This is my even more delicious gluten-free version of the classic Middle Eastern salad which is normally based on bulgar wheat. This is great with grilled or roast meat or fish, or a chickpea/bean salad. You can make it in advance for a barbecue or buffet. Don’t skimp on the fresh parsley or lemon juice.
For 2 people, with leftovers:
½ mug/1 cup millet grains (not flakes), available in wholefood stores
3 tbsp finely sliced red onion (or spring onion, if you can’t get red)
4 tomatoes, finely chopped
½ cucumber, skin and all, chopped into about ½cm cubes
6 rounded tbsp parsley (flat-leaf is nice), finely chopped
3 tbs finely chopped fresh mint or 3 dsp dried mint
Juice of 2-3 lemons (or more, to taste)
4 tbs extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt or Himalayan salt and black pepper to taste
Boil the kettle. Add the millet to a saucepan with double its quantity (2 cups) of boiling water, cover with a lid, and simmer without stirring until all the water is absorbed and the grains are fluffy. Rough up with a fork and allow to cool.
When the millet is no more than lukewarm, put it and the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl and mix gently to combine, taking care not to mash the millet. If you have time, let it stand for at least half an hour to let the flavors amalgamate.
Why this is good for you: I use millet here because it is naturally gluten-free, tastes great, and is packed with the relaxing nutrient magnesium. Wheat contains high levels of phytates that impede mineral absorption in the gut. People who eat wheat at several meals a day often end up short of essential minerals such as zinc and iron even if they eat them in the diet. Also (and this is a shocker from recent research) gluten in wheat damages your gut for several hours after exposure – you don’t have to be gluten-sensitive for this to happen! Parsley is rich in iron and aids detoxification, good news if you care about your skin or your energy levels. Lemon juice aids the stomach in the digestive process while mint is anti-spasmodic, helping relieve gas or cramps in the gut. Extra virgin olive oil is rich in vitamin E and research shows that including it in your daily diet increases your healthy lifespan. Tomatoes are a fantastic source of lycopene and act as a natural UV filter, helping reduce skin burning and ageing.
Here’s a simple snack I used to eat 11 am to keep my concentration levels high and my energy up until lunch. When my health improved I was able to drop the snacks. Many of my clients have issues with energy fluctuations and snacks like this help while they sort out the underlying causes. This sort of snack gives slow-burn energy – unlike coffee or sugary/starchy foods.
Why this is good for you: Almonds are high in calcium and magnesium needed for healthy bones, resilience to stress, and much more. Apples (especially organic with the skin left on) give you quercitin, which is anti-allergy, anti-inflammatory, and anti-aging. Apples are high in soluble fibre needed to feed healthy bacteria in the gut. An apple a day really does help keep the doctor away.
We ate this last weekend after arriving back from a few days away, desperate to get away from bland food. This is a beautiful, aromatic cook-in sauce for vegetables, white fish or lean meat. People always ask for the recipe when I serve it up. It is equally nice with fish, chickpeas, or chicken. You could also use it to reheat leftover cooked lamb or beef or as a cook-in sauce for peeled prawns. It stores well in the freezer so you could make a large batch, freeze in individual portions, and thaw as needed. this amount of sauce is enough for 4 people, or 2 with leftover sauce to put in the freezer.
3 medium onions
3cm piece fresh ginger
2 large fat cloves garlic (optional)
1 tbsp virgin coconut oil (or olive oil if you can’t get coconut)
1 rounded tsp ground coriander
1 level tsp ground cardamom
1/2 level tsp ground cloves
1 level tsp ground cinnamon
1 rounded tsp turmeric
1/3–½ level tsp chilli powder (optional – avoid if you don’t like heat!)
1 x 65ml tin coconut milk (or 60g creamed coconut + 300ml/1¼ cups boiling water)
300ml/1¼ cups passata (sieved tomatoes) or 1 tin tomatoes, liquidized
1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
Pepper
A food processor/liquidiser
1. Finely dice the onion, grate the ginger and crush the garlic. Place in a saucepan with the coconut oil or olive oil and 1 tbsp water and sweat them with the lid on over a low heat until the onion begins to soften/go translucent.
2. Add the spices and sweat for a few more minutes.
3. If using creamed coconut, dissolve it in the boiling water and place it in a food processor. If using coconut milk place in the processor with around 200ml water. Add two-thirds of the onion mixture and process until smooth.
4. Put the processed mixture back into the pan and add the passata and fresh coriander. Simmer for 5 mins, then season to taste with pepper.
5. Freeze in containers ready for future use or use for cooking any of the ideas below.
6. Serve with brown rice.
Cook-in ideas (just heat sauce in a heavy-bottomed saucepan to prevent burning, add your ingredients to be cooked, then cover with a lid):
Fish & veg: Allow 100-120g white fish (skinned and cut into 2.5cm cubes) and 2 cups of broccoli florets or thawed/fresh peas per person. If using broccoli, cook it in the sauce until almost done, then add the fish, which only takes a few minutes. If using peas, you can add the fish and peas at the same time.
