Comforting Recipes For These Days Of Confinement

Food is, without a doubt, basic to keep us in good health. But it is not only the body that is nourished by food, so does our mood. And many times what we feel like, in a moment of nervousness or emotional discomfort, are not healthy foods. We fancy those meals that remind us of happy moments, in which we felt safe. Many times, we long for childhood meals, grandmother’s recipes, or those summer snacks on the beach.

These days of confinement at home, cooking can be an ideal exercise to de-stress. Paying full attention to an activity helps us disconnect from overinformation, social media and constant news about the coronavirus.

If, in addition, the reward is a delicious dish that transports us to a happy moment, we will be able to feed our well-being as well as our happiness.

The recipes that you will find below want to be a middle point between healthy eating and that dish that you like so much, making it vegetable and more sustainable.

1. Pasta with creamy carrot cheese

Deep down, what we like is cheese, and we can make a quick and delicious vegetable at home. This is the recipe for an ideal sauce to eat with macaroni, which you can also make with spiralized vegetables.

Ingredients:

• 3 carrots
• 1 large potato
• 2 heaping tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 2 tablespoons of virgin olive oil
• Salt

How to prepare the cheese:

1. It is as easy as boiling the carrots and potatoes, well cleaned and peeled, until they are soft. It will be faster if they are cut into medium pieces. We drain them well so that there is no excess water.
2. Afterwards, we beat all the ingredients until it is a creamy consistency.
3. If we want it more liquid, we add a little cooking water.

You can add mustard, pepper and garlic or the spices of your choice to give it taste and beat again, correcting what you miss.

2. Chickpea chorizo ​​stew

If the confinement catches you in bad weather, or in need of a hot dish, this vegetable stew comes to the rescue loaded with energy and flavor.

In addition, jars of legumes are one of the products that have disappeared from the shelves these days, so surely there are some extra jars in your house waiting for their opportunity.

It is very likely that you do not have vegetable chorizo ​​at home, but you do have paprika, which is the touch of flavor we are looking for.

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 400 g of cooked chickpeas
• 1 carrot
• 1 cup of natural crushed tomato
• 100 g frozen spinach
• 1 medium white onion
• 3 garlic cloves
• 2 tablespoons extra olive oil
• 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• Water or mild vegetable broth
• Salt

preparation:

1. We wash and clean all the vegetables well.
2. Finely chop the carrot, onion and garlic and fry them with the olive oil.
3. When everything is golden brown, add the crushed tomato, the thawed spinach and all the spices.
4. Mix well and cover with water or mild vegetable broth.
5. As the chickpeas are already cooked, it is not necessary to leave two fingers of liquid.
6. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes.
7. Add the chickpeas and cook 5-10 minutes over low heat, checking the consistency of the chickpeas.

A good trick to digest chickpeas better is to peel them.

3. Russian salad

So many hours at home, no matter how much we have things to do, can lead us to need to stop and have a snack. Or, why not, to make the vermouth from a distance. This Russian salad can be made with fresh vegetables, but also with those that you have in the freezer or in the pot.

The ingredients are indicative and you can add or remove as you have on hand.

If you don’t have vegetable textured proteins, you can skip the step.

Ingredients:

• 400 g of prebiotic cooked potato
• 80 g carrot
• 50 g peas
• 30 g pitted green olives (about 10)
• 20 g fine textured soybeans
• Water, tamari and a strip of wakame seaweed to hydrate the textured soybeans
• 1 teaspoon of olive oil
• 2 heaping tablespoons vegan
• 1 can or can of piquillo peppers to decorate

preparation:

1. We will hydrate the fine textured soybeans in very hot water, with a jet of tamari or soy sauce and the wakame seaweed.
2. In the event that the textured soy protein is not fine, you will need to cook it along with the ingredients. When it is soft, drain well, remove the seaweed and let it temper. We drain again, pressing, add the teaspoon of olive oil and reserve in a container.
3. If the vegetables are fresh, we wash and peel them well and cut into small dice. We cook the vegetables separately, steamed, for a few minutes. The steamed potato is made in 10 in case you do not have it already made.
4. In a container, add the potato, the peas and the carrot first.
5. We laminate the olives and incorporate them. You can leave some to decorate.
6. We add the textured soy and the vegan and mix everything well.
7. Decorate with the piquillo pepper strips and olives.

4. Vegan Bravas

It is more than likely that to make this recipe you do not have sweet potatoes and that you do not dare to make them with apple, so we are going to go directly to the usual base ingredient: the potato.

So that the potato does not absorb so much oil, we steam them beforehand for ten minutes, well washed, but without peeling. If you have cooked potato, even better, because you can take advantage of its prebiotic effect. We cut the potato into cubes in bravas format.

You can fry the potatoes in very hot abundant oil or grill them.

The brava sauce that I propose is very simple.

Ingredients:

• 300 g of tomato paste
• 1 medium white onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 teaspoons sweet paprika
• 1 teaspoon hot paprika
• 1 teaspoon ground cayenne
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 slice of stale bread
• 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt

preparation:

1. Peel the garlic clove and onion and cut them fine. We place it in a small saucepan, with the olive oil and poach well.
2. Add the tomato and cook over low heat for 10 minutes.
3. We turn off the heat, add the rest of the ingredients and beat. The slice of bread will give us texture and thickness.
4. The spiciness of this recipe is quite low, so rectify with cayenne, chili or paprika until it is to your liking.
5. Serve the potatoes still hot with the salsa brava. You can add tofunesa if you want an extra protein.