Honey Mango Banana Smoothie

I have a very limited experience with mango. Except eating it sliced or in compote, I have no idea how to have it. I've heard about mango sticky rice, or cakes with a touch of mango, but I haven't tried any of them (yet). But this year is everything about new tasty experiences and going beyond limits so a couple of days ago I decided to stop dreaming about how to prepare a mango and proceeded to its very own preparation instead. 

For the beginning of my mango journey, I decided to start with the easiest taste reconaissance step: a smoothie. 

I used a very simple combination, which follow a precise, predictable flavor line: various degrees of sweetness melting into the cold water.

Ingredients

2 ripe bananas, cut into chunks

1 medium size ripe mango, sliced

1 tablespoon honey - the same amount of brown sugar can be also used

500 ml. cold water. If you want it less thicker, you can use 750 ml. cold water instead

Directions

Mix the ingredients in the blender at moderate speed for 1 minute. Pour the result into glasses and keep it in the fridge at least 30 minutes before serving.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Serves: 2

Morning Healthy Treats: Pomegranate Juice with Honey

I love healthy mornings, and drinking something fresh is part of my daily ritual. Either tea or some smoothie is definitely worth to wake up 10 minutes early to have enough time to prepare and clean the utensils.

As the Jewish New Year traditionally involves using a lot of pomegranates - and honey too - after everything is over, there are a couple of bowls full of seeds left over that I don't have the heart to throw to the trash. The easiest way to use them, besides adding them to some salads or maybe to a batch of cake is by making a juice out of them. As simple as that!

For one glass of juice, I used the seeds from one medium-sized pomegranate, plus one tablespoon of honey and one glass of cold water. Added all those ingredients in the smoothie maker and blended at moderate speed for 2 minutes.

The most complicated - but not impossible - part is to come: the pomegranate do have strong seeds that during the blending process are took out, but should be filtered through a strainer. It takes another minute to do so and after that your juice is ready. 

As I had the curiosity to taste various ready-made pomegranate juices, I enjoyed mine much better, as it has the right sweet balance and the original taste, which I do not fancy, is diluted. Therefore, at least for the winter, I might consider including pomegranate part of my regular diet, given also its natural qualities, which go beyond the skin-care protection generously offered. For instance, pomegranate seeds contain antioxidants which fight cholesterol, increase oxygen levels to the heart, fight cell damage and can also balance your weight. Compared to other fruits, the pomegranate juice has the same healthy concentration as the fruits and the seeds. 

Easy spinach recipe

I confess that I am not neutral when it comes to spinach. Although as a child I loved the watch the cartoons with Popeye the sailor, I wasn't such a blind admirer to follow his eating habits too, mainly his love for spinach. When I started my own foodie adventures, I rather tried to find reasons for not eating it, but somehow it was a very twisted argument: although my warning were scientifically based, it had to do only with the ready made frozen products - which I do not like anyway - and not with the fresh spinach. 

In fact, I was quite afraid to prepare a recipe from scratch. I had no idea how to mix ingredients, for how long to cook the leaves, what spices to add. It is a very common occurence to me, when my lack of experience in tastes and foods operates as a deterrent for improving my cooking skills. But I am brave enough to fight my fears therefore, I decided last week to do from scratch my own recipe of spinach.

The list of ingredients was very easy:

- 150 gr. fresh spinach leaves. I cleaned them throughout under cold and warm water several times and then chopped finely

- 3 big garlic cloves, finelly chopped

- 100 ml. walnut oil

- 1 tablespoon za'atar

- 3 big scallions, finelly chopped

- 100 ml. butter milk

- 50 gr. Emmentaler cheese, shredded

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Directions:

Add the oil, za'atar, garlic and scallions in a pan heated at 250C. Mix well for around 5 minutes. Add the spinach leaves, batch by batch, and mix every time well. At the end, add the butter milk and the Emmentaler, and keep mixing. The dairy ingredients will give a special milk consistency to the ingredients.

Cooking time: 15 minutes

To be eaten warm, with some tomatoes slices, for the decoration and more freshness too. It can be accompanied by meat, pasta, and even fish. I personally eat it as a stand alone meal, but I was so excited by the results that I was hardly thinking about any foodie match.

Right now, I feel that I have so many open options to try that most probably I will keep sharing even more spinach-based recipes in the next weeks!

Bon Appétit!

