Spicy Spinato - Spicy Spinach Stew (or Pasta Sauce)

SPICY SPINATO

6-7 desilitres of washed, chopped fresh spinach
1 tomato
1 clove of garlic
0.75-1 teaspoon of curcuma
pinch of chilli powder
sea salt

1. Wash and chop the fresh spinach.
2. Wash the tomato and cut it into small pieces.
3. Chop the garlic finely.
4. Put a tiny bit of water on the bottom of a pot. Mix the curcuma, a little bit of sea salt, and a pinch of chilli powder with the water. Add the garlic, the tomatoes and the spinach on top - in that order.
5. Heat the ingredients under a lid, until the spinach has wilted.
6. Occasionally stirring, let the dish simmer under the lid for about ten minutes.
7. Serve as a stew/soup with 20-25 almonds (enough for one person), or as a pasta sauce with gluten-free pasta (enough for two people).

Annika

Soak Your Nuts

I’ve often come across advice to soak nuts and seeds before eating them. I soaked almonds for a short while (and noticed how much nicer they tasted after soaking!) but then got lazy and stopped soaking them again. I guess I never really took the advice to soak nuts and seeds so seriously as it was never given with any convincing enough facts about the benefits of soaking. If any reason was given, it was the greater ease of digesting soaked nuts. Great! But kind of vague...

Today, I finally came across something that was convincing enough for me. Apparently, raw nuts and seeds contain phytic acid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytic_acid), which actually makes iron, zinc, magnesium and calcium unabsorbable. That’s no good for vegetarians, who might already be struggling to get enough iron from their diet! I personally do not use milk products, either, and had sort of assumed that I would be getting a fair bit of magnesium and calsium from all the almonds I eat but I guess that all that magnesium and calsium is not absorbing as well as it could...

Anyway, I’ve decided to start soaking nuts again. This is how I do it at the moment. Please say tuned for updates as I’m looking into methods of drying the soaked nuts, as well.

SOAK YOUR NUTS

Daily portion of nuts of your choice

Water

1. Rinse your nuts well.

2. Put your nuts in a glass, bowl or the like, cover them with water, and let them soak overnight.

3. Rinse your soaked nuts well.

4. Enjoy.

Annika