Juicing! With parsnip!

I love juicing. At the moment I have been juicing on average once a day for more than a week and it is great! My motivator is having my vegan sister living next-door to me who is into that, and the desire to reduce my intake of solids. Also it feels great going to the supermarket only to get fresh produce.

I have been keeping it quite safe though, not using any tomatoes, half veg-half fruit kinda combos. Keeping it simple as well – carrot-apple(-beetroot), courgette-pear/apple, added ginger/lemon here and there, fairly simple stuff. We have been wondering regarding what more veg/fruit we can use for juicing, so we did some pure plum juice, or plum and beetroot. I was sceptical regarding plums at first, because any juice I have seen in stores is usually never fresh but from concentrate, and includes plum pulp, not exactly juice. But it juices really well! Thus plum – being currently in season as well – is included in every second juice just now.
We also juiced a little bit of some kale, but the yield was not significant really, thus it requires a lot for very little – better leave it for eating as a whole. I used up a couple of cucumbers, but as my sis is not able to digest them alongside some other foods, like peppers, we have had to find alternatives. And that is when the thought came – parsnip! We had no clue how it would juice, or what it would taste like. Yesterday morning the time had come to use them up before they go off, or roast them for alternative if it turned out awful.

We had a whole pack of parsnips, which would be around 1 kilo I imagine. We started off with apples and pears, and added the first parsnip – halfway through only to come to the realisation it might taste revolting and quickly changed the jug to a glass to separate the juice. Finished with the first one we had a try – and it was amazing! Like more amazing than carrots! It comes a little bit powdery (but that was amplified with the pears), but otherwise so smooth and sweet. In a way that it would not be a problem to have a glass of pure parsnip juice, the way you can with carrot also! But they are even sweeter than carrots. Ah, it was truly wonderful. So we continued to do the whole pack and after having given it a good stir – got a creamy ivory-coloured drink which reminded us of milkshake (and might be put to use similarly).

Here’s to another great juicing discovery!

Eli x

Bread pudding recipe – Estonian way

Hello everyone,

My sincere apologies for leaving this blog alone for quite a while, I just do not have many recipes to add as I rarely cook at home. But this recipe needs sharing.

Bread pudding is a very common dish I reckon everywhere, where bread is commonly used. Just like in the UK there is the bread and butter pudding. Well, the Estonian way – or at least the way we did it in my family – is quite different from it, and that is why I feel the need to write it down once and for all.

When for normal bread pudding you can use any bread, then this recipe requires mainly rye bread or proper black bread, not the typical white or wholemeal you can get from any store, but proper dark, rye bread. You can find them in all sorts of European/Russian/Baltic shops – and they taste amazing. Black bread is much more difficult to come across anywhere further from the countries where it is native.

Ingredients:

1/2 loaf Rye/black bread
2-3 slices of white/wholemeal bread
100 g raisins
Brown sugar/molasses (to taste)
Cinnamon/nutmeg

Milk of your own choice to serve
Whipped cream (optional) to serve

Stale bread works best, but if you let it dry out a bit, or toast it lightly, it works just as well. Roughly break the bread apart into pieces and put it in a pot large enough to accommodate it. Fill it with water enough to cover all the bread (which will rise with the water so check by pushing it down whether it is all wet). Leave it to soak for about 30 minutes or more, depending on how hard the bread was to begin with. When it is nice and soft, start working on it with hands – get in there and break any pieces you find with your hands, making it into a mash. When it looks smooth enough for your liking, drop in the raisins, add a little bit more water and heat it up, until boiling. There comes the next chance to go through it making sure there are no lumps left inside. The consistency will get smoother and you will likely need to add more water to stop it from burning at the bottom. Add the spices and sugar, keeping on stirring at the same time, according to taste, so give it a go and see how you like it. You can make it thicker or thinner as you like, normally it is quite thick, like thick porridge (and it sets once it is cold just alike also), but some make it quite runny as well, like a thick puréed soup. Once you are happy, the raisins should be nicely rehydrated, and the whole soup smooth enough. The cooking is now finished.
You can serve it hot as it is, or store it and serve it cold – is great either way. The traditional way of eating it is in a bowl with milk. I have tried it with almond, vanilla rice, soya, and possibly hemp milk. All of them are grand 🙂 Whipped cream will just put that extra cherry on top.

Here’s some photos:

This portion is served with coconut cream

Or eat it just plain! I never liked milk as a kid so had it just like that all the time 🙂

So if you like bread as much as I do – this is a very comforting food to have indeed, and it really is easy to make, I cannot see how one could go wrong with it. Vary the sizes according to your need – I froze once 3 portions from a batch when I had precious little black bread to make it with – to then savour it over a longer period of time.

Anyway, it has been a blast to share this with you, tomorrow I will share an amazing juicing discovery from this morning. Stay tuned!

Eli x