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A circular bread pudding on a blue plate

Vegan Bread Pudding

nutrition, recipes, , ,

Yoga Kitchen – Simple, healthy, and plant-based

Stop waste and give your old bread a second life

Here is a simple recipe for 100% plant-based bread pudding, without animal milk or eggs. Eggs are mainly used in baking because they add a certain structure or texture.
In plant-based cooking, we can solve this by using natural substitutes such as:

  • a “flaxseed egg”: two tablespoons of ground flaxseed soaked in three tablespoons of water for half an hour
  • a mashed banana
  • apple sauce

What ingredients do you need for a pudding about 18 cm in diameter?

  • 200 g stale bread
  • 50 g raisins, soaked in lukewarm water to rehydrate them, rinsed
  • 5 pitted medjoul or mazafati dates, chopped
  • 1 ripe banana (brown spots on the skin are a plus)
  • 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed, pre-soaked in 3 tablespoons of water
  • 1 tablespoon of cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons of baking powder
  • approx. 300 ml plant-based milk, such as soy milk

A pinch of salt is not necessary because bread already contains (more than enough) salt.

Preparation

It’s very easy.

Pre-soaking the bread, flaxseed, and raisins

  1. Break or cut the bread, including the crusts, into pieces.
  2. Place the pieces of bread in a sealable container and pour the plant-based milk over them. Mix well.
  3. Place in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight to soften the stale bread.
  4. Pour the raisins into a small bowl and immerse them with water and leave to soak.
  5. Drain the raisins and rinse them.
  6. Mix the 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed with three tablespoons of lukewarm water and leave to swell for half an hour.

Make and bake the pudding

  1. If you have a regular oven, preheat it to 180°C. If you have a convection oven, preheating is not necessary.
  2. Put all the ingredients except the raisins in a food processor with an S-shaped blade and blend until smooth.
  3. Then add the raisins and mix.
  4. Take a baking tin (round, approx. 18 cm, or square, 18 x 18 cm).
  5. Line the baking tin with baking paper or grease the sides and bottom with oil.
  6. Pour the batter into the tin and spread evenly.
  7. Place in the bottom of the oven and bake at 180°C for 35 to 40 minutes.
  8. After baking, remove from the oven, allow to cool slightly, then remove the pudding from the pan and place on a wire rack to cool further.

That’s it!
This delicious bread pudding will keep in the refrigerator for a few days, but I’m sure you’ll devour it in no time.
Congratulations: you’ve transformed your stale bread into a nutritious pudding that you can enjoy for breakfast.

About food waste

Food waste is a huge problem in our time. It is also one of the reasons why modern agriculture has such a high ecological footprint. After all, we don’t eat a large part of the food that is grown and produced, and it goes straight into the trash. For a long time, I thought that most food was wasted in supermarkets. This is because the shelves are always kept full and many products pass their expiration date.
This now appears to be incorrect. Statistically speaking, we waste most food at home, in our households. So, as consumers, we have a lot to answer for.
Previous generations were much more adept at finding solutions to ensure that nothing went to waste.
Bread pudding is an example of such a solution. Traditional bakers do it too: they turn unsold bread and pastries into something new. As a child, I always thought it was delicious and filling, a real treat.

Vegan bread pudding, per 100 g of product

The values are approximate and based on the use of whole wheat bread and soy milk.

Energy Carboh. Sugars Fat Sat. Fat Protein Fibre Salt
595,65 kJ/142,50 kcal 27,60 g 12,54 g 2,54 g 0,37 g 5,35 g 3,76 g 0,25 g

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A slice of fried marinated tofu on toast

A fishy tofu marinade

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Yoga Kitchen – Simple, healthy, and plant-based

The familiar taste of fried fish, fully plant-based

Reducing or completely eliminating meat from your diet is a first step towards a healthier environment and better health. The same applies to fish. However, this does not detract from the fact that many people truly enjoy the taste of fish. The good news is that you can bring that typical, rich aroma of the sea into your dishes in a plant-based kitchen by using seaweed and a few other ingredients.
On a Persian blog, I found a recipe for a marinade that makes your plant-based protein source (such as tofu or tempeh) taste just as good as your fish dishes of yesteryear.

