Sunshine Breakfast: Millet pancakes

#easyfoodcreations #healthyeating #millet

We did not eat pancakes for a while so I though it was time to experiment a little bit to create something new. The result is a super simple recipe that is based on 5 simple ingredients. Since millet is high in protein and fibre these pancakes are very filling so one or three per person are enough. 

Makes 10 pancakes

Ingredients

1 c millet

1 large apple

1 banana

2 tbsp flax seeds

1-2 tbsp grape seed oil (you can use other oil or butter of your preference)

1. Grind millet into a flour. Usually I do it in 2-3 batches, that way you get a smoother consistency.

2. Grind flax seeds, add 4-6 spoons of water, let it sit.

3. Grind an apple and banana into a sauce. Depending how juicy is your apple you may need to add a little bit of water. 

4. Mix all ingredients together, add oil and let it sit for about 5 minutes.

5. Fry on a medium low heat for a few minutes on each side. There is no need to add any more oil for frying. 

6. Enjoy!

Muffin time: Oat, Apple, carrot and pumpkin seed

#easyfoodcreations #healthyeating #muffins

Here is another super easy muffin recipe. This time we throw away flour, eggs, sugar, oil - typical ingredients in baked goods, and replace them with oats, honey, fruits, veggies, butter and spices.

Serves: 10

Ingredients:

2 c oats, grinded into flour

1 carrot, finely grated

1 Apple, corse grated

1/3 lemon, juice only 

100 g honey 

1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp baking powder

0.5 tsp baking soda

0.25-0.5 c butter, melted

Handful of raw pumpkin seeds

1. Mix all ingredients together. Let it stand for a few minutes.

2. Bake in a preheated oven at 177c for about 30-45 min depending how moist were your fruits and veggies.

3. Enjoy!

Polish Pierogi

#easyfoodcreations #PolishChristmas #pierogi

Pierogi, one of the most famous Polish dishes. They can be stuffed with vegetables, meat, fish, fruits, or any combination of these. Polish pierogi dough is quite a bit different than Ukrainian dough, it resembles more Chinese dumplings dough. 

Traditional Polish Christmas pierogi are stuffed with either cabbage and mushrooms, or just mushrooms. This year I made three stuffings - cabbage and mushroom, salmon dill, and spinach and feta.

Ingredients:

Dough:

All purpose flour

Hot water

proportions are 2:1 (flour to water)

Filling 1:

0.5kg  of sauerkraut
650 g of fresh mushrooms
100 g dried mushrooms
Cook all finally chopped ingredients for about 4 hours.

1. Make the dough in the food processor. It goes really fast as you can use boiling water; doing the same by hand takes more time as your water is much colder. The dough is fairly hard to work with by hand; even rolling it I find to be quite a workout.

2. Divide the dough into manageable sections, keeping the remaining dough covered so it does not dry out. Roll the dough into thin sheet (about 2 mm), then cut into round shapes with a cookie cutter. You an use pierogi making gadgets that would take the whole sheet at once.
3. Stuff each round sheet with about 2/3 teaspoon of filling.
4. Boil a large pot of water. Cook pierogi in a boiling water for about 5 minutes until start floating on top.
5. In Poland, generally we do not fry them. We serve them with a little bit of fried onion with butter or just butter or olive oil.
6. Enjoy!

Porridge series: Cremita de Maiz

#easyfoodcreations #healthyeating #porridge

We eat a lot of oatmeal for breakfast so this time I decided to  put some spin on our staple. In many countries the most common porridge is made from cornmeal (maiz).

This porrage cooks relatively quickly and has a pretty smooth consistency.

Ingredients:

1.5 c milk (you can used a mix of water and milk, I often do that)

1 tsp butter (optional)

1/3 c cornmeal 

1 tsp cinnamon 

0.5 tsp vanilla powder 

0.25 tsp grated nutmeg

2 tbsp honey or raw sugar 

Pinch of salt

1. Put milk, butter, cornmeal, spices (and sugar if you are using it) in the pan on a medium heat and cook stirring until it starts boiling. Then lower the heat to low high (2.5-2.8) stirr occasionally. It should be done in about 20 minutes.

