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So What to Eat to Beat Diabetes & Pumpkin Salad Recipe

December 27, 2015 by Minna Leave a Comment

It’s simple, you need to eat to beat diabetes!  While November was the month of Diabetes awareness, it is important to remember basic tips to Beat Diabetes on any month of the year. I was invited to participate to The Landmark Group initiative Beat Diabetes. I prepared very typical Nordic style menu of Pumpkin salad, Quinoa with Fresh Herbs and Pan Fried Sea bass fillets with fresh dill and lemon.  Scroll down for Pumpkin Salad recipe and video.

 

Pumpkin Salad by NakedPlateBlog

Balance your meals and make the healthier food choices. Think of adding healthier foods rather than limiting of what to eat. Pick up the foods which suits for your taste. I have listed some foods which you may add to your diet. They are also recommended by American Diabetes Association.

Food to include in your diet:

  • Eat more common non-starchy vegetables
  • Dark green leafy veggies
  • Fish high in Omega-3 Fatty Acids
  • Protein foods
  • Nuts
  • Berries
  • Whole grains; it means the entire grain—which includes the bran, germ and endosperm (starchy part)

Non-starchy vegetables:

  • Artichoke
  • Asparagus
  • Baby corn
  • Bamboo shoots
  • Beans (green, wax, Italian)
  • Bean sprouts
  • Beets
  • Brussels sprouts
  • Broccoli
  • Cabbage (green, bok choy, Chinese)
  • Carrots
  • Cauliflower
  • Celery
  • Chayote
  • Coleslaw (packaged, no dressing)
  • Cucumber
  • Daikon
  • Eggplant
  • Greens (collard, kale, mustard, turnip)
  • Hearts of palm
  • Jicama
  • Kohlrabi
  • Leeks
  • Mushrooms
  • Okra
  • Onions
  • Pea pods
  • Peppers
  • Radishes
  • Rutabaga
  • Salad greens (chicory, endive, escarole, lettuce, romaine, spinach, arugula, radicchio, watercress)
  • Sprouts
  • Squash (cushaw, summer, crookneck, spaghetti, zucchini)
  • Sugar snap peas
  • Swiss chard
  • Tomato
  • Turnips
  • Water chestnuts
  • Yard-long beans

The best choices of grains:

  • Bulgur (cracked wheat)
  • Whole wheat flour
  • Whole oats/oatmeal
  • Whole grain corn/corn meal
  • Brown rice
  • Whole rye
  • Whole grain barley
  • Whole farro
  • Wild rice
  • Buckwheat
  • Millet
  • Quinoa
  • Sorghum

The best choices of starchy vegetables:

  • Parsnip
  • Plantain
  • Potato
  • Pumpkin
  • Acorn squash
  • Butternut squash
  • Green Peas
  • Corn

The best choices of proteins:

  • Plant-based proteins
  • Fish and seafood
  • Chicken and other poultry
  • Cheese and eggs

Watch the Pumpkin recipe video here

Zucchini – Pumpkin Salad  recipe (for 4 persons)

Ingredients
1/2 pumpkin
1 zucchini
1 red onion
2 tbs sunflower seeds
2 tbs pumpkin seeds
2 tbs cashew nuts
green leave for garnish

Marinade / salad dressing
50 ml extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil
4 tbs of lemon juice (1 lemon)
½ ts chili flakes
1 ts Honey
2 ts fresh grated ginger
1 tbs fresh chopped mint
¼ ts ground black pepper
¼ ts salt

Mix all ingredients of marinade and keep aside.

Slice pumpkin and zucchini with potato peeler in to long slices or use spiral slicer to get long strips.

Slice the red onion with knife or mandolin to thin slices.

Mix vegetables with marinade and let stand for half an hour or more.

Roast seeds and nuts on dry pan; watch out, they burn quickly. Or buy ready roasted but not salted seeds and nut as per your liking.

Garnish marinated vegetables with roasted seeds and nuts and nice fresh green leaves.


Follow hashtag #eathealthy #beatdiabetes for inspiration at Instagram or Facebook.

