GRILLED VEGETABLES

Hello there, today I had the first Pilates training of this year, it was good to strech out, but I guess tomorrow I will have shoelace ( is this the right way to write when a lot of muscles ache ?). But a couple of hours a week is good, I have a shoulder that often hurts in the cold season, and the Pilates  makes the pain go away , hope this time too. And with the help of my nettle infusion, I buy it dry in the health food shop, 2 table spoons og dry nettle leaves in 1/2 liter of water, boil the water and let the nettle infkuse for 5-6 min., strain, and drink a couple of glasses of this evrey day, it' very good for the cartilage.

I often tell you, we love to cook the vegetables of each season, and try to buy the veggies forme the local farmers, if possible directly from them. The winter offers more "heavy stuff" , like all kinds of root veggies, cabbage, couliflower, brussels sprouts, pumpkins, squash, leeks and spinach.

In the everyday kitchen, we do soups, stirfry in the wok, in tempura, on the BBQ .And why not, in the owen?

We do it a lot, specially when we are a crowd for lunch or dinner, all can be prepared in advance, and just go in the oven for 20-30 min, depending on how big the slices or pieces are.

You can choose a lot of spices as well, try your own preference, we use it for main dish, to accompany some chicken, some fish or a simple fried egg. And so comforting in the winter, wich turns out to be quite cold in Granada this year, but the spring is around the corner, and we have a little longer afternoons now.

I love veggies, and think they look delisious, but my man want something more consistent, so for him I top with some fried bacon or serrano ham.

You can start lining a baking plate with a baking sheet, and preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

In a quite big bowl, mix the extra virgen olive oil, the grated ginger, the cummin,the soy sauce, the agave sypup, salt and pepper, mix and save. 

Then cut the pumpkin in small cubes, divide the cauwliflower in posies, and peel and cut the brussel sprous in two, add the beggies to the olive/spice mix , I do it one kind at the time, it looks nicer, they must be coated all over with this mix. Then line up on the baking paper, and put in the oven until they are " al dente" and slightly golden brown.

Then transfer to a serving plate and decorate with finly chopped chives.

I have a funny pair of scissors that does this work wery quick, see the photo, it was a gift from my daughter Andrea, as I always messed so much cutting dill, we Norwegians can't live without our dill, but it's fine for basil, mint , any fresh herbs.

You must give me the chance to tell you again, that English is not my native language, so please forgive me if I write something wrong.

Do you speak Spanish? Then have a look at:

My Spanish Blog

They smell so nice now.

Have a peaceful sleep, and a good rest of the week.

                                                                 Love

                                                                 Hilde

NEW SEASON, NEW LIFE, VEGAN FOOD CHINEESE NOODLES AND TOFU ROSSO

Hi friends, this weekend we are goining to have one more hour of morning light,don't forget to take your clocks 1 hour back,  and go to a party, you con sleep 1 hour more on sunday!!!!!, some candles and the last, I think, flowers from the garden, for a nice friday.


And this is really not going to be a new life, but sort of going back to my "old life" ,before the summer, several times I told about my  "over weight" and I just found some old photos in a folder on my laptop and I think I want to share, sort of  before and now photos.

Three years ago.

From this summer.

The more healthy  life made me loose 22 kilos, and this summer, I put on 2 of them again, but I think my diet will fix that in a month more or less. I do the diet with a nutritionist, all followed by analitics etc, and today I made the desision to go to the Farmacia, and get my right weight, there I can print it out and save the ticket so I don't forget, in 1 week I will tell you how much I lost, I try to wear similar clothes and shoes, what matters isn't the what I weigh, but the difference of every weeks weight.

First rule, no alcohol, and 5 meals a day, shew every mothful 25 times, to salivate the food, drink 2 liters of water, or any liquid without calories every day, but outside the meals, not to thin the gastric juices, and at least 1 hour of  exersise  every day..

Basicly the best suggestions I can give you. If you want to follow a serious diet, you can send me an e-mail and I will give it over to my dietist, and she will contact you. Several of my friends here in Granada has followed her diets, and we have not only lost weight, our  analitics are much better, and I stopped taking medicine for the cholestherol 1 year ago. Now I use aliments containing Omega 3-6-9.

Here I will share the first vegan meal, the recipe is from my friend Susana, she owns a health food shop here in town,and sometimes she runs a cooking school, we have such a nice time, first cooking, and then we have the lunch together with all our nice dishes.

ecobiokarbebi@gmail.com

CHINEESE NOODLES WITH TOFU ROSSO

The ingredients.

Shoppinglist

2 brecol                               ( broccoli)
1 paquete de fideos chinos. ( 1 packet of chineese noodles)
200 gr of tofu rosso.           (red tofu)
2-3 cucharads de AOVE.   ( spoons of ectra virgen olive oil)
1 diente de ajo.                   ( garlic clove)
Sal                                     (salt)
1cucharada de salsa soja.    ( spoon of soy sauce)

Start boiling the water with salt, then boil the brocoli for a couple of min. drain, and put under the cold water tab for a moment, then leave apart to dry.
Boil water for the noodles, when it's boiling take apart, soak the noodles for 4-5 min. drain and save.

Frying the garlic, and the other ingredients ready.

