Autumn Round-up

These words come a bit late. A lot late in fact. January and February are weird months, I’m not really sure how I feel, what I do or what to do, if I’m living or hibernating. So in a way, whatever happened in the Autumn is my latest memory of being active and vibrant, both states of being that I’m missing right now.

The season started beautifully with an equinox gathering of like-minded women. Sometimes I forget how much I love hosting parties, and these gatherings mean the world to me. Each one of us contributes with something to eat, drink or beautify the table; the feeling I’m aiming for is one of community and sisterhood. I’m also trying to have as many women from around here as possible, to break the pattern of having to meet up in Lisbon because that’s where everything happens (not true!).

A few days later I celebrated my birthday. I bittersweet one this year: I cried for the first time on what used to be the happiest day of the year for me. A deep sadness took over me, one I was only able to sooth with a long warm bath, a self-care ritual I adopted after my trip to Japan a couple of years ago. By the end of the day, and also thanks to some of my dearest friends who came over to celebrate the day with me, I was happy again, like I was supposed and used to be.

The weeks following my birthday were some of the most blissful of the year. The weather was magnificent, I spent time with people I love, I cooked, went for long walks on empty beaches, I surfed and laughed. And then one day I got this sort of intuition telling me to go to Toronto. Other than the fact that my mum had a distant cousin living there, I had no connection with Canada, nor any intention to visit it any time soon. Plus I had been there, in Vancouver, back in 2014 during my trip around the world. The intuition persisted and by the end of November, right on the brink of yet another covid-related world crisis, I decided to hop on a plane and head to Toronto.

I can’t stress enough times to anyone I tell this story that I really didn’t want to go, I felt like I had to go. I remember telling my mum “I just want to go and get back as quickly as possible, because it means that everything went well”. And everything did go very well. And felt very well too. After almost two years it felt so liberating to travel long-distance again, I definitely got my mojo back. I prefer to travel for long periods too, but this time I opted for just one week. It was enough to wander not only in Toronto but also in Montreal.

Despite the short amount of time, I didn’t change the way I normally like to travel, where walking and just experiencing the place’s daily life take precedence over packing as many touristy attractions one possibly can in as little time possible. This cover-the-ground attitude allows me to have a sense of freedom and ease everywhere I go, while also lending itself to casual findings, like a little but bountiful gourmet grocery store called the Harvest Wagon, or allowing me to act on my whims, like heading straight to Milk Bar for a Chocolate Confetti cookie as soon as I left the luggage in my room. I experienced Toronto as an easy place to live, simple but comfortable, with straightforward and healthy-ish vibes. Given that I only stayed for a couple of days, I don’t have unbiased recommendations. Still, most places I went to I’d surely go back again, like The Library, where I had one of the best coffee lattes ever (it tasted like cacao and the texture was smoother than other lattes, maybe because I chose to have it with macadamia milk), or Impact Kitchen, where I had the kind of healthy, nutrient-dense meals I’d have at home (went there twice exactly for this reason).

After a day in Toronto I took a train to Montreal, where I stayed for a few more days. I ended up exploring Montreal more than Toronto, quickly walking from neighborhood to neighborhood, with a provision of bagels to keep me fueled during my explorations. Montreal is a foodie city, so walking was indeed key, crucial to work on my appetite because as tempting as it was to only feed myself out of bagels of all kinds of flavors (cinnamon and raisins, blueberries, rosemary, sesame, poppy seeds, onion and garlic) I also wanted to try a few inspiring and innovative plant-based restaurants. I ended up going to Casa Kaizen, a Mexican-Japanese at Plateau Mont-Royal, and to the city-centre LOV, one of the four locations this restaurant has in Montreal.

Another element I have to thank for when it comes to exploring a foodie place is the cold weather. The amount of cafes I went just to have a warm drink was ridiculous. From that never-ending list, Café Nocturne, White Heron Coffee, and Le Petit Dep stood out. No trip of mine would be complete without the usual visit to a local market, and in Montreal apparently there’s no better place to shop than in Jean Talon Market.

One thing that this trip brought to my attention was snacks, or more precisely what constitutes a good & yummy snack. I never really thought about the structure of a snack. For me a snack was a piece fruit, a handful of nuts, or a protein bar. But during this trip I happened to come across a Bulk Barn, and OMG, I was in ecstasy. I don’t know if it was the abundance, the cold weather making me extra lickerish, or the fact that I was about to take a six-hour train ride, I just wanted to take a bag of each of the dozens of snack mixes they had. Serendipitously, this article landed on my email just a few days after returning from my trip, and back home, I couldn’t help but recreate my favorite Bulk Barn snack, the Peanut Butter Bananza, with a few substitutions and additions.

My Peanut Butter Bananza

I'm afraid I didn't take notes on the quantities I used, but this is not the kind of recipe that will be significantly hurt by not following the correct measurements. So, in a bowl I mixed:
1/3 cup salted peanuts
1/3 cup banana chips
1/3 cup caramelized almonds
1/4 cup chocolate chips
1 small packet of Reese's mini peanut butter cups
1 packet of Urban Foods caramel peanuts
1 packet of Urban Foods cocoa pops
1 bar of Mealworm Bites peanut butter and honey, chopped,
and placed it all in an air-tight container. I won't bother saying how long it lasts because this is highly addictive and you'll probably go over it in a couple of days.

Makes about 3 cups

A Winter Solstice gift to you

Dear readers,

Many of you asked me for the recipe of the sweet potato and chestnut purée that I have been doing and posting on Instagram over the past weeks, so here it is.