You might check how easy it is to prepare fish in less than 10 minutes. Watch the video recipes of Pan Fried Sea bass fillets with fresh dill and lemon

Pumpkin Salad idea is from my all time favorite Finnish food blogger and cookbook author Mari Moilanen. I got permission to share. Look at her blog Jotain Maukasta aka Something Tasty.  She has food photos I can only wish to take.

Filed Under: blog, Recipes, video clips Tagged With: beatdiabetes, easy, eathealthy, pumpkin, salad

Naked Plate | Raw Coconut and Celery Salad

February 2, 2014 by Minna 9 Comments

I fully converted to celery eating after I ate mix of fresh coconut and crunchy celery with thick natural yoghurt. Celery has quite strong aroma and taste, and to be brutally honest, I have only seen good use for celery stalks as a decor on Bloody Mary. Okey there is another use where celery is just spot on, it’s Waldorf Salad no doubt about it.
NakedPlateBlog Raw Coconut and Celery Salad
I am not sure if January is particularly season of local organic celery, but I was happy to find from our local organic produce market Emirates grown celery and the price was 37 UAE dirhams per kilo, fair I would say. Another key ingredient is fresh white flesh of coconut. We have Sri Lankan coconuts in normal corner shop less than 2 dirhams per kilo and ready made grated coconut 3.90 per 250g from local veggie company Barakat. Ready grated coconut is handy and fast to use, but shelf life is rather short, rarely available at my local shop. It reads production date 01/01/2014 and exp 02/02/2014, how they even managed to deliver the box to be on sale one day only. I heard Barakat have state of the art production factory at Jebel Ali Free Zone, so it really is fresh near-food.

Make the recipe of 3 ingredients Raw Coconut and Celery Salad, You’ll love it. It’s absolutely healthy, having celery is good for your digestive tract, it’s full of antioxidants and makes good anti-inflammatory support. Coconut is great for increasing nutrient absorption of fat soluble vitamins like Vitamin D, A and E and is improves bone health. Need I say more to convince you?!

Raw Coconut and Celery Salad recipe

Serves 2

8 fresh celery stalks (keep leaves for garnish)
5 tbs fresh grated coconut

For dressing
3 tbs thick natural yoghurt (if normal yoghurt used, drain excess water in paper coffee filter)
1 garlic clove, crushed
pinch of salt
1/2 lemon, juice (grate some lemon zest to garnish)

For garnish fresh mint and celery leaves

Grate the celery stalks or cut with knife to as thin julienne style strips as you can. Mix with grated coconut.
Mix all dressing ingredients and pour the dressing over raw coconut and celery, garnish with fresh mint and celery leaves and pinch of grates lemon zest.

If you do not have fresh coconut, you may substitute it with dessicated coconut, just soak it in water for 1 hour and squeeze excess water out before using.
NakedPlateBlog Coconut and Celery raw
NakedPlateBlog celery raw
The “RAW” foodphotography challenge #1 – 2014 by Simone van den Berg. I met Simone at Meeta K. Wolff’s Dubai Food Photo Workshop on last October 2013. Both Meeta and Simone are amazing photographers. Please check their blogs if you love absolutely stunning food photos and styling. What’s For Lunch Honey? and Simones Kitchen. I have learned tiny mini bit from both of them and keep on learning more. Simone is hosting food photography challenge with theme “Raw” until February 20th, 2014. This post is my input and attempt to kick my butt to take more photos because that’s the reason I have not been blogging for a while, I have set bar too high. I decided just start taking pictures and see where I’ll end. Click LINK to read more about Food Photography Challenge.

Here’s my “raw” themed photos for Simones challenge. I had some challenge indeed to open and break that coconut hence hammer in the picture.
NakedPlateBlog Coconut raw
NakedPlateBlog coconut raw2

Filed Under: blog, Recipes Tagged With: celery, coconut, foodphotography, raw, salad

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My name is Minna Herranen, I am from Finland, currently based on Dubai. A half of my heart belongs to Egypt, I fell in love to Egypt and Egyptian(s) years ago when I visited there first time. Read More…

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