What ingredients do you need for 500 g of fish-flavoured tofu?

These are the ingredients for the marinade:

  • 6 cloves of garlic
  • 5 tablespoons of white wine vinegar (apple cider vinegar also works)
  • 2 tablespoons of soy sauce (tamari)
  • 2 teaspoons of salt
  • 1 teaspoon of black pepper
  • the juice of one medium lemon
  • 1 tablespoon grated ginger
  • 1 heaped tablespoon brown miso paste
  • 2 sheets of sushi nori, torn or cut into pieces
  • 120 ml hot water
  • 6 tablespoons of toasted sesame oil

You will also need 500 g of a good plant-based protein source with a firm texture, such as:

  • tofu
  • tempeh
  • jackfruit (a tropical fruit with a firm and fibrous texture available in cans in Asian supermarkets or organic shops with a wide offer)

In the recipe, we will use tofu.

Preparation

Preparing the tofu

  1. Cut the block of tofu lengthwise into 2 to 3 slices
  2. Make parallel cuts about halfway through the thickness of the slice (do not cut all the way through)
  3. Place the sliced pieces in a container that can be covered with a lid

If you are using jackfruit or tempeh, you can also make incisions or cut them into pieces first, if necessary.

Marinate overnight

  1. Put all the ingredients for the marinade in a blender and mix until you have a greenish-brown liquid
  2. Pour the marinade over the sliced tofu
  3. Seal the container and place it in the refrigerator overnight

Frying or grilling

  1. Remove the marinated pieces of tofu with the excess marinade from the container.
  2. Fry in a pan with a little oil on both sides for a few minutes.
  3. Or place the pieces in a glass ovenproof dish and roast for about 20 minutes in the oven or in an air fryer at 180°C.

That’s it!
You’ll be amazed at how similar the result is to fried fish in terms of taste, texture and experience.
I was amazed by the result myself. It shows that with the creative use of purely plant-based ingredients, we can create a lot of flavour.

The myths about fish and our health

Omega-3 fatty acids

Eating fish is definitely not a good idea these days.
Fish is sometimes praised in dietitian and nutritionist circles for its supposed health benefits. This is mainly because of the oil found in fish. This oil is rich in omega-3 fatty acids. As a result, there is a whole supplement industry selling fish oil (at a high price) for its omega-3 content.
However, you can get your daily amount of omega-3 (cheaply) from one to two tablespoons of ground flaxseed.
But where do fish get these health-promoting fatty acids? They eat algae, which are the original source of omega-3 fatty acids. The primary source of omega-3 is therefore algae.

Antibiotics and other pollutants

Unfortunately, today’s fish can no longer be considered healthy. Sea fish contain high levels of heavy metals and chemical pollutants that concentrate in the fatty tissue of the fish. Farmed fish, on the other hand, contain antibiotic residues because these fish are raised in abnormal physical and emotionally stressful conditions. These naturally solitary and free animals are crammed together in large traps or sometimes in covered basins, and to reduce mortality from disease, parasites and infections, they are constantly given antibiotics by the farmers.
These antibiotics end up in our food, creating resistant microbes that are insensitive to the antibiotics used in conventional medicine.

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Two chick pea brownies on a plate

Chick Pea Blondies

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Yoga Kitchen – Simple, healthy, and plant-based

Never just call a blondie a brownie

If you pick up a packet of brownies at the supermarket, it will invariably contain eggs and dairy.
But that’s not necessary. Animal products, especially beef and dairy, are responsible for the enormous CO2 emissions of modern agriculture.
In this recipe for soft cakes, banana, ground flaxseed and chickpeas make eggs completely unnecessary. The banana and dates also provide a deliciously sweet taste. And there’s no butter or margarine, as peanut butter takes over that role with flying colours. These blondies are nutritious, contain no added sugar and can also be made without the chocolate chips.
The original recipe I adapted also included vanilla powder or vanilla essence, but I’ve left these out because due to climate change and food speculation by a couple of big players on the market, vanilla products have become very expensive in recent years.

