Last time I went to London, I stayed in the heart of Shoreditch. It must be one of my favourite places because the streets are so rich in beautiful and interesting art, and the atmosphere is laid back and effortless in contrast to some other areas of the city. I could not walk past without taking a few pictures… after all London streets are famous for being canvas for artists like Roa, Eine, Stik and Banksy.
To spread romance, love and kisses always carry a mistletoe with you! Happy 2014!
Date delicious! Datemania! Date away! Date divine!
The making of:
To prepare them in your own kitchen you need:
My international family of favourite green bean recipes (German with tomatoes, onions and vinaigrette, Spanish with fried garlic and almonds) welcomes a new brother in their midst: Asian gingered beans with hijiki.
This recipe is full of flavour and makes use of the beautiful hijiki algae, and fancy yet very easy to prepare.
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| dry and soaked hijiki |
gingered beans with hijiki (inspired by Alicia Silverstone)
1/2 cup dried hijiki
1 tablespoon tamari
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup onions, chopped
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
pinch of sea salt
2 cups fresh geen beans
2 tablespoons grated ginger
Place the hijiki in a small bowl with hot water. Let it soak for about 30 minutes, then drain and rinse.
Combine the hijiki with the tamari, add waterto almost cover in a saucepan.Cook, uncovered over medium heat until the water has nearly evaporated.
While the hijiki cooks, heat the oil, add onion, garlicand salt and sauté for about 4 minutes, or until translucent. Add the green beans. Cover and cook until the beans are tender-crisp, about 5 minutes.
Add the hijiki and ginger.
Mix well and cook for 1 to 2 minutes longer to marry the flavours.
Michael Simonsen, of Simonsen Freianlagen, the landscape designer and family friend, has a beautiful garden, that we were very eager to visit. Whenever we asked, “can we come see your garden this weekend?” He said “No no noooo, it needs a little more time to show the whole variety of flowers! Half of them didn’t blossom yet!” or “Just a little more patience, I am still waiting for the sunflowers!”
Finally, on a sunny day towards the end of August, we decided “now or never” and called Michael to tell him the day of our visit had come, and that we didn’t want to wait for the sunflowers any longer.
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The walk through the meadows was delightful; we saw a real-life deer and some of the flowers smelled like honey.
For lunch Michael sent us off to the vegetable patch in the beautiful kitchen garden equipped with a washing basket to pick our ingredients. Warty cucumbers, the most differently shaped and coloured tomatoes and little leafy greens and herbs made a wonderful salad.
Every now and then the overnight tomatoes make their appearance on various food blogs I follow. They have many fancy names like night blushed tomatoes or moon dried tomatoes, but I think the flavour speaks for itself. When I talked with my local vegetable shopkeeper about the many possibilities to enjoy the little heirloom tomatoes I remembered the overnight method and promised to share it with him.
It’s super easy and the result is irresistible. While you heat your oven up to the maximum (250°C), you cut the tomatoes in halves, put them on a baking tray and season them to your liking.
I love to sprinkle them with salt, brown sugar (or maple syrup) and a bit of ground caraway. That’s it.
The moment you put the tomatoes in the oven you turn off the heat and go to bed.
When you open the oven the next morning, you’ll find the most sweet, tasty, semi-dried, wonderful, delicious tomatoes you hardly can contain yourself from eating them right from the tray.
Smoothies make a great breakfast (and if you like, you can continue drinking them all day). They replenish your cells with water, minerals and natural sugars! Here a few tips, to make your smoothie experience very enjoyable!!
1. Melon should always be the first meal of the day (never in between other meals) and in a smoothie also best just by itself. The reason why it doesn’t mix well, is, that is has a very high water content, and digests very fast. So if you ate something more dense before, it may cause bloating or even stomach cramps.
2. Smoothies (for the exact same reason) make a great first meal (and also second and third…) but don’t go well after a denser meal. As a general rule of thumb, try to eat foods that are digest faster (high water content = fresh fruit and vegetables, smoothies) first and earlier in the day, and foods that digest slower (less water content = cooked or baked foods) later, or in the evening.
3. Good raw food combinations (apply also for smoothies!):
These combination guidelines shouldn’t limit you in any way! In fact many many raw food and smoothie recipes break these rules (for example combining fat with sweet fruits, or fat with other fat) and create absolutely delicious treats. Just if you aim to include a lot of raw fruits and veggies in your diet, paying attention to the combinations is gonna safe you a lot of bloating and stomach pains, I promise!
Some of my recent favourite smoothie are:
Bananas + swiss chard leaves + basil + ice
Bananas + dates + vanilla + lupine flour + ice
Strawberries + peaches + ice
I hope this was a helpful introduction to smoothie and raw food combinations!
Much love, Vik (guest blogger today!)
Herbs and fruit popsicles
1 ripe pear
1 ripe banana
1 freshly squeezed orange
1 freshly squeezed lemon
100ml coconut water (or just water)
a few sprigs of lemon balm
3-4 mint leaves
a pinch of dried lemon myrtle
Blend. Fill into the moulds. Freeze. Enjoy!
