Macro Mom » Side dishes

Spring Challenge Day 18- Kinpira

macromom — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:55:07 +0000

Kinpira

1-2 Tablespoons of toasted sesame oil

1 Medium burdock root, cut into fine matchsticks

2 Medium carrots, cut into fine matchsticks

1 Pinch sea salt

2 Tablespoons spring water

Shoyu

Ginger juice

Heat oil in a heavy skillet that has a lid. Saute burdock first, stirring constantly for about 3 minutes. Add the carrots and salt, stirring for another 3 minutes. Sprinkle the water over the vegetables, cover and reduce heat to low, allowing the vegetables to steam. After 10-15 minutes, open and check to see that the dish is reletively dry. Add a sprinkle of shoyu. Cover and cook f5 more minutes. Add a few drops of ginger juice . Serve while hot.

-This is Pan’s favorite dish! He likes it best when we add seitan. We can’t buy fresh burdock on our island so I used onion and carrot instead.

All recipes are printed with permission from Jessica Porter

Spring Challenge Day 17- Nishime Vegetables

macromom — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:32:04 +0000

Nishime Vegetables

1-Inch piece dried kombu

1 Medium onion, cut into wedges

6 Inches diakon, cut into thick rounds

3 Medium parsnips, cut into thick diagonal slices

2 Medium caroots, cut into 2 inch “logs”

Spring water

1/2 Teaspoon shoyu

In a heavy pot with a heavy lid(preferably enameled cast iron)place the dried kombu. Add the onion. Layer the diakon, carrots,and parsnips, respectively. Pour roughly 1 inch of spring water into the pot. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer 10-15 minutes or until carrots are soft. Season with shoyu and simmer 5 more minutes. Remove the kombu and discard or slice into thin strips and return to pot. Serve.

- Mmmmmmmmm So good. I also added turnip to this dish.

All recipes are printed with permission from Jessica Porter

Spring Challenge Day 8- Kasha And Cabbage

macromom — Tue, 08 May 2012 11:01:54 +0000

Kasha And Cabbage

2 Cups spring water

1 Pinch sea salt

1 Cup roasted buckwheat

2 Tablespoons sesame oil

1 Cup diced onion

2 Cups red cabbage, in large dices

1 Tablespoon umeboshi vinegar

1 Teaspoon caraway seeds

1/2 Cup sauerkraut juice

1/2 Cup chopped parsley

Bring water and salt to a boil. Add buckwheat. Let it return to a boil, then cover , reduce heat, and let simmer 15-20 minutes over a flame deflector. Turn off heat. Let sit 15 minutes to let grains unstick from bottom of pot. Remove lid and fluff. Set buckwheat aside to cool.

Heat oil in skillet over a medium flame. Saute the onion and cabbage, adding umeboshi vinegar to retain the purple color of the cabbage. Add caraway seeds and saute until the vegetables are quite limp, about 5 minutes. Stir in the cooled buckwheat and mix thoroughly. Add the sauerkraut juice, stir , cover and reduce heat. Simmer for about 1 minute to absorb the juice. Toss in parsley and serve.

-This dish makes your house smell great. Good hot or cold!

