Tag: vegetables

How To Make Your Perfect Salad

Are you a salad person?  Not everyone is, but in the summer heat, nothing beats a fresh salad.  Most salads do not require any cooking, saving you hours sweating it out in the kitchen to prepare your meals.  Quick, easy and packed with healthy nutrients.

As if that’s not enough, salads can help you lose weight, as part of a calorie-controlled diet and the water content in fruit and veg helps in keeping you hydrated.

What do you understand by “salad”?

According to the English dictionary, the definition of a salad is: “A cold dish of various mixtures of raw or cooked vegetables, usually seasoned with oil, vinegar, or other dressing and sometimes accompanied by meat, fish, or other ingredients.”

Whether you are having a side salad with your meat or fish, or you’re having a salad as a main, remember that greens are an essential part of your salad.

Ingredients for a tasty salad

Indeed, greens are an important ingredient when making a salad. However, it is not appetising to be served with a mountain of salad leaves and a small topping of sorts.  The ‘perfect’ salad contains a balanced amount of ingredients and their taste and texture compliment one another.

When making your own salad, go for the freshest seasonal produce you can find.  Buying seasonal vegetables saves you money and they taste better, too.

Wash your vegetables thoroughly and dry them well (using a salad spinner or a clean tea towel) and cut them into bite-size pieces. Keep it simple; do not throw everything you find in the fridge into your salad.  The tastiest of salads are made up with a handful of ingredients.  A couple of salads that come to mind are the caprese and the Greek salad.

Variety is the spice of life … be adventurous with your ingredients.  Replace your meat or fish with grains or legumes – such as spelt, kamut, lentils, buckwheat, barley or quinoa (a seed not a grain) – to give your salad substance.

Make your salad as colourful as possible by including a variety of leaves and/or vegetables. Add texture to your salad by adding fresh or dried fruit, toasted nuts or seeds, olives and capers.

Making your own dressing

Season your salad and add fresh herbs to enhance the taste.  Finally, toss your salad in a delicate dressing of infused olive oil or make your own mixture of olive oil and lemon juice or vinegar (apple cider or balsamic).  For extra taste you can add ginger, garlic and whole grain mustard to your oil.  Put all the dressing ingredients in a screw top jar and mix well.

Here’s five classical recipes, courtesy of OliveTomato.com, to get you started.

My thanks go to

 

OliveTomato.com

Epicurious.com

Google.com for images

 

Colette Cumbo1 Comment

Why Choose a Plant-Based Diet?

Have you ever considered moving to a plant-based diet?  I can hear some of you say, “No way!” But what if you have to move, for health reasons? Would you move to a plant-based diet, if you have to?

By a plant-based diet I mean completely vegan – i.e. no meat (including fish), no dairy, and no eggs. Admittedly, it can be challenging and takes getting used to – especially, if meat is a staple in your diet.

Why opt for a plant-based diet?

A plant-based diet is sustainable whilst livestock is a major contributor to greenhouse gases.

In her book Plant-Based Cookbook, Trish Sebben-Krupka, refers to the United Nations’ 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Sebben-Krupka, quotes the report as saying, meat and dairy account for 70 per cent of global freshwater consumption, 38 per cent of total land use, and 19 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.

A plant-based diet is also clean when compared to the meat industry.  The amount of meat recalls over the years suggest serious problems within the industry.  Livestock farming is increasingly being linked to antibiotic resistance – a serious threat to human health.

What are the benefits of a plant-based diet?
Cardiologists recommend a plant-based diet for the prevention of heart disease.  This diet is also linked to the prevention of a number of illnesses, such as, diabetes, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and a host of other diseases.

Besides, a plant-based diet helps you control your weight, gives you healthy skin and hair plus plenty of energy.  What more could you ask for from your diet? Who would not want to feel and look good?

What do you eat?

wfpb-food-pyramid (1)

Nowadays a quick search on the Internet gives you plenty of ideas for vegan recipes.

