Posts Tagged With: mung beans

Pear, Swede & Tahini Salad

Posted on June 6, 2012 by leroy watson

Image from ‘How stuff works’ via the brilliant ‘Affairs of Living’ blog

A quick and easy salad using the humble swede and giving it quite a special dress.

Now I call a swede, a turnip, turns out I’m confused (and wrong). Some people call it rutabaga (which is the best name by a mile) or Swedish turnip, apparently it goes by many names. In the North East of England, a swede was a turnip. At least in the 80’s it was!

Swede is one of my favourite roasted vegetables, so sweet. I always remember it being mashed with potato for Sunday dinner and this is still my favourite mash.

This is a very different recipe from that of my childhood mash up days, but I have changed quite a bit in the last 25 years!

This salad is crunchy and the addition of pumpkin seeds means extra crunch. This crunch says to me that the food is fresh and alive. I just felt like giving the humble swede a little light for a while. It’s so often overlooked.

ELEPHANT GARLIC

Now I understand Elephant garlic flowers are hard to come by. I did not know they existed. Hooton’s (our local farm shop) have a selection for the time being and it is a fascinating thing. The stems (or trunks) have a hot, intensely garlic flavour. Like wild garlic, but elephant-like. (They may actually be called Elephant Ear Garlic.)

We sliced all of the veg/pear in a food processor, something I don’t normally use, I was surprised how easy it was.

The Bits

1 medium swede (peeled)

2 ripe pears (cored)

2 celery sticks (chopped)

Handful mangetout (hand chopped into chunks)

1 handful of elephant garlic flowers and stems (chopped – our ingredient of the moment) or wild garlic

1 handful raisins

1 handful pumpkin seeds

1 handful sprouted mung beans

Black pepper

Dressing

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

2 tbs light tahini

1 tbs light molasses

Pinch nutmeg

Pinch sea salt

Splash of water (to thin)

Do It

Put the swede, pear and celery into the food processor, roughly chop up your mangetout and garlic flowers. Arrange in your finest salad bowl, stir in pumpkin seeds, raisins and sprouts.

For the dressing add all bits to a deep bowl and blend together with a hand blender. The molasses will take a while to get involved, you may need blend for a while. If the sauce is too thick, water down a little.

Serve

When you’re ready to serve, pour over the dressing and sprinkle a few more sprouts and seeds. Remember that with salads, height is good. A stacked up salad looks very cool indeed.

We Love It!

I love combining fruit and veg in salads and this salad pays homage to the humble swede. It is a delicious veg raw and I am surprised that people don’t use it more often.

Foodie Fact

Swede is full of vitamin C and dietary fibre.and dietary fibre. One cup of swede gives you 50% of your vitamin C requirements.

Because we like to share at the Beach House, here is ‘Youth Lagoon – 17’. We listen to this when making salads:

Categories: Healthy Eating, Raw Food, Recipes, Salads, Vegan | Tags: elephant garlic, food, mung beans, music, raw, recipe, salad, swede, vegetarian | 4 Comments

Raw Hazelnut, Rosemary and Lentil Hummus

Posted on June 2, 2012 by leroy watson

Day two of raw June and I’m feeling good. We have been eating quite a bit of raw food recently, so I wasn’t expecting wonders. Later in the month, who knows, maybe I’ll be sprouting!

I am working in a kitchen at the minute and its the middle of ‘silly season’, so its hard graft. I am finding no problems with the energy and when I eat healthy I find I need less sleep (which is a real help in the catering industry). It does have its advantages, I wont be missing cooking this month that’s for sure! I am also surrounded by temptation, nice looking chips and slabs of cheesecake. It’s a good test. Most of my colleagues think I’m mad, but I’m used to this (for one reason or another). I am definitely eating less and not feeling hungry, I don’t even fancy a coffee anymore, which is rare behavior.

Many people comment that raw food sounds ‘boring’. This recipe is anything but and I find most raw food to be fascinating in its complexity and creativity alone; never mind the health benefits.

This is a real gourmet raw hummus. I thought I’d start as we mean to go on. It contains a lot of ingredients, but it is much more than a dip. This will be the main part of dinner tonight, with an orange, sweet potato and red cabbage salad.

It is rich with the nuts and oil, but does not have the smooth texture of a normal hummus. The flavour is a knockout though and like with alot of health foods, you have the piece of mind that it is doing your body good and providing you with some super nutrients.

We used sprouts here due to the fact that our sprout corner is going mad. At the minute we have a variety of receptacles holding all sorts of seeds and beans. We’ve mung bean, sunflower seed, buckwheat, wheat grains, quinoa and green lentil all in various states of soak and sprout. The mung beans are a staple here, but most of the other ones we’ve either tried and failed with or are completely new to. It’s a great little experiment and the right weather for sprouts. We found it difficult in the winter to get them going and our airing cupboard seemed too warm. Now we have the happy medium of summer (ish) temperatures in Wales.

Sprout Central

We have been soaking our nuts overnight, this helps to release the enzymes and nutrients. They are also softer, better for blending. Hazelnuts are one of the good nuts, peanuts, pistachios and brazil nuts are not goodies. We will still be eating them though, just a little less than before.

