How to Eat (only) Real Food

Growing up without too much care about what does it really mean to consume exclusively healthy food, although coping with tons of allergies most of my childhood, I was lured into the pleasures of good and real food only a couple of years ago, when faced with the huge challenge of cooking and taking care of my house completely on my own - meaning no cooking lady to prepare my lunches or dinners. As I am also doing my very best to keep kosher - at least in the house - another couple of challenges were sent to me, starting from the ability to identify and select those products which contain clean ingredients, from the kosher point of view. 

After reading this book by the food and travel journalist Larry Olmsted, I realize that in fact the time spent reading the list of ingredients of a product before taking the decision to buy is more than a religious obligation, but a healthy choice too. But it does it mean that we might be completely safe from purchasing 'fake' products, as I remember a couple of years ago a terrific story with tilapia fish which was not what it was introduced: not tilapia, not kosher, but some fish brought to America from China. Living in the EU protects at a greater extent the customers from being victims of such abuses, with detailed rules and regulations governing and protecting the selling and distribution of serious food brands, such as Champagne, various wines or cheeses. 

Besides the educational value, this book by Larry Olmsted also has a very pleasant writing, with interesting food stories - my favorite ones are, no surprise, about cheese - and also some short recipes of genuine original cooking. A book done out of the feeling of responsibility to offer informed opinions when introducing foods, which offer valuable hints, especially for the readers which love to travel, taste and discover local tastes, but not every kind of touristy, fake alternatives, although it might be cheaper and in easy to reach places. 

Chickpeas and blue cheese salad. And many veggies

There may be many reasons why people do not want to eat healthy, and besides money, the time spent on preparing yourself the dishes can be a consideration equally important. When you are in a hurry, early in the morning, cooking or starting to chop vegetables is not the happiest scenario, isn't it?

Once in a while, I am doing my best to be a good healthy woman, and do my work properly. 

True is that very often I spend more time preparing than eating, but I do it with a clean conscience so it is not that bad after all. 

Very often my recipes are not very planned, as I am tempted to use one main ingredient and build the rest of the recipe based on this. A couple of days ago, I discovered that I did not experiment with chickpeas for a while, so I got ready for something completely new. Before, I had to soak the chickpeas for more than 10 years in salty water: 100 bio chickpeas, in more than double their quantity of water. In the morning, I boiled them for around 20 minutes at 250C.

The other ingredients are:

100 gr. white champignons, finelly chopped

half of cucumber, finelly chopped

150 gr. cherry tomatoes, finelly chopped

couple of parsley leaves

100 gr. blue cheese

2 teaspoons ginger-pear balsamico - this is really gourmet and I am looking forward to do more experiments with it. 

Healthy, ready go!

Here we are! It is so good and with so many ingredients that I did not eat anything else the whole day. Not even pasta. A big bowl for a hungry, busy day! 

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.

How our tongue works

As a beginner chef - I did not advanced too much from this position in the last 2-3 years - the most difficult problem was how and why to match various tastes and types of food. Thus, the basic of my learning in terms of food was to know what the foods and spices taste like. It took me some time and I still make mistakes, because I am more attracted to the color combination of different foods I am getting better and better.

When I've read this article in the NYT about the Chemistry Behind Great Food Pairings, I understood that it is more behind a simple match of the foods there are biological explanations requested by the way in which our human body is built. On the other hand, I continue to believe that some tastes and food combinations are part of our anthropolotical genome and that it is not only a matter of biology. 

Our food tells stories not only about our history and culture, but also about our bodies.

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!

Fresh salad for the busy days

What could compare with a good and fresh salad in the morning.

But often, the morning is the worse time of the day to prepare something and often, if we are working a bit late in the evening, we can prepare in maximum 15 minutes a good salad with a lot of vitamins and refreshing 

tastes  that will wait for us in the fridge whatever early in the morning we will head to our office. 

The following salad is something you need for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I cannot have enough of it and I am happy to have it on my menu at least once the week.

I used the following ingredients:

- corn

- avocado

- tomatoes

- parmesan

- same salt

- olive oil

An amazing result will follow!

Bon appetit!