A vegan diet consists of:

  • Fruits and vegetables
  • Beans and legumes (chickpeas, lentils, kidney beans etc.)
  • Whole grains (basmati wholegrain rice, kamut, farro, quinoa etc.)
  • Nuts and seeds (almonds, walnuts, cashews, chia, flax seed, hemp etc.)
  • Meat substitutes (organic tofu, tempeh and soya products)

How do you become a vegan?

Unless you are very determined, you do not become a vegan overnight.

Start by making small changes to your diet.  Replace one meal a day; go with whole foods as much as you possibly can.

Plan your food. Clear out your larder and stock up on beans and pulses, rice, and other grains.  Cook ahead and keep a stock of raw fruits and vegetables (frozen fruit and veg are also good for you and can be used in cooking).

Increase your plant-based meals as you go … until you achieve your goal.

Trish Sebben-Krupka says, “If you fall off the the plant-based wagon, just dust yourself off and start again the next day.”

Finally a quote from Albert Einstein (Nobel prize 1921): Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

My thanks go to:

Plant-Based Cookbook by Trish Sebben-Krupka
Time for Change
Jamie Oliver – Vegan
Web MD
Image – Carla Golden Wellness / The Wall Street Journal

Colette Cumbo1 Comment

How to make vegetable couscous

North African food is very healthy.  It is mainly made from a variety of fresh vegetables and dried pulses. Beef is commonly used. Other meats used are lamb, chicken and fish.  To these they add spices, herbs, raw olive oil and dried fruits and nuts. Most dishes are served with couscous – a type of grain-like pasta made from wheat flour.

North African food has a unique sweet and spicy taste. It is a fusion between Mediterranean cuisine, Arabic, Andalusian and Berber.  The spicy meat and vegetables are slow cooked in a tagine – an earthenware dish with a tall cone-like lid. The couscous is steamed separately.

tagine

Today I would like to share with you a recipe from Morocco. Vegetable couscous is a typical recipe. You can come across variations of it. This is my favourite version.

moroccan-style-vegetable-couscous

Ingredients

2 cups dried chickpeas
2 tbsps olive oil
1 onion finely chopped
1 cinnamon stick
1 small aubergine, cut into small cubes
3 medium carrots, sliced
3 medium potatoes, cut into cubes
200 grms pumpkin, cut into cubes
1/4 tsp allspice
2 tsps Harissa (or to taste)
2 cups boiling water
100 grms small string less beans, cut diagonally
2 zucchini, sliced
1 medium ripe tomato, chopped
1 tbsp flat-leaved parsley
1 tbsp fresh coriander
ground pepper

Couscous
1 cup couscous
3/4 cup boiling water
2 tsps light olive oil

Method

  1. Soak the chickpeas for a minimum of four hours or overnight.  Drain, rinse and cook in large pan.  Bring water to a boil, lower heat and simmer partly covered, for one hour or until chickpeas are cooked, but not too soft.
  1. Heat oil in heavy based pan and saute onion and cinnamon stick until onion is soft and transparent (do not brown).
  2. Add eggplant, carrots and potatoes.  Cover and sweat for ten minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon from time to time .  If the mixture is too dry, add two tablespoons hot water.
  3. Add pumpkin, zucchini, beans, allspice and Harissa.  Mix well so that all the vegetables are covered with the onion and spicy mixture. Cook for three to five minutes.  Pour in boiling water and add chick peas.
  4. Cover and simmer gently for ten minutes.  Stir in the chopped tomato and continue simmering for a further five minutes or until the mixture thickens slightly.  Serve with chopped parsley and coriander.
  5. Couscous: place couscous in a pan and pour boiling water over it.  Stir well.  Add olive oil and give it a good stir so that all the grains are glistening.  Cover with a tight-fitting lid and allow to stand for ten minutes until all the water is absorbed.  Place on a very low heat for two to three minutes, stirring continuously to make sure the pasta is free from any moisture. Serve couscous in a large platter topped with the spicy vegetable stew. Enjoy.

My thanks go to

Wikipedia
The Kitchn
Google images

Colette Cumbo1 Comment