What ingredients do you need?

You will need the following ingredients for a large blondie measuring approximately 20 x 20 cm, which you can cut into pieces or strips afterwards:

  • approx. 380 g cooked chickpeas (cooked yourself or from a jar or tin), rinsed
  • approx. 70 g wholemeal wheat flour
  • one small banana (approx. 80 g without the skin)
  • two tablespoons of ground flaxseed, soaked in 3 tablespoons of water for half an hour
  • 8 to 9 pitted medjool or mazafati dates
  • 130 g peanut butter (pure peanut paste)
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • a pinch of salt
  • 60 g dark chocolate chips
  • a shallow baking tin measuring approx. 20 cm x 20 cm and baking paper

How to make it:

If you have a conventional oven, preheat it to 180°C. This is not necessary for a fan oven.
Line the baking tin with baking paper.
Then prepare the batter:

  1. Mash the banana with a fork
  2. Place all the ingredients except the chocolate chips in the bowl of a food processor fitted with an S-shaped blade and blend until you have a smooth batter
  3. Stir about 50 of the 60 g chocolate chips into the mixture
  4. Pour the batter into the baking tin lined with baking paper and spread evenly with a spatula
  5. Sprinkle the remaining 10 g of chocolate chips on top
  6. Place the tin at the bottom of the oven and bake for about 35 minutes at 180°C until golden brown
  7. Remove the blondie from the tin and the baking paper and leave to cool on a wire rack

That’s it!
You can freeze these blondies if you like.

Chick pea blondies, per 100 g of product

Values are approximate and do include the chocolate drops.

Energy Carboh. Sugars Fat Sat. Fat Protein Fibre Salt
1160,37 kJ/277,15 kcal 35,39 g 12,26 g 12,54 g 3,11 g 10,0 g 7,6 g 0,18 g

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Picture of a vegan omelette

Vegan omelette with onions

nutrition, recipes

Yoga Kitchen – Simple, healthy and vegan

Twenty-one grams of protein. That’s what one portion of this Italian-inspired vegetable omelette represents. Super easy to make and oh so tasty.

And there is not one egg involved. Why I don’t use eggs anymore you can read at the bottom of this article. By the way, it is so easy to either omit eggs or to substitute them in a natural and very qualitative way in culinary preparations.

For a rich omelette for two people:

For the filling:

  • 3 red (or yellow) onions
  • equally 3 shallots
  • and 3 large cloves of garlic
  • 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  • ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg
  • Some black pepper and sea or himalayan pink salt
  • 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

For the vegan “egg batter”:

  • 140 gram chickpea flour
  • approximately 350 ml water
  • 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
  • 1 teaspoon of sea salt or himalayan pink salt

A large frying pan, preferably with a non-stick coating, and a lid that fits.

How to proceed:

Preparing the filling

  • Place the 4 ingredients for the batter in a large bowl and batter with a garden.
    Make sure that the mixture has the consistency of pancake batter.
  • Heat the olive oil in the frying pan.
  • Fry the onions, shallots, garlic and nutmeg in the olive oil until they turn glassy and light brown. In culinary terms, this is called “caramelisation”.
  • Stir regularly.
  • At the end, add the balsamic vinegar, mix and remove the vegetables from the pan.

Finishing the omelette

  • Rinse the pan briefly, add another splash of olive oil.
  • Return the pre-fried onions to the pan, spread them evenly.
  • Pour the batter over the top, turn the heat down low and continue cooking for about 10 minutes. The top side of the omelette should have dried.
  • Turn the omelette (like a pancake, with a virtuoso somersault!) and bake for about 5 minutes more.

Tips and sources

All over the world, the so-called “poor man’s kitchens”, the traditional recipes of the simple folk, are real treasure chests of vegan recipes and common sense. Meat and fish were only for rich people. Another example from the Italian vegetable folk cuisine is polenta.

