Let Them Eat Kale and Seaweed Salad Bowl

Kale and Seaweed Salad Bowl
Originally uploaded by vanesscipes

Kale, curly Kale, Purple Kale are all a super food belonging to the Cabbage family. It's a superfood package vitamin C, vitamin E, and for vegans and vegetarians it is full of calcium. Better than the fact that it is good for you it tastes delicious.

An Indian Oatmeal Breakfast that makes you Feel Vital and Alive

A great way to increase your greens is to have green vegetables for breakfast. I love broccoli and scrambled eggs or a spinach omelette. However sometimes the healthy option per se does not float the boat. I love curries for breakfast, whilst it sounds weird once you have lived in South India, and tasted a masala dosai for breakfast there is no going back. As the weather gets fresher, or even colder in the morning then it is time toi think of thick oatmeal breakfasts redolent with spices.

Healthy Indian Oatmeal breakfast.

Ingredients

1 cup thick whole grain Oatmeal,

1 1/2 cups of Soy or Almond Milk
Large piece of Jaggery, (use thyme honey as a substitute)

Cardamoms crushed

Almond, cashew butter to serve.

Method

First grind the oatmeal coarsly if you like a smoother porridge, though I prefer to use it as is. I dry roast it for two minutes to give it a lovely colour. Add the milk to the porridge, add the sweetener and the cardamoms, and cook in hte microwave for ten minutes on high. Eat it hot or warm, with cashew or almond butter, it thickens on cooling. Sometimes if I am feeling superindugent I also add almonds and golden raisins roasted in ghee. I also love it with fresh dates as the seentener it then gives a sticky toffee pudding oatmeal breakfast.

Pumpkin Oatmeal

Ingredients

1 cup vanilla oat milk or soy milk

1 cup thick whole grain rolled oats

large slice of pumkin steamed and mashed with a fork,

small piece of cinnamom stick,

thyme honey,

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract,

To serve top with

2 teaspoons of almond butter, cashew butter or peanut butter.

Method

Add the milk to the oats and stir, then add the flavourings and the pumkin puree, microwave on half power for five minutes. In theory this is suffucuent to last two mornings in practise it is so scrummy gorgeous that it tends to get eaten immediately.

Home made Soups Increase Your Greens Naturally.

As Winter approaches there can be no more comforting lunch than home made soup. Whether you are a carnivore or a vegetarian, they are a perfect lunch. If you want something more substantial you can add chick peas, white beans, pinto beans or kidney beans and serve the soup with hot wholemeal bread dunked in. I am drooling just thinking of it.

I normally take a bog standard vegetable soup mix and by that I mean, - whatever is in the fridge - it can include, carrots, onions, leeks, pumpkin, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach frozen or fresh, sweetcorn, beetroot, parsnips, swedes, cabbage, chard, celery, or bok choy - I am sure that you get the idea. My flavouring include marmite, madras or vindaloo paste, soy sauce, chopped tomatoes, either canned or fresh, and fresh herbs such as cilantro, (coriander leaves) thyme, lemon thyme, or sage, I sometimes add fresh ginger. If I want bulk I normally use lentil which I tend to cook myself and usually microwave them separately as they can make the soup stick. I sometimes add white beans pinto beans or sautéed chick peas for bulk. I am a vegetarian, but for my husband I add corned beef, sausage, chorizo, black pudding, pieces of bacon etc. I hate potatoes in soup, but there is no reason you cannot add sweet potato, yam, kūmara, or potato. Sometimes I add oats or oat flour as a thickening agent, or a cardamom or vanilla flecked sweet potato purée as a garnish.

Below is an example of a soup with Asian flavourings, for Italian I would still use a little Cinnamon but use fresh sage, basil or oregano, for a Chinese ginger is great with soy and sometimes honey.

A typical Soup.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 large onions, diced,

2 ribs celery, diced,

1 parsnip, diced,

1 large carrot, diced

1/2 cabbage, diced,

2 inch slice of ginger, chopped,

2 cups yellow split peas, rinsed and soaked,

fresh red chilli,

1 small cinnamon stick,

2 fresh bay leaf or dried curry leaves,

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 tablespoon Vindaloo paste,

vegetable stock

Freshly ground Pepper

Method.

I cook the lentils separately and then steam the vegetables, add lentils and finish off handfuls of a green vegetable, spinach, chard, whatever is to hand, and then with sour cream, Crème fraîche Greek Yogurt, aged Manchego cheese, freshly grated Parmesan or the sweet potato purée

Sweet Potato Purée

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds boiled or roasted sweet potatoes,

3/4 cup of Crème fraîche,

garlic,

1/3 vanilla bean, split lengthwise with the seeds scraped

Or the seeds of about 20 lightly roasted cardamoms,

1 teaspoon grated orange zest

freshly ground black pepper

a dried red chilli (optional)

Method

Roast the potatoes add the creme fraîche, garlic, vanilla, orange zest, pepper and chili. Serve the soup with a generous dollop on top.

Buffalo Mozzarella with roasted red peppers and Basil.

It has been a tough week and one in which I have not eaten well as I have been under a lot of stress. So breakfast this morning was fresh wilted baby spinach with toasted pine nuts and raisins.

Lunch was mozzarella with pepper and the last of the years basil and fresh capers. Drizzled with walnut oil and capers. I cannot imagine a nicer way to eat.

Busting the Spinach Myths.

Myths

Spinach is a great source of iron.
In reality spinach has more or less the same iron content as any dark green vegetable and unfortunately it does contain oxalic acid, and this prevents nearly all of the iron from being absorbed by the body. Spinach is a rich source of vitamin A, vitamin E and several vital antioxidants, just one cup of cooked supplies all the bodies supply of beta carotene. The myth that spinach was high in iron was born in 1870 when Dr. E. von Wolf published the iron content of spinach with a misplaced decimal point and this error was not disvoered for nearly seventy years. It was noticed when in 1937 someone has eaten enough spinach to be sharp eyed enough to notice it!