Healthy Summer Recipes

This past weekend brought two new recipes into my life, and they’re just in time for summer. Delicious and nutritious is the preferable way to go for my body to feel its best – sure I have my share of delicious and not-so-nutritious meals, but I always feel much better in mind, body and spirit when I’m eating clean, wholesome foods. And food prep can be thoroughly lonesome when you’re doing it tout seul, so I recommend having a handsome (preferably French) man at your side who knows his way around a kitchen. #MenWhoCookAreSexy

Here are two recipes that you will certainly want to add to your summer breakfast and lunch/dinner menus. The first one is from Catherine Kousmine, a celebrated 20th century Russian scientist who believed in nutritionally based medicine. She advocated moderate eating and agreed with the ancient proverb: have breakfast as if you were a king, have lunch as if you were a prince and have dinner as if you were a pauper.

Kousmine-Budwig breakfast recipe

(choose organic ingredients)

• 4 tablespoons low fat cottage cheese (or yoghurt)

• 2 tablespoons organic flaxseed or organic sunflower oil

Mix the cottage cheese and the flaxseed oil in a bowl with a fork, until you obtain a rich, white and creamy blend.

Add to this mixture:

• 1 small ripe banana (or 2 tsp honey)

• ½ lemon juice

• 2 tablespoons freshly ground flaxseeds or 6 almonds, 6 hazelnuts, or any other type of nuts, excluding peanuts

• 2 tablespoons fresh whole-wheat rice, millet, buckwheat, oats (not oatmeal)

• 1 portion of seasonal fresh fruit. (strawberries, raspberries, cherries, grapes, apple etc..)

Labneh with olives, pistachios and oregano

• 450g goat’s yoghurt

• 450g natural yoghurt

• 20 black olives, pitted

• 1½ tbsp roughly chopped fresh oregano

• 1 tbsp chopped parsley

• Grated zest of 2 lemons

• 1 small garlic clove, crushed

• 100ml olive oil

• 20g pistachios, lightly toaste

• 20g pine nuts, lightly toasted

• ½ tsp flaked chilli

• 3 ripe tomatoes

• ½ a small red onion, thinly sliced

• Coarse sea salt

Try your hand at turning yoghurt into a luxurious Middle-eastern cheese. It may seem a bit technical but it isn’t really, providing you get started a day ahead.

Serve the labneh with minimum graces: spoon inside chunks of good crusty bread and top with tomato.

Serves four.

Method

Line a deep bowl with a cheesecloth or muslin. Stir the two yoghurts together with ½ a teaspoon of salt and pour into the cloth. Bring the edges together, form a tight bundle and tie firmly with a string. Hang the bundle over a bowl or from your tap over the kitchen sink. Leave the yoghurt to drain for 24-36 hours. After this time much of the liquid should have been lost and the yoghurt will turn thick and quite dry; the centre may still be creamy.

Remove the labneh from the cloth and onto a serving dish or platter. Use the back of a spoon to spread it over the plate creating a loose wavy pattern, about 2 centimetres thick.

Next, dice the olives or chop roughly. Place them in a bowl and add the oregano, parsley, lemon zest, garlic and olive oil, reserving 2 tablespoons of oil for the tomatoes. Use a pestle and mortar to crush the nuts unevenly, leaving some just broken and others finely crushed; add to the olive mix and stir.

Spoon the olive mix over the labneh clearing about 2 centimetres away from the edge (you don’t need to use the whole quantity if you want your labneh a bit milder). Sprinkle with chilli. Finally, cut the tomatoes into thick wedges and mix with the onion. Arrange on a side plate next to the labneh, sprinkle with salt and drizzle with the reserved olive oil. Serve the labneh and tomatoes with torn out chunks of bread.