It’s worth spending a little more on a good almond milk, the cheaper varieties are thinner and not as creamy.

So here’s our first attempt at a raw hummus:

The Bits
1 cup of hazelnuts, 1 cup sprouting green lentils, 1 cup sprouting chickpeas, 1 handful of dried rosemary, 1/2 cup almond milk, 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil (evoo), juice and zest of 1 lemon, 1 tbs raw tahini, 1 tbs flax seeds, 2 cloves of garlic chopped, salt and pepper if you like (I used a dash of Braggs Liquid Aminos instead, it contains naturally occurring sodium and loads of good amino acids).

Do It

This is the easy part, put it all into a blender and blitz until smooth, roughly five minutes should do. If it is sticking or dry, add water as you are blending. This should loosen things up.

Serve

Great as a dip of course, or with a salad. We will be mixing it into chunky chopped vegetables tomorrow.

We Love It!

We Love sprouts! So anything they are in, we are happy about. This recipe is bursting with flavour, the hazelnuts and rosemary work together so well. It has a nice creamy, richness to it, but is low if fat. Hoorah!

Foodie Fact

Sprouting Chickpeas (Garbanzos/ Giggle beans to some) are packed full of protein. They contain more protein than milk! Many vegans and raw food types are asked about how they add protein to their diets, the truth is protein is available in many plant based foods. Nuts and seeds mainly, but sprouts are also a good source.

Chickpeas are full of carbs, but low in fat. A small serving of chickpeas contains around 50% of your daily Vitamin C requirement.

Raw Hazelnut, Rosemary and Lentil Hummus

Categories: Dinner, Healthy Eating, Healthy Living, Low G.I. (glycemic index), Nutrition, Raw Food, Recipes, Snacks and Inbetweens, Vegan | Tags: buckwheat, catering, chickpeas, dips, food, garbanzos, hazelnuts, healthy eating, healthy living, hummus, mung beans, nuts, raw, raw food, raw hummus, recipes, rosemary, sprouting, sprouts, vegetarian | 1 Comment

Sprout! The evolution of the mung

Posted on February 7, 2012 by leroy watson

Heres something that could change your life. Maybe extend it a little also.

Sprouts!

Mung bean sprouts this time.

These little wonders are a gift from nature. They are packed with nutrients, very, very good for us and best of all, easy and cheap to prepare at home.

My sprouting guru is a wandering flautist named Yanny, he is in his late 70’s and fit as a fiddle. Yanny even sprouts on his travels in hotel rooms and in backpacks.

There are a few companies selling sprouts in the U.K. at inflated prices. They need not be a costly ‘health’ food. They can add an incredible range of flavours to salads.

Many prices in ‘health’ food shops are appalling, some necessary, but many seem to go against the ethos of the ‘good life’, where money (you would hope) plays a secondary role to living well and helping others.

We are fortunate to have many good people living around us, giving us inspiration and positive examples of methods and practices that are sustainable, meaning that we can move away from the mass food movement (Tesco’s et al) or prohibitive ‘Health Food’ Shops.

You don’t need to spend a small fortune to eat healthy. All you need are sprouts! Mung beans are the easiest, but once you get into it, there are so many avenues of sprouting joy.

So head to the hills, of your windowsill and start sprouting.

The Bits

Mung beans (any variety works well, we used the green ones)

Filtered water

Do It

Acquire a receptical (see the evolution of the sprout), a spare plastic tray (recycled normally), a large water bottle with vents cut into it (be creative) or a proper sprouter. I was so lucky to pick up a sprouter from a charity shop for two quid! They should not be costly bought new.

The important thing is that the sprouts get air and are not in direct sunlight, they also need to be kept warm. Optimum conditions will result in a quicker sprout.

The evolution of the sprout (tray, to bottle, to sprouter)

Soak the beans in filtered water for 24 hours, empty water and place in your sprouter. Keep them damp for the next 48 hours and then leave them dry (rinsing regularly if you can).

After a couple of days, they should start to sprout. Younger sprouts are sweeter and large sprouts have a fuller flavour. Experiment on which you prefer.

You won’t get them all to sprout, so try to sort out the hard un-sprouted beans. They can be a little crunchy and some hard as rocks. Beware.

It’s as easy as that. They keep well in the fridge. Once one batch is finished, get the other one started and you have a rolling harvest on your hands.

Serve

Put them on anything, of course salads are best. If you are feeling decadent, or need a serious boost, mix up an unadulterated sprout salad. ZING>

Foodie Fact

Mung beans are one of the most cherished foods in Ayurveda, full of vitamins, minerals and vital veggie protein. They are said to balance all three doshas (making you more stable and relaxed) and make absorption of nutrients easier. When sprouted, very high levels of Vitamin C become available (rising by 60%). Most importantly, Mung Beans contain a low quantity of the sugar molecule that make you fart!

It is simple, if you avoid speeding buses and eat more sprouts, you’ll live longer.

PS – Yanny is a wood sculptor, this video show the life of a true artist and dear soul: