Food for thoughts #2

Conta-bollita soup (a combination between Ribollita and Contadina soup )

Giulia and I started with the idea of a Ribollita, a thick vegetarian soup from Tuscany dated as far back as medieval times. Ribollita literally means re-boiled — noble family's servants used to reheat the left-over food with the addition of bread. The bread would soak in all the delicious flavours.

But since we thought some of you might not want to eat bread, the recipe would no longer be a genuine ribollita but more of a contadina soup. They are both very similar as they both contain lots of beans but the contadina doesn't have any bread.
So this recipe is sort of like a hybrid between two regional Italian recipes that we renamed Conta-bollita. It is a very comforting dish, perfect for cold wintery days. It would make a great addition to your diet as it is a very healthy one.

It needs a bit of advance preparation as the beans need to soak overnight or for at least 24 hours.

It takes a fair amount of time to make this soup so I recommend doing a large amount and freeze the rest if you wish.

Foods that are full of fibre and contain a wide variety of vegetables can have a fantastic impact on our gut health, and therefore on our mental health. Recent studies have brought to light the synergistic and important connection that exist between gut and brain. Our digestive system and our brain interact both physically and biochemically in a number of different ways.

The vagus nerve, for example, a long nerve which connects the intestine (and other organs) to the brain, sends signals in both directions. Therefore if you are stressed you may not digest very well, and if your stomach did not agree with certain foods, your concentration may not be as good as normal.

Gut and brain also communicate with neurotransmitter, chemical messengers produced mainly in the brain which control feelings and emotions. Our gut, though, also produces certain neurotransmitters like serotonin (which works by making us feel happy), and our gut microflora can produce a neurotransmitter called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which helps control feelings of fear and anxiety.
This show us how connected the health of our digestive and nervous system is —no wonder that “adherence to the Mediterranean diet is associated with better mental and physical health”

In order to promote our mind well-being even further, for this recipe we added black beans to the mix of pulse are traditionally use in the recipe since black beans are one of the top foods for folate, and “Folate deficiency and low folate status have been linked in clinic studies to depression, persistent depressive symptoms, and poor antidepressant response.”

When changing the recipe we also made sure the soup was going to have a good amount of leaf vegetables which are packed with calcium, vitamin K and magnesium, essential for energy production, heart and brain health.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4367209/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4393509/
https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/68692
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2382.short
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00394-019-01943-4
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/adherence-to-the-mediterranean-diet-is-associated-with-better-mental-and-physical-health/0C91627A98D6ABB078EFBA47B0573EC8
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-health-nutrition/article/mediterranean-diet-and-depression/67F265CA11470ADC1C9AD2838B7340B7

---

Prep Time: 25 minutes + 

10 hrs to soak the beans overnight 

Cook Time: 1h 45 minutes

Serves 6 people

INGREDIENTS

80g dried green lentils

150g dried cannellini beans

150g dried black beans

2 garlic cloves

20ml olive oil 

1 rosemary stick

1.5l water

salt

pepper

olive oil 5 ml

70g onion

2 chillies 

70g carrots 

1 celery stick

120g potatoes

250g savoy cabbage

250g kale

250g swiss cabbage

200g tinned plum tomatoes

black pepper

1-2 tsp salt

INSTRUCTIONS

1 Start by soaking the beans overnight. If you don't have time or you want to speed up the procedure you can just buy precooked canned beans.

2 To prepare our conta-bollita you must cook the beans first as they take a fair amount of time. In a large deep pan heat up the olive oil with the rosemary and garlic for about 2 minutes. Drain the beans and pour them in. Cover with 1.5l of boiling water and cook for about 1 hour. Season with salt and pepper.

3 Take out the rosemary stick. Then blend in half of the beans in a mixer and pour it back into the pot. 

4 Now prep your veggies. 

5 Peel the onion and chop it finely. 

6 Remove the strings from the celery sticks and chop them finely. 

7 Peel the carrots and cut them into small cubes of about 1/3 inch. 

8 Peel the potatoes and cut them into cubes of about 1 inch.

9 Chop the chillies finely, taking care to remove the seeds if you don't want the soup to be too spicy. 

10 In a small pot heat up the olive oil and cook the onion, celery, carrots and chilli for about 5 minutes. 

11 Wash the savoy cabbage, kale and Swiss cabbage. Then remove the middle stems from the hardest leaves, and roughly chop them into large pieces of about 2”

12 Now add in the potatoes followed by the tomato sauce and cook for about 10 minutes. 

13 Pour in all the content into the larger pot with the bean soup previously made . 

14 Add the lentils, cabbage, Swiss chard and kale leaves. Bring the soup to the boil and simmer with the lid on for about 30 minutes. 

