Whole Wheat pasta with swordfish, cherry tomatoes and black olives

I was suppose to eat all alone today. But plans had suddenly changed! The day before I bought 200 gr of fresh, beautiful swordfish just for me. Which I was suppose to grill. When Two friends of mine decided to …

Grilled salmon with red rice and green sauce

While my husband and I were in Australia for our honeymoon, we used to have take away vietnamise food more then once. I loved their spicy brown rice. Once back home I was thinking about that rice, but brown rice here is quite different from the one I used to have in Sydney. Brown rice here is a whole wheat and got its tipycal flavor.
While the vietnamise one (apparently) is more like red and got a different flavor.
I went at the supermarket and I’ve found a red rice, it is from the french region of Camargue, so not so asian!!

I bought it anyway, and I am not completely satisfied. I mean it is good, great flavor, but it’s not the one i used to have!
Anyway here is what i did:

Prepare the green salsa:

• 1 cup of fresh parsley
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp cold water
• 4 black olives (kalamata)
• 2 tsp lime juice
• salt and pepper to taste

Blend all the ingredient, ready! so easy

• cook the rice following the packing instruction
• steam some green beans in the steamer basket, about 5 minutes
• cut some salmon fillet lenghtwise and cook over a very hot griddle, skin sode down. After 2-3 minutes, you’ll see that you can easly remove the skin. Cook about 7-8 minutes ( be careful to not overcook)
• Put the greenbeans on the plate, then the rice and the salmon on the top

 

eggplant ricotta, pistachios and basil finger food

My husband aunt, just came back from her vacation at the tuscan-emilian apennines. There are a lot of cows and sheep over there, free to stay open air and to eat just grass. As consequence they do have a lot …

Curry chickpeas croquettes with eggless tartare sauce

I like legumes so much! Whatever they are lentils, beans, chickpeas… “Legumes are typically low in fat, contain no cholesterol, and are high in folate, potassium, iron and magnesium. They also contain beneficial fats and soluble and insoluble fiber.” source: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/legumes/NU00260 In …

Buckwheat pasta with eggplant pesto

As I told you before, my parents live 500 km from here. They came to visit last weekend. They think I cook “strange”, but that’s not true! The reality is that they are very close minded when it comes to …

Vegan Wholegrain Spelt Flour shortcrust pastry with blueberries

I love shortcrust pastry. It’s one of my favorite dessert. As I wrote few days ago, I had delicious blueberry  and I really wanted to make a “crostata” which basically is shortbread pastry with jam on the top. Umh, it’s been …

Roasted Mackerel

Mackerel is a fish of the same family as tuna. But it is way less expansive (only 6 euro for 1 kg), it is very rich in omega 3, and absolutely delicious.

The first time I bought it I was very scared by the smell, which seemed too strong for me! But believed me, once cooked it tastes very good.

All I did was:

• put the fish skin-down on a plate and soak with 1 lemon juice all over. Wrap with plastic paper and let it rest in the fridge for as long as you can. ( I did it for 6 hours)

• When it’s time for dinner, put a no-stick pan on a high heat to get really hot.
• In the meantime chop some parsley together with 1 clove of garlic, very finely.
• Put the parsley-garlic all over the fish, sprinkle some chilly flakes and salt to taste.

• Put the fish skin-side down on the hot pan  and cook  until the skin is crunchy and the fish is cooked.

I served with cabbage and fennel salad.

• Slice the cabbage very very thin and do the same with the fennel
• salt, lemon, black pepper and olive oil to taste!

Vegan sandwich

My husband works out all day long. He wakes up very early and he needs to eat some snacks during the long day of work.

Since my recently change in diet style, I am preparing homemade sandwiches for him to take to work place.

The past choice would have been to put some ham or salami between two slices of bread. This is no longer happening since from now on, I will avoid processed meat. Check out this interesting article  

So I am in need of healthy sandwiches ideas!!

This morning I’ve made:

Hummus, tofu and lettuce sandwich with whole wheat bread.

Hummus

Many of you know that hummus is a dip made with chickpeas, oil, thaini (sesame paste) lemon and garlic.

This is my version.

I use chickpeas from scratch, it tastes way better! I

•  I cover them with a generous amount of water and leave them  to soak overnight. I give them a rinse under clean cold water.
• I put the chickpeas into the pressure cooker and cook for about 30 minutes.
• Once it’s completely chilled, I put the cooked chickpeas into small freezerware, so even though I need them for just one person i don’t have to use them all, but I have the right amount.

So what I did was just to defrost the chickpeas into the microwaves, put into the blander with their own water, plus 2 tsp of extra virgin olive oil, pinch of salt, some garlic, and a pinch of rosemary.

Sandwich

I’ve spread the hummus on the bread, the sliced tofu and the romain lattuce.

That’s all!

Next step would be to make my own sandwich bread.

Chill-out weekend

Hi all!

Last week-end we went to a little mountain village named “Fiumalbo” which is only 1 hour and 20 minutes driving from here. 

Since it is about 0.7 miles above the sea level, the temperature was around 70F while here was (and still is) around 95 F

I love summer, warm weather, but 95 well….kind of hot! I appreciated the colder weather of those days!

I love mountain atmosphere, it is very familiar and casual.

The mountain food-product are amazing, the area is famous for its blueberries. Of course I came back home with a lot of them, and I can’t wait to try some recipe!

Brown rice, lentils and row vegetables

My parents came here to visit for few days.

Their diet-style is the opposite of mine. They are very traditional and think the way I cook is “strange”.

I have few days to convince them I can cook good, even though in a new, more modern way…

Do you guys think I can handle it?! ^^’

The first attempt would be whole wheat rice salad with lentils and row vegetables.

I know it doesn’t sound new to many of you, but it does for them!

Ingredients x 2:

• (120 gr) 1/2 cup Whole wheat rice
• 1/2 cup dried organic lentils (or 1 can)
• 1 carrot
• 1 white celery
• 1 red onion
• 7 cherry tomatoes
• italian parsley
• chili
• 1/2 lime

I’ve made the lentils from the scratch, very easy to make… to get scared from the idea! I cook an entire pack and then I put into little container and freeze!

Cook the rice and allow it to chill.

Meanwhile cut into little peaces the vegetables and slice the onions (I used the wonderful Tropea red onion).

Now you can mix, rice, lentils and vegetable all together.

Add the chopped parsley, chili and some lime juice to add some twist!