Miso Vegetable Bean (and fish) Soup

Soup is a perfect meal for the fall and winter. Easy to make, use anything you might have in the fridge, put it in water and cook it.

Here I started with: sweet potato (1), parsnip (1), onion (1), carrot (1), leeks (2), whole pepper corn, a large dash of sea salt, and herbs des provence.

Photo: Jeanette Bronee

Then boil for a good 25-30 min on a simmer. In the mean-time; wash and prep kale:

Photo: Jeanette Bronee

I pretty much tear it off the stem. Then chop it more finely:

Photo: Jeanette Bronee

When that is ready just leave it for now. When the soup has simmered for a good 25-30 min. Add a can of unsalted cannellini-beans. You can add other beans of course but white beans go very well with kale.

When that has cooked for another 15 min. add the kale and if you feel like more of a bean and fish soup. Add chunks of white fish. Here I used cod.

Photo: Jeanette Bronee

At the very end, add a large table spoon of miso. Either sweet brown rice miso or my favorite; Aduki bean miso. I use the one from South River Miso. Mix it in well and serve. Bon Appetite.

Photo: Jeanette Bronee

 

Tempeh & Roots

I don’t eat a lot of soy products and especially not highly processed soy. However, tempeh is a favorite of mine and if I want something chewy, tempeh is the way to go. It is a fermented soy and not considered a processed product. I like my tempeh cooked really well, first I braise it on the stovetop for about 10 min. (5 each side) and then I put it in the oven to bake for a good 30 min. @425 degrees. You can turn it over once or twice in the oven as well. I add a little water along the way when it seems to get dry. It soaks up a lot so you don’t want to keep adding oil. I only add some oil right when I start cooking it on the stovetop.

For herbs and spices; for this dish I used crushed whole peppercorn (teaspoon), a little sea-salt (large dash), and a medium dash (1/2 teaspoon) of cayenne. How much you use is up to your tastebuds. Try it out for yourself. Dare…:)

Oven Roasted Tempeh - Photo: Jeanette Bronée

The oven roasted roots go so well with tempeh. I start them up at the same time because they need a good 45 min in the oven so it all matches. Basically, peel and chop to the chunk size that you like, for this one I made it pretty small to make it more of a chunky hash.

I added the same spices as for the tempeh, but also a teaspoon of whole coriander seeds that I mixed into the mortar when grinding it all together. For the roots; here I used sweet potatoes (1), parsnip (1), carrots (2), and leeks (1). Basically you can choose what you like, it all cooks the same way.

Add the oil and spices and a little water. Put in the oven @425 degrees. Check and stir after about 25-30 min.

Sweet Root Roast - Photo: Jeanette Bronée

Serve it all up with something green. Here I did a fast sauté of broccoli with garlic.

Tempeh & Roots - Photo: Jeanette Bronée

Enjoy fully :)

Fall Potatoes

Being Danish I was brought up on potatoes. I don’t eat them often at this point because of the high level of starch, but when they are either fresh and new fingerlings, or like these small and yummy just out of the ground, that makes for a wonderful whole roasted potato dish. In general daily cooking I use sweet potatoes or yams more often than white potatoes.

Heirloom Potatoes - Photo: Jeanette Bronée

Wash well and toss them directly into a baking dish, add sea salt, olive oil or like I use, sesame oil, herbs des Provence, cracked pepper, and some whole cloves of garlic. What I also love is to add a whole onion, cut it in half and sit it in the baking dish among the potatoes. Roast in the oven for a good 45 min @ 425 degrees. Check to see if they are cooked to your liking before taking them out. And ready to serve with some marinated kale and roasted brussel spouts, which I basically did the same to but had in a separate dish in the oven. You can mix them if you want, they need about the same cooking time anyway.

Enjoy.

Roasted Heirloom Potatoes - Photo: Jeanette Bronée

Bean and Sweet Potato Stew

This was one of those dinners….what can we make that does not take a lot of effort and it needs to be something comforting and filling…and still healthy. Hence the bean stew. Not only super easy, it pretty much cooked itself, extremely tasty, totally yummy comfort food, with taste and a lot of healthy ingredients.