15 Season with salt and pepper.

16 Taste and serve with bread if you wish. 

I like to eat mine like the original ribollita with a lot of bread soaking all the delicious soup.  

Enjoy!"

Cassola. Sardinian Seafood Soup.  

If you are a seafood lover you can’t miss this seafood soup typical of my area in Sardinia, Italy.

With my family we generally cook a seafood based meal for NYE. Because of the pandemic, like many of us, I will not be able to spend time with them this year, but hopefully this comforting soup will bring you some warmth.

As we always do, Giulia and I cooked this main by making a few small changes in the list of ingredients, in order to offer a healthier alternative. However, the star of this dish was (typically) and still is seafood. Also following Giulia’s advice in terms of nutrition “Mollusks and crustaceans are a great source of proteins and minerals, especially if you compare them with the most popular protein-rich foods like chicken or beef. Prawns, for example, are high in an easily-absorbable form of selenium, an essential mineral that protects our body from free-radicals.
Mussels also contain good levels of selenium, zinc and other vitamins such as B12 and betacarotene. I really hope you love sea food as much as we do!

The first thing we added to this recipe in order to give this soup a small amount of fibre was celery. This vegetable is very low in calories, but full of health-promoting benefits such as antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds which have been seen to support the function of our heart and digestive system.

We then used red mullet a small-size fish instead of a big one such as sward fish, which is traditionally added to this dish. Small fish contain less mercury and toxins from the sea, so they are for sure a better option! (We decided not to add any oily fish to this soup as their distinctive strong flavour would overpower the delicate taste of the other ingredients).”

With our bellies full, we wish you a very relaxing New Year’s Eve and a positive start with the New Year.

Prep Time: 20 minutes + 2 hours to soak the clams and mussels

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 60 minutes 

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS

1 small squid (160g)

6 tiger prawns (shell on)

200g mussels

300g clams

1 small red mullet (200g)

100 ml white wine

1 chilli

2 garlic cloves

400ml tomato passata

150g cherry tomatoes

a bunch of parsley

1tbs olive oil

1 celery stick

FISH STOCK

450ml water

prawn shells

red mullet bones

1 celery stick

1 garlic clove

1tbs olive oil

INSTRUCTIONS

To start we will be prepping our ingredients.

The first thing to do as soon as you buy the clams and mussels, is to place them in water for a couple of hours. This is done to help the clams release all the sand. Also if there are any open clams or mussels, lightly tap them to the side of the sink. If they do not close, discard them.

Clean the prawns by cutting the shells along the back slicing into the flesh a tiny bit too to expose the vein. Pull the vein out and rinse the prawn in water. Repeat the procedure for each prawn. 

Place the shells in a small pan that you will use to make a fish stock. 

If your fishmonger hasn’t filleted your red mullet then this is the time to do it. I suggest watching videos on the internet if you do not know how to fillet a fish. As a summary instruction, you must cut the head and tail of the fish. Then with a sharp knife slice along the back and keep slicing the rest of the flesh. You must feel that the flat part of the blade is rubbing against the bones underneath.

Keep the bones and place them in the same pan with the prawn shells. Add in the garlic clove peeled and sliced in a half and the celery stick with 1 tbsp of oil. Cook at high heat for 1-2 min until the shells have changed colour. 

Add in the water and 1/2 tsp of salt and bring to the boil. Then cook at low heat for at least 20-30min.

Start by cleaning your mussels by removing the “beard” often found hanging off the shell. Place the mussels in a colander in the sink and run water over them, using the tip of a knife to clean off any debris that could be on the shell. 

Drain the clams. Cut the squid into rings of 1/2 cm thick. 

Now in a large non stick pan. Heat up the olive oil, then cook the garlic, celery and chilli for 3 minutes. Pour in your clams and mussels. Cook for 2 minutes. Then add in the white wine. until it evaporates completely.

Cook at medium heat for a few minutes. Shake the pan a few times to help the clams and mussels to open. Mine started to open after just 4 minutes and were all open within 6 minutes.

If you find any stubborn ones that do not want to open, then wait an extra minute for them to open. Avoid opening them with a knife but just discard them instead if they stay closed.

Set the clams and mussels aside.

Now cook prawns, squid  and red mullet in the same pan with all the flavours of the mussels and squid. Cook for 2 minutes on each side for a total of 4 minutes and set aside. 

Pour the tomato sauce in the same pan where you cooked the fish, season to taste and cook for 5 minutes. If your fish stock is  ready then drain it with a fine sieve over the pan with the tomato sauce. Cook until you reach the consistency desired. I cooked mine for just about 10 more minutes.

Then place all the seafood back in to warm up for a further 2 minutes.

Sprinkle some parsley on the top and enjoy!   

TIPS:

This recipe can be simplified if your fishmonger does part of the job for you. Such as asking him to clean the squid and fillet the red mullet. But remember to keep the red mullet bones that you will use to make your fish stock. 

Alternatively if you want to save yourself some time, most of the fishmongers sell pre-made fish stock. 

Check that the clams and mussels you are buying are not closed or broken. 

Immune boosting

#3 Homemade oat & wheatgerm granola with goat’s yogurt and berries

The world is divided into two, between people that love breakfast and people that skip it all together. 

I get very grumpy if for some reason I can’t have breakfast, it is my favourite meal of the day! My breakfasts vary from unhealthy options such as buttery croissants and ultra sweet jams every now and then, to healthier ones to redeem myself from my gluttony sins. 

It is not until I arrived in London that I discovered granola, and I really liked it, although now you can find it anywhere in the world even in Italy. The problem with granola brands you find in supermarkets is that they often contain high amounts of refined sugars. That’s why me and Giulia decided to make our own recipe.

We put a spin to this recipe using rolled oats and wheatgerm.  Wheatgerm is literally the germinating part of the seed that turns into a plant, it is often discarded during the milling process although it is a very nutritious ingredient, packed with minerals such as zinc —an essential nutrient for our immune system.

Nuts and seeds were also added to the mix for their beautiful texture and their vitamins, minerals and healthy fats content.

Yogurt is a great source of probiotics, those friendly microorganisms that help support our gut health and our immune system. If you are ok with dairy or you only have a mild sensitivity to it, you may want to try goat’s yogurt instead of a regular yogurt. According to research, goat’s milk contains less casein and lactose than cow’s milk, and it is high in nutrients such as calcium, phosphorus, omega-3, vitamin B12, vitamin D. 

Note: In case of a proper dairy allergy or a strong sensitivity, please use a plant-based yogurt alternative.

Fresh fruit is a very important part of a healthy breakfast —and you could add potentially more fruit to this recipe. We chose a variety of berries since they are rich in antioxidants, anti-inflammatory compounds and they are low in sugar.

Try out this version and let us know what you think! 

You can make a large batch of it if you wish. If placed into an airtight container, it can last as long as one month. 

Homemade oats & wheat germ granola with goat’s yogurt and berries

Prep Time: 5 min

Cook Time: 15 min

Total Time: 20 min

Servings: 2

INGREDIENTS

GRANOLA

30g wheat germ

30g oats

20g mixed seeds

20g almonds and walnuts 

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1tbs honey

10ml water

25ml coconut oil

240g goat’s milk natural yoghurt 

mixed berries

1 tsp honey 

INSTRUCTIONS

For the granola. First thing preheat the oven to 200ºC 

Roughly chop the walnuts and almonds. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, wheat germ, mix seeds, honey, almonds and walnuts, cinnamon. In a separate bowl, whisk together the coconut oil, honey and water. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry, and mix until evenly blended. 

Spread the compost on a baking tray covered in parchment, to form an even layer. Cook for about 15minutes. 

Split the yoghurt  into two bowls and add in the berries.

Sprinkle some of the granola. Drizzle some honey on the top if you wish for extra sweetness.

Pronto!