In traditional recipes, the technique of caramelisation is often used. I really recommend doing this gently and not go beyond light brown. Although extra virgin olive oil is considered one of the healthiest cooking oils, it should not be heated above 160 °C. In general, the best cooking techniques for our health are the gentle ones.

The recipe is one of the many delicious and easy recipes from the book “Veganista”, by Antwerp-based Luna Trapani, written in dutch language. She masterfully demonstrates how easily Italian cuisine can be “veganised”. Highly recommended, just like her second book: “Vegetalia”.

Born as a chicken in the 21st century

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a chicken laid an average of 20 eggs a year. Apart from that, she could happily scavenge through life, in the open air.
Today, the twenty-first century offspring of those belle époque chickens are locked up together by the tens of thousands in the unhealthy, stressful environment of closed hangars where the lights never go out. And A suffocating ammonia smell takes your breath away … they are now so genetically manipulated that their frail little bodies have to squeeze out an egg full of precious minerals and proteins every single day … not to mention the permanent doses of antibiotics they are being administered to prevent them from succumbing prematurely to infectious diseases, bacterial or viral. Why do people do this? Do we not learn from the pandemic of the coronavirus SARS-COVID ?

It is no longer possible to turn a blind eye or look away from these sad, immoral and violent practices. It borders on criminal neglect. That is what I think, at least.
Maybe you have a different opinion. So be it.

Split pea soup ingredients

Easy split pea soup

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Yoga Kitchen – Simple, healthy and vegan

Anyone on a purely vegan diet would do well to keep a close eye on the proportion of protein. Peas and split peas are an excellent and very cheap source of high-quality plant protein with a rich and varied amino acid spectrum. They also contain a lot of complex carbohydrates and a good deal of valuable fibre.
Dream food, really!
What could be cozier and heartier than a good bowl of steaming hot pea soup in the cold season? And you can do that right from breakfast!

What you need for about 1 litre of freshly made soup:

  • 150 gr split peas
  • 1 carrot
  • 1 onion
  • eventually a piece of green celery
  • one to one and a half tablespoons of good olive oil
  • Herbs such as: cumin seed, savory, fennel seed …
  • pepper and salt to taste

You can also add vegetable stock cubes to give extra flavour to the soup, but I’m not a fan of that myself.
Picture of split pea soup with its ingredients

Step by step

  • Allow the split peas to soak in water for a few hours until they are swollen
  • Rinse them in a sieve under running water
  • Gently heat the olive oil on low fire, sprinkle in the herbs (cumin seed, savory, fennel, or others, according to personal taste …) and let them fry softly in the oil for a few moments allow them to release their flavour
  • Add the finely chopped onion and carrot and fry until they become a little glassy
  • Pour in the split peas, stir and briefly fry
  • Pour 1 litre of water over the vegetables, bring to the boil
  • The cooking time depends on the type of pan: approx. 35 minutes in an ordinary pan. If you use a pressure cooker, reduce the cooking time to about 15 to 20 minutes.

Extremely important

When cooking legumes, add the salt only after the cooking process.
This applies to sea salt, salted soy sauce as well as any salty stock cubes or stock in powder.
Finally, you might add some extra pepper to taste and finely mix the soup with a handheld mixer or in a blender.
Serve nice and hot!

Enjoy this delicious, simple, fortifying soup with its respectable protein content!
Nutritional values split peas

When is the best moment to eat protein?

Opinions differ.
Some people claim that you benefit more from protein in the morning and at noon than in the evening. They claim it would be best to go to bed “light” with a digestive system that has finished its day job so that all the energy can be put into recuperation at night.
On the other hand, the night is precisely the time when protein synthesis and muscle recovery and building also take place. So according to other authors, it is a good idea to include protein in your last meal so that it enters the bloodstream at night and is available for protein synthesis.
That seems to make good sense.