Bean and Sweet Potato Stew

Chop 1 whole onion, 3 cloves of garlic, sauté in the stewpot first. I use untested sesame oil. Add a little sea-salt just to open up the taste of the onion and make in not stick to the pot. Add jalapeño chopped and sauté a bit longer.

Add chopped carrots (2 whole) and sweet potato (1 whole peeled),  and a large can of organic stewed tomatoes. You can add a little water as well if it is not liquid enough. Cook for about 10 min. Then add the beans and some black pepper, not too much or it will get too hot – you can add more later.

1 can organic unsalted aduki beans, 1 can organic unsalted kidney beans, and 1 can unsalted organic black beans. I use the beans from Eden Foods.

Cook the whole thing together for an additional 20 min until the carrots and sweet potato is done. Sea Salt to taste and serve it up.

Beans, sweet potatoes, and carrots

5 min meals

I like good food and I like it to be fast and healthy. Sounds impossible? It is not.

Chickpea-Arugula Salad - Photo: Jeanette Bronee

The essentials that you need: something green leafy, I prefer arugula over spinach. Something protein that can go on the pan for max. 5 min, or the protein can be anything that is ready to serve from a can from beans, chickpeas (choose a healthy non-salted option as for example Eden Foods), or a veggie burger patty (I prefer the Sunshine Burgers since they are actually made from food and not from some processed soy isolate kind of thing). Add something that you can just chop and add raw. In season that means small heritage cherry tomatoes.

Use a good quality sea-salt, and yummy olive oil. Flax or hemp oil is great too, my favorite is pumpkin seed oil.

Veggie Patty and Greens - Photo: Jeanette Bronee

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another version is to sear some tuna in the pan, use canned wild salmon, or sauté a piece of fish. This might take you slightly more than 5 minutes, but worth the extra effort.

Seared Tuna Arugula Salad - Photo: Jeanette Bronee

 

Enjoy!

Labor Day Grill

Photo: Torkil Stavdal

I love cooking on the grill and I actually find that I eat a lot of vegetables when I do. Most people think of a Labor Day Grill Party as something unhealthy, based on burgers and hot dogs. It does not have to be that way.

My preferred vegetables for the grill are whole onion, whole sweet potato, some asparagus, and maybe even a whole garlic. You can add other vegetables of course, most think of the nightshade family when they grill, but I look for whole things even something like radicchio is wonderful on the grill. A whole tomato is yummy too, but don’t leave it in for as long as the roots and onion. It gets soft faster but that is also what is so great about it. A whole sweet potato and onion needs about 35-45 min on the upper shelf at medium heat .

I don’t use any foil, but rather leave the vegetable in its natural “shell”. Here we mixed it with a salad of marinated kale and some chopped cucumber and fresh tomatoes.

For fish – turn the skin side downwards and it should hold up.

Enjoy.

Seasonal Changes, Seasonal Foods, Seasonal Beings

Seasonal Tomatoes

We live in a world where seasons are something outside of us. We heat our house to keep warm or we cool it in the summer. We dress in warmer clothing or lighter depending on the weather, we do more outdoor activities in the summer and more indoor ones in the winter. But that is about it. We adjust our environment to our comfort. We have forgotten that seasons used to drive our entire life. It was not only the weather that changed, but also the foods we had access to.

As we humans got ready for winter, back before we could just heat the house, late summer was the time to fatten up on fruit so we could actually get through the winter. Fruit is fructose and that is how we gained the weight we needed to have warming padding for winter. The long evenings with more light helped that too because that was the message to our bodies; winter would be around the corner. The longer days means in body language; store more fat. It is part of our survival mechanism. Today we live in artificial light and therefore have the long evenings of later summer all year around. According to your body’s understanding of what is going on, that is.

During the fall we would gather the roots and winter squashes that the earth produced during this time, that would last us through the winter. The foods for the fall and winter would be more starch based so we could hold on to heat and feel warmer.

