her Food
Eating with the seasons of your body
This book is a journey, an exploration in search of a new relationship to food. A relationship that is holistic, nourishing, plentiful and rewarding. A relationship that flourishes from the body and is not controlled by the CONDITIONED mind. In this book i invite you to tune into your body’s intuition and its cyclical nature to establish a new way of eating: the feminine way. together We will journey into esotericism, mythology, nutritional science and food history to ignite your culinary passion and pleasure. ‘Her food’ will INTRODUCE you to cooking methods, flavour combinations and recipes which exist as a network, an eco-system and a map, rather than offer a list of dishes unrelated to one another, thus allowing you to thrive in your creativity and let your body and taste buds guide you.
She eats with her body.
You may say, well, of course! Yet, this seemingly apparent observation is not as simple to me. Isn’t it a curious trick of nature that we put our food into our heads? That the same organ, the mouth,responsible for articulating our thoughts into speech, is also tasked with nourishing us, essentially keeping us alive. And quite often our thoughts and our food get tangled up in our mouths, engaged in a confusing dance of what’s going in and what’s on the way out. To many of us this relationship gets so overwhelmingly confusing, that I often wonder if we would have had a different relationship to food if it were to enter our bodies through a ‘food only’ cavity, or if our thinking brain were to have another mode of communication, liberating our mouths for nourishment and non-linguistic self-expression?
We return to the visceral, uncensored, relationship to our mouths only in moments when the thinking brain is immobilised, and is out of its depth of expertise - it is the moan of pleasure, the roar of a birthing woman, a primal scream of a hungry infant. I will never forget the sound that came out of me as an earthquake, indescribable in its overwhelming power, took over my body - it was the very first urge to push my baby out.
What if as women, we learn from those experiences of raw, unpoliced, uncontrolled expression of our innate self, like childbirths, like orgasms (and I write this with full awareness that for many women those experiences still remain inaccessible under the heavy weight of (self-) censorship), and mindfully invite them into the realm of food. We let our body feed us as much as we feed our bodies. Of course our brain is not always the enemy. In fact, I am all up for learning to command our rational thinking brain to our service when it comes to food. But never the other way around. Never should our rational, fact and figures obsessed brain claim ownership and control of our body. As our thinking mind is engaged in a complex web of ‘knowledge-’ ‘reality-’ and ‘truth’-making, which it at once orchestrates and is orchestrated by our dominant modus operandi. The world where the aggressive, infantile hyper-masculine Patriarch rules supreme.
So when I willingly command the knowledge of my thinking, rational brain, it is to offer reliable and secure information which I can put to good use in order to intueat - to eat with my body. Therefore, the food that I offer in this book is selected with my knowledge of what constitutes wholesome, nutrient-rich and nourishing repertoire, and I want to invite you to call on your body when it comes to ‘knowing’ what, when, how and how much to cook and to eat.
For centuries food has been a tool for control and manipulation, and it continues to be a currency in power and gender struggle. Access to or restriction of food is loaded with painful histories of patriarchal dominance. However, I want food to be the key to your female empowerment. Rather than being a woman who was made to feel shame of her appetite, her body and how she eats, a woman convinced she must fit in one cookie-cutter designed by a man, I want you to get in touch with the sorceress in you, who feeds herself in a unique way that comes from a place of knowing, loving and accepting her body; from a place where she feels connected to nature and its produce, intuitively, emotionally as well as intellectually. She knows in her body which food will make her feel good and how much of it she requires.
While I hope to revive this ancient, mythical and mystical body wisdom in you, this book is written for and by a modern woman. It contains recipes that are best suited for contemporary (read, busy) lives, small kitchens and moderate budgets. It is full of ideas for eco-friendly eating that is seasonal, low-waste and sustainable. Although it is not aimed solely at women with children, as a mother myself, I have created these food suggestions which work for pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as for baby weaning and family meals. However, the overarching principle at the heart of this book is the cyclical nature of the female body and its fluctuating needs with the internal seasons of each month. To me the gateway to my body’s intuition was the discovery of a body cycle awareness method.