A sweet spicy dish with seitan

Sweet and spicy seitan

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Yoga Kitchen – Simple, healthy and vegan

Thousand year old source of plant protein

Have you switched to a vegan lifestyle and feel nostalgic for something like “meat stew”?
Then you must consider seitan.
Seitan has been known in oriental and more specifically Japanese cuisine for centuries. It is made by subjecting wheat flour to a series of consecutive rinsing procedures. The starch washes out and what remains is the wheat protein. Some people also make it from gluten powder. Gluten is the protein found in wheat and in plenty of other cereals. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. It is simply a powerful plant based source of protein.
Today, it is available in many forms as a standard meat substitute in organic shops and increasingly in other shops as well. Pre-cut in slices, in pieces or minced.

“Stoverij” is a typical Belgian (Flemish) dish people traditionally prepare with beer.
Seitan lends itself very well to this. But you can really do anything with it.
Take a look at this example of an oriental style spicy-sweet preparation:

For about two servings of vegan stew:

  • 200 gr seitan “suprème” or ordinary seitan
  • 50 gr onion
  • 3 garlic cloves
  • 150 gr red and/or yellow bell pepper
  • 3 full tablespoons red madras curry paste (or any other curry paste of your choice)
  • a teaspoon of cumin seed
  • a teaspoon of mustard seeds
  • 2 tablespoons tamari, or sea salt to taste
  • 200 ml of water
  • One tablespoon of wheat flour or spelt to thicken the sauce. Corn starch (maizena) or kuzu will do the trick just as well.

Picture featuring a seitan dish and its ingredients

This is how to prepare:

Ready-to-use seitan does not require any pre-treatment. If it is a large piece of seitan, cut it into smaller pieces with a pair of scissors or a good knife.

  • Chop the onion and garlic and cut the sweet bell pepper into pieces.
  • Let a tablespoon of olive oil warm up in a pressure cooker or in an ordinary pan over a low heat.
  • First sprinkle the herbs in the warm oil. The oil absorbs the flavours.
  • Add onion and garlic and briefly fry.
  • Stir in the pieces of seitan and fry briefly.
  • Add the curry paste and the tamari and mix well.
  • Add the bell pepper and mix with the seitan.
  • Finally pour in the water, close the pan.

Irresistible

Preferably use a pressure cooker. This allows you to retain much more of the nutritional value. Also, the cooking process will take much less time and energy.
In a pressure cooker the whole thing is ready after about 15 minutes of simmering under steam pressure.
Count on 25 minutes for a classic pan.
Afterwards you can thicken the sauce by diluting the flour with some cooking liquid and then adding it to the preparation.
That’s it.
I guarantee you will be tempted to eat it all at once, it’s so tasty! The “suprème” version of seitan simply melts on the tongue.
Of course, nothing stops you from adding other vegetables or using other or additional herbs. Your taste is the norm.
Enjoy it fully !

Gluten or no gluten

Because more and more people are allergic to gluten, a phenomenon whose cause is exclusively attributed to gluten, eating wheat protein is more and more generally discouraged.

Personally, I think it is wrong. It is true that gluten, like other proteins, for example from animal origin, is relatively hard to digest. But if you are healthy and do not suffer from gluten intolerance, there is no reason to avoid it.

What is also true is that modern wheat has evolved genetically over the decades and is therefore no longer the same as the wheat that our ancestors knew. That may also have an impact on the digestibility of modern wheat. There are other cereals on sale in organic shops that are close to the structure and composition of the primeval wheat. Examples are kamut and spelt or emmer.

Thirdly, modern industrial bread is not as fair as the bread of yesteryear. For tasty, basic, fair bread you only need 4 ingredients:

  • flour (ground cereal)
  • water
  • yeast or leaven
  • (sea) salt

Modern industrial bread sometimes contains up to 20 different ingredients, mainly to make it leaven and ready to bake faster, and to influence its flavour and aroma.