In today’s world we do have seasonal vegetables if you go to the farmer’s market, but in the supermarket you find the same foods all year around. You can get tropical fruit in the middle of winter. We are not really meant to eat fruit outside of the season, but since we have been believe it is healthy to eat a lot of fruit, we do so unrelated to the seasonal changes.That is unnatural. Not just to our bodies but also to the vegetables. We have to force them to grow out of season or import from other climates.

If we want to live in true balance with our own nature and that around us we need to eat with the seasons. Look at the farmers’ markets for what is in season. Right now it is the heirloom tomatoes, dark leafy greens, and wonderful sweet small tomatoes. They are so sweet they could pass for fruit if you ask me.

As we approach the fall it is cooked foods, grains, root vegetables, legumes. Salads are not a fall or winter food, but we eat salads all year around, freeze in the winter from it, but still eat it because we subscribe to health. At least that is what we think. We end up feeling depleted, empty, and out of balance and with that we go for the empty carbs, which means cookies and cakes. We need the complete rich and nutrient dense carbs also known as complex carbs. The whole grains such as cooked barley, brown rice, and oats. As mentioned the vegetables are the gourds and the roots, which live in and on the ground rather than hanging off of plants like they do during the summer. This is for example the well know Italian grilled vegetables also known as nightshades. Peppers, eggplant, tomatoes. Most people eat these all year long. They are really summer foods.

Right now – the sweet tomatoes and the heirloom tomatoes are fantastic and a great transitional food from summer into late summer. Chop them into bean salads, or eat them whole, you can also give them a slight sauté on the pan with some dark leafy greens. They are even more sweet with a slight cooking.

In Chinese medicine we talk about healing foods, and with that warming and cooling foods as well. So basically, if we eat what is in season, nature takes care of us.

Enjoy and if you would like to listen to the Karol Ward Radio show where I am the guest speaking about the season and how to eat: Jeanette Bronée with Karol Ward

 

Hurricane Irene Food

These dishes will not help you through the hurricane, if you are not inside and safe, but they will help you through if you don’t have power so you can cook. Easy fix hurricane foods as long as you have a few simple things in your fridge and cupboards.

Carrot-Kale Salad

Kale-Bean Salad

The Essentials:

1. Something green like arugula, mesclun salad, kale or anything green will do. I use the kale because I love the texture and taste of it. Here it is pretty much raw. I “cook” it with some sea-salt, which helps it wilt a bit. I admit, it is dense and a required taste, but you can chose another and lighter green leafy something to your tastebud’s delight.

2. Something you can chop and not have to cook: cucumber, corn on the cob (the sweet corn right now on the farmer’s market is amazing), heirloom or small cherry tomatoes (but any tomato will do), carrots, fennel, string beans, asparagus, you can even shave raw beets, and avocado adds a nice touch too.

3. Canned beans or chickpeas; I prefer the ones from Eden Foods without salt…you need to add good quality sea-salt yourself.

4. Anything you can put on top for visual and taste add-on; could be herbs or it could be shavings from something you already added.

5. Add olive oil or any other oil you fancy. I like flax oil or a nut oil.

Kale-Avocado Salad

All photos are unfortunately not by Torkil Stavdal as he is building our fantastic and beautiful barn house upstate as we are waiting for Hurricane Irene here in NYC.

Enjoy anyway.

 

Summer Stir aka Stir “Fry”

Photo: Torkil Stavdal

I love using the wok since it is an easy way to whip up a light summer meal. Cut up your veggies and throw them all in together. You can add things as you go along, but the whole idea is to not cook your food for very long and to keep lifting it off the pan. What makes the wok less of a sauté and more of a “flip” of the food is the small part of the bottom of the pan that is actually on the heat. This way you use the sides to go between the higher heat at the bottom and the lighter heat on the sides as you stir, flip, and whip the veggies around. This gives them a lighter and faster cooking time and leaves your veggies nice and crunchy, and feeling more summer fresh than the very same veggies cooked in the oven or your pot during the winter. Less cooking time also leaves more nutrients in the veggies.

