Sprouting tips and a giveaway

I haven't tried sprouting in a while. Today I found a post which makes it look very nice and promising. And to be honest, quite easy, too! We used to do that at school, did you?

Sprouts Using the Marche Method of Sprouting from Seeds of Sustainability. Every sprout looked amazing. This method is so easy. For just a tiny bit of work (germinating and bagging) I get all of these delicious sprouts after 2 days. No rinsing at all! They are nice and sweet. Sprouts are so incredibly good for you. They should be a part of everyone’s daily diet. These lentil sprouts are so sweet and surprisingly have been in my refrigerator for almost a month and still taste great! I also made a crunchy snack out of them. I drizzled a little bit of olive oil over the sprouts, season with sea salt. Put in dehydrator on 105 degrees. Dehydrate until crunchy. These are delicious as a snack or on a salad.

The information above comes from a wonderful new website I have just discovered, called "Vegan Family Healthy Eating". It is Christian, and it is Vegan, and it also deals with children which is a major consideration for me, in trying to keep everyone fed AND happy. Check it out here.

There is also a giveaway (US only) running on the blog till March 31st that you may enter to win a copy of Food, Inc., the film adaptation of Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer-And What You Can Do About It.
The giveaway link is right here.

Happy sprouting!

MPM-Special food for special days

Good morning, dear friends,
Last week we celebrated two special days. The feast of the Announciation and Palm Sunday. Next Sunday it's Easter! Although we have a very sentimental and deeply religious time ahead of us with some very emotional services, readings, and hymns, we already begin to feel the air of delivery from the gloom of our sins, thanks to our Lord. 
This week is the last week of fasting before Easter.In all its wisdom, our church has thought of our human weaknesses. The Fathers of the first centuries of Christianity have taken into account the need of the soul to cleanse while the body cleanses. Fasting and prayer go hand in hand.
However, on these two days, we make an exception. We can eat fish.
Fish at this time of the year in our household as in many traditional households in Greece means cod. It comes salted from the North Sea. This one is from Iceland.

The cod filet must stay in the water overnight and then the water must be changed again, because the cod is too salty. That is how it is preserved.

Then, we mix flour with some beer and bread crumbs, we wrap chunks of the fish in it and fry it. Skordalia (aioli) is the best company to cod. First, we boil the potatoes. Then we peel them and process them as we would for a puree. We then make a fine paste of garlic, salt and vinegar, to taste. I use equal amounts of potatoes and garlic cloves. We then add the mashed potatoes, folding in slowly the olive oil. Tasting is required and quite enjoyable!

One of my favorite kitchen gadgets.

Helping hands are welcome. Great time for conversation, too.

Mixing the skordalia with the wooden pestle.

Almost ready. We may need some extra olive oil once served, to taste.

One can make a Greek salad to accompany it, but since we like to eat according to the season, lettuce with fresh onions and fennel is a great salad.

Now, for the rest of the week, as we shall be busy preparing for Easter,we shall stick to some familiar treats, seen here, but strictly without the cheesy options.

Yesterday, we also made Easter cookies. I was afraid I wasn't going to make them this year, as my mil's food processor broke down and we are not going to buy a new one soon. So, I decided to do everything by hand. Highly recommended, dear friends.

Finally, for this post, I have read this article over at our host's, Organizing Junkie. I have read two of Cathy Peel's books, The Family Manager and The Family Manager's Everyday Survival Guide. They were great and helped me enormously in getting started with the family life.I am not familiar with the newest book suggested at the website, but the 10 points picked are great.

I wish you all a holy week. 

Non-meat and delicious

I have been taking photos of our meals every day this past week. My intention is to show you that it is possible to eat decently and sometimes gourmet, without eating meat, and even without eating cheese. But that will have to wait until I do a decent post.

Today I found this recipe which promises to be delicious, and I want to record it for posterity and share it with you. Here it goes:

Ingredients:

Serves 4


2 jalapenos, finely chopped, seeds removed for less heat (1/4 cup)

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about 1 lime)

4 kiwi fruits, peeled and diced (1 1/2 cups)

Coarse salt

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

20 large U.S.-farmed shrimp, peeled and deveined (about 1 pound)

2 tablespoons safflower oil

Directions

1.Stir jalapeno and lime juice together. Add kiwi, 1/4 teaspoon salt (or to taste), and cilantro. Stir to combine.

