Category: carrots

Sprouted Wheat Soup

Michael Fisher ·

A client sent this to me after she got frustrated making sprouted wheat bread – instead she made soup!
To add to the story, her husband is from Oaxaca, Mexico, where they celebrate their dead relatives on a special day called ‘dia de los muertos’. One of the things they do is cook their dead relatives’ favorite food and take it to the cemetary and “eat” it with them. Like a picnic, but at a cemetary. So she made this soup, packed it up, and ate it at the cemetary sitting on the earth between her grandmother and brother’s graves!

She entitled it: Sprouted Wheat Soup for the Dead

5 cups water
1 large bunch collard greens, stems removed, chop leaves into strips, stems diced
1 large onion
2 small carrots
1 Tbsp. olive oil or ghee
1 cup wheat sprouts
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
1 Tbsp. dried herbs (I had basil, thyme, and oregano)
2 tsp. miso
1 Tbsp. Bragg’s aminos

(I also threw in a dash of garlic salt and topped it with hot sauce because I love pungent hot sauce and I live with a Mexican. Oh, and my brother likes hot, pungent things and this was for him, too. You could leave these things out if you eat more purely than I do.)

I boiled the water and then turned off the heat. I didn’t want to boil the miso, sprouts, or greens. In a skillet, saute onion and carrot in oil until soft. Add cooked onion mixture, collards stems and leaves into the pan with other ingredients except miso. Let it sit for 15-20 minutes. Put soup in your bowl and stir in 1 tsp. miso. Yum!

Sprouted Wheat Soup

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Cooking for one… pot!

Michael Fisher ·


I LOVE one-pot meals. Really, there’s nothing more satisfying then the coming together of flavours in one dish, which really, makes digesting quite easy. Consider the pot acting as your stomach, working out all the chemical differences, so that by the time you eat it, it is chemically like ‘one food’! Oh yes – the finest of food combining – cook it all together!

I cook things in order from slowest to fastest, obviously. So this is how I might cook myself a one-potter:
- Put a little water in the bottom of the pot and bring to boil, or at least hot
- Add spices to infuse like a tea… such as cumin, fennel, mustard, bl. pepper (my favs)
- Add pungent vegetables like onions, leeks, garlic, etc. I think I used ginger and leek here
- Add hearty root veggies, like potato, carrot or beet. I think I only used carrot in this dish
- When roots are soft, add other veg like zucchini, which is what I did here
- I tossed in some nuts and seeds as well – which soaks and cooks them a little, which is good
- From here, you can add more water and add some grain, as I did with quinoa! Cover and cook until grains are soft, for quinoa – about 15 minutes. I threw in some brown rice pasta because I was having a party for myself that night, and pasta is pretty fun.
- Add herbs at the end, like thyme or whatever else. I added my fresh ones at the very end though
- Serve a dishfull, and that stir in some leafy greens like kale, and they’ll cook in just the heat of the food.
- Prepare a small dressing/sauce, or simply just pour over a little flax/hemp oil, apple cider vinegar, or whatever inspires you.
- Add fresh chopped herbs, like basil, parsley, chives, or whatever ya got!
This is pretty elaborate, but my entire meal came from one dish! It made enough for two servings, and I had just ONE POT to clean up! Isn’t it amazing.. ONE POT!! :)

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Home-made Veggie Pate!

Michael Fisher ·

As a treat, I occasionally like to get veggie pate from the natural food store and eat in on a sandwich or as a side to something fun, but I’d really like to be able to make it on my own so I can make it as a treat, instead of buy it, even though I like to support folks who make this kind of stuff and make it available in stores – because it is a nice treat!

So it’s my first batch, and far from perfection, but this is what I did:
Blend the following in a food processor:
  • 1-1/2 cups soaked buckwheat (from 3/4 cup dry)
  • 1 cup oat flakes
  • 1 cup diced eggplant
  • 1/2 cup sesame seeds, ground
  • 1/2 cup whole spelt flour, or other
  • 1/4 cup oil
  • 1/3 cup each diced potato, onion, carrot
  • 1 Tbsp vinegar
  • 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice
  • Some salt
Oil a casserole dish, and put the blended paste into the dish. .. and I just realize that I didn’t write down how long I cooked it for!! But I’m willing to bet it was at 350F for at least 45 minutes.. you could try that – but watch for the browness at the top, that might be an indication of how done it is.
As a side note, I actually bought some veggie pate from the store to compare mine to the “real” thing, and after having one bite of it before making it, I walked away to answer the phone or something, and when I came back, the dog had eaten the WHOLE thing with not a crumb left over. Yes folks.. it’s just that good… mine was also very good… but maybe a little drier (I don’t like using a lot of oil in my cooking, and I didn’t get it so perfectly pureed as I could have.. but it was AWESOME.)

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Awesomest Dinner Ever!

Michael Fisher ·

This was an exceptional treat! Hand crafted by Whole Foodie Anna, this was a perfect winter meal that brought about bliss that lasted all evening.