In a skillet heat the olive oil, and fry the tofu, cut into small cubes, not to small, as you must make sure they are fried on every side. I use a lot of tofu, and prefere the smoked one, it has a little more taste, and I make it "rosso" myself, having smoked paprika into a bowl and turning the tofu bites in it a couple of hours before I cook it .The tofu is like a spounge, it picks up the flavour of any marinating Just as well you can buy it prepared, but I buy a kilo piece, it runs out much more economic than the small packets.
This time I mixed sweet, smoked and hot paprika, and a little Himalayan pink salt, and the taste was super.

In a wok fry the garlic clove, sliced, in the AOVE until golden, and then incorporate the rest of the ingredients, taste for salt after adding the soy sauce, as it's salty.

If you don't have a wook, use a frying pan.

If you dont like the tofu, you can change it for shrimps or chicken breast cut in small cubes.
If you don't have broccoli,use zucchini.

If you like hot food, add a little bit of Sambal Oelek or Tabasco, but be careful, it can be too hot.

 Use the weekend to do something nice, if it's raining, a nice cup of tea, a good book, and a blanket. I think this is the autumn life, lots of candles, and some good foodie enjoyed with family and friends.
Have a good time.

NATURAL DIURETIC

Today I'm dedicated to clean the corn cobs I bought at the farmers market, and I think I will share this with you, after lots of exesses in the summer, now I want to go back to my healthy manners.

One is the corn stigmata infusion , when you rinse the corn, after taking off the leaves (the leaves was in old times dried and used to make matresses ) you find the brownish  "hairs", and this is what I use. When I can get new corn, the rest of the year I buy it in tea bag version, I like it as natural as possible.

1 liter of water per 20 gr. of stigmata let it boil for 10 min, then let rest for 15 min., strain and drink it hot or cold.

It has a very nice colour, and taste slightly of corn, and be careful not to drink it before bed-time, may be you have to run to the loo several times.

It's good for so much, clean out bladder sand, rinces kidneys, and all that has to do with urinary tract, kep your colestheol ahead,  helps to get rid of heavy legs, and it helps to calm back ache, pain in shoulders and waist, and even make you loose some weight.

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT MYSELF

Today i have visited the nice shop Susana runs here in the village of Otura, the best smell of baked bread in there, I'm so happy about the way she runs it, all helthy products, and a lot of helthy advice.

Susana Hontiveros with one kind of her fantastic breads.

Really my interest of healthy life startet 2 years ago, after coming out of the hospial after an acute pericarditis attack. I didn't feel well, and went through several analitics, gastroscopy, and heart, lungs, stomach, all was tested but the doctors really coudn't find a reason for my ill beeing. I was a little overwight, so I began dieting, the doughter of a friend since a lot of time a go, is a nutritionist, and she was doing a master at the time, so we started. Again with analitics, weight and messures, and we sat up a time-table for eating and exercise.( try to take two bags with 7 or 8 kilos of rice one in each hand and go up and down some stairs for a couple of times, I was exhausted after 3 times, and then realised what my heart had to work extra for dragging a long with these extra kilos).

First of all 5 meals a day, I marked a every 3 hours , when my breakfast had been for as long as I can remember now, a black coffe and a cuple of cigaretts.
Chew each bite 25-30 times( in the beginning I had to count, but now it goes on it's on it's own).
Don't drink much during the meal, 2 liters a day is good, but outside the meal times.
Have the food on a small plate.
Thank for the food you are going to eat, and have the meal in a confortable place with the ones you love.

Breakfast a cup of tea or coffe, a wholegrain toast with olive oil, some days with diced tomato , some days with cooked ham and a kiwi.
At noon some fruit and tea or water.
For lunch vegetables, cooked or salad, fish or chiken.
In the afternoon a small toast and a tea again.
The dinner some vegetables, pasta or fish.

I started to loose weigt , slowly, some weeks a kilo some weeks only 100 grams, in the beginning I was aloud to weigh every week, after 4 months every 2 weeks, i went to the " farmacia" so I had the ticket printed out with the date and the weight, slowly but with mayor well-beeing and lost 20 kilos in 8 months.

I also got in touch with a doctor who practise ancient chineese medicin, and he foumd out that my left kidney didn't work wery well, my stomach has some small disorders, and my blood stream is extreamly slow, from him I got natual remedys ,and a long list of food that are good, neutral or bad for me.

I bought a lot of the stuff, like algae,, lots of beans as azuki, red lentils, chick peas,soy, black beans, then quinoa, amaranth,millet,miso,tofu, sarraceno wheat, and lots of things I newer cooked before, I started cooking , looked at recipes on the net, but I didn't get the taste and lots of it went in the bin, nobody at home wanted to eat this.

When you get sorted out what you like, the posibilities for vegan cooking is huge.

And then Susana was sent to rescue me ( and part of my family), she opend her Eco- Bio-Karbieri health food, where she apart from selling, bakes, cooks and make her small vegan specialities ,and holds cooking-lessons ,tells you how is the best way to mix and match ,all lovely ingredients, she is vegetarian, I'm not, but I like so much of the vegan cookining.

Lots of vegans vould love to visit Susanas shop, i think.

And most important, I feel as I came back to life.

ALL THE PROCUCTS IN THIS SHOP HAS ONE COMMUN INGREDIENT,  THE LOVE, WITH WICH THEY HAVE BEEN ELABORATED.

Do you live in Spain and want to know more , just. e-mail ; hildehemeldre@gmail.com