2.Season shrimp with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Heat oil in a large skillet over high until shimmering. Add shrimp in a single layer and cook without turning until underside is pink, about 3 minutes. Turn and cook until opaque throughout, 2 minutes more. Remove from pan and serve immediately with kiwi-lime relish.

Bon Appetit!

(Recipe and photo via Whole Living)

It's all green and Greek (how to feed them veggies)

Hello, today I am going to post some recipes that are child friendly and rich in vegetables. They are all Greek, but you'll find English references all along and at the end of the post. We'll start with the famous tourist dish, mousaka. In fact all ground meat dishes can get a veggy lift up. Just turn them into puree and add in the mixture.

Mousaka: The cream topping is enticing. So is the ground meat part. Puree the veggies (tomato, eggplant, zucchini, onion, parsley) and add to the meat mixture instead of adding them in layers. Some week old breadcrumbs will be needed for the extra liquid.

Spinach and rice: The secret is to cut the spinach in small chunks, and add feta in small cubes with every bite.

Spinach pie: Again make sure there are no long stems that may make a child chuckle. Add feta cheese (about 500gr) and leave out the salt.

If you are fasting, do the version without cheese. I find my children eat it easily when it comes in individually wrapped, two-finger sized savory pies. Great for the lunch box, too.

Stuffed vegetables: They don't have to eat the outside, just let them eat the stuffing. Make sure you pass through the mixer all veggies, the tomato pulp, slices of pepper, zucchini, then add the rice and let soak in the juice. Some breadcrumbs might be needed, too. Similarly we may cook stuffed cabbage rolls. Grape leaves can also get stuffed. Make them cute, get them involved in the stuffing!

Dakos. The epitome of easy, healthy eating.

Lentil soup. The possibilities are endless. I pass through the mixer a carrot, half a green pepper, in addition to fresh tomato garlic and onion required. Accompany with tomato fritters.
Zucchini and cheese croquettes are another option. Mix with potato croquettes, so they don't know which is which!

Broccoli with bechamel sauce is a family favorite. You can also cook this dish with double cream topping, too, or substitute with a soy based "cream", if you are fasting.
Steam the broccoli. Cut in bite sized chunks. Place in a deep but rather small pan to keep stems close together. If you are using cream, add plenty of grated cheese, and some garlic cloves, pureed. Add some ground breadcrumbs. Bake until golden.

My own comfort food: courgettes with potatoes. Steam or boil. Serve in a soup plate. Add olive oil, a little vinegar, oregano. Add feta cheese.Then using a fork mash together and eat!

There are some interesting resources at the web that help menu plan and offer a selection of vegetable dishes.

One Roast Vegetable is a membership site (The Veggie Club) that offers ready menus that intelligently blend vegetables with every day, easy to do recipes, that also help you control your weight. What you do by following these plans, is veggying up the content of your meals, plus you get original and varied meal plans. mastermind Shelley MacDonald Beaulieu is so generous that lets you test-drive her book and her program. Check this out and subscribe to her newsletter.

Annabel Karmel, the author of classic kids food books such as Feeding Your Baby and Toddler
and the just released Annabel Karmel Family Cookbook Spring 2009, now has a website with on line resources, including short videos like this one, for tofu and vegetable burgers.

If you are blessed with a young family, Dine Without Whine - A Weekly Menu Plan & Grocery List Delivered To Your E-mail Box is the answer to your wishes for hustle-free meals. It's essentially a family friendly meal planner that understands the needs of busy families, so meals are healthy, quick to make and what's also important, children friendly. So give that a go, and check one thing off your list!

Menu Plan Mondays offer an incentive to keep one in focus.

Finally, if you feel more adventurous and want to ty gourmet Greek food, stop by my favorite Greek cook, Elias Mamalakis.

If you have any questions, please e-mail me or leave a comment. I shall be glad to answer them!

