Recipe – Quinoa Sesame Salad

I love the combination of grains or vegetables with sesame oil. As with any oil, look for one that is unrefined in dark bottles to preserve the quality of the fatty acids.
Ideally you want to make this salad at least 2 hours ahead of when you are going to serve it so that it can cool down and the flavours can meld together. It could also be served as a hot dish just by replacing the cucumbers with a vegetable that does well with heat, such as spinach, shittake mushrooms or zucchini (in which case I would lightly saute the vegetables before adding them to the quinoa).

Serves 2 as a main or 4 as a side dish

1 c. quinoa
1 2/3c water
1/4 tsp unrefined sea salt
1/2c. diced cucumber
1/2c. diced orange pepper
2 tbs. minced chives
1 tb. minced cilantro
1 tb. unrefined sesame oil
juice of 1/2″ fresh ginger, finely grated
1/2 tsp. tamari (naturally aged Japanese soy sauce)
salt and cayenne pepper to taste

Prepare the quinoa as in the recipe on this blog, Simmered Quinoa.
Add all the ingredients to the grain and refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours.

Recipe – Simmered Quinoa

Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) is one of my favourite whole grains. It is light, nutty in flavour and unlike a lot of other grains, it is good hot or cold. Quinoa is an ancient grain (actually a seed) of the Incas, grown high in the Andes mountain on rocky, alkaline soils. It is hearty to extreme temperatures and high radiation, ideally adapted to its growing locale. It provides an excellent vegetable source of protein, complete in its amino acid profile, an abundance of calcium, magnesium, iron, manganese and zinc, as well as the B vitamins.

If you buy quinoa in bulk, it will likely have grit that is difficult to remove even with washing. I advise clients to buy the boxed quinoa. In Canada and the US you can get Ancient Harvest Quinoa. Start with the ivory coloured grain as opposed to the red, only because it is a little lighter in flavour and would probably appeal to the palate of most people.

Serves 2 as a main course or 4 as a side dish.

1 c. quinoa
1 2/3 c. purified water
1/4 tsp. unrefined sea salt

Put quinoa in a medium sized mixing bowl, cover with cold water and swoosh the grain thru the water with your hand. Drain the water in a fine strainer. Repeat 2 more times. Bring the water to a boil in a heavy-bottomed, medium-sized cooking pot. Turn the heat down low, then add the quinoa, and the salt. Let simmer on minimum heat with the lid on for 15 minutes or until the water has been absorbed. Remove from the heat and keep the lid off for 5 minutes to let the steam dissipate and minimize the stickiness of the grain, or serve immediately.

As with any simmered grain, you can flavour it with a combination of the following

1/ Good quality fat – olive oil, sesame oil, flax oil, hemp oil or butter
(olive oil combines well with flax, hemp and butter so you can do them alone or in combination)
2/ Saltiness – sea salt, herbed salt, tamari (naturally aged soy sauce) or gomasio (combination of roasted
sesame seeds and sea salt)
3/ Herbs (preferably fresh) – ginger juice, parsley, cilantro, chives are particularly good on grains
4/ Seeds – sesame, hemp, ground flax, cumin, caraway

Chicken Stock Recipe

I often suggest to my clients, when they are ready, that they get into the habit of making stocks for soups and stews. Stocks offer a richness that a water based soup does not. In addition there is the added mineral content from the bones and vegetables.
Here is how we do chicken stock in our home. Barry’s bubba, who was a great cook (so he says), passed this on to him. I often make double this recipe in a huge stock pot, so I can freeze enough for at least 4 big soups.

Please note that all of my posted recipes have room for flexibility so if you don’t have the exact same ingredients or amounts, no worries. Experiment. Some of the best discoveries in the kitchen have come from adaptations.

Ingredients:

6L. of purified water
2 – 3 lb. chicken (backs and necks are cheap and work well for stock, but if you can’t get them,
legs are the next best option)
1 large onion, skinned and cut into quarters
2 large carrots, washed and ends cut off
1 large parsnip, washed and ends cut off
2 celery stalks, washed and ends cut off
Leaves from head of celery, washed
2 C parsley, leaves and stems, washed, left whole
1 Tb. sea salt
2 tsp. peppercorns, put into a spice ball

Put all ingredients into a stock pot and bring to a boil. Simmer for minimum of 1 1/2 hours, preferably for 2 hours. Let cool. Strain. Use stock immediately, refrigerate or freeze.