Departing from the shame- and disgust-inducing image of a menstruating woman as a bearer of a bleeding wound, green with penis envy, I came to embrace a mystical feeling of possessing an invisible (and hence out of the destructive and possessive reach) source of wisdom, intuition and creativity - the womb. In many non-Western(ised) cultures the womb is celebrated as a sacred space of female energy, aliveness and health. She is like the Moon and like the seasons in the ever-changing yet comfortingly cyclical nature of its existence. The womb is a micro-universe with its monthly course of life, death and rebirth. Womb awareness, knowledge and health is alien in our fast-paced, male-centric world; and while the society is slowly re-awakening to the principle of seasonality in our lifestyles and gastronomy, the world where women live and eat in tune with the inner seasons of their wombs seems like the stuff of amazonian myths. And yet, this is the vision I would like to express, explore and inspire with this book.
A woman who eats with her body: trusting its intuition, experiencing pleasure and enriching her knowledge of wholesome and nourishing food.
From woman to womban: a glance at the conceptual framework for this book
For years I have struggled with what defines me as a woman and what defines a woman at large. Surely she is not just a counterpart to a man. The English word itself felt wrong to me, for it embodied the fallacy that Eve was created as an afterthought of Adam. My native Russian paradigm of gender fascinated and confused me: on the one hand the Soviet state established a great equilibrium for women’s equality: free childcare for all families, kindergartens that were part of a workplace (the dream!). Yet a Soviet woman is far from an idea of an empowered woman who lives by her own rules. She has body hair, because she has no time to care about how she looks, she runs around sweaty with shopping bags in one hand and her briefcase in the other. She eats whatever is available from the limited repertoire, caring not about her body and wellbeing but about the very fact of putting something on the table. She became a bizarre androgenous product of the Soviet system. The post-Soviet woman was the exact opposite of her mother. She had no body hair, did not sweat, was constantly on a diet, counting calories, she was ‘perfect’ in her to-be-looked-at-ness (to borrow Laura Mulvey’s famous term).
The Western woman that I met when I moved to the UK as a teenager ignited a fire of awareness in me. She was liberated from the stereotypes! She could work and not have children. She chose to have body hair, not to wear makeup or to be married. Yet, she still existed in the framework of the masculine order. She was a woman who tried to erase the ‘-man’ part from the very word that defined her, rather than creating an entirely new word to call herself by.
The moment of really understanding what being a woman means to me was through the exploration of the idea that not so long ago would make me go, “Eeeek!” And run the other way! The idea I hold dear to my core now - the sacred Feminine.
She is a Being who is aligned with her truth. She makes her own embodied choices. She does not define herself in relation to men, she connects to men on an entirely different level. She is a Mother - with or without children, with or without a physical womb. She is wholesome, she is present, she is multi-faceted, she marries contradictions - she is water, and she is fire. She is Nature. She is Life. She holds space for birth and death to unfold. Her voice is subtle, it is muffled by the noise of the male world, by the noise of your male mind. But it becomes potent and clear ones you learn to shut off the cacophony of your thinking brain, of the busy polluted world.
She raises her sons and her daughters equally - with love, compassion, understanding, curiosity and humbleness. She eats with her body, not her mind. She does not live her life from lack but from abundance, she does not search for completeness outside of herself, but feels the ‘missing soulmate’ is already within her, was always within her. This is by no means a man-hating cookbook (what an amusing concept that would be!), nor is it a piece of radical or naive feminism, for the very principle of feminine and masculine does not exist in a clear-cut exclusive relationship to biological gender.
The feminine and the masculine: the arrow meets the circle
Ever since I read Monique Wittig’s Les Guérillères, I’ve been haunted by the mythical world where both women and men live by the principles of the circle, laughing with bewilderment at a distant myth that once upon a time there was a phallocentric society. In many ancient cultures as well as non-Western thought traditions the masculine and the feminine energies are believed to exist all around us, in nature as in every human being. The most popular example of yin and yang tells us of their perfect harmony. The real danger of our world right now is that we live in the times of the immature over-powering Masculine, while the Feminine has been violently stamped out. Sources from yogic traditions, to Chinese medicine to contemporary spiritual philosophy believe that our inner and outer lives are in need of the energetic balance. And in order for that to happen we need a radical rise of the Feminine, which, they also propose, is happening at the moment.
The defining principles of the two energies can be expressed graphically as well as conceptually:
The Feminine
A circle, a sphere, the Moon, cyclical, present, eternal, inclusive, intuitive and creative.
The Masculine
An arrow, a vector, linear, rational, directional, finite, time-bound, exclusive and destructive.