Chicken & veg: Allow 100g chicken fillet (cut in 1cm slices or 2cm cubes) plus 2 cups sliced runner beans or broccoli florets per person. Heat the sauce, add everything else, cover with a lid and cook till done, stirring occasionally (around 10 minutes).
Chickpeas & veg: Allow 1 cup of cooked drained chickpeas plus 2 cups green veg (eg. broccoli florets or green beans) per person. Throw the whole lot into the simmering sauce, cover with a lid and cook for around 8 minutes until the vegetables are softened but not overcooked.
Why this is good for you: Research shows that all spices have anti-aging, antioxidant, health-boosting properties. Onions and garlic are great sources of soluble fibre, which feeds the helpful gut bacteria needed for proper digestion, mental clarity, and clear skin. Soluble fibre also binds to natural and man-made toxins (such as chemicals, used-up hormones, and medications) in your digestive system, ensuring that they exit the body quickly and as safely as possible.
This is inspired by a classic French side dish of lettuce, shallots, and peas. It’s healthier because you don’t overcook all the vegetables, nor do you need to smother it in a lot of butter to make it taste good. This is a great side dish to serve with roasted meats or grilled fish.
3 medium-large leeks, white and green parts, cleaned and sliced into 1/2 cm disks
About 250g or 2 mugs frozen petit pois (baby peas)
2 tbsp water or water leftover from steaming vegetables
1 large clove garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
1. Into a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan or frying pan with a lid, place the leeks, the garlic, the olive oil, and the water.
2. Cover with a lid and cook on medium heat until the leeks are slightly wilted. While this is happening, rinse off your peas with hot water to get the icicles off and allow them to thaw. I usually do this by putting them in a sieve and pouring a kettleful of boiling water over them.
3. When the leeks are softened but still bright green add the peas, stir well, cover, and simmer for about 2 minutes until the peas are hot.
This is my simple take on a gorgeous dish I once ate in Italy. You know how it is, sitting in a beautiful piazza on a hot summer’s night, everything is amazing. It still tastes pretty good on a drizzly Irish evening though and looks impressive even though it’s REALLY easy. If you can’t bear to eat whole fish, just use fillets, cooked skin side up, instead. You will need to cook the other ingredients first for 5-10 minutes so they soften before adding the fish fillets. Fillets would take about 10 minutes to cook through wheareas the whole fish take longer. See the bottom of this recipe for why it’s great for you.
Serves 2
120ml or 1/2 cup dry white wine
3 dsp extra virgin olive oil
2 large cloves garlic, peeled and roughly sliced
2 small or 1 medium seabass (or bream if you prefer), gutted and cleaned
12-14 cherry tomatoes
3-4 large sprigs of fresh basil
Freshly ground black pepper
A heavy-bottomed pot/frying pan with lid
To serve:
4 generous handfuls or cups of broccoli florets/green beans
1. Lay the fish in the pot (cut off the head first if you need to to get the fish flat in the pot, or if you don’t like seeing the head on your dinner plate).
2. Cut each cherry tomato quarter to half the way through – this allows the juice to flavour the whole dish as it cooks – and add to the pan with the wine, olive oil, garlic, basil, and a few twists of black pepper.
3. Put the lid on, place on medium heat, and simmer for about 20-25 minutes (depending on the size of the fish) until the fish is tender and a skewer easily pierces it right through. Pull the pan off the heat and leave it covered while you steam your greens.
4. Serve the fish with the greens with the winey herby juices spooned over.
If you’re not wanting to lose weight you could also add a few babies boiled potatoes.
Why this is good for you: White fish is a great source of high quality protein which is needed for repair and maintenance of your whole body, including your skin, hair and digestive system. Olive oil, herbs and tomatoes are rich in antioxidants which also aid repair and slow ageing. Green veg are rich in magnesium which is crucial for relaxation of your nervous system. Allowing your brain to wind down means your body can do the housekeeping. That is: healing, digestion, repair, regeneration. Chronic stress derails all.
Everyone loves these. Eat as a starter with wholemeal gluten-free bread or (if you eat a little gluten) fresh 100% rye sourdough bread to soak up the sweet juices. Last week we served them as a side with marinaded roast chicken pieces on a bed of cooked millet (with basil pesto and sliced spring onions stirred in). Yum!
I’m not usually an anchovy lover but here they really do make it much more delicious!
For 4:
4 red peppers
4 medium tomatoes
8 small anchovy fillets
2 cloves garlic
8 dsp (dessertspoons) extra virgin olive oil
Black pepper
Fresh basil leaves
Preheat oven to 180C
Cut peppers in half lengthways, remove seeds, keep green stalks intact, and lay in a lightly oiled roasting tin or ovenproof dish.
Peel garlic, slice thinly and divide between the pepper halves.
To each pepper, half add an anchovy that you snipped into rough pieces.
Quarter tomatoes, remove the woody centre, and place 2 pieces in each pepper hal
Spoon 1 dsp oil into each pepper half and season with freshly milled black pepper.
Place on a high shelf in the oven for 50 mins to 1 hour – they should be wrinkled and semi-collapsed and filled with lots of lovely sweet garlicky pepper juices.
