Technicolor!

To read listening to Technicolor - Os Mutantes.


This is the salad I had for lunch today. I decided to take a picture of it just because it's so colourful.

I'm convinced that colourful food is healthy - artificial colours not included, of course. I heard that once and the idea stroke me as a very simple, easy to follow concept. If I spent some time without eating dark greens, it's time to buy some rocket, spinach and the like. Missing yellow food? Go for some corn, pumpkins and clementines.

I have no idea of how valid this is scientifically. But since this is not the only compass I use to choose my food, I'm sure it can not do any harm.

(Digression: I've heard of a hippie community in the 70s where people would drop any kind of artificial colour in the food just for fun. The blue rice was a must on almost every meal, until they got tired of that.)

Today's salad is ridiculously easy to make: cut little cubes of cucumber, tomato, muzzarella and red onion, add half a can of tuna, a bit of olive oil, basil (fresh or dried), salt, pepper, and that's it!

(The salad is about 5 weight watchers points. You can use lime juice instead of olive oil and reduce it even more, if you think it's worth it. I always think that good olive oil is worth the calories)

Kibe, Quibe, Kibbeh

Living in London, for me and the husband, meant that suddenly we would have to cook our own food. In Brazil we used to live close to my parents, who were always happy if we dropped by to have dinner; once a week the maid would cook for us - most Brazilians have maids everyday - and we went to restaurants a lot.

Here, we were students, penniless and by ourselves.

So I started trying to cook the things I used to eat at my parents' home. One of the first experiments was the quibe (Portuguese spelling), which is massively popular in Brazil, served as deep fried rolls.

My quibe is shaped as a pie and roasted: it's easier to make and healthier.

The recipe:

400g of mince (lamb or beef), an onion, mint leaves, 3 garlics (more or less, depending on how much you like it and if you have a date afterwards), lime juice, half a cup of bulgur wheat (maybe less), olive oil, salt and pepper.

Boil some water (150ml, I guess) and pour over the wheat. Leave it aside for a while.

In a large bowl, mix the mince, lime juice, salt, pepper, wheat (be careful because it can be hot), the chopped onion, garlic and mint.

Pour olive oil on a baking tray (I use a pirex) and place the mix. Dig some furrows on the meat, so it will cook evenly. I usually make it into 6 squares, but you can make more of them. Pour more olive oil over it, and take it to the oven. Cook it in medium-high heat (180 C) for 40 minutes, a bit more or less, and that's it!

Here at home this amount of quibe is enough for two meals for me and my husband.

PS: The quibe (or kibe, or kibbeh) is originally a Lebanese dish. In Brazil we have a massive influence of Lebanese cuisine, but we don't know it: we call all these dishes (kafta, humous, lentil with rice, sfiha and so on) "Arab food". So I had no idea that our main influence was Lebanese until I came to London.

PS2: By the way, one of the biggest fast food chains in Brazil is Habib's - an "Arab food" chain. But I'll talk about that in other post, this one is too long already...