And while it might sounds problematic in its heteronormativity, the idea that women are closer to the feminine source of energy and wisdom thanks to the unique rhythms of their bodies, is at the heart of how we can make the much needed swing of the pendulum happen. Empower the women to embrace their bodies, their innate nature to awaken the energetic powers of the Feminine.
To me one such tool of empowerment is food.
My food. My story.
To me food and womanhood are essentially synonymous. As I was raised by three generations of women in my family, female hands held me, cooked for me and fed me. Most of my early memories are located in the kitchen (a word that has a female inclination in Russian language), and this is a safe space of comfort and nurture where I resort to as an adult in my mind's eye when I long for replenishment of my sources.
Food has also played an essential part in my own sense of self as a woman. From battling with an instilled sexist stereotype of ‘a woman’s place is in the kitchen’ and overcoming an eating disorder based on the unrealistic notion of an ‘ideal female body’ (achieved by food deprivation), to embracing the near-magical powers of food to heal, nourish and enliven myself. I also celebrate myself as a witch in the kitchen, concocting creations that bring such joy to myself and the ones I love, and two years ago I experienced the ultimate merging of myself with the notion of nourishment when I became a mother and my body the food for my baby girl.
My journey from a troubled relationship to food into being mother-food was complex, it goes without saying, but it is in that experience that I have learnt and continue to learn so much about my body, its wisdom and intuition, its awe-inspiring physiological complexity, and how to reprogram my mental conditioning around femininity and food.
The profoundly harmful gendering of food and eating, which affects so many of us, began for me during my mother’s childhood. A very tall child with high energy levels, she came across as perpetually hungry to her less than sympathetic grandmother who repeatedly reminded her ‘but you are a girl’, when my mum expressed her hunger. While I have never been placed in a conflict between my gender and my need for nourishment, my mother’s unconscious uneasiness around food, despite being the most amazing cook and dinner party host, manifested in many ways which have affected my own relationship to my femininity and food.
There was a lot of joy and abundance surrounding family and celebratory meals, but a sense of guilt and regret underpinned many of them. What’s more, my personal experience was unfolding against the backdrop of popular culture with its ‘summer bodies’, fad diets and witch-hunts of certain food groups.
Over the years I have suffered from so many food-related conditions which in part I believe were psychosomatic as no coherent diagnosis was ever offered. Interestingly, my issues with food, both physical and psychological, went hand in hand with complications in my reproductive health. My ‘feminine function’ was failing me, at the same time as I was failing to nourish my body. From today’s perspective the relevance of food to reproductive health, and health in general, seem abundantly clear. Yet it was not to me at the time, nor to any of the conventional doctors I have seen in Russia or the UK.
When I’d completed my PhD, I reached a point of utter exhaustion. Feeling depleted mentally and physically, I was desperately searching for a way to hit a reset button. Eagerly delving into amateur study of nutrition with the same academic rigour and ‘masculine’ mind. I learned what I should be eating, how and when, and while there were a lot of benefits it had an obsessive mind-driven edge to it. What was missing was my body, my intuition, and my pleasure.
Learning to eat with the body took a lot longer but was the most rewarding lesson I still have the joy and the challenge of learning. In many ways I have learnt that lesson from my child, whose enthusiasm and playfulness with food inspired my own.
So how did we as women become so disconnected from our bodies and their most intrinsic states of hunger and satiation. And how do we reconnect? This is what I would like to explore and answer through the recipes offered in this book.
Nourriture feminine: intuitive eating with the seasons of your body
To fully explore and awaken to the potential of the feminine way of eating, I would like to encourage you to listen to your body’s cues and to develop and trust your gastronomic intuition, on the one hand; and on the other, to become aware of the changes that happen in your body monthly, and eat in a way that best supports your body, based on nutritional knowledge. In other words, how to create a holistic relationship where you support your body in the best way so it can flourish to support you.
Michael Pollan observes that we have become so far removed from food that we need an interpreter, a skilled guide, to help us navigate the complex maze. Not too dissimilar to religion, we are so far removed from the source that we feel lost and need help to understand things that are in fact innate. Dieting culture is a supreme celebration of the ‘interpreter’. We trust our dietitians, the trend, the blogger, the new phone app etc but never ourselves.
Below and throughout the book I offer some ideas, rooted in the principles of mindfulness and body awareness, which can help us reconnect to our bodies and reclaim the pleasure and sacredness of eating.
Learn to develop a trusting relationship with your body. Become in awe of its innate knowledge, you don’t need to remind it to breathe or teach your cells to multiply, so imagine if you were to trust your body to guide you through how much to eat and when to stop eating.