This is a very filling dish and I find that it works best with roasted or broiled light vegetables, such as fennel. It also makes a sweet treat when blended with cacao powder or mixed with maple syrup, sprinkled with cinnamon or lightly flavoured with vanilla.

Sweet potato and chestnut purée

4 medium yellow sweet potatos, whole and very well washed
500g chestnuts
500ml almond milk, or other non-flavoured plantbased milk
Salt to taste

Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC. Pierce the sweet potatos, wrap them in foil or baking paper and place them in the oven to bake for 1h-1h30 or until soft. In the meantime, make a small cut on the chestnuts and boil them in salted water for 30min or until soft. Drain and peel the chestnuts, both the thick peel and the thin one. Once the potatos are soft, peel them and place in a blender, along with the chestnuts and half of the milk. Season with salt and blend until smooth. Keep adding milk until you reach the desired consistency. Serve warm.

Serves 6-8 as a side dish

I hope you enjoy it! Wishing you a peaceful Christmas,

Warmly,

Diana

The day the coolest guys came visit

It was a warm summer morning when scrolling through my Inbox I saw the subject “Portuguese Land Rovers” an e-mail sent by Huckberry, a long-time guilty pleasure newsletter (it’s 99% focused on outdoorsy men stuff…), that makes me crave for adventures and wild expeditions.

I remember perfectly the mix of curiosity, excitement and pride when I clicked to read it. “A Portuguese brand on Huckberry’s Journal? A-mazing!” I thought. I had previously seen some Portuguese brands being sold at Huckberry’s online store, but this was a proper feature on Cool & Vintage, a company dedicated to restoring vintage Land Rovers.

Fast-forward a few months and a couple of reciprocate courtesies, and Zé Pedro Alvarez, Cool & Vintage’s talented photographer suggested we meet.

“Let’s do something, you know, with one of our jeeps, and your food and wandering spirit, in Arrábida” he said. I obviously replied “Of course!”, not exactly knowing what that “something” meant.

So I kind of went with the flow, trying to keep up with all the coolness of the situation. Along with Zé Pedro came the brand’s CEO and Founder Ricardo Pessoa, both armed with a couple of small but still intimidating cameras.

I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to take the food on the jeep, or if we were to only do a photoshoot inside, so I decided to make a simple soup and a couple of desserts, one a bit fancier than the other, both quite experimental/improvised, everything very seasonal.

The task at hands was to cook something that resonated with my style of cooking but also with their brand image, good enough to eat and pretty enough to take photos, while keeping an interesting conversation with two persons I’ve never met before AND trying to (barely) look good - myself and the kitchen - for the gazillion photos they were taking.

I failed miserably on the quantity of food and my hair looked messy after the cooking session but everything else went kind of well. At the end of the day I think they left hungry but happy.

It was a delight to get to know and chat with both Zé Pedro and Ricardo. The two have very distinct personalities and life paths, they love what they do and for me that’s the greatest inspiration. They put a great deal of attention in all sorts of details, being the jeeps they restore or the pictures they take of them, carefully constructing the right setting, to evoke the right feeling.

That feeling you are probably feeling right now, the one where you can picture yourself leaving all the business of your life, get inside this Land Rover and take the Freedom road towards Summerland.

And if by any chance you decide to take action on your feeling, I hope you have the time to make and pack a thermos of the soup we had on this day.

Celeriac and Chestnut soup

150g chestnuts, previously boiled or roasted and peeled
250g celeriac, peeled and roughly diced
2-3 cups of water or homemade vegetable stock
1 small piece of Ceylon cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste

Place all the ingredients into a medium size pan, bring to the boil and simmer for about 30 minutes or until the chestnuts and celeriac are very soft. Remove the cinnamon piece and process the soup until smooth. I like to use the smoothie’s blender for this but a hand blender will work as well. Return the soup to the pan and re-heat without boiling.

To serve:
A knob of ghee or butter
A handful of mushrooms (Shiitake and Portobello are my favorites)
1 or 2 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
Salt to taste
Freshly grated orange zest
2 slices of sourdough bread

Melt the ghee on a grilling pan and add the mushrooms and sage. Fry for a couple of minutes, season with salt and set aside. Place the bread slices on the pan and grill for a few minutes on each side. In the meantime, pour the soup in bowls, place a spoonful of mushrooms on top and finish with the orange zest. Serve immediately with a slice of grilled bread.

Serves 2

Head over to Cool & Vintage’s Journal for more about this day.

Fig chutney

It’s been a bountiful fig season this year. After eating them freshly picked for breakfast, lunch and dinner, having them in salads and tarts, I decided to use the last ones on the fig tree to make a chutney.

A chutney by definition is a condiment that consists in a reduction of fruit, vinegar and sugar. For this one, along the figs I used red onions and raisins as the “fruit base” and a mix of ginger, lemon zest, cinnamon, cloves and peppercorns for extra flavour.

I’ve been eating this chutney with Ayurvedic kind of food, like red lentil daal, kitchari, vegetable curry or with plain basmati rice and steamed vegetable. You can also have it on a piece of toast, with cheese or meat.

Fig Chutney

1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tbsp ginger, peeled and finely diced
1/3 cup aplle cider vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup raisins
Juice and zest of a lemon
1 cinnamon stick
2 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp peppercorns
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground cloves
500gr fresh figs, stemmed and diced

In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil and cook the onion until very soft. Add the remaining ingredients except the figs and cook for 10-15 minutes. Add the figs and cook for 30 minutes. To reach the desired consistency use the hand blender to process the mixture (I prefer this than to cook it longer), leaving some chunks for texture. Pour the chutney into sterilized jars and cover with lid while still hot.

Makes 2 cups