eat, drink and just be!

drink, dance, and detox!

happy thanksgiving every one. hope you have had a fantastic weekend with family and friends. i had a great one but as always after big festivities, i feel very stuffed with a lot of great food. i am a big fan of good food and traditions, love thanksgiving festivities, and i am not just a healthy eater. i love butter and cookies and pies and a big fat turkey but I have been eating a lot these days. it started with halloween parties, then thanksgiving and there are going to be many christmas parties in the next couple of weeks. i feel so stuffed that I feel it could be great to take a break from so much heavy food and give my stomach the chance to take a break and get excited about christmas. we bought a juicer recently and i thought what a better way than detoxing my body with some fresh juice. i am not going on a juice diet or any thing extreme; i just try to substitue my snacks between the meals with fresh pressed juices these days. this way i get a lot more vitamins and minerals from fresh pressed ingredients and i also get full between the meals and eat less. i'm also going to add a half hour dance in my schedule every day. i know it sounds too much but just going to the gym is getting boring and trying to make my own music and dance to it once a day gives another motivation to change up the habits.

so here i share a couple of my detoxing juices with you. one of my favorites is watermelon juice. slice the watermelon into small chunks, put them in the blender and enjoy it fresh. if you live in california watermelons are usually ripe and sweet but if they are not, you could add a little bit of honey in the blender.

 

 

 

 

 

 

another juice i share with you today is a mixed green detox juice. i juiced 4 stalks of celery, one cucumber, a handful of parsley, and a bunch of spinach. then added some lemon juice for taste. this juice tastes very fresh but a small cup of it is enough to get all those great vitamins and minerals. enjoy!

 

green weekend

happy earth day to you all. in order to have a very green weekend we had a wonderful green meal on friday which was the earth day and then headed to the east to yosemite national park for the weekend. i have been there several times but each time it is very different depending on the weather, season, and colors. we even had some snow by some hikes and we had tons of rains but we stayed dry in our tents at night.

 

here i share my very green soup recipe with you. i tried to add most of the greens i had in the fridge mostly fresh from farm.

ingredients:

- one onion

- three cloves of garlic

- one bunch of asparagus

- one bunch of broccoli

- one bunch of parsley

- one bunch of cilantro 

- butter

- one cup half and half or heavy cream

- salt and pepper

- two limes

 

 

i sauteed onion and garlic in butter in a dutch oven. then added broccoli and a cup of water to steam it about ten minutes. in a food processor i mixed a cup of half and half with raw asparagus, parsley, and cilantro till they get creamy. added the mix from dutch oven to the mixer and made the whole mix creamy. poured every thing back to the dutch oven but this time only on very low just to make them warm. i intended not to cook asparagus, and herbs at all to keep their fresh taste and their minerals. add salt, pepper, and lime to taste. i also made a couple of cheesy toasties with lavash bread, goat cheese and asparagus by putting them in the oven for five minutes which made a great addition to the soup. nousheh jahn and happy earth week! 

nowrouz preparations

in harmony with nature, persians celebrate the rebirth of the earth on the first two weeks of spring. on the day which may occur on march 20th or 21th the sun crosses the celestial equator. nowrouz ceremonies consist of series of symbolic rituals dating back to ancient persia (about 18th century BCE.) a  few weeks before nowrouz iranians do spring cleaning and rearrange their homes, bake pastries, and germinate seeds as symbol of renewal. i started with germinating mung beans, wheat, and lentils. mung beans and lentils grow much faster than wheat. so next year i have to start wheat earlier. i'll keep you updated on how my experiment is doing every couple of days. as you can see on the picture i first soaked them in water for a couple of days and changed the water daily that it doesn't smell. then removed the water and spread the seeds on big plates. first covered them for a couple of days with a wet towel for another two days. the moisture of the towel and the darkness helps the sprouts come out faster. then remove the towel and leave them in a warm and bright place, preferably sunny. water them daily, but not too much, only sprinkle with water till they grow. i know keeping these greens for so long is only a tradition for persians but also the sprouts are tasty and you don't have to wait long if you like to enjoy eating them or adding them in to salad. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i'm also going to talk about haft seen(literally seven dishes setting, each one beginning with the persian letter seen) in a couple of days but before that i still have to talk about another ingredient i prepared for nowrouz. on the same table as haft seen, people place seven special sweets, because according to 3000 year old legend, king jamshid discovered sugar on the day of nowrouz. (even the word candy comes from the persian word for sugar, qand.) i made one of these seven sweets which is almost the persian version of marzipan. we call it tut, which literally means white mulberries.  