Leaky gut

There is certainty that gluten, when it passes undigested or only partially undigested through the intestinal wall, cause damage further down the body, including allergic reactions.
On the other hand, there is no conclusive indication that the same gluten is also responsible for the deterioration and degeneration of the intestinal wall and the protective intestinal flora. For the latter may be due to other causes. Such as a diet that is too monotonous, with too many refined carbohydrates, too much added sugar, too many bad trans fats, too little fibre and, above all, industrially processed foods. The intestinal flora wears out, the intestinal wall slowly leaches out due to a lack of minerals and loses its protective effect: as a result too large openings appear. This is called “leaky gut” syndrome.

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Tomatoes basil garlic

Probiotic Tomatoes

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Yoga Kitchen – Simple, healthy and vegan

Summer is pre-eminently the season of full-bodied, ripe, juicy and tasty tomatoes, which are abundant and cheaply available, even in our own country. However, we tend to consume tomatoes all year round because they are simply one of the most popular vegetables, both in the healthier kitchen and – yes – the fast food kitchen. But winter tomatoes are invariably imported from abroad. This brings along a higher ecological footprint, and also, they are much less tasty. That’s why many people process freshly harvested tomatoes in the summer to keep them for use in the cold season.

Tomato sauce

There are all kinds of options:

  • Preparing classic cooked tomato sauce and freezing it
  • Making and freezing raw tomato sauce
  • Sundrying or dehydrating the tomatoes

Each of the above operations consumes energy for cooking, drying and freezing them (sometimes for months). Drying in the sun is not really an option in our climate. And cooking the tomatoes obviously reduces their nutritional value.
We’re lucky that we have a natural and energy-efficient way of processing. This actually means that we can keep the tomato sauce at room temperature afterwards, for up to a year. We can do that by fermenting the tomatoes with some sea salt, garlic and herbs.

What you need for a jar of 1 kg or two jars of 500 gr:

    • 1 kg tomatoes, without skin and seeds
    • 10 gr sea salt
    • 2 garlic cloves
    • a bunch of fresh basil or fresh flat parsley
    • a 1 l glass jar or two 500 ml jars

.

Step by step

  • Peel the tomatoes. The easiest way to do this is by immersing them briefly in boiling water. The skin bursts and when you remove the tomatoes from the water and rinse them off, you can peel off the skin very easily.
  • Remove the seeds from the tomatoes and cut them into small pieces.
  • Finely chop the garlic cloves as well as the fresh garden herbs.
  • Mix everything in a bowl with the sea salt.
  • Pour everything into the jars and seal them hermetically.
  • Leave to ferment for about 15 days in total. The first 5 to 7 days at summer room temperature, then slightly cooler (between 15 to 20 °C).

The pickled and fermented tomato sauce keeps for a full year without extra cooling.
They make up a wonderful side dish or add-on to rice, pasta or can be used on pizza.

Picture of a tofu dish

Spicy Tofu

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Yoga Kitchen – Simple, healthy and vegan

I would like to invite you to revisit the basics of meat substitutes. One of the foremothers of meat substitutes is simple white tofu. Known for centuries in the oriental kitchen. Soy milk is being curdled using nigari, a calcium salt, and the solid result of this curdling is pressed into blocks. It’s a little bit like making cheese, but plant-based.
The easiest digestible tofu is the fermented version. It has a pleasant, slightly acid taste. Non-fermented, white tofu is tasteless. That is why a marinade is very welcome, before frying or roasting the tofu.

Here’s an easy example of an oriental style marinade for tofu.

For a block of organic white tofu of 400 grs you need:

  • 3 tablespoons of tamari or shoyu, that’s the dark soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar or white rice vinegar (mirin)
  • Half a tablespoon of rice or agave syrup
  • A nice piece of fresh ginger, cut finely
  • Oriental spices of your choice

An example of a fiery spice mixture:

  • 2 teaspoons of an Indonesian spice mixture
  • A quarter teaspoon of ground chili powder
  • A quarter teaspoon of ground black pepper

The spice mixture can be the object of your experimentation. Salt is not necessary, the soy sauce takes care of that.