Thinking of Coffee

I want to talk about a substance that I get asked about a lot and is near and dear to many ‘a hearts… the beloved dark brew… coffee.
Admittedly, I am hardly a coffee expert, as I was an “I can count on one hand the number of cups of coffee that I have had in my life” herbal tea-toteller until four years ago. That was when I met my partner Barry, who turned me on to the subtle pleasures of good quality coffee. It is a contagious joy that Barry expresses in his exploration of the dynamics of the coffee bean. As I write this, he is outside in our urban backyard roasting Nicaraguan beans that he will blend with previously roasted Ethiopian beans – as an experiment. Will it have just the right combination of acidity and body to appease our palates?
To the surprise of many who are satisfied with any or all of the commercial expressions of the black gold, there are varying complexities to the quality of coffee, as there are of wines. At a coffee cupping (coffee’s equivalent to a wine tasting) at The Merchants of Green Coffee www.merchantsofgreencoffee.com , I was introduced to the acidity and body of coffee, the character of beans from the regions of the world and to the subtleties of taste on my tongue.
The key to great tasting coffee, is in the quality of the green beans, the freshness of the roast and proper brewing technique. There are 800 volatile coffee oils in coffee beans which will become stale (due to exposure to oxygen) within 5 days after roasting, 3 hours after grinding and 15 minutes after brewing. According to the Merchants of Green Coffee, 95% of all coffee sold to the consumer is stale, as the minimum time that it takes to get coffee from the central roasting facilities to the consumer, is one week at best, and two months on average. Even vacuum packaging won’t save the coffee from its predestined breakdown. Could the rancid oils of stale coffee contribute to a lot of the negative health effects of coffee consumption? Certainly rancid oils of other seeds and nuts are a source of free radicals, which are major contributors to degenerative disease. How much more benefit would we get from coffee drinking if we kept our intake moderate and drank only fresh coffee, as defined above by coffee science?

In response to those who ask me, “should I eliminate coffee from my diet?”, I say consider how it makes you feel. Do you drink it because you ‘need it’ or because you really enjoy the flavour. Could you let it go without too much trouble or are you attached to the caffeine high? Any attachments we have, to food or otherwise, are worth investigating and detaching from, for physical, emotional and spiritual reasons. At the very least become moderate (1-2 cups daily, or less) in your consumption. If coffee or caffeine does not create any acute symptoms, drink it because you get pleasure from its flavour. Savour it. Try eliminating the milk and sugar so that you can really taste the quality of the coffee. Go for the freshest you can find. Consider switching over to green beans that you roast yourself, (the Merchants will ship their roasters and beans worldwide) or find the local spots that serve only fresh roasts. Feel free to contact me if you want to know where those coffee houses are in Toronto.

Chickpea Blueberry Pancakes

Okay this is my first entry into the recipe files. Why did I choose this one? Maybe because it is such a hit in our house, requested on a frequent basis by my son Sasha. I have played with pancake making for years, and I am turned on by creating flour products that are gluten and dairy free, which these are. Got the inspiration from a meal at Zucca, my favourite Italian restaurant in Toronto. They make a chickpea foccacia that makes me salivate when I think of it.

Let me know any questions that you have about the recipe. Would also love your feedback.

Chickpea Blueberry Pancakes

The best pancakes that I have ever made, they have been received by all with rave reviews. They are thick and fluffy, but be sure to cook them long enough before flipping. They should be almost dry on top before you flip.
Makes about 16 medium sized pancakes
1 c. chickpea flour
¼ c. tapioca flour
¾ c. buckwheat flour
1 tsp xantham gum
2 tsp non-gluten baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
2 tbs unrefined coconut oil, + extra for frying
1 c. rice milk, soy milk or almond milk
1 ¼ c. purified water
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 eggs, separated
½ – 1 c blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Sift all dry ingredients together.
Melt the coconut oil over low heat. Do not boil or smoke. Let it cool.
Separate the eggs, dropping the yolks into a large enough bowl to hold all of the wet ingredients. Keep the whites aside for now. Mix the oil in with the yolks. Then add the rest of the wet ingredients in with the egg mixture.
Add the wet to the dry slowly, mixing as you go.
Fold the blueberries into the batter.
Use a beater to whip the egg whites until they form a stiff peak.
Fold them into the batter.
Place a skillet on low-medium heat with enough coconut oil to melt to cover the bottom of the pan. When the oil is heated enough to create a slight bubbling of a dab of batter dropped into the pan, the skillet is ready.
Flip the pancakes when they are dry on top and nicely browned on the bottom.
Serve with real maple syrup or your favourite fruit sauce.
Option: These pancakes are also excellent with sliced apples and 1 tsp of cinnamon in addition to or instead of the blueberries.