Unfortunately, like me (Mike), Anna doesn’t really use recipes or measure anything, which is awesome – measuring things kills my appetite, and using the right side of your brain to cook only fosters more love in the food!
So – squash soup, gently sauteed veggies with almonds and a subtle sauce, and then a crunchy millet salad, that Anna did agree to write out for me:
Crunchy Millet Salad
  • Sautee in water, cubed zucchini, onion, potato
  • Cook millet
  • Add these two things together along with:
  • Pumpkin seeds
  • Miso paste
  • Basil
  • Oil
  • Parsley
  • Spices – black pepper, dr. basil, curry, etc.
(I have a feeling there was garlic in there too, but she didn’t write it down!)
Eat slowly and enjoy the poof of qi from this very digestive-fire stimulating dish!

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Shabu shabu!

Michael Fisher ·

Wow.. we’re really on a Japanese theme here aren’t we? Well, we just had a Japanese couple living with us, and of course we love the food of Japan, it’s silliness, cartoons, and all it’s Zen-ness.

So this is a traditional winter meal, not only eaten in Japan (although the name “shabu shabu” which is an onomatopoeia mimicking the sound of splashing your food in hot water) but eaten all over Asia in the hot pot style that indulged upon.
Using a portable burner on the table you eat at, bring a pot of water with seaweed to a boil, and then dunk cut vegetables and other foods into the boiling pot for a moment, and then retrieve them slightly cooked and delicious, and then dip into a sauce or shoyu before eating. This way, the meal is drawn out so incredibly long, that you can literally eat all night long.
Tofu can be used, meat, cabbage, leek, zucchini, carrot, mushrooms, daikon, etc.. anything that cooks in water! Serve with brown rice and edamame for some nice sides! And sake too of course!
OISHII!
(Pictured are Sharla and Anna)

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Nabe = Japanese pot

Michael Fisher ·

This is a winter food in Japan. Cooked in a pot (or known as ‘nabe’, the Japanese word for pot in Japanese) this dish is called “nabe” for obvious reasons.
Bring some water to a boil, and add seaweed like kombu or wakame, and then chop in lots of veggies – and some tofu, if you really want to embrace the spirit of Japan. We went all out and got all Japanese veggies, including hakusai (nappa cabbage), daikon (literally “giant root”), enoki (weird clustery mushrooms), and ninjin (carrot.. just showing off my Japanese).
Let’s this infusion cook up until the veggies are soft, and then serve in soup bowls!
We added a dash of togarashi (7 pepper spice) on the top to give it some heat to the otherwise gently refreshing dish (despite it being served warm, the seaweed, water and veggie are nice and refreshing).

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Awesomest Lunch Ever!

Michael Fisher ·

Wow. No recipe for this guy – so simple, which is almost the best recipe for whole foods cooking – simple.

Pictured clockwise from bottom to top:
Cooked grains
Gently sauteed veggies
Miso sauce (miso, tahini, shoyu, apple cider vinegar, honey, cumin, etc)
Roasted potato fingers with sesame oil, salt and pepper
Poached egg (we’re really into eggs lately… they make our Kidneys happy)

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Burn-Your-Mouth-Off Salad

Michael Fisher ·

This was made by my sister-in-law but is very blog worthy. For a wintery winter, I haven’t been making a lot of green salads. So this was refreshing, but also face melting due to it’s extremely high proportion of raw garlic present in the salad!!

Garlic is just amazing!! It’s an antibiotic, antimicrobial, antifungus, antiparasitic, .. need I go on? It just drives stuff out of the body, typical of all pungent foods. Ever notice that when you eat a pungent food (like garlic, or horseradish) that the energy in our body seems to ascend and go outwards? This is the nature of pungent food – so if you have something that you want to drive out of you, use pungent foods!! A cold is a good example too.. a little bug is trying to hide out in our body, and raw garlic just drives it right out of the body… at first, but if you continuously do it, it can have a reversed effect. So, pungent foods in moderation are excellent. A refreshing salad with greens and chick peas are a perfect thing to accompany some hell-inspired raw garlic to drive out the baddies in your digestive tract, and depending on how well you digest the fiery fall root, it might clean out your colon too.
It has such potency for eliminating garbage from the body, that it is often too strong for people with hard-working livers. Signs of a hard-working liver might include flatulence and digestive discomfort after eating raw onions or garlic. The best solution?: don’t eat them!! You can cook them, and it will help, but until your liver has done it’s work and is able to relax, avoiding pungent white vegetables might be helpful. If it doesn’t bother your digestion, then the white “spicy” root veggies like the aforementioned onion and garlic are nicely stimulating for the liver – creating a “get up and go” feeling, stimulating the body, blood, mind and qi.
So there you go – a whole blurb about garlic, and that’s all I’ve got, as I have no clue how this salad was made. There were chick peas and greens and a magnificent dressing that only sister Krista can make, and so I’ll leave it at that. Oh yes, carrots and cashews I can see in there as well…  AWESOME SALAD!

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Home-style Brown Rice Bake

Michael Fisher ·

Ooh! This tasted better than it looked, simply because it was in the oven for a LONG time, and little veggies and grains tend to get a little extra brown around the outside making it look not so fresh, but the cooking time in the dish made it a yummy ray of digestive qi emanating from that delightful cooking pot (all ceramic, which means stove and oven proof).