This is how you proceed:

  • It may be useful to press some of the excess liquid out of the tofu if it’s very wet inside and not too solid. Press the tofu between two hard surfaces to do so.
  • Put the liquid and dry ingredients for the marinade in a small bowl and stir well.
  • Cut the tofu into slices and dispose them in a big bowl.
  • Pour the marinade on top of them and hussle the slices a little bit so as to drench all surfaces with the spicy mixture.
  • Cover the bowl.
  • Let it rest for at least an hour, or overnight in the refrigerator. You may occasionally re-hussle the tofu slices.

Then your tofu will be ready to be fried or grilled in the oven.
Simply delicious with vegetable and cereal dishes.
Enjoy this valuable calcium and iron rich meat-free protein source!

Modern meat substitutes

Since the last few years, more or less as from 2017, the food industry must have been smelling money with regards to the ever increasing demand for vegetarian and vegan food products. In our supermarkets a great number of different new meat substitutes are making their appearance. As such it is a positive evolution from the animals’ point of view. Because every human who skips a meal with meat from time to time on a regular basis, means that less animals that will have to go to the slaughterhouse. At least, that’s what we all hope for.

However there seems to be more chaff than wheat. A lot of those new meat substitutes are no champions with regards to their health value. For instance, there is a lot of stuff covered in breadcrumbs to be found, and believe me, anything edible dressed in a colourful jacket of breadcrumbs sure has something to hide regarding its composition.

A polenta cake

Polenta with seaweed and vegetables

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Yoga Kitchen – Simple, healthy and vegan

A treasure of poor man’s kitchen

In the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century polenta must have been the most widespread “poor man’s dish” of the Italians in the countryside. Although the poorest layers of the population often ate in a very unbalanced way, the so called “poor man’s kitchen” is a very inspiring phenomenon in my opinion. Because these people worked with locally available plants and foods. That simplicity, and that low ecological footprint, that’s for sure something we can learn a lot from, today. A lot more charming and more sustainable than many of the so-called ”superfoods” that are flown in by airplane from tropical areas to be sold at exorbitantly high prices in exclusive stores. It can never have been the purpose of something as earthy and basic as our daily food.

What is Polenta?

Polenta is semolina made from corn. Unfortunately, most of the corn that is on our fields is destined to be used for livestock feeding. And why would you want to consume corn in a plant based diet?
Well, it has some interesting characteristics. It is free from gluten and it is easily digested. The recipe here below is excellent for people who decide to ditch meat and other animal products, and who feel an urge or some nostalgia for a fried egg or omelette at breakfast time. This polenta really comes close to it with regards to taste, colour and smell! Especially nice in the winter season.

What are the benefits of seaweed?

Seaweeds are rich in protein, iron and also iodine.
Where do fish get their protein and their renowned omega-3 content? They get it from seaweed!
All the more reason to leave fish alone and learn how to use these little-known vegetables.
People with thyroid disorders need to be careful. The high iodine content can influence their condition.
Are you in that case? Then check with your doctor.

Things you need for a polenta loaf of about 1 kg:

  • ca 900 ml of water
  • 175 gr quick cook polenta of organic culture
  • one up to two full table spoons of finely chopped seaweed (e.g; fisherman’s salad)
  • a big carrot (or another vegetable), finely grated
  • 1 to 2 teaspoons of sea salt, to taste
  • A cooking pan of about 2 litres – that provides some extra space
  • a rectangular cake tin of about 30 cms long and 10 cms wide

Picture of polenta

This is how you proceed:

  • Shred the carrot finely.
  • You can soak the seaweed briefly in some water, but the fine species can do perfectly without.
  • Bring the water to a boil in a pan.
  • Once the water is boiling, you can add the shredded carrot, the seaweed and the sea salt into the water, and bring it back to boiling temperature.
  • Then add the polenta to the mixture, whilst stirring.
  • Let the polenta simmer gently for two minutes, whilst you keep on stirring with a wooden spoon or a whisker.
  • The polenta quickly thickens and when it starts to detach at the sides from the border of the pan, it is time to pour the mixture into the previously moistened cake tin.
  • Let it solidify and cool, and then store it in the fridge in a box with a lid.

