Just dropping in to let you know that over on MediterrAsian.com we’ve published a sushi hand roll recipe, and we’ve included step-by-step photos to make the rolling process easier. Sushi hand rolls are healthy and very flavorsome, so if you’ve never made them before you’ve got to give it a try.
Here’s the link.
Sounds a bit unusual doesn’t it? Pea pesto.
Well it’s actually surprisingly tasty — and it even has a few health benefits that regular pesto doesn’t have. But I’ll talk more about that in a minute. First let me tell you how we came up with the idea in the first place.
I’ve talked previously on this blog about my deep affection for pesto — especially home made pesto. But it’s always nice to mix things up a little, so Trudy and I sometimes make variations of classic pesto by using other types of nuts instead of pine nuts (such as cashews or walnuts), or other herbs instead of basil (such as flat-leaf parsley or cilantro), or by adding other ingredients to the base recipe (such as sun-dried tomatoes or olives).
But never before have we added peas to our pesto. What actually gave me the idea was that years ago Trudy had shown me a guacamole recipe in a food magazine that used a mixture of peas and avocado to reduce the calories and up the protein and fiber content. Even though we didn’t end up making the recipe, for some reason the whole idea of using peas this way stuck in my head.
Anyway fast forward to last week, and we were making a decision about what to have for dinner. We often have our meals for the week planned out in advance, but sometimes we just fly by the seat of our pants and rely on whatever ingredients we’ve got on hand in the pantry and refrigerator. (Luckily we’ve always got a well-stocked MediterrAsian pantry.)
We were both really in the mood for pesto, and we had most of the ingredients needed: pine nuts, Parmesan, garlic and extra virgin olive oil. But we didn’t have any fresh basil.
However, as I mentioned, it’s easy to make tasty variations of pesto by using different herbs — and we’ve found that flat-leaf parsley works especially well as a replacement for basil. Luckily, flat-leaf parsley grows like a weed in our garden, so it was no problem just picking some and using that.
But we’d done that a few times before, so we really wanted to try something different. That’s when the whole pea and avocado guacamole idea came into my head. “If peas can be used in a green sauce like guacamole,” I thought, “why couldn’t they be used the same way in pesto?”
Green peas are sweet and juicy as well, so I thought they’d add a unique character to the pesto. When I also worked out in my head that this concoction could be called “peasto” (pronounced pee-stow), the deal was sealed — we had to make it!
So we decided we’d use a combination of green peas and parsley, and also a little bit of mint (which also grows profusely in our garden) because it goes so naturally well with peas.
After we blended it up we were impressed with how vibrantly green it looked. Then we tossed it with fusilli pasta, chunks of canned tuna and some roasted red pepper. It tasted really good, although fairly different in texture and consistency compared to regular pesto because of the high water content of the peas. But we actually quite liked that. In fact we had the rest of the pesto the next night tossed with spaghetti, zucchini and a little diced bacon. (The smokiness of the bacon worked particularly well with the peas.)
The peas don’t just reduce the amount of calories in this pesto (1 cup of peasto contains around a third less calories than a cup of regular pesto), they also add a whole lot of nutrients. Peas are a terrific source of plant protein, and contain many healthy-giving vitamins and minerals including vitamin C, folate, iron and potassium. And peas are a very good source of dietary fiber, which helps keep you regular, reduces the risk of heart disease and some forms of cancer, and also fills you up without filling you out.
Makes 1 1/4 cups (enough to serve 4)
POUR boiling water over the peas and stand for 2 minutes, then drain. PLACE the peas, parsley, mint, pine nuts, parmesan, garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper in a food processor and drizzle in the olive oil as you blend until well combined.
I adore cheese in more ways than can be counted. There’s something about the creaminess and the “mouth feel” of real full-fat cheese that I find purely addictive. Cheese also has a magical ability to add multiple dimensions of flavor to food from pasta dishes to bakes and risottos.
But isn’t eating full-fat cheese bad for me? Well, no, actually. For thousands of years people throughout the Mediterranean region have been enjoying full-fat dairy foods like cheese and yogurt, yet rates of heart disease are traditionally very low.
The main reason is because dairy foods have never been eaten in great quantities. A common trait in cooking throughout the Mediterranean region is that the flavor of the food should shine through. Instead of drowning food in cheese, for example, it’s used sparingly and often it will be a full-flavored cheese like Parmesan, where a little goes a long way.
Other diary foods like milk, butter and cream have rarely been consumed in Mediterranean populations because these foods easily spoiled in the warm Mediterranean climate in the days before refrigeration (so the milk was turned into cheese and yogurt to help preserve it).
And that’s pretty much how Trudy and I enjoy dairy foods too. We eat full-fat cheese and yogurt regularly, but in small amounts. This way, we get the satisfaction of eating real food, while only consuming small amounts of saturated fat.
Now on to the recipe, and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that it contains cheese! One of my favorite cheeses actually, feta. I’m a huge fan of Greek food, and part of the reason is because I love feta so much. Its crumbly yet creamy texture makes it such a unique cheese — and it also happens to be lower in saturated fat than most full-fat cheeses.
This feta and white bean dip is velvety smooth, and ridiculously creamy. In fact you’d never know it contains white beans at all because its texture is similar to cream cheese. Yet the white beans add lots of fiber, protein and goodness.
You can use this dip for dipping (of course), or it makes a great spread on top of bruschetta or whole grain crackers. When you combine it with fresh, crisp salad vegetables it also makes a great filling for sandwiches and wraps.
A creamy combination of feta cheese and white beans with herbs and a hint of garlic and lemon.
Makes 1 1/2 cups
PLACE all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth.
