Green start to the day

Everybody agrees upon the high detox power of greens. And there’s no better way to start the day than with a big mug of green smoothie. Trust me, you will feel the effects in no more than a week: more energy, lighter body, brighter eyes! It is true that you need a good blender for that, but it’s totally worth it.

There’s no real recipe for green smoothies, just two basic rules:

• try not to mix sweet fruits (banana, dried fruits) with acid fruits (citrics, pineapple, pomegranate, tomato) *
• try to alternate daily the types of leaves you use (read here why)

You can actually have any kind of greens you wish, even the ones that wouldn’t taste so good in salads, like radish, kohlrabi or carrot. Not to mention the incredible array of wild edible greens! If you do have access to something like this, it would make the best detox ever.

Just add the fruits and the leaves in the blender, along with a few cups of water and mix until you get the specific smoothie texture.  My usual add-ons are:

– one or two tsp of spirulina/ chlorella powder (any other green powder is welcomed)

– a handful of mint, basil or melissa leaves

– grated ginger

As much as you can, try to go with local, seasonal ingredients. If you’re a first timer, start in summer, so you can have plenty of fruits and greens to choose from.

some smoothie making snapshots

more about food combining here, here and here – depends how far you want to go with it 🙂

 

Marinated Mushrooms

Either way you take it, mushrooms are great. Some of them taste light enough to have them raw – like champignons – while others require cooking as they’re a bit heavy. Have you ever thought of saving their  natural enzymes while having the best taste? *

There’s one easy procedure to do that – it’s called marinating and it refers to the changes of taste and texture undergone by food during long hours spent in a seasoned acidic liquid. I usually use olive oil, lemon juice and soya sauce and then add dry thyme, garlic or even dates – for a sweet twist. You can think of spices such as ground turmeric, nutmeg or cumin, but just be sure you don’t get all exotic; unless you really master tastes & flavors! My new favorite seasoning for the mushroom marinade is sweet smoked paprika – it just builds up so much taste! (most probably reminiscent of bacon aroma :))

Once you start adding the composition to the mushrooms (if there’s not enough liquid, just add water) you’ll see how they turn tender and shrink.  Leave the marinade overnight in cool place or in the fridge and then add it to your favorite salad.

list of ingredients

• olive oil
• lemon juice
• soya sauce
• optional: dry thyme, crushed garlic, turmeric, nutmeg, cumin, dates

Here are a few ideas for some truly gourmet raw mushroom dishes:

Like any other respectable protein, the mushrooms get along very well with carrots 🙂 Feel free to experiment any dish with these two, along with your favorite greens. Lots of greens.

And this is how the pretty forest mushrooms in the above picture turned out: a dish with shredded cauliflower & carrot, red peppers, turmeric and salvia leaves.

A sample of the smoked paprika marinade, mixed with whole grain brown rice and served with green onions.

And another sample of a different marinade, made out of soya sauce, dates (crushed or paste) and only a bit of lemon. This is how red onions look like after spending some time in this thick liquid.

* special warning

if your mushrooms are picked up from the forest, be sure to check if they require to be cooked over heat. some of them might be poisonous when raw!

Go red with beet root!

Beets are just amazing! I remember that during my childhood it was the only vegetable I use to consider it rather awkward. Maybe because most of the times we were having it roasted and served with grated horse radish?

Anyhow, since I’ve discovered beets are to be consumed raw, it doesn’t seem I’ll get bored of them anytime soon. I love to turn it into spirals and marinate it in soya sauce, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and thyme, like Cynthia taught me to do it at the beginning of my path. Adding sesame or hemp seeds at the end creates a pretty nice effect!

You can leave the beets to marinate overnight.

This is how the liquid will look like the next day.

One of the things you should have in mind when preparing beets is that there’s no way back from red! Once you add another vegetable – either in the marinade or in the mixing – it will sooner or later become red. So instead of throwing everything into the beets salad, better leave the rest of the vegetables or greens for a side dish. Or, if you want to create a reddish coloring, choose something like cauliflower or sprouts and mix it right before serving .

more inspiration in the pictures below

list of ingredients

• beetroot (grated or spiraled)
• olive oil
• soya sauce
• lemon juice
• dry thyme
• crushed garlic
• sesame/ hemp seeds

Backstage

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@Aurora

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