Once cooled, it will easily store in the fridge for one week.
In the morning you can cut off a couple of slices from the cake, grill them briefly in the oven or fry them in some olive oil or high oleic sunflower oil, on low heat.
Delicious with some fresh, raw vegetables!
This polenta is as tasty and fulfilling as an omelette, without the latter’s disadvantages.
Enjoy!

What exactly is gluten?

Apart from corn, millet and rice are two more examples of gluten free cereals. Gluten is part of the cereal’s grain. As such, it’s not bad, because it is plant protein. But it is rather hard to digest. Amongst all proteins, the gluten from modern wheat is the one featuring the longest amino acid chains. So it costs the body and the intestinal bacteria a lot of energy and time to cut these super long chains up into small bits during digestion. That is one of the reasons why you can feel quite sluggish after a meal with a lot of gluten rich cereals. People whose intestinal wall malfunctions or is damaged, will suffer even more. When the intestinal wall is weakened so much that it lets too large fragments of only partially digested protein through into the bloodstream, allergies may arise.
For people otherwise healthy the advantage of eating less gluten resides in the fact that digestion is lighter, so the body has more energy available for other activities and processes.

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Vegan red bean spread

Red bean spread with dried tomato and carrots

nutrition, recipes

Yoga Kitchen – Simple, healthy and vegan

A protein-rich vegetable spread or side dish, with red kidney beans as a star ingredient.

Beans don’t have a sexy image. However, they are highly nutritious, rich in protein and fibre, and low in fat.
They fit well in a healthy and sports diet.
Moreover, they are a cheap source of vegetable protein.
You basically have the option to buy dry beans, or canned beans.
The canned beans are always pre-cooked, the dry beans you have to cook yourself.
A great advantage of dry beans is that you can buy them in bulk, so almost without packaging.
Canned beans give a lot of packaging waste. Moreover, it is a pure waste of metal.

Important!

Always cook beans until tender without adding salt. When you add the salt from the start, the beans will stay hard. Only add the salt after cooking.

What you need for approximately 730 gr of finished spread:

  • 120 gr red beans, dry
  • 40 gr dried tomatoes
  • 150 gr onion
  • 3 garlic cloves
  • 100 gr carrot
  • 2 tablespoons tamari, or sea salt to taste
  • 5 cm kombu seaweed (optional)
  • 15 gr fresh parsley
  • a tablespoon of savory
  • black pepper, to taste

Ingredients for the spread

This is how you prepare it:

Let the red kidney beans soak all night or even 24 hours. Discard that soaking water and rinse the beans under the tap.
You can also soak the dried tomato in a little water beforehand. But you can add this soaking water to the dish.
Finely chop all the vegetables.

Preferably use a pressure cooker. Because you retain much more of the nutritional value and the cooking process takes much less time and energy.

Cook the ingredients in a pressure cooker, in two stages:

  • Boil the beans first, without salt:
    Bring them to the boil in plenty of water (4 volumes of water for 1 volume of beans) without lid.
    You can remove any foam floating on top with a skimmer.
    Add the piece of seaweed and the savory and then close the pressure cooker.
    Let the steam pressure build up and leave to boil for 45 minutes.
  • Open the pressure cooker after 45 minutes.
    If there is too much moisture, you can pour some of it away at this stage.
    Add the rest of the ingredients, except the fresh parsley.
    Let the pressure build up again and cook for another 10 minutes.

Let the mixture cool down a little, add the parsley, put everything in the food processor and mix until you get a smooth puree.

You can store it in glass jars.
Keep them hermetically sealed in the fridge for at least another 10 days.
You could also freeze the bean spread.

Enjoy it !

Cans

I personally think that tin cans are one of the biggest mistakes of modern consumer society. They are used at all times. Especially those beverages in cans are, if you think about it, a colossal skewing on a planetary scale. A gigantic pollution caused by the metal and packaging industry, just to pack a few sips of drink. And what’s more, you see them littered around all over the streets. Pure madness.

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