Getting used with Chia. One seed at a time

I am not a fashionable person when it comes to foods and I prefer to wait till testing foods or recipes or food trends everyone is recommending. I had and still have my own reserves regarding quinoa - not tasty enough for my preferences - and had some time till I decided to test some chia-based recipes. 

Compared to quinoa, chia is even more difficult to match because it has no taste at all. So, why to pay a lot of money - everywhere the seeds are very expensive and are mostly available at the bio/organic shops - when you cannot get any specific experience? This was the question that kept me quite a long time away from it. 

My first experience with chia was in the form of a coconut blueberry pudding at the Einstein Coffee. Served cold, the black chia bubbles were just part of the decorations, but I love the coconut milk so was not worried about wasting my money. Later on, I decided to try myself through a couple of recipes. 

The tiny tasteless seeds are rich in protein, fiber, calcium, zinc, magnesium, omega-3, B1, B2, phosphors. Quite an impressive line of vitamins. Add to the list the anti-oxidants, with significant anti-aging contribution.

Their preparation is easy. Soak them in cold water twice the quantity of the seeds and wait between 2 and 10 hours. They expand multiple times in size and gives you a feeling of fullness when eaten in various combinations. Till now, I used two tablespoons of chia and 1 cup water, and kept them together for around 2 hours. 

You cannot eat them raw - or you can, but doesn't make too much sense - but in combination to smoothies or puddings. Some may even sprinkle it on some rice dishes. Another idea is to ground them in the machine and use as a powder basis only. This variant I haven't tested yet.

Chia - the Maya word for strength - is recommended as part of various diets as it delivers a massive amount of nutrients with only few calories. Easy to incorporate in any kind of diets, it is considers also as a factor of improving blood markers, decreasing the risk of heart diseases and of the type 2 diabetes, improving the digestive health and possibly fighting against breast and cervical cancer. The combination between Calcium, Phosphorus and Vitamin A contributes to maintaining the dental health. It is compared to sport drinks, as it improve the exercise performance. Sometimes, the energy boost is too much, as it happened when I finished one of the coconut milk puddings in the evening and cut my appetite for sleep - already limited - considerably. 

Recipes

In both cases I used 2 tablespoons of chia - around 140 calories - with 1 cup of water for preparing the seeds. Let to soak for around 2 hours.I added fresh blueberries and slices of bananas, plus 200 ml. coconut milk. Left in the fridge for around 2 hours and served it as breakfast treat. It serves three.

For diversity, the next time I also added some raspberries and was even happier with the result. Some other ideas will be to add some dried apricots, dates, pineapple. Right now, I am thinking about a simple banana coconut pudding. I haven't feel the need to add any sugar, as the fruits do have enough natural sweetness already. 

As for now, I will probably keep trying more recipes. If you keep the seeds in a dry cool place, the long shelf life is guaranteed so I don't have to worry about wasting the money.

The case against eating unhealthy

Why will someone prefer to eat fast food instead of slowly prepared food? Because, as the name said, 'fast food' is ready at any time to affect your stomach. You pay 2$ or maximum $5 and you have a well portioned slice of poison as a meal. 

The serious part of this life threatening joke is most often, with a busy schedule to cope with every day, a noisy family and a lot of chores to be done, the time for preparing the food, or even more, for acquiring the skills for preparing the food is considerably limited. 

The fast food industry should not be blamed and hated, as it answers certain needs that appeared in the society following the development of the industry and the increased degree of complexity of our lives. Compared with a decade ago, more salads and healthy alternatives entered the menus of the big chains and the consumers are more responsible when it comes to the choice of their daily food. 

At the same time, we may realize that by making a salad in the morning, instead of dreaming about a cheeseburger breakfast, is not so difficult and not even so expensive. In ten minutes, your healthy portion is ready. While preparing the salad one may get the calm and quietness needed for preparing for the hectic day ahead or for thinking what program you will do with your kids. 

As for special skills? Unless you pay enough attention to do not hurt your fingers while mincing the tomatoes, no building blocks will stop you having a delicious meal. Thanks to the Internet, you can easily find a lot of easy tutorials about almost everything - including about how to cut an avocado (a problem I faced when I was at the beginning of my cooking life) or the pineapple and many other strange yet easy situations you will go through. 

As for me, I realized early in the morning today that I don't have any bread left - Pesach preparations on the way, when no leavened products are allowed. Checked what it is left and found some barley. Prepared it in a couple of minutes, plus added: cherry tomatoes, cheese, a boiled eggs, olive oil and parsley and in 10 minutes I was done. While preparing I thought about writing this post and thus, I kept the track with my professional life as well.