Pause to appreciate the moment when the world comes into your body to nourish you, make you happy, connect you to your loved ones. My fiercely anti-religious self was surprised when I recently got the point of saying grace before a meal. All complications, that institutionalised religion brings to this world aside, it is a beautiful and meaningful moment. As Pollan says “honour the animal who died for you to have this meal” and equally marvel at the innate intelligence of the plant world that provides us with complexity of flavour, texture and nutrient abundance. In Russian toasting is a soulful equivalent to a spiritual practice. Don’t need to drink alcohol to be able to toast, after all what is a toast if not an expression of gratitude, appreciation and good wishes.
Mindful eating. My own history of eating disorder took a long to shake off and until not so long ago still manifested itself in frequent over-eating. It was healthy on the surface as I was genuinely enjoying my meal so much and sometimes it's fun to indulge especially if it’s supported and made normal by others. But more often than not I would ignore my body signals worrying that maybe it's my anorexia telling me to stop eating while there’s still a lot of food to be had. So I would eat it all and some items come for seconds and just to enjoy the flavour a bit more. The best way of course is to be honest with yourself and know why you are eating against your body wishes. Once you know there is no guilt, fear or anxiety lurking around anywhere, you will be able to hear and respond to your body’s voice so easily. Be kind and gentle and listen to the queues. Eat slowly and savour each bite, enjoy the sight of the table with the beautiful set up. Breath. Pause. And ask yourself do you really want this extra. And if the answer is an honest yes then go for it! No guilt or shame. Food is truly the most natural need of ours and the body knows best. Also know when you can indulge and when it’s best to leave some room for “dessert” that you’ll never actually have. Winter and autumn are times for easing the digestion and summer spring to indulge a little
Know your hunger signs and cues. Identify how it feels in your body. Be still and observe. Eat when your body asks for it, do not wait for a ‘socially acceptable’ lunch time or dinner time. And feed yourself wisely in case you might be concerned your body will ask to be fed in the middle of the night.
Pleasure: women have been denied that and punished for it. Eat, cook and select your produce with pleasure. Pleasure as a guiding principle, physical and mental. Food is sensual, express, explore and enjoy your sensuality when eating. Feeding the senses, relating to food cooking and eating through all five senses: sight, scent, sound (whether playing music you love, listening to the sounds of nature or pausing to enjoy the sound of the sizzling onions in the pot. One of my favorite moments is getting the pie baked out of the oven, inhaling its aroma and indulging the ear in the bubbling sounds, or the sound of the wine pouring into a glass. Treat yourself to being present to notice all these elements. Touch - cooking is the ultimate feast of the senses and touch is paramount! I love dishes that don’t require cutlery and can be eaten with your hands. But no matter the dish, enjoy the tactility of your interactions with the food: the meditative nature of baking, dough kneading or fine chopping.
Feeding and nourishment is not only in the realm of food. See your entire day, your entire cycle as being supported through other kinds of nourishment - rest, awareness, kindness, presence, whatever makes you feel happy and fulfilled. Feed your senses, mind and body.
Tap into your intuition through your body’s cycles
The intuition of the body that guides your eating blossoms from the menstrual cycle awareness. The best way to connect to your body, to learn to listen to and understand its voice is by tuning into it everyday.
The principle of seasonality has recently become a new norm of eating, and many chefs and book writers passionately advocate for a seasonal way of living. Having practised seasonal eating for years, I was immediately ‘at home’ when I came across a concept of the seasonality of the female body. It is a beautiful metaphor that further celebrates women’s connection to nature and makes perfect sense on physiological, energetic, and hormonal levels. To me it is the marriage of scientific knowledge and intuitive feeling of your body that enables the most organic relationship to your inner and outer worlds. There are many authors, most of whom are women’s health practitioners, who use this poetic principle. The female cycle averaging 28-31 days coincides with the 4 weeks of the month and the 4 phases of the moon. The beauty of the approach is that you don’t need to be a menstruating woman to gain a great insight into and a connection to your body from this approach. The seasonal (menstrual cycling) or the moon cycling follows the following pattern:
Inner Winter
The first phase of your cycle, which is the menstruation or the dark moon, is interpreted as your inner winter. A time for deep introspection, quiet, hibernation. A time when your body goes deep into inself to restore and recharge. There are things that might seem magical that happen to you thanks to a particular combination of hormones, that while challenging for many, when understood and tuned into hold a great power of knowing, connection and wisdom. As all hormones drop dramatically after the surge of the previous (autumn) phase, there is a sense of quiet in the body. On a nutritional level iron and mineral rich foods will help during the bleeding.
