Cooking : Salmon-Spinach Lasagna

En français















Today I wanted to try to cook some Salmon-Spinach Lasagna.
Here is the recipe :

What you need :
Spinach
Smocked salmon
Mozzarella
Lasagna

For the Bechamel :
Butter
Pepper
Nutmeg powder
Flour
Milk

Preparation :

Chopped the spinach leaves.
Melt the butter in a pan, add the pepper and nutmeg powders.
Add the Flour and mix with a spoon.
Add some milk to have a creamy but liquid Bechamel.
Add the chopped spinach.

In a plat, put a row of lasagna, some salmon, some Bechamel sauce.
Repeat three times.
Cut the mozzarella in slides and place them on the top of the dish.

Cook in the oven for about 25 minutes.















Sébastien don't really like spinach but he liked that dish.

Raw food diet : Conclusion

En français
This is the end of the raw food diet. So I want to share with you my conclusion about the diet and the effect it had on me.
First I was expecting something bigger from the detox period, I was expecting to be sick, except very small headache nothing really happened to me. I was expecting that due to the fact that I knew of people needing to go to the toilet much more often during the first days of a new diet, and because of all the food I ate during the Christmas holidays. Nothing very spectacular occured. That probably means that I don't have so many bad eating habits in general.
However last week I went climbing with friends and find out at that I lost 2 kilos after 1 week and a half of diet. On Thursday, I went to the gym and figured out that I lost 2 more kilos. I wasn't expecting to lose that much so quickly even if I new the diet was low in fat and calories. I'm a bit happy about it.
The diet also allowed me to discover that even a diet as restrictive as only raw food can be very diversified. I needed to be creative in the first part because I was carving for other people cooked food. Then I really get used to it. At some point I was even disgusted by Sebastien's chili con carne. However I truly missed some product like pasta and bread and butter. The good point was also that I tested new fruits that I never tested before like pomegranate, jack fruit... I really like that one.
I'm very happy that I made this diet because I often heard people unable to do it even if their health is in the line and if it's a diet much less restrictive. I was imagining something much more difficult, especially as Sebastien was eating our usual food so that I wasn't "psychologically" helped in that sense. Now I know that if I ever really need to do a diet even that restrictive I can do it !!!
Changing my habits for nearly a month was also a great experience for me.
Yesterday evening, we had a very nice international dinner for Chinese new year and lots of very tasty cooked food :), arancine, spring roll, kimbap (that's not cook), beef bulgogy...

Raw food diet : calories, fat and avocado dressing

En français

I lost already 2 kilos on the diet. I never really cared about calories and fat in my meals before. I just used common sense I think, not to much oil, not too much sugar.
However the fruits that I'm eating now in greater quantity than before are heavy in sugar. So I wanted to see what was the quantity of calories and fat and sugar that I was actually getting out of my meal.
So here is what I ate today since breakfast and the values they approximately have, that also mostly what I eat every day on this diet:

Breakfast :
one glass orange juice (calories 56, fat 0.1 g, sugar 13.3 g)
one kiwi (calories 100, fat 1 g, sugar 16 g)

Lunch :
1.5 tomatoes (calories 4, fat 0, sugar 0.6 g)
spinach leaves (calories 7, fat 0.1 g, sugar 0.1 g)
bananavo : 1.5 bananas (calories 135, fat 0.5 g, sugar 18.5 g)
0.5 avocado (calories 184, fat 16.9 g, sugar 0.8 g)
gratted coconut (around 5g)(calories 33, fat 3.2 g, sugar 0.4 g)
20 g carrots (calories 8, fat 0 g, sugar 0.9 g)
20 g courgette (calories 3, fat 0 g, sugar 0.3 g)
10 g red pepper (calories 3, fat 0 g, sugar 0.4 g)
2 plums (calories 61, fat 0.4 g, sugar 13.1 g)

Afternoon snack:
1 plum (calories 30, fat 0.2 g, sugar 6.5 g)
1 banana (calories 90, fat 0.3 g, sugar 12.4g)
1 kiwi (calories 100, fat 1 g, sugar 16g)
7 dates (calories 164, fat 0.2 g, sugar 36.8 g)
5 dried apricot (calories 42, fat 0.1 g, sugar 9.4 g)

Dinner :
1 tomato (calories 3, fat 0, sugar 0.4 g)
40 g courgette (calories 6, fat 0 g, sugar 0.6 g)
20 g red pepper (calories 6, fat 0 g, sugar 0.8 g)
spinach leaves (calories 7, fat 0.1 g, sugar 0.1 g)

That give a total of 1042 calories, 24.1 g of fat and 147.4 g sugar
According to my age and height and weight I should be taken 1602 calories a day.
This diet is in fact low in calories and in fat. Most of my calories are not taking from fat. That's interesting.
I should maybe eat a bit more, I'll maybe have a fruit snack later.

