Mediterranean Spring Chickpeas

I want to share with you today a recipe I've absolutely fallen in love with. I have named the recipe “Mediterranean Spring Chickpeas”, since I believe they are especially suitable for this time of the year when we can still appreciate a dish of stewed pulses on colder spring days, but with the contrast  of  the   lighter and more refreshing  energy provided by the lemon and the fresh herbs.  

The combination of the sweetness of the chickpeas with the acidity of the lemon and the flavor of the rosemary is just perfect.

It’s a recipe of my friend Maria. My humble contribution to it is in the way to boil the chickpeas. We’ll boil them the macrobiotic way with a piece of Kombu to ensure an easy digestion with no flatulence.

Ingredients:

1 cup of chickpeas soaked overnight, 1 stamp-sized piece of Kombu seaweed, 2 bay leaves , a sprig of rosemary (be generous), one chopped onion .  

For the lemon and olive oil dressing : 3 parts of olive oil, 1 part of lemon juice, sea salt, one crushed garlic.  

Preparation:

      Place the chickpeas in a thick bottom pan with the piece of kombu and enough water to cover. Bring to the boil, reduce the flame to low and simmer. Skim and discard the foam that floats to the surface. When foam no longer appears, add the onion, the bay leaves and the rosemary, cover and cook until the beans are about 90 % done. If more water is needed during the cooking time, add it gently. 


Prepare the lemon and olive oil dressing by mixing all the ingredients in a blender. Add the dressing to the chickpeas and continue cooking until the chickpeas are soft and most of the remaining liquid has evaporated. Transfer to a serving dish and decorate with a sprig how fresh rosemary. Enjoy!

Now that avocados are in season, I would like to share a recipe with you that seems perfect for these hot spring days: a creamy avocado tart with a hint of lime. 

And not to forget about the energetic value of what we eat, this tart has  a refreshing, relaxing and comforting effect.  Enjoy!

Creamy lime and avocado tart

Ingredients:

Crust: ¼ cup shredded unsweetened coconut, ½ cup chopped pecans, ½ cup dates, 1 to 2 teaspoons lime zest, a pinch of sea salt.

Tart filling: 1 ½ cup avocado puree, ¼ cup of fresh squeezed lime juice, ¼ cup rice syrup, 1 table spoon coconut oil, 1 teaspoon lime zest.

Instructions:

1. Process the crust ingredients in a food processor into a thick paste. Take the mixture out of the processor and press evenly into two mini (10cm wide) springform pans. Place the pans in the freezer.

2. Blend the ingredients for the filling until creamy.

3. Pour half of the filling over the crust in one pan and the remaining half over the crust in the second pan.

4. Place pans in the freezer to set up at least for 2 hours.

You can decorate the tart with lime slices and lime rind strips.

5. Take out of the freezer, remove the spring form, let sit for 5-10 minutes, cut into slices and serve. Enjoy!

Why eat seawed?

The reasons to eat seaweed, apart from enjoying their delicious taste and recovering an ingredient now forgotten in the West but that used to be present in our traditional gastronomy, are mainly three. First, they help us get rid of toxic metals, radioactivity and pollution thanks to the alginic acid they contain. Secondly, due to their high content of minerals, they have an alkalizing effect in the blood that can help balance the acidifying effect of modern diets. 

Also, they can help dissolve fat and mucus deposits in the body resulting from an excessive consumption of dairy and meat. 

I highly recommend introducing them in your diet. There is a big variety, from the mild taste of the wakame to the salty and very tasty hijiki. You need to know how to use each type- some need only to be soaked and are ready for consumption while others have to be cooked -  and maybe start following some recipes and then follow your own intuition and add them to your favorite dishes or create new ones.

Is macrobiotics all about exotic Asian foods?

I have realized when talking to people about macrobiotics that a significant number of them have the belief that a macrobiotic diet is based on exotic Asian ingredients. This belief unfortunately establishes a prejudice against it and they miss the chance to improve their health and well being greatly.

Among the principles of Macrobiotics, I will mention only two that will make you understand how ill founded this belief is. One is eating according to our geographical situation. When we eat foods that grow in the climate we live in, it is easier to be in harmony with nature. It is better to consume local fruits and vegetables than those imported from distant countries. The second one has to do with eating according to the season, and the reason is the same: eating according to nature’s changing cycles will make us flow with the flow of nature.

