Kelp
Wild Alaskan Salmon (this is hard to find lately due to overfishing, mercury, and contamination, but if you are in North America, then Whole Foods usually offers this)
Turmeric (Many homeopaths swear by this to aid rash, allergies, skin conditions, and stress)
Papaya
Blueberries
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Make sure you get a good quality cold pressed brand)
Broccoli, Kale, Spinach
Sweet Potatoes (Kumara for anyone here in Ozzie or NZ)
Ginger (you can take this in powder form or buy ginger root)
Cherries
Grass fed meats (If you are a meat eater (chicken, beef, turkey) then Grass fed as opposed to corn fed or otherwise, is best. It is also much lighter and easier to digest)
Those are just some of the anti-inflammatory foods that are readily available to almost anyone in the modern world.
On Friday night I decided to incorporate some of these foods in to our dinner. Friday night dinner has always been kind of special to me. I feel like its a time that is stress free, you can relax, have some wine, cook some great food, get excited for the weekend, including sleeping in on Saturday, and just chill out. I also find that on Friday nights most people are exhausted from the work week and need the night off to just re-fuel. That being said, I wanted it to be a great, healthy, start to the weekend. I had some Israeli couscous, grass fed chicken (for the boy), Kumaras, and broccoli.
I started by marinating the chicken breasts in:
Olive oil, rosemary, paprika, Himalayan salt, pepper, oregano, and a little balsamic vinegar. This is my guys favorite thing, its simple, and he loves it. So, I give it to him.
I cooked the chicken breasts at 180C for about 20-30 minutes. I made lots so we would have leftovers for lunch the next day or so he could have a great pre/post workout snack during the weekend. They turned out great, moist, and very light.
Next I peeled, and cubed the Kumara and put it in to a pot, with just enough water to barely cover all the pieces. Then, I added Cinnamon and nutmeg to the water to give the Kumaras some sweetness. This ended up being a perfect compliment to the dish.
While I was doing this, I boiled 1 cup of Isreali couscous to 2 cups water with a little salt and some Olivina olive oil margarine (about a teaspoon).
Then I steamed some broccoli that I cut in to florets for about 4 minutes.
When the Kumara and the broccoli were done I stirred them in to the couscous, added some salt and paprika and voila! A healthy, anti-inflammatory light addition to the meal (or can be a meal itself).
When the chicken was done I piled everything on to a plate, lots of protein, and incredibly healthy! Also, a great start to the weekend.
Saturday was quite a day for us. We woke up to beautiful sunshine and decided to go out for brunch. We live in area that is filled with tons of cafes, restaurants, and pubs. We have tried a few so far and normally, we have never gone wrong with breakfast, brunch, or lunch. Saturday, however, was a terrible decision. I will be blogging more about this later on. The title? Why salads aren't always the best and healthiest options on the menu. Let's just say we both ordered salads, and both were disgusting. Hardly edible. I took one look at mine and half a bite (which I promptly spit out). A was a champ and ate the whole thing out of sheer starvation and because he didn't want to "waste food" but I couldn't stomach it. The salads weren't salads at all, they were drenched (and when I say drenched I mean cooked in oil and then topped with oil and then possibly soaked in more oil for a week and then dipped in it again) in oil. There was mayo on my salad, and 0 vegetables aside from the pieces of eggplant, which at that point didn't even resemble eggplant, just more oil. The "Avocado Salad" I had ordered had about 1/8th a piece of avocado on the plate, and it too, was drenched in oil. Needless to say my guy felt pretty sick afterwords. I decided we should go on a long walk to help his stomach and we ended up at Milly's, a high end kitchenware place. I finally got a large glass salad bowl, which is beautiful, as well as some other things like new oven mits, pretty dish towels, jars, etc. We also got to stop in at my favorite local organic grocer, Nosh. We picked up some stuff there and headed home. After dropping everything off, it was still gorgeous out so we decided to go to a local pub for some white wine, which was a great idea, but I was so tired afterwords! Sun and booze = very tired.
When we finally got home we decided instead of going out to dinner with friends, which we had planned, we would stay in and cook. After going out for breakfast and eating a vat of oil, A wanted to stay in and eat something healthy, and I think he still felt a little sick. I still had some leftovers from the night before and I planned on using all of it. At Nosh, we had also picked up some Black Truffle Oil, which I was very excited about. I wanted to incorporate it in to our dinner somehow.