Inner Spring
The follicular phase, the week before the release of the egg, which is symbolised by the waxing moon, is your Spring. Just like in nature you start to awaken and come alive to the world outside and build up your energy and strength for the following phase of full blossom of summer and the full moon. Your body needs to replenish after blood loss and as the hormones begin to surge it will require foods to support a healthy release of the egg.
Inner Summer
The ovulation, just like the full Moon, is the peak of the month from physiological, emotional and spiritual perspectives. Your energy levels are high thanks to a particular balance of estrogen and progesterone and you would generally feel your most active, determined and capable. High levels of estrogen also mean you need to nourish your body with food that helps natural ‘digestion’ and safe elimination of this powerful hormone from your body.
Inner Autumn
The luteal phase, and the waning moon, is the time for slowing down and preparation for winter. In popular culture this period is defined as PMS. While many women find this experience challenging, there are many powerful lessons to be embraced. Your natural need to withdraw and focus on yourself may be a blessing or a challenge, but for all of us an important reminder of our personal boundaries and needs that must be respected both from within and the outside. There is a clarity of critical thinking which allows us to review the old and set the new plans into motion for the new cycle. As both progesterone and estrogen are high, elimination becomes key during this phase so fiber and lean proteins -rich meals are essential.
To me the beauty of this method is that the poetry of the metaphysical experience has a very precise grounding in the scientific realm of our hormones.
To add practical suggestions about the journaling and how to track your cycle & share examples of my experience. Expand on how this is applicable and useful to how we eat and cook.
The Method
This book is an exploration of and an invitation to delve into your body, your intuition and your creativity. So rather than presenting you with a set of individual recipes, unrelated to one another, I would like to create a map, an ecosystem of intuitive and knowledgeable eating and cooking, where one recipe flows into another, and one set of prepared ingredients yields many dishes. Having this map as a guide, you will be able to tap into your body’s needs and your palette peculiarities to adapt, design and infuse meals with your own creative touch.
I’d like to show a way to set up your cooking practise in tune with your body’s cycles, to allow for the most intuitive and effortless culinary flow to emerge. Yes, we still need to plan, shop and cook, your intuition alone won’t whip up a meal out of thin air; but by following this approach you will tap into your own natural rhythms, appetite swings, cravings and work with them, rather than cooking “mechanically” on auto pilot, or worse yet ending up let you hangeriness lead you down the path that’s not emotionally or physically sustainable.
As a mother and a working woman, I understand the importance of creating an effortless flow in the kitchen, which will be truly nourishing for your and your family’s physical and emotional wellbeing.
Add how to harness the rhythms of your cycle to plan your cooking, i.e.:
Use your creative and productive energy flow in spring and summer to plan, batch cook, ferment, preserve, be adventurous with flavours and your skills - more complex dishes. Fill your freezer with broths. So when the first sign of autumn and waning moon appear, you are ready to sit back, relax and enjoy your own work. You might be able to even have a routine and a clarity in the kitchen to let your partner easily master these meals when you just want to stay on the sofa or use this time to focus on some important ‘me moments’.
Dishes in this book are not divided into categories according to times of the day or order in which they should be eaten, as many of them are universal and only you can truly know when and in which order you would like to eat at any given moment. I love the idea of eating rich nourishing meals for breakfast, when my hunger levels are particularly high in ‘autumn’, for example.
The Food
Though I am not a musician, I feel that the idea of feminine cooking is akin to a jazz performance. You need to know your harmonies and have the instruments ready but the process itself relies on your inspiration and intuition, rather than on following a script. So when I was thinking of the culinary base notes to choose for this book, I felt that the appropriate place of creative departure will be the chicken and the egg. You may laugh here, but not only does this culinary duo whimsically tap into the idea of creation, creativity and sustenance but in my personal food journey these two were emblematic of my own culinary intuition emerging. For years, I harboured an uneasy relationship to both due to my eating disorder, which was replaced by my fierce vegetarian beliefs (partly still rooted in that condition), until one day after a few months of breastfeeding, over a Sunday roast with the family in a local pub, the fog suddenly lifted an I saw the beauty of the ceremony of that very meal, while my body was pleading for all the nutrient benefits. As my major significant shift to hear and be able to respond to the call of my body happened over a Sunday roast this is where I begin the book. While I want you to delight in the emotional, nutritional and spiritual joys of a Sunday lunch I also see tons of benefits in the way this simple meal helps us organise our week meals thanks to the humble chicken.