2. Let it rest for a minute or two, stir in more milk to make your desired consistency, add honey.

3. Top your porrage with grated apple, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, and raisins. 

4. Enjoy! 

Charming Winter: Snow chocolate ice cream

#winterwonderland #icecream #easyfoodcreations

Over the last few days we received over 120cm of snow. Many people ask what to do with the snow... I'd say take advantage of it! Here is a super fast ice cream you can make using fresh snow. 

Ingredients:

2 tbsp of chocolate powder

1-2 tbsp of icing sugar or other sweetener

0.5 tsp vanilla powder

1 packet of vanilla sugar

0.75c whipping cream (you can use a mix of cream and milk)

3c fresh snow

1. Mix all ingredients other than ice with a whisk.

2. Pour mixture into a bowl with snow and mix with a spoon.

3. Serve right away as they melt really fast.

4. Enjoy!

Green smoothie: green and yellow

#easyfoodcreations #healthyeating #greensmoothie #raw

I had been a crazy maniac of green smoothies when I first discovered them some 5 years ago. For about 2 years I had them for breakfast everyday, rotating my greens and all that. I drunk them though my pregnancy which probably helped as I did not feel noutious even once. 

Many people say that green smoothies do not taste good and they tried various mixes without success; hopefully some of my hints will be useful.

There are some key rules that will help you create better tasting smoothies:

- Bananas, prunes, dates, figs, raisins - add as sweeteners. Sometimes one extra date changes everything.

- If you need your smoothie to have less intensive taste add some lemon, cucumber, orange, or ginger

- Typically I don't use milk just water or coconut water but had used homemade nut/seed milk in the past. Various fruit and veggie juices could work very well too. Cows milk?... well it is up to you but I wouldn't.

- Creamy fruits such as avocados, bananas create great green puddings. If you want them in you smoothie use less or compensate with other more watery ingredients.

- You can add oats to your smoothies. Typically I like to soack them in water for at least few hours before adding them to smoothies to ease digestion.

- don't overdo it, the simpler the recipe the better. Keep it down to 3-6 ingredients.

Serves: 2 cups of smoothie

Ingredients:

3 large kale leaves, take stems out

1 whole celery stick

1 Granny Smith apple, take core out

1 banana

1/3 lemon, peel it

1.5 c water

Put all ingredients in the blender. The rule is to put ingredients that are toughest to blend at the bottom. In this case order is: greens, celery, apple, lemon, banana, water. Order is especially important if you do not have a very powerful blenders such as blentec or vitamix. 

Enjoy!

St. Patrick's cupcakes -Pistachio and Green tea Cupcakes with Avocado Icing

#easyfoodcreations #healthyeating #stpatricks #vegan

The upcoming St. Patrick's day got me thinking about "green" food and how I can create something new and delicious, and of course at least partially healthy.
I decided to try cupcakes this time, a small change to my usual muffins creations. This recipe will work equally well if you skip the icing so it is up to you.

Serves 7 muffins

Ingredients:
0.5 c all purpose flour
0.5 c oat flour (I grind oats rather than buying oat flour, it is cheaper and does not involve a lot of effort)
2 tbsp flax meal
6-8 tbsp green tea (liquid)
1 tsp green tea leaves, grounded (I used sencha but matcha would work too)
2 cardamon pods, keep seeds only
0.25 c brown sugar
1 packet of vanilla sugar
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 medium size zucchini
25 pistachios
0.25 c melted butter (you can use oil instead, typically I would use grapeseed as a replacement)
pinch of salt
Icing:
0.5 avocado
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp water
0.5 ripe banana
1 tbsp icing sugar
(If you want chocolate icing add 1 -2 tsp cocoa powder)

2-3 tsp psyllium husk

1. Grind 20 pistachios, set them aside. Reserve 5 pistachios for decoration.
2. Prepare flax meal - mix it with 5 tbsp of green tea and set aside.
3. Grind zucchini with remaining green tea to a smooth consistency. Set aside.
3. Mix all dry ingredients well. Then add wet ingredients to mix everything well.
4. Bake in a preheated oven at 177c for 20 minutes.
5. Let them cool before decorating with icing.
6. Prepare icing by blending avocado, sugar, lemon and banana. Once the mix is smooth add psyllium husk to thicken the mix.
7. Decorate cupcakes with icing, then sprinkle with crushed pistachios.
8. Enjoy!