All recipes printed with permission from Jessica Porter

Day 9- Tempeh Burritos

Day 10-Seitan Stew

Day 11- Christina’s Chickenless Chicken Salad

Day 12- Tofu “Egg” Salad

Day 13- Lisa’s Mango Laasi

Day 14-Tofu Sour Cream

Day 15- Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

Spring Challenge Day 7- Millet Mashed “Potatoes” With Mushroom Gravy

macromom — Mon, 07 May 2012 11:00:36 +0000

Millet Mashed “Potatoes” With Mushroom Gravy

1 Cup millet, washed

3 Cups water

2 Cups cauliflower, in small florets or medium-sized chunks

Pinch of sea salt

Gravy

Toasted sesame oil

1 Medium onion, diced

Pinch of sea salt

12 White button mushrooms or 8 shiitake or 6 dried shiitake

About 2 cups spring water

1/4 Cup shoyu

2 Tablespoons mirin

1 Drop brown rice vinegar

2 Tablespoons kuzu, diluted in 1/2 cup cold water

Scallions or parsley for garnish

Place the washed millet in a heavy 2-quart pot. Over medium heat, stir the millet continually until it dries and then becomes aromatic and ever so slightly golden in color. This can take 5-8 minutes. Add water and cauliflower. Bring to a boil. Add salt. Cover and simmer over a flame deflector for 30 minutes. Remove from heat. Put millet through a hand mill or blend in a food processor or in the pot with a handheld food processor. Blend to desired consistancy.

To make gravy, heat toasted sesame oil over medium heat in a skillet. Add onion, salt, and saute until translucent. Add mushrooms and saute until soft and moist. Add water and bring to a boil. Season with shoyu, mirin, and brown rice vinegar. Simmer 5 minutes. Adjust seasonings to your taste, and simmer 5 more minutes.

Add diluted kuzu to simmering mixture and stir constantly as kuzu thickens and comes to a boil. After the kuzu has boiled, the gravy is ready. Spoon over millet mash on individual plates and serve. Garnish with scallions or parsley.

-What a great mashed potato alternative! My family was 50/50 about this recipe. Pan, Lucy and I loved it and came back for seconds. The other 2 politely ate it . One doesn’t like mushrooms the other thinks millet stinks. Pan ate his with some leftover avocado. YUM!

All recipes are printed with permission from Jessica Porter

Spring Challenge Day 2- Perfect Brown Rice

macromom — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:43:34 +0000

Welcome to your first day of the Spring Cooking Challenge. Day 1 was picking your cookbook. Today we start cooking. Let me know with comments and pictures how your challenge is going!

Perfect Brown Rice

2 Cups short- or medium-grain brown rice, soaked in spring water overnight if possible

4 Cups spring water

2 Pinches sea salt

Whether soaking or not, rice always needs to be washed and checked for hulls, bugs, and rocks. So to begin, examine the rice for foriegn matter and discard it. Then, in the cooking pot (preferably a heavy one), cover the rice with water. Swirl the rice and water around with your hand a few times and then pour off the water through a strainer, so as not to lose any rice. Repeat this rinsing one more time. Don’t worry if the water seems cloudy. the murkiness is the result of natural starch, and we don’t want to rinse it all away.

If soaking the rice, measure out the amount of water needed for cooking and pour it on top of the rice. let sit 3-12 hours and cook in soaking water.

If not soaking, simply add the cooking water and bring to a boil, uncovered, over medium heat. When it is boiling, add salt, reduce heat to low, place on flame deflector, cover with heavy lid, and simmer 50 minutes. Turn off heat and let rice sit 5 minutes to unstick from bottom of pot. Fluff with wooden spoon and serve.

-Here is a silly video I made about cooking the perfect pot of rice.

This recipe was printed with permission from Jessica Porter.

SPRING CHALLENGE 2012!

macromom — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:02:08 +0000

Tomorrow I will be starting the THIRD annual spring challenge. The last two years went great! I used Aveline Kushi’s book(The Complete Guide To macrobiotic Cooking), then Christina Cooks-Everything You Always Wanted to Know about WholeFoods but were afraid to ask. This year I have chosen The Hip Chick’s guide to Macrobiotics by Jessica Porter. She is a great chef with a kooky sense of humor and her book is full of fun recipes . Soon you will be having a great laugh and will feel wonderful eating her delicious recipes . Don’t worry if you don’t own this book. I will be posting the recipes everyday with photos. Or, pick your favorite cookbook or chef to follow. The point is adding new recipes to our daily repertoire.

Today is Day 1- Finding your cookbook and collecting your groceries.

This first week all recipes will be on Grains!

