Pasta in Caper Cream Sauce November 12, 2008

Use different coloured vegetables to add vibrance to this dish

This recipe is tastes so rich it is sinful, vegetable crunch nothwithstanding! Make it your own by using different vegetables and flavours to give it that tang. You could, for example, try to make the sauce with umeboshi plum, with lots of basil to give it some slight twang and crunch.

Ingredients (use organic where possible)

340g brown rice pasta

5 litres of water to cook pasta

200g asparagus or green beans

100 g sliced button mushrooms

150g silken tofu

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup spring water

5 tbs capers

3 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons brown rice syrup

Zest of one lemon

2 pinches sea salt

Chopped parsley to garnish

Preparation

Cream sauce:

1. Steam tofu then tip into blender and set aside until cool.

2. When cool, add brown rice syrup, oil, capers, lemon zest, and sea salt.

3. Blend until cream, and pour into a large mixing bowl to await pasta.

For the pasta:

2. Top and tail beans (if using), and cut into  1.5 inch batons.

3. Set 5 litres of water to boil on stove. Add pasta and garlic cloves.

4. When pasta is done, add beans and mushrooms. Boil for 2 minutes, then drain everything into a colander.

5. Pick out the garlic cloves and squeeze out the pulp into the cream sauce. Stir with fork to combine.

6. Tip the rest of the past mixture into the cream sauce and toss so that sauce coats pasta.

7. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve.

Copyright 2008, Lusher Than Life

A blushing specimen July 22, 2008

No I haven’t done anything I need to feel shy about. I am referring to the glow of health I have developed since starting a practice of ‘morning tea’, a macrobiotic remedy more commonly known as ume-sho-kuzu, but with some ginger juice and some boiling hot bancha tea.

The drink adds warmth to your body, centres you, energises you and best of all, gives you a healthy glow, as though you’ve just run a mile and come through looking and smelling like the proverbial rose. And guess what – those Vuittons I’vve had under my eyes since I discovered alcohol? – GONE!

Now everyone I run into is asking for the recipe. If only could bottle this…

But in the interests of sharing nature’s abundance, here is the recipe:

1 – 2 tsp fresh ginger juice

1-2 tsp good quality shoyu

1 tsp kuzu root powder

1 whole umeboshi plum

Mash all of the above together in a coffee mug until the kuzu powder is completely dissolved and the ume plum has given up some of its juices. When the bancha tea comes to a rolling boil, pour into the mug and let steep. Drink while still hot.

Wait about 4 hours, then check in the mirror. See? Told ya!