ingredients:

- two cups almond
- one teaspoon ground cardamom
- one cup sugar
- half a cup rosewater
- one tablespoon orange-blossom water
- one cup confectioners' sugar
- two tablespoon slivered pistachios or almonds 

in order to get the fresh taste i soak the almonds for a couple of hours in water and then peel them. then mix them with cardamom and sugar in a mixer. slowly blend in the rosewater and orange blossom water. stir until you get a soft dough. add more almonds if the dough doesn't stick together. take a small spoonfuls of dough and shape into white mulberries. roll each in sugar and insert a sliver of almond or pistachio as a stem. i also colored some of the dough with some green food coloring to make it look more springy. you could also enjoy it on st. patrick's day.:-) arrange on a serving platter and enjoy it with a cup of cardamom tea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

persian barley soup

this is one of my favorite wintery soups. i loved it specially after a long day of skiing in the cold. ingredients:

- one onion

- two cloves of garlic

- one cup of barley

- two carrots

- half a celery root

- one lime

- one lemon

- salt and pepper

- one cup of chopped fresh parsley

- two tablespoons sour cream

- zest of lime to garnish

in a dutch oven brown the onion and garlic in some olive oil, then add the barley, salt and pepper and saute for a few minutes. if you want it to cook faster leave the barley in water over night.  add four cups of water and bring it to boil. add the celery root. cover and reduce heat and simmer for an hour, stirr every fifteen minutes. turn the stove off and then add carrots and sour cream. stir and add lime and lemon juice, parsley, and lemon zest to garnish. taste, add more salt and pepper or lime juice. nousheh jahn!

 

persian orange stew

i have been using a lot of orange these days. it started from a night eating oranges after dinner and noticing that we have no jam for the day after and being too lazy to go buy any before breakfast. so i started cutting the orange peels at night and left them in water over night. by throwing that water away you get rid of the bitterness of the slivered peels. i made a lot of orange peel jam with that. but that became a habit to make slivered oranges when ever i eat one and i have enough orange jam for the rest of this winter. finally i made this chicken stew persian style not to have to make yet another jar of jam.:-) 

ingredients:

- 2 shallots

- one pound chicken breast

- one cup slivered orange or tangerine peel with bitterness removed

- half a cup freshly squeezed orange juice

- three colorful carrots

- half a cup fresh lime juice

- one teaspoon ground saffron

- salt and pepper

- one teaspoon sugar

- one tablespoon olive oil

- fresh parsley

- one big orange 

 

 

in a dutch oven , saute shallots and chicken pieces in olive oil. add salt and pepper and let them cook on medium for fifteen minutes. pour the orange juice in and after dissolving the saffron in hot water, add it to the dutch oven too. add the carrots and orange slivers. in another pan, combine the lime juice and sugar and add them to the mix. add a cup of water and let every thing cook for another ten minutes. garnish it with chopped parsley, slivered pistachios or almonds and fresh orange pieces. serve it with basmati rice. nousheh jahn!

 

fennel stew

this week i tried to make a persian dish with one of my favorite vegetables: fennel. there is a persian traditional stew with tons of herbs and beens called ghormeh sabzi (herbs stew), and there's another one with celery and beef which has some similarities. i tried to use fennel instead of celery to give a different flavor. another key ingredient to this dish is dried lime( limoo amani) which you probably find in any persian, asian or even indian store. it has a different flavor than fresh lemon. i also cooked some wild rice combined with smoked basmati rice to serve the stew with. keep in mind that wild rice and brown basmati rice need a longer time to cook than white basmati rice. if you leave them in some water over the night, they get a bit softer and cook faster but still they need twice as much time than white rice. i rather cook them over an hour.

ingredients for the stew:

- two shallots

- one garlic

- one or two fennels (depending on how much you like fennel's flavor)

- one cup chopped cilantro

- one cup chopped parsley

- four potatoes (optional)

- two teaspoons olive oil

- one pound beef or lamb stew meat

- one cup cannelloni beans

- two dried limes( limoo amani)

- one teaspoon saffron

- salt and pepper

 

cook the beans in two cups of water, salt and pepper separately for an hour. in the mean while chop and saute garlic and shallots in a dutch oven with olive oil. slowly add the meat in. chop the herbs and fennels and add them into the dutch oven and let them cook on medium for half hour while stirring them every five minutes. this is a typical persian dish smell: herbs. (i miss the smell of the ghormeh sabzi my mom makes.) add the dried limes, salt, pepper, saffron and six cups of water and bring it to boil. then leave it on low for an hour that all ingredients cook together. short before serving add the beans into the stew. serve with warm rice. nousheh jahn!