This book contains 4 key flavour profiles, as well as a group of essential food groups and star ingredients which have an almost infinite possibility of combinations you can create. These recipes are closer to sketches than set-in-stone instructions where ingredients can be easily replaced and leftovers can be transformed into new dishes. Make enough chicken stock to yield an array of dishes from - simple green broths, to one-pot orzo pastas and bean stews, or batch cook some Puy lentils (in chicken broth if you like) to create meat-free spag bol, a creamy French-style to roast chicken, or add some Middle Eastern spices and serve a top a bowl of hummus with flat bread. Hummus is another hero in my kitchen! Make a big tub to last 4 days and boil a batch of eggs to enable endless culinary improvisation (fry some chickpeas, roast some vegetables, or add some pungent sauerkraut, the possibilities are endless).
ADD: This section contains recipes and food maps, indicating each phase of the cycle that each dish and/or ingredients are suitable for, plus info on nutrient value of the main ingredients and ingredient groups used in the book.
Four Flavour Profiles
Recipes in this book are created along the principles of four key flavour profiles. Once you have experienced how these different oils, herbs and spices come together you can create your own variation to these dishes. Again, I’d like you to think of these flavour groups as notes and harmonies, which will allow you so much freedom and creativity in the kitchen to respond to the needs of your body.
Mediterranean - olive oil, lemon, capers, garlic, oregano, parsley
Eastern European - unrefined sunflower oil, dill, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, horseradish
Indo-Persian - pomegranate molasses, turmeric, tamarind, sumac, garam masala, nigella seeds
East Asian - soy sauce, sesame oil and seeds, ginger, garlic, lime
THE RECIPES
Section One: The Chicken
A Sunday Roast:
Classic Mediterranean (with overnight marination)
Chicken Kiev style (ready to make on the day)
Chicken broths & soups:
I see chicken stock as a Mother ingredient in my kitchen. Not only does it make the most of the roasted bird, thus minimising food waste as much as possible, but it also offers a quick and easy addition of nutrients and flavours to so many dishes. I always feel comforted by the thought that I have tubs of stock in my freezer, and the lack of pressure to whip up a nourishing meal, often last minute, allows me to tune into myself and have fun with my cooking.
The basic chicken stock - the Mother ingredient
Italian style ‘virtually any greens will do’ chicken soup (x2 version for hot & cold weather)
A turmeric broth
Home-style quick Ramen
Mushroom and seaweed broth
A chard, red kidney bean and beetroot broth
Coconut, sweet potato, spinach and chickpea stew (+ add spiced shortcrust pastry to turn into samosas)
Savoury oat porridge with greens
Saffron butter bean broth
Turkish red lentil soup with lemon
Rice noodles, green peas, mint, tender stem broccoli and silken tofu in chicken broth
One-pot orzo with capers, dill and tomatoes
Russian sorrel broth with boiled eggs
A DIY broth map (choose your flavour profile, your greens, carbs and protein)
Chicken Salads and sandwiches:
A great way to reuse leftover chicken from the roast, these recipes work equally well without the animal protein or can have chicken freshly cooked for the occasion
Apple, kale, cucumber with a creamy tahini dressing
Soba noodles, chinese cabbage with a chilli soy dressing
A chicken Niçoise
Coronation chicken, green apples and pickled red onion (sandwich or salad)
Chicken, avo, egg & tahini mayo sandwich
Russian salad
Shredded raw kale and sprouts with soy, sesame, chilli and chicken
Persian slaw
Greens:
We all know these are good for us, but most of us can’t shake off the trauma of the overcooked sprouts or microwaved ‘greens assortment’ straight out of a freezer. So here are some ways you can make greens not only work for your body on a nutritional level but also feed your senses!