Here is the recipe of the avocado dressing on the picture above.

What you need :

1 avocado
some spinach leaves
few slice of red chili
a bit of red pepper

Preparation :

mix everything

I had that for breakfast on Saturday morning as I was carving something salty.

For the dinner I had the fruits on the other picture.
Banana and peach with curry power on the top.
In the bowl you can see coconut milk, a sip of peach juice, curry and cinnamon powder.
I tried it later with more different fruits, that was delicious !!!

Raw food diet : cake-looking fruits

En français
I'm feeling fine on the diet so far. I still want to eat other people cooked food especially Sebastien's cause he is cooking what we are used to eat together, like yesterday night pizza for example. But he promised to make me one the week-end I left the diet, so that OK. I'm trying to take this diet like a game, on meal at a time. Anyway for Chinese new year I can eat whatever I want, and I got lots of ideas about that, you'll see.
Here is the recipe of the cake-looking fruits :

What you need :

slices of peach
3 apricots
2 bananas
1/2 avocado
grated coconut
some blueberries
some pomegranate

Preparation :

Mix the 2 bananas and the 1/2 avocado to make bananavo.
Put the slides of peach in a plate
Cover with half of the bananavo
Put the half of apricots
Cover with the rest of the bananavo
Cover with the grated coconut and with the blueberries and the pomegranate


That's amazing to me to discover how diversified raw food can be, I can't even imagine for cooked food.
There is so many recipes. I realized that most of the time we are eating the same food, the one that we know well and that we know how to cooked and prepare. But their is so many more to discover, just by trying something different.
This diet allow me to discover other flavor, for example I never had pomegranate before and I would never have though of trying avocado with fruits.
That's a great feeling. We'll see what I will discover in the next two weeks.

Raw foot diet : banana-coco balls

En français
I'm feeling OK on that new raw food diet, I can feel some detox effect like small headache and pain in the upper part of the body, but that's normal. I even tough it was a bit strange not to have it before the third day of the diet. Everything should desappear in few days and I should start felling the good side effects, I hope.

Here is the recipe of the dessert that I made to go with the Rawzagna.

What you need ?

2 banana
a bit of lime juice
grated coconuts

Preparation

Squash the banana with the lime juice in a bowl. Adding a liquid to the bananas when squashing them make it easyer.
Add coconuts and mix. You need add enough coconut to be able to form small balls with the mix.
Form small balls and roll them in more grated coconuts

It's ready !!

I made two others people test it. One didn't like it and the other one said it was funny.

Raw food diet : Rawzagna

En français
I decided few days ago to try a raw food diet as and experiment. I started last Monday and I'm supposed to last until Chinese new year that is the 26 of January or the week-end before if I have a Chinese International dinner.
That's not the first time that I'm "playing" with food. Few months ago I try to live on liquid food. I think I wasn't really prepared and that didn't last very long, just a week. The main problem was that seeing people around me eating yummy food was a bit frustrating. So this time I'm trying to make my food look more yummy than theirs, while actually eating only raw fruits and vegetables. I also use oil, vinegar, salt and spice but no sugar as there is already enough contained in the fruits.
So of course I'm creating raw food recipe, I'm very new at it so it's maybe not that elaborated. Be indulgent.

Here is my first recipe of rawzagna (that's like lasagna but without the lasagna)

What you need ?
(for what's on picture 1)

5 small tomatoes
1/2 small courgette
1/2 avocado
1/2 lemon
1 mushroom
marjoram
oregano
basil
chives
some spinach leaves

Preparation :

Marinara

Mixed 2 tomatoes, the 1/2 avocado, the 1/2 lemon, some of the spinach leaves, oregano and marjoram together.

Rawzagna

Cut the courgette and the last 3 tomatoes in slices
Cover a plate with courgette slices
Then cover with half of the tomato slices
Add the marinara on that
Cover with courgette slices
Cover with tomatoes slices
Cut the mushroom in slices and cover the tomatoes with them.
Put some basil and chives on the top.
The rest of the spinach leaves serve to decorate the plate.