Make it healthy!

"For each serving of dairy products, especially low-fat and fat-free ones, which a woman consumes on average each day, her risk of getting the most common, and most deadly, form of ovarian cancer goes up by 20%." - Dept. of Medicine, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School; reported in the International Journal of Cancer, June 2004, vol 110 (2), pg. 217.

I have long read on the cons of dairy. I have lived dairy free during my pregnancy with J, seven years ago and I was in better health and shape than ever, with med tests to prove it. In time and with the help of depression I struggled with vegetarianism, going from Vegan to Raw and back to an ordinary hopefully healthy eater.

I have had my ups and downs weight wise, too. With the house move, every plan for healthy eating went up to the air like a hot air balloon. In the past few weeks we have lived on souvlaki and tzatziki with the occasional Greek salad, but not much of it. It is trully a pity because this is abundance season. There are so many fruit to choose from, that we could be eating off of them!

I do hope though that as time permits we will settle to a healthier diet, without the panic attacks of the past. It will also be good for the children. Training their taste buds is important. Put side by side an ice cream and apricot are guaranteed to cast the apricot to the depths of the fridge. But taken in its own right, it is fresh and even sweet and leaves you more satisfied and not craving, even joyous.

Here is some interesting info drawn from Beating Stress, Anxiety and Depression: Groundbreaking Ways to Help You Feel Better.

Lifestyle Factor 1 Good food and drink.

Lifestyle Factor 2 'May the force be with you.' There is no doubt that having faith helps - and the scientific evidence supports this. Although some religions have in the past caused harm, especially to women, the simple concept that God is a force of goodness is helpful to most people.

Lifestyle Factor 3 Self esteem. Society's present obsession with celebrity culture and the emphasis on presentation as opposed to substance is causing distress to many people, especially the young.

Lifestyle Factor 4 Materialism versus family and friends.The eminent psychiatrist and neuroscientist, Dr David Servan-Schreiber has stated 'If someone asked me where to reverse this trend [of dramatically increasing prescriptions of antidepressants], I would reply that we need to start by confronting the violence in daily relationships, in couples, with our children, or our neighbours, and in the workplace. We need to become more respectful of the needs of our emotional brain for harmony and connectedness. There is no way around what evolution has wired us to want and feel in relationships.'

Lifestyle Factor 5 Time well spent. One of the most unpleasant symptoms of anxiety and depression is that time appears to pass incredibly slowly. On the other hand, if we are absorbed in something, time appears to pass incredibly quickly. There is much evidence that keeping occupied in some way is helpful. Churchill famously kept working, writing books, painting and even building brick walls to deal with his depression.

Lifestyle Factor 6 Exercise. There is mounting evidence that physical exercise can greatly relieve the symptoms of depression and that it is particularly beneficial in reducing anxiety. There is evidence from clinical trials that in some cases exercise is as effective as psychological or pharmaceutical treatment.

Lifestyle Factor 7 Rest and relaxation.

Lifestyle Factor 8 Travel. Try to visualise what would be your ideal holiday - rather than embarking on a holiday simply to impress others.

Lifestyle Factor 9 Our environment. Concern about the impact of the built environment on mental health has been expressed by the US Department of Health and Human Services, who indicate a need for better public health policy to improve the quality of life of all Americans. Such factors are also increasingly recognised in the UK, and people, led by Prince Charles, are now arguing for sustainable communities with green space, encouraging people to meet and talk with each other in safe, attractive surroundings. The fashion for building cities for cars, not people, is increasingly rejected.

Lifestyle Factor 10 Avoiding substances harmful to our nervous system. There are many chemicals, ranging from recreational drugs and alcohol to man-made industrial chemicals and pesticides, that can damage our nervous system and contribute to anxiety and depression.

I hope that didn't depress you. It helps to be reminded from time to time what real, authentic pleasure is like, in all things.

I also hope you like this picture I found after a long search at FLickr. It is by Lara Ferroni. So vibrant!

Go vegetarian to save money

See why becoming vegetarian makes sense. It is ethical, it is good for your health and as it turns out in the $1 per burger times, it is economically sound, too!