Winter greens stir-fry with soba and miso-tahini sauce
Sauteéd chard, garlic, chilli and new potato aka the Dalmatian stew
Green raw pad thai with tofu skins and peanut sauce
Courgette and borlotti bean stew with caramelized fennel
Courgette, fennel and peas orzo pasta
Broccoli, capers, garlic, chilli and turmeric pasta
Chilli and garlic sauteed greens with hummus and egg on toast
‘Cheesy’ tender stem broccoli bites
Indian style spinach, broccoli, peas and cashew nuts
The perfect ‘boost your greens intake’ pan-charred broccoli with chilli and garlic
Grain & Groats:
Comfort food at its best, most dishes in this section would benefit from the addition of the Mother ingredient, the chicken stock, however, the main point is to delight in the sustenance giving powers of these grains.
Buckwheat tabbouleh x2: summer and winter versions
Russian-style buckwheat stew with wild mushrooms and dill
Beetroot risotto with red onion chutney
Russian ‘Kutja’ sweet risotto
Persian plov with squash and brown rice and braised garlic
A warming congee with stewed onions in honey, chilli and soy, and shredded omelette
A green risotto with chicken broth (adaptable for various seasons)
Asian style greens and egg fried rice
Beans & Pulses:
Israeli style veg bake w crispy chickpeas, hummus and egg
Warm hummus topped with spiced lamb mince / vegan lentil mince, flat bread and pickles
Lentil spag bol
French lentils with oat creme and roast beets
Roasted butter beans & cauliflower with kale salsa verde
Braised fennel, artichokes and cannellini bean stew with lemon and dill
Caponata with a bean mash (link to recipe 14 for a hummus style dip)
A classic red kidney bean Lobio (plus a variation with spinach and beet)
Dhal with chickpeas and spiced roasted cauliflower
A classic hummus: cumin (with a poached garlic from persion plov)
Russian style hummus: beetroot and horseradish
Asian style: miso, lime and ginger
Italian style: sun-dried tomatoes, preserved lemon and butter beans
Italian style hummus n.2: artichokes, fennel and cannellini beans
Meaty:
Lamb / Beef / Salmon / Beetroot
Spiced lamb meatballs in a saffron broth with chickpeas, carrots and potatoes
Russian soup with herby ‘frikadelki’ meatballs
One-pot beetroot pasta with walnuts
Gerogian style beetroot, prunes and walnut stew with spinach and rice
A simple roast beetroot to batch cook and use as a topping for many dishes
Persian style roast salmon
Asian fish cakes
Asian style salmon
Section Two: The Egg
Omelettes, Frittatas, Shakshukas & Rostis:
Sweet potato, spinach and chickpeas frittata
Smoked salmon, asparagus, peas and mint frittata
Indian style onion, tomato and any leafy green shakshuka
Georgian style shakshuka - red kidney beans, kmeli suneli, chard or spinach, tomatoes and beetroot
Kale capers white beans shakshuka
Middle eastern omelette with preserved lemon chickpea with tahini sauce in a pita bread
Russian-style rosti with horseradish cream
Drops scones and pancakes:
Buckwheat drop scones with apple
Drop scones with tahini, cacao nibs and banana
Savoury crumpets with courgette
#PutanEggonIt dishes suggestions
The comfort of a tub of stock in the freezer can only be matched by the reassurance provided by a bowlful of eggs on your kitchen counter. Boil a batch in advance, or cook to order, the idea of ‘pimping’ pretty much any dish with an egg is the stuff of genius. There is a reason why this hashtag, used here whimsically, yields over 122K posts.
Add a list of dishes in the book that benefit from an addition of an egg
Naturally sweet
Seed cycling & overnight oats x4 for every season
While I have said that this book is not going to tell you ‘when’ to eat your food, there is one dish that I warmly invite you to enjoy in the morning (and continue enjoying throughout the day if you chose to) - the overnight oats. The best part of this dish is the ritual of preparing it in the evening - a loving act of self care, and you will also delight yourself in the excitement of going to bed so that you can wake up to this gorgeous experience in the morning.
+to add some dessert type food
Sauces, pickles, marinades and ferments
Tahini mayo
Tahini & honey dressing
Persian red onion pickle
Carrot kimchi
Asian stewed onions in chilli, soy and honey
Miso lime tahini sauce
Peanut sauce
Curry kraut
Sumac, pomegranate and lemon dressing / marinade
Apple kraut
Fermented slaw
Her Dukkah - a blend of seeds and spices to support hormonal health
Lamb meatballs
in saffron broth, with chickpeas, carrots, potatoes and dill
beet and bean stew
with walnuts, dill and rice
Lentil soup
with lemon and chilli
Israeli style veg bake
with crispy chickpeas, hummus and egg
Italian Style chicken soup
a Winter greens version