If you look at macrobiotics recipe books, you will find such ingredients as miso, shoyu, tofu or different kinds of seaweed. Being George Ohsawa, the father of Macrobiotics, and his pupil Michio Kushi  Japanese, this was only  to be expected. However, the two principles stated above and which, in my opinion, should apply to any sensible approach to eating point at the fact that in our everyday diet the main ingredients have to be those that have fed our ancestors for centuries: local seasonal vegetables and fruits, grains, pulses, seeds and meat, eggs and fish from animals that have been raised and fed properly. Tradition is another principle of Macrobiotics.

There are some “superfoods” such as umeboshi plums, miso, Daikon which are very useful to restore health, but the staple diet that will make us healthy and vital should be made of the local foods we can easily find around us.  

Yoga and macrobiotics

I have been practicing yoga for  about 15 years and. Both the practice of yoga and following a macrobiotic lifestyle  have changed my life for the very best and I see them as complementary in my search for health, balance, happiness and greater awareness. 

Both are precious tools to reach the harmonization of the yin and yang energies, ida and pingala as they are known in yoga, which together regulate the various glands and organs of the body influencing the emotions and states of consciousness.

This is post intends to be some food for thought for people that like me practice yoga or some other kind of exercise that helps them find balance and enhance life force such as Tai Chi, Chi Kung, etc., but have not yet become aware that the  energetic and healing  work they are doing with such practices can be enhanced or diminished depending on the way they feed themselves. My point is that whatever practice you choose, it would be contradictory to feed yourself in such a way that would create in your organism the contrary effects to those you are looking for. Just a very simple example: it would not make sense to do breathing exercises to open and clean your lungs and eat foods that would contract or generate fat and mucus deposits in these organs.

So I invite you to discover the energetics of food, how they affect your physical, emotional and mental bodies and how they will help you reach the goals you have set for you with your yoga practice.

Here is a link to an  article of yogi Swami Gaurishankara Saraswati  talking about the common  features  of yoga and macrobiotics.

Sweetness and emotions

When  emotionally out of balance, many people resort to the chocolate bar, ice-cream or any other very sweet "treat" looking for the comfort they are missing. The effect they create is the contrary of what they were looking for: a sudden rise of the glucose levels in the blood unavoidably followed by a sudden fall which  makes you crave for the next sugar shot in a never-ending cycle of  euphoria and misery that creates a lot of unhappiness. Let alone the fact that sugar demineralizes you, makes you lose the strength, brightness, mental clarity and magnetism you need to attract the affection you are looking for when looking for that sweet taste.

It is important to stop and reflect on the way we create sweetness in our lives, whether it be through food, life style or mental attitude. We need sweetness for our brain to work well and our emotions to be balanced and the best way to get it through food is with whole grains, sweet vegetables and seasonal local fruits.

And now that cauliflower, red cabbage and apples are in season, here you have  the link to a delicious millet and cauliflower pie with red cabbage and apple recipe that will satisfy your body' s need for sweetness.

Cook and enjoy!

A pinch of salt

There is a lot confusion regarding the consumption of salt. We have heard plenty of times that salt is no good for our health and there are people that take pride in not using salt at all. Probable this confusion has to do with both the quality and the quantity of what we consume.

Unrefined sea salt has been a source of life and health from the beginning of times. It was considered so precious that people were paid in salt- hence the word salary. It is simply the result of the evaporation of seawater. Its composition is almost up to a 90% chloride and sodium, the rest being sulfate, magnesium, calcium and potassium also elements of extraordinary qualitative importance.  

But this   excellent ally to our health can become poison if refined and processed with chemicals and additives. Commercial sea salts available on the market today might vary in their chemical composition, but none has the same composition and proportion of elements found in sea water. Common refined table salt is 99,99% sodium chloride plus added iodine and dextrose (a kind of sugar). So we should take only unrefined sea salt  and avoid the refined ,  iodized one.

Another thing to bear in mind is that we have to use salt in cooking, never raw and that we can add the salt to our recipes using shoyu  or  tamari (see my blog on shoyu and tamari http://www.macrobioticscyprus.com/uncategorized/soy-sauce-shoyu-or-tamari/) , which also need to be cooked.

About the quantity, about half tea spoon a day is sufficient. We need to take salt because it contributes to a good drainage of toxins, allows life energy to flow and so boosts our vitality, improves our sexuality, favors concentration and stimulates digestion among other benefits. However, an excess of salt provokes stagnation of our life energy which manifests in hardening and contraction of the blood vessels, premature white hair, pain in the knees and kidneys, menstrual cramps, dry skin, liquid retention, hypertension, impatience, short temper, tension and mental rigidity. 

Salt?  Yes, unrefined and in moderation.