Nuts have had a bad reputation over the years for being unhealthy. That’s mainly because they have a high fat content, and until quite recently all fats were seen as dietary enemy number one.
But the consensus of the scientific community these days is that there are good fats (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats) and bad fats (trans fats and saturated fats). Good fats help lower LDL cholesterol levels in the blood, while bad fats increase the levels of LDL cholesterol. And because nuts contain mostly good fats, they’re actually very good for your heart and arteries.
Nuts are also a rich source of other health-giving nutrients including vitamin E (which acts as a powerful antioxidant), B vitamins and potassium — and they’re a good source of protein and dietary fiber. However, nuts are also quite high in calories, so it’s best not to overindulge!
We enjoy nuts in lots of different ways. Often we’ll enjoy them as a wholesome between-meal snack, or sprinkled over cereal and dessert — but we also love using nuts in our cooking. And for inspiration all we have to do is look to Mediterranean and Asian cultures to see how nuts can be used in a wide variety of healthy and delicious ways.
Here are some Mediterranean and Asian recipes from this blog as well as our website that contain nuts:
Penne with Roasted Pear, Goat Cheese and Walnuts
Pesto Genovese
Penne Rigate alla Ricotta e Noci
Spinach, Pumpkin, Walnut, Basil & Ricotta Lasagna
Sun-dried Tomato & Walnut Pesto Pasta with Salmon & Asparagus
Honey-Lemon Chicken with Almonds
Moroccan Chicken & Olive Tagine with Almond Couscous
Mushroom, Bacon & Walnut Risotto
Thai Crab & Cashew Fried Rice
Lemongrass Chicken with Bean Thread Noodles
Peanut Chicken Noodles
Pad Thai
Tofu & Cashew Chow Mein
Mixed Greens, Cherry Tomato & Pine Nut Salad
Insalata di Riso (Italian Rice Salad)
Gado Gado
Tuna, Olive & Tomato Salad with Romesco Sauce
Roast Vegetable & Chickpea Couscous
Pancetta & Walnut Salad
Cantonese Rice Salad
Spanish Broccoli & Almond Soup
Dolmades
Chicken Satay
Romesco Sauce
Indonesian Peanut Sauce
Whenever we cook rice we usually cook up double the amount we need, and freeze the rest. We use this rice in a few different ways. Usually it’s to make some sort of fried rice dish, because cooked and cooled rice really is the only type of rice to use if you want to make a decent fried rice. (It retains its texture and doesn’t go mushy like freshly cooked rice.) Cooked and cooled rice is also ideal for making hearty rice salads like this Asian-style rice salad.
We actually invented this rice salad just a couple of days ago. We both felt like a quick and satisfying lunch with Asian flavors, and we happened to have some leftover rice just sitting in the fridge. We couldn’t be bothered cooking, so we scoured our fridge and pantry for suitable ingredients to make an Asian-inspired rice salad.
One thing we didn’t have to worry about was seasonings (we’re always stocked up with Asian seasonings). But we hadn’t done a grocery shop for a few days, so we weren’t sure if we’d have a good range of fresh ingredients on hand.
Luckily we did have some ideal produce for Asian cooking: celery, red pepper, carrot, scallions, and a big knob of ginger root. All we needed was some sort of protein to balance out the flavors and improve the nutritional content. We chose one of our pantry staples — canned tuna — to fill that gap (cold shrimp, cold shredded chicken, or cashew nuts would have also worked well).
It only took us about five minutes to prepare the ingredients, which simply involved dicing the red pepper and celery, slicing the scallions and grating the carrot and ginger. Then we mixed those ingredients with the rice and tuna, and added a combination of seasonings we know work really well together — soy sauce, oyster sauce and toasted sesame oil.
The finished salad tasted surprisingly good, and really satisfied our craving for Asian flavors. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it too!
Asian-style Rice Salad
Serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side dish
2 1/2 tablespoons Chinese soy sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 cups cooked cold long-grain rice (leftover rice is ideal)
1 carrot — grated
1/2 stick celery — finely chopped
1/2 red pepper — deseeded and diced
1 scallion — finely sliced on the diagonal
6 oz (180g) canned tuna in oil — drained and flaked
MIX together the soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, ginger and pepper in a small bowl. MIX together the rice, carrot, celery, red pepper, scallion and tuna in another bowl. TOSS the dressing with the rice mixture until well combined.
If you’ve ever checked out the salads page on our website, you’ll have a fair idea that Trudy and I are both BIG salad lovers.
We enjoy eating lighter leafier salads as a side dish, but we also love more substantial, heartier salads — the kind that stick to your ribs. And no other salad has quite the rib-stickability of potato salad.
This Greek-inspired potato salad is quite different from the usual potato salad. The potatoes are roasted with thick slices of lemon which impart the most wonderful lemony flavor deep into the potato flesh.
Also, there’s a special ingredient in this potato salad that not only imparts extra flavor, but adds creaminess without adding virtually any calories. All we do is roast some unpeeled garlic cloves along with the potatoes. The roasting process gives the garlic a milder sweeter flavor, and it also turns it into a creamy puree which we squeeze out of the cloves and fold through the mayo before adding to the salad.
Lemon-Rosemary Infused Potato Salad with Roasted Garlic Mayonnaise
Serves 4 as a side dish
PREHEAT the oven to 210°C (425°F). TOSS the potatoes in a baking dish with the oil, garlic, rosemary, lemon and salt and bake for around 50 minutes tossing halfway through cooking. REMOVE from the oven and remove the lemon and garlic. SQUEEZE the roast garlic puree from the skins and mix into the mayonnaise until well combined. ADD the garlic-mayo to the baking dish with the roast potatoes and mix well to combine with the baking juices. SERVE warm or at room temperature.