1- Perfect Brown Rice

2-Mediterranean Barley Salad

3- Rice, Avacado And Corn Salad

4-Good Morning Oat Porridge

5- Quinoa Salad

6-Millet Mashed “Potatoes” With Mushroom Gravy

7- Kasha And Cabbage

Please post comments and photo’s of what you are cooking!

All recipes are printed with permission from Jessica Porter.

Coming Soon…3rd Annual Spring Challenge!

macromom — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:03:38 +0000

Please join me starting May 1st and enjoy a fresh new (or old favourite) recipe every day for a month.. Bring on the spring.

Wholefoods Supper Club- Macro Night!

macromom — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 02:33:55 +0000

AN INTERACTIVE COOKING CLASS SERIES

WINTER, SPRING, SUMMER, FALL

(Image from Healthycrush.com)

This month it’s all about A Complete Macrobiotic Meal!

Thursday April 19th at 6:30 p.m

Tasty whole foods supper club. Fun, interactive cooking classes.

After all the washing,sorting, chopping, slicing, sauteing, flipping and frying you get to sit down and enjoy our creations.

With humor and guidance we will collectively make the meal together.

We’ll make a party out of it!

THE THIRD THURSDAY EVENING OF EVERY MONTH AT THE ST PAUL’S CHURCH COMMUNITY KITCHEN ON THE CORNER OF PRINCE AND RICHMOND ST CHARLOTTETOWN 6:30 P.M $25.00 PER PERSON CALL 902-367-9491 FOR MORE INFO or e-mail me here..

Whole foods cooking class CBC interview

Whole Foods Supper Club – GRAINS!

macromom — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:19:33 +0000

AN INTERACTIVE COOKING CLASS SERIES

WINTER, SPRING, SUMMER, FALL

This month it’s all about GRAINS!

Thursday March 15th at 6:30 p.m

Tasty whole foods supper club. Fun, interactive cooking classes.

After all the washing,sorting, chopping, slicing, sauteing, flipping and frying you get to sit down and enjoy our creations.

With humor and guidance we will collectively make the meal together.

We’ll make a party out of it!

Whole foods cooking class CBC interview

Loving

macromom — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:31:00 +0000

I’m a little late posting this. We have been so busy lately. I’m so glad I was able to take the time to fit in this fun romantic meal.

This tray of strawberries from our lovely neighbor started off our Valentines day.

Carrot And Blood Orange Soup

1 Pound carrots

1 Medium onion

3 Cloves of garlic

1(2-inch) Piece fresh ginger. minced

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1-2 large blood oranges

5 Cups vegetable stock

1 bay leaf

Sea salt and pepper, to taste

Thinly slice the carrots. Finely chop the onion. Peel and chop the garlic cloves. In a large pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add carrots, onion, garlic, and ginger and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is golden, 6 to 8 minutes. Meanwhile grate the orange to yield 2 teaspoon grated zest. Juice orange to yield 1/2 cup orange juice.

Add vegetable stock , zest, and bay leaf to cooking vegetables. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until carrots are tender about 20 minutes.

Puree soup until smooth; return to saucepan. Stir in orange juice and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until heated through, 2 to 3 minutes.

Orange And Fennel Salad

one half of a small red onion
2 lg blood oranges
2-3 sm fennel bulbs
3tbsp olive oil
11/2 tbsp lemon juice
3/4tsp sea salt
1 tsp mint
oil cured black olives
black pepper

-slice onion in thin half moons
cover with cold water and set aside for 15 min
-Slice the orange peel of wih a knife, from top to bottom
over a bowl to catch the juices
-slice fennel into quarters lenght wise
slice the quarters lengthwise as this as you can.
-wisk together olive oil,lemon juice and salt

- toss all ingredients together with several black olives and a sprinkle of black pepper