Here is what we used in the summer stir. Asparagus cut into little chunks, red cabbage cut into slices, kale ripped into small pieces (stem removed), fennel cut into slices, scallions chopped, and the little add-on which is only a seasonal treat; kumquats. I don’t favor mixing fruit with food for better food combining, but these little tart things cooked in with the veggies and eaten whole, skin still work fine for a properly digested meal. Fruit should only be mixed with non-starch veggies to allow for proper food combining and with that good digestion.

Photo: Torkil Stavdal

You can add on to your summer stir with some seafood if you are not vegan, here we used scallops. It needs to be something a little denser to withstand the flipping. The vegan but soy option is of course tofu or edamame beans. Another alternative is to add precooked legumes (lentils, beans, peas). Chickpeas work really well with a dish like this. Buy good quality canned ones without salt added and you will be fine. Just rinse well before using them. I prefer the Eden Food ones.

A summer stir takes about 10 min in prep-time to rinse and cut up the veggies, and about 10 minutes to cook. Easy does it. Use any herb or spice you like to give it the variety taste that you feel like in the moment. Anything from basil to cayenne, depending on spice level and mood you are in.

For cooking I use untoasted sesame oil for the stir and add a little water along the way if I need more “juice”. Mirin and tamari soy sauce (wheat free) is also great. Olive oil can be used as well but I tend to prefer my olive oil virgin and cold pressed on top of the food when serving it. Yum Yum.

Photo: Torkil Stavdal

Enjoy for a nice summer night meal and bring the left-overs for lunch.

The bowls are by Daphne, who has made these amazing bowls for us by using melons for the cast and a japanese firing method of the clay. You can contact Daphne directly to purchase yours.

Chilled Spring Pea Soup

Photo: Torkil Stavdal

This soup is a delight. Created by Casey Laytin for a detox-event that I hosted with TechnoGym in Soho. This was the appetizer among other wonderful detoxing dishes that were quite the gourmet creations. She is quite the health food chef and caterer.

The bowl is a creation from my client Daphne, who does the most beautiful ceramics. She created this bowl for us at Path for Life to hold the food in a way that is most nourishing to the eye.  This bowl is specially cast from a green melon.
She is starting to take orders so get yours in.

Back to the soup. Here is the recipe from Casey:

Chilled Spring Pea Soup (serves 4-6)

First make a vegetable stock:

  • 1 large onion, large chop
  • 2 stalks celery, large chop
  • 2 large carrots, large chop
  • 10 parsley sprigs
  • 5 thyme sprigs
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 2 Quarts water

Put all ingredients in a stock pot, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer for 45 min. Season.

The comes the peas:

  • 3 cups Organic Shelled English Peas (3# in shells)
  • Sea Salt
  • 1 – 1 1/4  cup Vegetable Stock – see above
  • 2 tbl. spoon Tarragon
  • 2 tbl. spoon Basil
  • 2 tbl. spoon Mint
  • Sea Salt and White Pepper to taste
  • 2 tbl. spoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil

How to do it:

  • Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a rapid boil (it should taste like the ocean)
  • Prepare an ice bath with a strainer in it (to make it super easy to remove the peas)
  • Add half the peas to the hot water and boil for 9 minutes, remove and shock in the ice bath.
  • Make sure the water is rapidly boiling and then cook the remaining peas for 9 minutes, and shock them.
  • Puree the all peas in a food processor and then pass then through a sieve (i’ve used a petite chinios w/rubber spatula or a splatter guard w/plastic pastry scrapper, but if you have a tamis i reccommend that)
  • Put the puree, mint, basil, tarragon and 1 cup of veg stock in a high speed blender (like a VitaMix) add more stock to achieve the proper consistency. Remember when the soup chills it will get thicker. Season with sea salt and white pepper and finish with a little olive oil.
  • Chill.

This soup will oxidize so try not to leave it around too long, not that you would want to becuase its so delicious !!

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