Happy healthy day everyone! 

Good news: Content redesign

The blogging is getting very intense in the last weeks, and I wish I will continue at the same pace. However, as I dedicate more and more time and energy to my online writing life, I decided that it is about time to diversify the topics covered by this blog. 

The food and the kitchen will be the main topics of interest. I will share - I hope - interesting posts about my adventures in the kitchen and the fancy meals I am preparing or discovering. I will try regularly to write extended posts about regional and local cuisines. Right now, I document a post about Canadian cuisine and I am reading a book about the Hungarian cuisine and I will continue regularly to offer historical perspectives not only about various styles of cooking, but also about dishes with local flavors.

The books and publications about cooking will be featured more frequently. In addition, when possible, I will try to get more interviews with authors and food writers, as well as with chefs. Before cooking food, I always cooked words and I want to try now to make a perfect cocktail for increasing the quality of the blog.

I intend to add more interesting pictures and find out interesting photographers that focus on food. There it is a long term project and a lot of research will be involved as well.

I tried a couple of months ago to introduce some kitchen products reviews and I will continue doing so regularly in the future. I have in sight some nice sponsorships, but till there it is not a final deal reached, I prefer to keep silent. 

As this blog is equally about healthy life, there will be at least one weekly review about some healthy cosmetics and perfumes. I do not want to switch this blog into another blog about fashion, but I felt very often the need to cover more topics related to healthy life and various ideas that implies DIY, such as how to prepare your own soap or cream. I know, I need to take some basic classes in video production. Maybe the last half of this year, I promise.

I am lately interested as well in kitchen design and kitchen interior design and I intend to write as often as possible about what I find appealing in this domain. I have in mind some interviews with designers and participation at special fairs and events, but this will happen only when this blog will grow big enough to be noticed by the big brands. Till then, I will humbly do my job of writing food chronicles. 

Book review: Michael Pollan - Food Rules

My interest in literature on good food and food in general is of a latter date, but the concerns about eating healthy was always present into my life. First and foremost, I was never the type of person keen to eat everything I saw and each decision to taste - or not - a certain food, was carefully considered from various perspectives. It sounds very poetic, but it is how it worked in my case. It involved a careful lecture of the ingredients, details about the production and the brand distributing in. 

As I grew up with my own garden, and even knew for a while to connect to the rhythm of nature - waiting impatiently to pick up the tomatoes or other fruits we had in the garden - I tried as much as possible to be also careful from where I buy my fruits and vegetables. 

Michael Pollan's book is my first 'academic' reading experience, when I not only read an article or some blogs about good food but a well written literary work. In less than two hours you will rediscover the secrets of the good food that for sure our grand and grand grand parents knew so well. It was not only a pleasure for the mind, but also for the eyes, as the book has a lot of good drawings. 

Pollan doesn't lecture about food, but states simple truths, organized in three parts: What should I eat? (Eat food), What kind of food should I eat? (Mostly plants) and How should I eat (Not too much). You need to avoid long list of ingredients - if there are more than five, you better look for another product - the not-so-natural face of your food, the food usually cooked by humans and you, as a human should dedicate more time to preparing the food by yourself. I follow as well most of the advices, including that of consuming moderate meat - in the case of my family, one meal the week.

Eating is not only for getting feed, but also to share a social and cultural experience. The food you eat say something about you and your cultural background. Our busy life and bad habits drove us away from the natural way of eating, but the good news is that more and more people are turning to the old good habits. There are so many recipes waiting to be cooked!

Apples for children

You know, probably, the old saying, one apple the day...

In many Western countries, the health authorities make efforts to encourage children and their parents to prefer the healthy food. Many are taught in school or encouraged by various attractive packages. On the right side, you can admire the funny plastic wrapping for simple, cheap and tasty apples I found in Germany. You can use it for cakes but also for regular use: one, two, three apples the day...

Roasted tomatoes time

This is a very fast and easy meal - preparation time of maximum 15 minutes - and nevertheless tasty and fresh.
The ingredients are:
tomatoes
dried oregano
salt
(sometimes also some sesame seeds could add a specific taste)
olive oil
Head the oven to 150 and wait for a while, till the tomatoes are a little bit roasted. To be served with some fresh Greek cheese.
Bon Appetit!