The good thing about raw food is that you don't have to worry about it getting cold !!! :)
Next time I'll show you the dessert I created to got with it.

Cooking : Vegetable Galette

En français
Cooking Vegetable Galette is very easy.
That's a new recipe I created for dinner tonight.
And it's suitable for vegetarian.















What you need ?

Vegetable (here I used 3 carrots a small courgette and mushroom.)
One egg
Some flour
Some water
Salt
Oil

Preparation :

Grate the vegetables,
Mix them with the egg
Add slowly some flour and water to make it sticky.

Warm up a little bit of oil in a pan. When it's warm enough had a spoon of the mix in it and spread it to obtain a thin pancake.
Cook both side and serve warm with rice.
You can add some tonkatsu sauce.
That will be healthy and delicious.

Bon Appétit !!

Cooking : Coconut milk rice

En français

Today we are going to make a delicious dessert : Coconut milk rice.
I made it with ginger, that's what I'm going to explain but if you don't want to include it, it's also OK, you just don't take care of the ginger part of the cooking.

What do you need ?

Coconut milk ( a can)
Rice ( 2 small glasses)
Milk ( just in case)
Sugar
Ginger
Green Tea

Preparation

First ginger part :
Pile the ginger and cut it in very small pieces.
Put some tea in a pan, let it boil few minutes then filter to keep only the liquid part.
Add the ginger and boils the liquid few minutes again.
Filter the ginger
This process will remove the spicy part of the ginger.

Second part, the rice :
Put the coconut milk in a pan
Add two spoon of sugar
When it begins to boil, add the rice and the pieces of ginger.
Mix slowly until the liquid disappears.
If the rice isn't well cooked when the liquid disappears, you can let it cook again by adding some milk.

You can eat it cold or warm. On its own or with some fruits, for example banana raisin in the picture.














Bon appétit !!!

Cooking : Tea Jelly

En français
Making tea jelly or "whatever you want" jelly is really easy.
There is only one thing you need, that is called Agar-Agar.
You can find it, in powder or in stick form (see picture) . It has the interesting property of liquefying at 80 degrees and solidifying at 40 degrees. At the same time it absorbs sugar and fat so that it's not absorbed by your organism. It is also 100% natural and don't alter the flavor at all.
Generally I use the white version but you can also find it in red or green to make colorful dessert.

Here I'm going to describe the process of making tea jelly.

What you need :

2g of Agar-Agar
Your favorite tea
Sugar
Water (1l)
The amount can be changed if needed
optional : ginseng cube

Recipe :

First put the tea in a pan with water, as much water has the amount of jelly you want and tea so that you have the flavor you want.
Let it boils then filter it to keep only the liquid.
Boil the liquid again and had sugar if needed, the ginseng cub and the Agar-Agar.
When the Agar-Agar is dissolved put the liquid in a bowl.
While the temperature of the liquid decreases the jelly appears.
You can put it in the fridge to make it faster.

Have a nice dessert !!!

Cooking : Sébastien's okonomiyakis

En français
For one :

100 g of flour
10 cl water +
sugar (1 tea spoon)+
dashi (1 tea spoon)
1 mug of chopped Chinese cabbage
1 egg

Mix everything in a bowl

Option :
Chopped tuna, pork or prawns
Bamboo shoots

Making the okonomiyaki :

Cook the pork(tuna or prawn) in a frying pan
Add the okonimiyaki preparation.
Cook like a pancake.
Served with Tonkatsu sauce.

Hum so gooooood !!!
Enjoy your meal.

Cooking : Sébastien's first pizza

En français

What you need :

Flour
Salt
Yeast
Sugar
Water
Oil
Tomato sauce
What you like (mushroom, tomato, cheese...)

Making the Pizza :

Put 200g of flour in a big bowl, and make a hole in the middle.
Put a bit of salt, rising powder, a bit of sugar, some water step but step mixing until you have a ball .
Had a bit of oil to make it less sticky or had some flour if needed.
Leave it alone for one hour away of light.
Spread the mix on some flour until it's thin as you like it.
Put in the oven 5 minutes to make it stronger.
Add tomato sauce and put it back in the oven 5 minutes.
Add what you like, mushroom, cheese..

Option : You can add the yellow part of the egg on the top while serving

Hum delicious !!!
Have a nice dinner !!!