#14 Long term project

Today I want to show you how to use in our kitchen the season vegetable to..... make winter and spring soup! Yes, this is a long term project! It's the fabulous story of homemade vegetable stock cubes!!!

Ingredients 

4 onions (200 g ) 

4 celery stalks (300 g) 

4 garlic

4 carrots (300 g) 

1 cup of olive oil

 Instructions 

Clean and wash the vegetables, then dry them. Divide the carrots into slices, the onions into wedges, diced celery and garlic in half. Arrange everything in a food processor with blade, add the oil and operate the engine until it result as a cream. Pour it into the bottom of about 45 small plastic cups (Coffee cups).

Cover with foil. Arrange all cups so covered in a container with edges, then put the container in the freezer (of course must remain standing). The next day carve a small cut with scissors from the kitchen edge of each plastic cup and take all nuts. Place them in a airtight container and place them in the freezer compartment. Add one of these nuts in any sauce, roast, soup to enjoy the smell and taste of a healthy food.

Love lesson:

It is with things you have right now you can start thinking and project the future. Starting from the present moment is always the best way to be ready in life. You will remember that in the winter!

#13 Believe

I am slighlty sad in writing again here.

So many things are changed, and for long time I've stopped cooking...I've lost my love...

Anyway...

I have been travelling in the last weeks, and one day in a kitchen in North Italy I had a wonderful meal.

It was lentil dal.

It made me cooking when was back. I added basil more, as a mediterranean plate.

Recipe:

½ pound brown lentils (about 1 1/8 cups), washed and picked over
1 small onion, cut in half
2 garlic cloves, cut in half
 4 cups water (more if necessary)
2 tablespoons canola or peanut oil
2 cardamom seeds
½ teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon turmeric
1 to 2 teaspoons curry powder, to taste
 Salt
Chopped tomatoes

Combine the lentils and water in a medium soup pot or heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 20 minutes, add salt to taste in the last 5 minutes. Heat the oil in a large, heavy nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic, and all the spices and stir as they sizzle for about 30 seconds, until very fragrant. Add the beans with their liquid and cook, stirring and mashing with the back of a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickens. Add salt or black pepper to taste, once the mixture has reduced to the desired consistency, add also some chopped tomatoes. Take off the cardamom seeds and the garlic, and add one fresh basil leaf. That's it!

...what is the lesson?
Don't know, not sure...

Just believe....believe that it is possible re-start everything.

ah...      the dal was delicious.

#12 Sweetness&Bitterness

Also this time, I have to write about how wonderful is travelling and discovering new things.

Me and Rav met a man in Bristol who was making welsh cakes, i.e. traditional snacks made from raising flour, sugar, egg, salted butter, sultanas, served hot dusted with caster sugar.

We tried this lovely, sweet cakes, though Rav was not sure because the quantity of the sugar used on them is not "healthy".

Once back to London we tried to make them on our own. The result was lovely! 

Rav made also a version  sugar-free, melting some dark chocolate and covering the top of the welsh cake. This solution is very good, but the dark chocolate is a strong flavour and you feel something is missing.

In my opinion, I found balance by the union of the two previous versions: dark chocolate on the top, caster sugar on the bottom. Yin&Yang, dark&light. Perfect combination and balance of flavor!

So the first lesson I learned is....

Be ready to try, copy, add, experiment!
 

Be aware of the possibilities, test different versions, combine them. 
You can't really taste the sweetness if you have never tried the bitterness. You can't really taste the bitterness without the sweetness. You can also give up both and eat plain, if you prefer. It's up to you.

You can change taste everyday or have a discipline and eat healthy.

Anyway...

 Love is not the topping. Love is the welsh cake.

Something so nice, that you saw somewhere, and you want to make again.

#11 Receiving

This is an important lesson, both in the kitchen and in everyday life.

There is abundance,
there is enough for everyone.

We sometimes complain about what we had for lunch, forgetting of being grateful of having a meal! We think we haven't enough for us or for offering to others. But it's not true, it's just an illusion.

Appreciating the simple things is what makes a man truly rich.

Sometimes we have just to check better the fridge, and can find some food left from the day before, then add something new (as a fresh sauce) and, over all, letting the world give us a surprise.

Just accept and receive.

This meal is made with the "art of receiving" and "food-recycling": pasta of the day before, new sauce, and the indian Samosae, received as gift.

Simply rich, very tasty... love.

#10 Admiration

Travelling with Couchsurfing is always a good experience, not only because you travel without spending money for hotel, but overall because you can meet open-minded people, with a good outlooking in life. Couchsurfers have the pleasure of giving their unconditional love and sharing their place with travellers of all the world. During my trip in Ireland I met Sona, a Slovak lady that is also a good cook. She prepared for me and Rav some healthy, tasty, vegan dishes.

Admiring her for her ability, once came back to London I couldn't wait to prepare the same things she made for us. So I made porridge for my first time (in Italy is not so popular!), using different fruits for each day, so emproving the taste little by little.

Also, Sona's recipes often needs some specials ingredients, that I had never used before. Therefore I learned something more about healthy ingredients too.

In particolar I recommend to use Chia Seeds, full of Omega 3 and natural treatment for type-2 diabetes (because of its ability to slow down digestion).

I write down 2 cake recipes  she prepared for us (oh, what nice breakfasts we had in Ireland!!!)

And this is the love lesson:

Love thrives on admiration. 

Let's have a look to the Sona's cakes I prepared at home.

Avocado vegan cake. 

Recipe taken by this website.

Crust

1/3 cup almonds
1/4 cup shredded coconut
2 dates, pitted
1/2 - 1 teaspoon water
1 teaspoon melted coconut oil

Grind the almonds in a food processor.
Add the coconut, dates, and water and grind into a dough.
Add the coconut oil last. Grind again into a mixture that will hold together when pressed in your hand.
Press into the bottom of mini or 6" spring form pan (crust will be thin in a 6" - you can double the recipe if you want it thicker) and set aside.

Filling

1 large avocado
3 tablespoons maple syrup
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 drops vanilla medicine flower essence or seeds of 1/3 vanilla bean
1 tablespoon melted coconut butter
3 tablespoons melted coconut oil
pinch of salt
Few drops stevia, if needed for extra sweetness

Blend the avocado, maple, and vanilla in a high speed blender until completely smooth.
Add the coconut butter, oil, and salt. Blend again.
Pour the filling over the crust.
Chill in the fridge for 6-8 hours.
Note: if making in a 6" springform pan, double the crust and triple the filling recipe.

Chocolate cake. 

Recipe by Sona.

The chocolate cake goes like this: for the crust soak any nuts you like (about 4 handfulls)in water for 3 hours,then strain the water and blend the nuts with 5 table spoons of melted cocnut oil and 1 spoon of agave until kind of smooth but still a bit chunky. Smooth at the bottom of a cake spring form and leva in fridge to harden for 1/2 hour. For the chocolate filling, soak cashew nuts (4 handfuls) for 2 hours, drain and put into high speed blender, add about 150g strawberries, about 50g each coconut and cocoa butter and again a little agave if you like and vanilla - process it all on high speed till it's all quite smooth, then put on top of the set crust and put back to fridge to set for at leat 3 hours. When ready, cut around the cake with sharp knife to release it.

I am very grateful for the time we spent with Sona. I feel I learned many thing at the same time, and that all these cakes, though without having sugar, gave to me some sweetness more.
I can say that...

The good example exempts no one from imitating.