Vegan pumpkin soup with little pasta/ Sopa de cabaca/abobora e pevides

Versao Portuguesa mais abaixo.

As you know we portuguese like our soups, and this one is a great one! Pumpkin and little pasta Soup 🙂
Cook 3 medium carrots with 2 medium to big potatoes (if you wash them very well, no need to peel them),300grams of pumpkin puree or pumpkin cubes, 1 onion and 2 cloves of garlic in a bit olive oil for 5 minutes. Add water around 5 or 6 cm above the chopped veggies, add salt, black pepper, turmeric (1 teaspoon), paprika and let it cook for 20 to 30 minutes (until soft). Blend until you get creamy consistency (if it’s too liquid you can let it cook for another few minutes until it thickens or just add a bit of potato starch.
Add 1 cup of peas, 5 or 6 blocks of frozen spinach (or a whole fresh bag) and half a cup of little pasta, I used the oval one, my favourite. Let it cook for a further 15 minutes and serve with bread, wholesome one preferably. Bon appetit 🙂

Sopa de cabaca e massinhas de canja
Aqui em casa o jantar e’ quase sempre sopa, tento variar de acordo com os vegetais disponiveis durante o ano, mas a base e’ sempre parecida 🙂 Nada melhor que sopinha de Inverno!
Numa panela colocar 2 colheres de azeite com 3 cenouras medias, 1 cebola, 2 dentes de alho,2 batatas grandinhas( tudo cortado em pedacos pequenos, se lavarem bem a batata e coura nao e’ necessario descascar), 300 gramas (+/- nao faz grande diferenca) de pure de cabaca/abobora ou cabaca aos pedacinhos e deixar cozinhar uns 5 a 10 minutos. Adicioar agua, 5 ou 6 centimentros acima dos vegetais. Temperar a gosto com sal, pimenta preta, pimentao doce e acafrao das indias (se houver, e’ mais pela qualidade medicinal que pelo sabor) e deixar cozer durante 20 a 30 minutos, ou ate todos os elementos estiverem bem cozidos. Passar a sopa ate obter um creme. Se estiver demasiado liquida, deixem cozinhar mais um bocadinho e acaba por evaporar, ou adicionar 1 colher de maizena e e’ mais rapido. Se estiver muito densa e’ so colocar um bocadinho de agua.
Colocar 1 taca de ervilhas congeladas, espinafres frescos ou congelados (5 ou 6 cubinhos congelados ou umas 400 gramas de fresco, fresco deve ser adicionado uns 5 minutos antes de estar tudo feito) e 1/2 taca (ou mais se desejarem) de pevides (massa de canja) e deixar cozinhar durante 15 minutos ou ate a massa ficar al dente.
Tirando o Caldo verde qual e’ a vossa sopa preferida? 😉

Skinny curry! :D

Fry lots of onion, garlic, chili, turmeric and curry powder with olive oil. When onion are cooked add chicken breast cubed, let it brown for 10 minutes, add kale and frozen vegetables ( or fresh), add tomato paste and if necessary some water/ wine/beer. Add salt and pepper and let it cook for a further 20 minutes. Add whole greek natural yogurt and let it cook for another 5 to 10 minutes. Serve with rice. Really tasty but very healthy

Caril Saudavel :

Frite bastante alho, cebola, chili, caril em pò e açafrao das indias com azeite. Quando a cebola estiver cozinhada adicione o peito de galinha cortado aos cubos e deixe estar durante uns 10 minutos até estar bem dourada. Adicione os vegetais da sua preferencia, eu usei couve e um mix de vegetais congelados. Coloque polpa de tomate e se achar necessario um pouco de agua/cerveja/vinho. Sal e pimenta a gosto e deixe cozinhar por mais 20 minutos. Coloque o iogurte natural e deixe por mais 5 minutos. Sirva com arroz branco. Esta receita é bastante saborosa e saudavel, sem sentimento de culpa

Power lunch and some homemade bread!

After a crazy month at work finally have some days off.  I will be staying in London this time, just relaxing, cooking meeting friends and going to the gym. So yesterday as I was off I had the time to make something nice for lunch, really tasty and healing. I bought a book called Medicinal cookery, and I am trying to pack as much good ingredients as I can, sometimes just swapping white onion for purple makes a difference!

Ingredients :

Tomatoes

Kale

Spinach

Potatoes

Cabbage

Purple onion

Sausage (optional, without for vegan)

Spices : Turmeric, Cumin, rosemary, chili, black pepper, salt

Method :

Wash, cut and boil the potatoes.

Pan fry the sausages.

In a wok put a bit of  oil, I used carotino to try, mix all the vegetables and cook them for 10 m maximum,so it doesn’t lose all the nutrients.

Slice sausages and mix them with the potatoes and vegetables.

It’s a really nice filling meal, that gets it’s kick and flavor from the spices! Try it, I’m sure you will love it 😉

Wholemeal bread with sesame seeds crust

Ingredients :

I always use the same formula , 1kg of flour for 700ml of water, plus salt, oil and raising agent. This time I used the cake one, but you get much better results with proper yeast to bake bread imo.

I mix the ingredients,  600 g of whole meal and 400 g of white flour, salt, oil, baking powder, pumpkin seeds and poppy seeds, and combine. Add the water little by little until all is homogeneous and knead for 10 m. Let it rise for 1 hour, knead a bit more, let it rise for another hour if you have the time.

Bake for 60 m at 180 degrees in the oven bottom shelf.

This bread was made a couple of weeks ago, today I’m baking Rye bread. There is nothing like doing it yourself, it’s creative and you know exactly what goes into it! 😀

Tomorrow I’m making dinner for some friends so some more posts are coming soon!

Take care!x