Category Archives: Salads

I fell in love with raw cauliflower rice since I made tabbouleh last time. It looks like rice but tastes quite different – crunchy, nutty and delicious. You cannot substitute for rice in every recipe, but it is a perfect base for the main meal such as curry, stir-fry, stew, roasted vegetables on cauliflower rice. Enjoy either raw or cooked depending on your preference. For your sweet tooth, you can add almond milk, maple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon and some roasted stone fruit on top. Yum!

Ingredients

2 cauliflower florets
1 cup of diced pumpkin
1/3 zucchini, diced
1/2 spring onion
1 cup of diced parsnip
1 stalk of celery
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp coconut oil
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste
a handful of dried cranberries and almonds

Wash and dice all the vegetables. Toss with balsamic vinegar, coconut oil, paprika, cumin, salt and pepper. Place them in a baking dish and put in the preheated oven (200) for 20-30 minutes until cooked. Make cauliflower rice using a box grater and season. You can also use a food processor. Roughly chop the cauliflower and pulse into little pieces until it looks like rice. When veggies are all cooked, take it out of the oven and let it cool slightly. Then combine with cauliflower rice in a large bowl. Transfer to a serving bowl and top with dried cranberries and almonds.

Mung beans are highly nutritious, easy on digestion, low in calories, high in fiber and B vitamins. Sprouting process is a fantastic way of boosting enzymes, vitamins C and K and minerals, particularly zinc and iron. So try to include more sprouts in your diet. All you have to do is to soak them in water for 1-2 days and let it germinate to sprouts. After grains are soaked in water then strained and left at room temperature in the dark, their reproductive system kicks in, and they begin to sprout and ferment. Once you have a desired “tails”, you can keep them in the air-tight glass container in the fridge or freezer, which keeps it fresh for weeks. Same principles apply to other beans, grains and seeds like chick peas, rye, buckwheat, quinoa and red beans. You can add them into your smoothies, salads, bread, stir-fries and soup or eat it raw as a healthy snack. Tasty, crunchy and healthy! If you want to read more about sprouting, read my previous post about sprouting quinoa here.

Ingredients

3 cauliflower florets
2 cups of pumpkin
1 cup of sprouted mung beans1 tsp of smoked paprika
1 tsp of cayenne pepper
1 tsp of Himalayan salt
1 tsp of fennel seeds
1 tbsp of coconut oil
1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar

Mix all dressing ingredients in a large bowl. Add chopped cauliflower and pumpkin into a bowl and gently toss. Bake in the preheated oven (180) for 20-30 minutes until golden. Transfer to a serving plate, sprinkle sprouted mung beans over the veggies and drizzle more balsamic vinegar before serve.

I am very excited about the real food revolution seminar this weekend. I am going with my mother-in-law who found about this course and recommended it to me. Hopefully it helps me to expand my food knowledge and write more healthy recipes and nutrition information on my blog. I also get to see Pete Evans who is the reason why I watch MKR on TV 🙂 I’m making a big batch of beef bourguignon and some salad for my hubby now since I know I will be busy with the course this weekend and don’t want him to starve himself.

The base of this salad is creamy and nutty chickpeas. Plus Mediterranean style ingredients with a depth of the flavour and the almonds with a crunch and nutty flavour work really well with the cumin dressing. It is embarrassingly easy to put together and doesn’t take much time at all if you’ve soaked your beans overnight or you can choose to use a tinned chickpeas.

Ingredients

2 cups of cooked chickpeas
1/2 cup of chopped spinach
1/2 cup of chopped cucumber
1/2 cup of chopped green olives
1/2 cup of marinated artichoke hearts
1 tomato
30g feta cheese
a handful of slivered almonds

For cumin dressing
1 tsp toasted cumin seeds
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tbsp e.v.o.o
a squeeze of lemon
salt and pepper to taste

If there was no chilli in this world, food would taste so boring and tasteless. There are many spicy dishes in Korean cuisine and I grew up with them. So I get a chilli craving quite often. It can be painful depending on how hot it is, but I like a hit of capsaicin rushes the endorphin through my body and pleasure with each mouthful of fire. Never mind, you get runny nose, steaming eyes and throbbing mouth. It is so weird you tend to keep going back despite that. Daniel had a few occasions of this chilli “pain” when I hand over a piece of chilli I’ve already had a bite. I know it is hot, almost burning my tongue, but want to share with Daniel because I love him so much:) He should know by now the chilli I put in his mouth is almost always hot, but he doesn’t seem to mind to take it. Strangely addictive!

You will be pleased to know eating chilli is good for you. Chilli is an excellent source of vitamin A, B, C and E, seven more times more vitamin C than an orange! More importantly, the capsaicin contains beta-carotene which is a powerful antioxidant. It also increases your metabolism, which means eating chilli can help you lose weight. Other benefits are decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, reduced inflammation, improved digestive system, maintaining bone health and lowering cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

If you are a lover of tofu and spiciness, you will like this dish. I made a jar of harissa with birds eye chilli, cayenne pepper, chilli flakes, smoked paprika, garlic, onion and olive oil. A teaspoon is spicy enough for a whole dish like this. But if you prefer mild spiciness, you can choose to add chopped green chillies in without seeds instead. Add more or less of any ingredient to suit your taste.

Ingredients

1/2 block of firm tofu
1 cup of kale
1/2 cup of diced pumpkin
2 tsp of coconut oil
1 tsp of harissa paste
1 tsp of smoked paprika
1/2 tsp of minced garlic
1 tsp of sesame seeds
1 tsp of fennel seeds
salt and pepper to taste

Wash and tear kale into bite sizes. Dice the pumpkin into small cubes. Slice the firm tofu and remove excess water with a paper towel. Preheat a pan over a medium heat. Add coconut oil, harissa and garlic first. Then add pumpkin and kale into a pan, keep stirring and cook for 10 minutes or until pumpkin is cooked. Transfer to a serving plate. Add prepared tofu into the same pan with a teaspoon of coconut oil. Sprinkle smoked paprika, salt and pepper. Cook for 2-3 minutes each side. Arrange pan-fried tofu on sauteed kale and top with sesame seeds and fennel seeds. You can also serve this over rice or noodles.