As you’ve probably noticed … of course, it’s obvious … this blog is my « real » life.

I’m not cooking because I want to fulfill my blog, but I’m cooking and I post on my blog.

I’m not taking pictures of only good looking dishes because they look nice, but because they taste good and we have been enjoying them.

First I was a cook, and a great food lover.

Then I got into organic food because for me it’s an evidence. Nature has gifted us with wonderful products that are available for us, and in most cases they don’t need anything to grow naturally apart from a good soil, sun and water. It’s only because some wanted to be more productive that they added pesticides and fertilizers….and sorry for that but I don’t believe it’s to give food to everyone. I believe in agro-ecology and training for people to harvest their lands on a humain scale and not on an industrial scale. But still, some people have a strongest influence and reflexion on that than me, I think for example about Pierre Rabhi. What I can do here, is to give you good recipes and help you to introduce organic, healthy and tasty food in your lives.

Then I understood better the implications of eating organic and reducing consumption of meat and fish and balancing with eating more vegetal products, for that the « Mediterranean diet » is absolutely perfect for me.

Finally, I’m experiencing a Vegan challenge, getting rid of any kind of animal products for a period of 40 Days, and believe me or not, it’s a real challenge. Real vegan people are admirable people. Temptations are very very strong and you have to be extremely convinced and have a really heavy personality to manage this (of course it’s even a little harder when you have to cook not vegan for the rest of the family). I really love this challenge and enjoy every moments of this period but I know I will give an end to this. But still it’s a moment for me to enjoy what as been given to us in terms of vegetal, and it’s tremendously rich and not boring at all. It’s a perfect moment for me to have a deep reflexion on what we are doing with our Earth and it’s also a way to « react » at my very very small level and to say it’s not possible to carry on this way.

As a consumer I have a great role to play, saying no to a way of life and a way of consuming. Some of us are getting more and more aware about it, preventing ourself from buying some products we don’t believe anymore into is a way of acting in that sense. Of course, it will not stop the all process, but it can make sense to some people around us and spread over…let’s hope for a good futur for our children and add something to their lives instead of taking all from them without thinking for their future on Earth.

Any small act is important and if for one meal you can do something it will have a repercussion, because you’ll feel so much better that you’ll certainly want to carry on and on and attract some people on your path. Now let’s go back to recipes. And as I said it’s real life, so today I’m cooking my left over brown-wild-red rice to prepare a nice « gratin » oven-baked dish.

Ingredients

– a good leftover of brown rice
– 2 small zucchinis or 1 large
– 100 gr of black pitted Kalamata olives
– 1/2 bunch of Italian parsley chopped (or fresh basil)

– to cover, I pan-fried some cherries tomatoes with olive oil and provence herbs : Yummy !!

Recipe

Place the rice in a large bowl. Roughly chop the black olives, and the parsley. Grate the zucchini with the large face. Mix together and pour some olive oil. Place in your dish and in the oven to heat for 15 minutes 200 degrees C. In the meantime, heat a pan with some olive oil and place some cherry tomatoes to heat for 3 minutes, stir well and pour some provence herbs on top. Serve hot.

Plus de restes !! No more left overs !!