Onion Baklava

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

10 yellow onions — in half moon slices

2 tablespoons brown rice syrup

1 fresh ginger root — graded juice extracted

1 tablespoon kuzu — dissolved in 3 tablespoon of cold water

2 cups blanched almonds

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

15 sheets phyllo dough

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

To make the filling, heat the olive oil in a deep skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté with a generous sprinkling of salt until limp about five minutes. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook the onions covered for fifteen minutes stirring occasionally to prevent scorching. Add the rice syrup and ginger juice and cook uncovered until the mixture thickens slightly about ten minutes. Stir in the dissolved kuzu and cook stirring until the mixture thickens and turns clear about three minutes more. Set aside to cool.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil the bottom and sides of the thirteen by 9 inch baking dish. Place blanched almonds in a food processor and grind into a fine meal. Add cinnamon, and pulse just to combine.

Fold one sheet of the phyllo in half crosswise and fit into the prepared pan. Brush lightly with oil. Repeat folding and layering five more sheets of phyllo, creating a multiplayer base. Sprinkle evenly with 1/2 cup of the ground almonds. Spread half the onion filling over the almonds and sprinkle with another half cup of the ground almonds. Fold, layer, and oil five more of the sheets over filling sprinkle with 1/2 cup of the ground almonds and top with the remaining onion filling. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of the almond mixture.

Fold, layer, and oil the remaining five sheets of phyllo over the second layer of filling, except this layer, sprinkle a little of the reserved almond mixture between each folded sheet. Brush the top lightly with oil. With a sharp knife, score the top sheets diamond shapes are most common for this dish to mark 24 servings. Bake in the center oven rack about fifteen minutes or until the phyllo is golden brown and crispy. Remove from the oven and cool the pan on a wire cooling rack. Cut into servings and serve warm.
This is a wonderful recipe by Christina Pirello! www.christinacooks.com

Mushroom And Onion Risotto With Steamed Greens And Grilled Radicchio

2 Tablespoons olive oil

2 Cups arborio rice

7 Cups vegetable stock

6 Cups mushrooms, sliced thin

1/2 Cup onion, diced

In a pot, bring stock to a boil. Reduce heat to low to hold warm In a large pot , heat olive oil and cook mushrooms and onion with a pinch of sea salt for 5 to 7 minutes or until golden,stir in rice cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Using ladle, add 1/2 cup hot stock; cook, stirring constantly, until liquid is absorbed. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, adding hot stock 1/2 cup at a time and waiting until liquid is absorbed before adding more stock, for 16 -20 minutes or until rice is tender with a firm center and dish is creamy overall. Adjust heat as necessary to maintain a slow boil. Season with sea salt and pepper to taste.

Grilled Radicchio

3heads of Radicchio

2-tbsp of olive oil

sea salt

Slice radicchio into quarters, lightly brush with oil and sprinkle a pinch of sea salt over top. Place on a cookie sheet and place under broiler for 8 min Turning twice. The same goes for a grill.

Steamed Greens

1 Bunch dandelion greens

1 Bunch kale

In a large pot bring 1 cup of water to a boil. Add greens and steam for 2-5 minutes until bright green. Remove from pot and slice.

Hazelnut Chocolate Cake

3 Cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 Cup hazelnuts, toasted and finely ground

Pinch of sea salt

11/2 Tablespoons baking powder

1/2 Cup olive oil

1 Cup maple syrup

1 1/2 Cups plain rice milk

2 Tablespoons vanilla

Turn oven on to 350′

Mix the dry ingredients with a whisk. Add the wet ingredients and stir until smooth. Pour into cake pan (or like I did here into two bread pans) . Bake for 45 minutes. Cool before pouring over icing.

Chocolate Icing

1Pkg grain sweetened chocolate chips

Melt in a double boiler. Be sure to stir quite a bit so it doesn’t burn. Pour over cake hot. Sprinkle on chopped hazelnuts Let cool to harden.

Strawberry Coulis

4 Cups hulled strawberries

1/4 cup maple syrup

zest of 1 lemon

Puree ingredients until smooth