 

green fish curry from scratch

this is the first time i made green curry from scratch. it was not as complicated as i expected it to be and it tasted 100000 times better than those ready to use curries.

 

ingredients:

- one onion

- one fresh green chilli

- four garlic cloves

- 1/2 cup cashew nuts

-  one tsp fennel seeds

-  one cup unsweetened shredded coconut

-  one tsp cumin seeds

-  one tsp ground coriander

-  one tsp ground cumin

-  one cup heavy cream

-  one piece of white fish fillet, i used seabass

- one tsp ground turmeric

- one lime

- one eggplant

- four carrots

- one pepperoni

- one red bell pepper

- two cups chopped cilantro

- two cups basmati rice

- one cup alfaalfa beans

- enough butter, and fresh ground salt and pepper

 

peel and cut the onion and garlic cloves into small pieces. place them with cashew nuts, fennel seeds, coconut, cream and three cups of water in a food processor and blend to a smooth paste.

 

 

in the meanwhile cook the alfaalfa beans in two cups of water, salt, pepper, and butter for half an hour. in another pot cook the rice with two cups of water and enough salt and after the water is gone, add the beans into it. add some butter and turn it down to low and let them cook together for twenty minutes.

cut and saute the eggplant in a pan with olive oil. add cumin seeds for a minute until they give off their aroma. add carrots and saute them another five minutes. pour the coconut mix in and let them cook together for half hour. 

 

 

in the meanwhile cut and marinate the fish in salt, pepper, turmeric, and lime juice. add the bell pepper, pepperoni, and fish into the pot after half hour. let them cook together for twenty minutes.

serve it with the rice. nousheh jahn!

lox and root vegetables quiche

ingredients:

- 6 oz lox cut into small pieces

- half of a celery root

- carrots

- chives

- 1/2 cup ricotta cheese

- 6 eggs

- 6 cloves of garlic

 

 

wash and cut the vegetables into small cubes. saute them in olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and some oregano for about ten minutes. in a bowl, combine the eggs, lox pieces, and ricotta. add salt and pepper to the mix and taste it.

 

 

preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. spread butter on a baking pan. add the vegetables to the eggs mix and pour them all into the baking pan. bake for twenty minutes until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. nousheh jahn!

 

stuffed vegetables part III

couscous stuffed mushrooms

usually i see stuffed mushrooms as appetizers and made with small mushrooms. but i wanted to make a full meal out of it and took bigger mushrooms such as portobello mushrooms. it could be even tastier with porchinis since they have a stronger taste.

ingredients:

- four portobello mushrooms

- one cup couscous

- 1/4 cup walnuts

- six dates

- two teaspoons ricotta cheese

- one bunch fresh parsley

- one cup chopped celeray

- two carrots

- one teaspoon saffron

- one teaspoon dried mint

trim the stems of mushrooms. chop the stems, carrots, and celery and saute them about ten minutes in a in butter or olive oil. add salt and pepper and slowly add some water in. while the water is boiling add saffron that it dissolves in water. add a cup of water and couscous. let every thing cook together for ten minutes. take the seeds of dates off and chop them into small pieces. add ricotta, walnuts and dates. turn the heat off. chop parsley and add it to the mix. grease a dutch oven or baking pan with olive oil and mint. fill the mushrooms with the mix and let them bake together for ten minutes. nousheh jahn!

 

 

stuffed vegetables part II

blue cheese stuffed potatoes

as i wrote in the previous posts, i'm going to explore baking different filled vegetable recipes. today i made a side dish with baked potatoes. ingredients:

- six potatoes, i choose two of each color

- 50g roquefort blue cheese

- a bunch of parsley and chives

- enough olive oil and sea salt

 

 

preheat the oven to 400f. wash the potatoes and dip them in olive oil and sea salt. then spread them on a baking tray and bake them 50 mins. in the meanwhile put the cream into a small bowl, chop the chives and parsley leaves and add them to into the bowl. crumble the blue cheese and add into the mix. cut a cross in the top of each cooked potato and fill them with a dollop of the blue cheese mixture. leave it back in the oven with the filling another five minutes that the cheese melts. i put wild salmon marinated with oregano and dill 20 mins before the potatoes were done.

 

since roquefort cheese is very rich and aromatic, i pair it with a wine that either complements or contrasts its nature. so as a contrast to its strong saltiness i paired it with a riesling. nousheh jahn!