Cook some brown rice on the stove top with 2:1 water (so 2 cups water for 1 cup rice)
Sautee in veggies with some oil:
onions
garlic
carrots
mushrooms
Once soft add the cooked rice and stir.
Crack in 2 eggs and stir those in until mixed and scrambly.
Add black pepper, nuts, beans, whatever, and a little tamari to richen it.
Pop it into the oven and let it bake for a while!! If company is coming over in an hour, set the oven low and check on it, but if dinner is waiting, you don’t need to bake it, or pop it in the oven for a very short time at moderate heat (375F?)
Garnish with fresh herbs like parsley if you wish!! It might make it look “fresher” looking if it’s been in the oven for a while!

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Potato and Carrot Gratin

Michael Fisher ·


This was too easy and a little too comforting as well. Comfort food to the bone!

Slice potatoes and root veggies (in this case onion and carrot, but Jerusalem artichoke works too) and put them in a mixing bowl. Using a mandoline makes slicing these guys easy, but you can use a knife too – just be careful!
Preheat the oven to 350F. Combine the veggies with olive oil, garlic, rosemary and salt and pepper. Lay this mixture in a casserole dish (as shown). Then pour the soup stock over the mixture and bake for 1 hour or soft. 
Take the dish out of the oven and cover it with cheese. Bring the oven up to 400F and bake for 10 minutes more!
We ate it with brown rice.. yum yum!
Easy to follow recipe:
Slice ‘em up:
—————
Some potatoes
Some onions
Some carrots or other roots
Some garlic
Mix in:
———
3 Tbsp olive oil, or more
2 tsp. rosemary (less if it’s dried)
salt & pepper
Pour over:
————-
1-1/4 cup soup stock or white wine (you might need more)
Add when cooked to finish:
——————————-
1/2 cup grated cheese.. like parmesan or something bold and pungent!
Herbs to dress it up later? I’ll leave that up to you!! Garnish as you wish!

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Canadian Root Veggies

Michael Fisher ·


Sorry for the gruesome photography in this post, but I am excited to share this recipe!!
Sautee some root veggies (I used parsnips and carrots, but beets work too) in a whack of butter, then when soft add some walnuts and this sauce:
1/3 part soya sauce
1/3 part maple syrup
1/3 part whiskey (or rye, as they call it in Canada)
Be generous with the quantities and really let them cook and caramelize. 
This can also be done in the oven, or on a BBQ wrapped in foil.
Yummy! You can also be a real Canadian and try this recipe with salmon!
The picture shows the veggies as a side to Sharla’s exquisite red cabbage and tempeh sensation.

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Lung Boosting with White Foods

Michael Fisher ·

White foods influence the Lungs and Large Intestine according to Chinese Medicine. Why? Because they moderate and balance moisture in these elimination organs. Some white foods are drying, some moistening, but they do aid these organ systems. In this dish, I’ve used drying white root vegetables; parsnips, onion and white carrot. Using warming ginger and garlic just gives it that extra drying capability, and the tofu doesn’t dry us right off the planet as it gently moistens the lungs so we can breathe deep and exchange more air.

This was a simple side, and served on a bed of grains, probably quinoa, I’ve been eating this grain a little more often than usual – I don’t know why… it feels good.
This whole thing was sauteed in a bit of sesame oil, shoyu, spices and a touch of rice vinegar. Yum yum!

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The Whole Root n' Capoodle

Michael Fisher ·


Feeling lazy? Do this: wash some roots, toss em in a dish, rub em down with oil, sprinkle them with herbs and spices, and bake them until soft, I’d say 350F for an hour. If pieces are larger then others, cut them so they are similarly sized, otherwise just put them in whole, unpeeled and unchopped.
They reheat nicely too – just keep cooking them and they just keep getting softer!!
You might have to add a little water to the bottom of the pan if they get beyond dry.

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Quinoa Ragout

Michael Fisher ·





A variation on a ragout pasta, but with quinoa instead!

Cook grains in a pot:

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water

Start the sauce in a large pan:
1 Tbsp oil
1/2 tsp ea. thyme, oregano, fennel
1 cup cabbage, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
2 carrots, chopped

1-1/2 cup tomato sauce
2 fistfulls of greens

Start by adding quinoa and water in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes covered, and then let sit until ready.

In a large pan, heat oil, then seed spices, then onion until onion is clear or golden coloured. Add the chopped vegetables and remaining spices, and cook covered until desired texture, adding water occasionally if necessary. Once the veggies are cooked, add the sauce, greens and quinoa together in the pot or serving dish and enjoy!

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Anna’s Layered Veggie-Rice Bake

Michael Fisher ·


Layer in a casserole:

1. Sliced carrots
2. Tomato sauce
3. Thinly sliced potatoes
4. White sauce consisting of sauteed leeks, with butter, whole flour, milk and seasonings
5. Cooked Brown rice mixed with tomato sauce and pepper and sea salt
Bake for 45-60 minutes at 375.  It was heavenly! Hearty, gooey and centering.

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