compensate the intake of raw fruit:

• fruit salads with one or more kinds of fruit macerated for about half an hour with syrup and a pinch of salt.
•  mousses
• jellies with agar agar.  

Macerated peaches

Peel 4 peaches and cut them into pieces. Put them in a bowl and add a pich of salt, 2 table spoons of raisins, 1 table spoon of concentrated apple juice, 2 table spoons of rice syrup and  the juice of one orange. Mix and let macerate in the fridge for one hour.

Everything in one dish: whole quinoa salad

This salad contains carbohydrates, protein, minerals, vitamins and  is specially rich in iron, calcium and omega 3 and 6. It is an excellent option to take with us when we eat out.

Ingredients for two people:

·         1 cup of quinoa

·         A pinch of turmeric

·         Tofu cheese or smoked tofu cut into small cubes

·         4 broccoli sprouts

·         1 grated carrot

·         3 radishes

·         4 table spoons of roasted sesame sedes

·         1/2 avocado in small cubes and macerated in lemon juice

·         2 strips of dulse seaweed  

·         Sesame or olive oil

·         Umeboshi vinegar

·         Soja sauce

·         The juice of half a lemon

·         Sea salt

Directions:

1.    Cook the quinoa in a pan with 2 cups of water, a pinch of salt and  the turmeric for 15 minutes.

2.    Boil the broccoli for 1 minute. Chop it finely and season it with the vinegar and the oil. Blanch the radishes and macerate them with some vinegar.

3.    Place the quinoa in a strainer and rinse it under the tap with cold water . Season it with the lemon juice.

4.    Mix all the ingredients: quinoa, tofu, broccoli, avocado, radishes, grated carrot, sesame seeds and   seaweed.

5.    Season with some oil and soja sauce.

Salads

According to the recommendations of the World Health Organisation, from a 25% to a 35% of our diet should consist of vegetables. In the summer it is hot and there is a lot of energy in the environment around us, energy that nurtures our body and therefore we have a smaller appetite than in colder seasons. A refreshing salad is therefore an ideal dish now.  

In traditionally vegetarian countries such as China, Vietnam or Japan, the raw salad as such does not exist. Are raw salads bad for you? No , they are not.  But for sure they are not the best way to to benefit from the vitamins in the vegetables either. It is much better to cook the vegetables for a short time since, although we lose a small percentage of vitamins, we save a lot of digestive energy. When people eat too much raw food, their digestive energy usually diminishes a lot: their belly bloats, they suffer from reflux, flatulence, heavy digestions and tiredness. 

On the other hand,  cooking  the vegetables for a very short time preserves from 80% to 90% of their vitamins. This is  a sufficiently high percentage and specially so if we bear in mind that the digestive weakness that an excessive consumption of raw food can bring about would prevent our bodies from absorbing  correctly the  vitamins in the vegetables. In conclusion, as a general rule, when we eat vegetables, we will cook them slightly in order to increase their digestibility and we will spare  raw salads for occasions such as  after doing a lot of physical exercise, when we eat fish or sea food and in the hot days of the summer.

For our summer salads,  we will use light cooking methods such as  blanching, pressing, macerating,  boiling for a  very short time or sprouting. 

Find here a delicious recipe of a pressed salad.