Day 2 of our plant-wild week. I slept like a log and woke up full of energy – I can feel how I am actually fueling my body with everything good.

I am excited about today – I love this, creating new healthy recipes – and as you may know, I don’t compromise on taste …………

Breakfast

Breakfast today is quinoa cooked in coconut milk and cardamom, served with chopped dates, walnuts and fresh peaches.

I used:

1 cup of quinoa

1 can of coconut milk

5 green cardamom pods

1/2 cup of water

Put all the ingredients in a pan and cook over gentle heat till all the coconut milk is absorbed. The cardamon gives an awesome taste but they’re a bit chewy for most, so please see if you can fish out the 5 pods before serving.

Serve with chopped walnuts, dates and fresh peaches

Morning smoothie

Morning smoothie:

2 slices of fresh pineapple

one peach

one mango

a handful of grapes

some frozen summer berries

a handful of almonds

Blend into a smooth and delicious morning smoothie. This is a family hit.

Lunch

Salad with pomegranate, apples, pineapple and walnuts in a pomegranate marinade:

Arugula lettuce

A mix of your favorite lettuces

1/2 pomegranate

a slice of pineapple

a handful of walnuts

1 apple

2 spring onions

Marinade

1/2 pomegranate

2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

1/3 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons of agave or maple sirup

1 clove of garlic

pinch of sea salt

Put all ingredients for the marinade, except for the olive oil, into the blender – blend, add the olive oil slowly only a little at a time.

Arrange the salad, add the marinade, the apple, some finely chopped pineapple, the pomegranate seeds and sprinkle on top with the walnuts.

By the way – wear your bathing suit or an apron while making this – I ruined a T-shirt, because the little red juicy pomegranate seeds were wildly uncontrollable and went all over the place.

The taste of this salad was so intense and full of flavors – I will be making this again soon!

Dinner

We love to BBQ – and as we don’t care too much about the weather, we try to BBQ all year round, but I must admit the best time to BBQ is now, on a warm summer night, while the hummingbirds are flitting about and the long rays of sun setting give such a relaxing colour to everything.

So BBQ dinner: Tonight’s  dinner is BBQ Portobello mushrooms with slices of marinated eggplant and served on grilled bread with homemade pesto sauce!

The bread

3 cups of water

1 teaspoon of yeast

2 tablespoons of olive oil – season with a clove or two of garlic

5 cups of organic wheat flour

1 cup of organic whole wheat

Salt

Put the (lukewarm) water and yeast into a big bow and stir until the yeast is dissolved, then add the olive oil and a spoonful of salt. Stir in the flour a little at a time until you have used all flour. When the dough has absorbed all the flour and does not seem to want more put it on the counter for a couple of hours to raise. Cover it with a clean wet (damp) cloth.

Scoop out the dough on the kitchen counter – onto a bit of extra flour – to keep it from sticking. Tear off a small amount, about the size of a tennis ball and roll it out to a fairly thin bread (like a pizza). Put it on a piece of baking paper on a plate and add another sheet of baking paper on top for the next bread. Make the amount you need – we usually have one per person.

Heat up the BBQ and brush each bread with some of garlic olive oil and carefully place the oiled breads oily side down on the BBQ – brush the upper side with the garlic oil. Turn them until they are slightly browned on both sides and ready.

BBQ

4 Portobello mushrooms

4 thick slices of eggplant

fresh rosemary

olive oil

Lemon juice

Marinate the eggplant slices with a bit of olive oil, some fresh rosemary, some sea salt and some freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Take the stalks out of the Portobello mushrooms and put them and the slices of eggplant on the BBQ. Grill gently til everything is ready – turning every now and then, sprinkle with some sea salt.

Homemade Pesto

I love the fresh basil in the garden right now – it is so intense and deep in flavor.

a big bunch of fresh basil

1 clove of garlic

2 spoonfuls of pine nuts

sea salt

one tablespoon of nutritional yeast

1/3 cup of olive oil

Blend it all together in to a great sauce.

To assemble the dinner, slice some tomatoes and some red onions and some lettuce. This goes wonderfully along with the grilled bread, the pesto and the grilled eggplant and Portobellos.

Too serve put a grilled bread on a plate, add some pesto, a grilled Portobello, a grilled slice of eggplant, some slices of tomatoes, onions and some lettuce –

Enjoy!