A had bought some amazing Feta cheese earlier in the week and decided to contribute to the dinner by making himself a plate of feta to crumble in the salad ( I don't usually eat dairy so he is nice and puts it on the side!)
He crumbled up the feta, added some oregano, and drizzled the oil all over the cheese, which gave it SUCH a great taste, in the end, I couldn't resist! So much for will power.
As for the main course, I ended up heating up the leftover couscous from Friday night. I also cut up the remaining chicken breasts in to small pieces and added them in to the mix too. TIP: It is important when re-heating chicken not to let it dry out. In order to avoid this, I added the chicken at the very end of the re-heat and only left it on the stove in the pot, covered, for about 2 minutes. It didn't need more than this to heat up, because it was covered, and it came out perfectly. Since I had already eaten some of the amazing feta and all bets were off I decided to have some chicken and call it a non-vegan night.
I also cut up a salad with celery, cucumber, carrots, basil, radishes, oregano, evoo, balsamic, and salt and pepper for the side. It was really pretty!
It was a huge dinner! I even included a cut up avocado drizzled with balsamic because my craving from the morning disaster wasn't satisfied.
I was starving after not having eaten all day and this dinner feast was the perfect remedy!
We had some great red wine, in our new decanter to accompany the food, and I couldn't have asked for a more relaxing evening or day!
Needless to say, we weren't able to finish everything on the table, except for the wine of course ;)
Sunday was another relaxing day, with a successful trip to Dida's for brunch, where I had the best muesli I have ever tasted and some incredible Greek Yogurt. We also went to Chambers, a really beautiful store filled with all kinds of things like candles, dishes, glassware, etc. and we got a diffuser for the house. I chose "Bergamot Tobacco," its sweet, but not too sweet, and so nice! We came home and finally finished the third Godfather movie, which used to be my favorite until now. I am not sure why I used to like the third so much but after seeing all the movies again, I definitely think that the second one is my favorite. I decided to cook an easy dinner that I had been wanting to make for the last couple of weeks. Polenta Pizza! Despite my aversion to nightshade veggies, no pizza is complete without tomatoes and so they were definitely used in this recipe.
Polenta Pizza
You need:
1 cup cornmeal (polenta mix)
3.5 cups water
goat cheese to crumble
feta cheese to crumble
fresh basil
broccoli
oregano
cherry/grape/strawberry tomatoes diced
black truffle oil to drizzle (optional)
salt
paprika
hot peppers (optional)
Boil the water with a dash of salt (you can also add Parmesan cheese to this if you wish). When the water is boiling, add the polenta mix slowly to the pot (WARNING: I got a pretty serious burn while doing this so I'd suggest being VERY careful while pouring as well as after as the hot polenta gets VERY hot and will pop out of the pot as its cooking). Turn down the heat, simmer and stir often until polenta mixture thickens.
Once the mix is thick (about 20 minutes) line a pan with parchment paper or tin foil and spread the mixture on to the pan with a wooden spoon (dip in water while your doing this so it doesn't stick and is easier to work with). Allow this to sit and cool for about 10 minutes before putting on the toppings.
You can really add whatever toppings to the pizza you like. We wanted to be healthy and my guy loves the cheese mix, so we added tomatoes, broccoli, red peppers, the mix of cheeses, oregano, paprika, salt, and drizzled the black truffle oil on top.
It looked extremely delicious.
Once all the toppings are ready and the pizza is set to go, then bake it in the oven at about 200C for 20 minutes or until the cheese turns golden brown and polenta hardens. Note: the polenta will not become as hard as a regular pizza crust made from dough, but it will harden slightly.
We were SO excited to eat this considering how long I have been saying I would make it. Also, it looked amazing. I also added a side salad to our plates and we drank it with some great red wine.
I think next time I will use half the amount of polenta. The crust was so thick and WOW is polenta ever filling! I think I had maybe 1/4 of the polenta in the slice. The toppings were incredible though and in the end we finished all the toppings by scraping them off the polenta and putting them on to smaller pieces of polenta only. Tip: polenta makes you stuffed! I can't even think of eating another bite of polenta after that. Don't get me wrong, it was SO good and done perfectly, but it was so much and so filling. 3/4 of the crust was left in that pan and all the toppings were gone along with the whole bowl of side salad. We finished the evening with some strawberries and chocolate fondue I made by melting Lindt milk chocolate in to a bowl. It was a pretty good night!
Today has been busy and man, is this blog post ever long. I am off to figure out what to make for dinner tonight! xJ
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