Just as the big catwalks announce the trends of the year, color is also an element to follow worldwide. Last year is was an apple-green called greenery and this year it’s ultra violet. So, if we take this to the kitchen, we can predict the “healthiest year in history.” I’ll tell you why.
Vegetables, tubers, grains and fruits with this ultra violet color are full of healing powers. Wherever you put them looks spectacular and if they help to keep up with health, they have to be in your twelve months of the year.
The purple versions of cabbage, carrot, potato, cauliflower, beet or beet, lettuce, onion, olives, plums, grapes, blackberries, radishes, blueberries, beans and even figs fall in this category.
These fruits and vegetables generally are full of antioxidants and nutrients that protect our cells and heal our bodies. It’s said that they help lower blood pressure, improve circulation, eye health, decrease the development of cancer cells and help with the inflammation of our body and organs in general.
Therefore, when you go to make yourself a salad, eat a fruit snack, put some vegetables in the oven, make a shake, sauté or prepare a soup or puree, think of ultra violet power and live better.
Follow my weekly Facebook Live for more ideas and recipes with this ultra power. And remember, always bring a variety of colors, tastes and textures to your meals.
Caponata Latina Ultra Violet Recipe
A typical Italian recipe and famous in Sicilian cuisine. It’s like a “ratatouille or pisto” or in other words, a sautéed almost vegetable stew that we can eat hot or cold.
What I did was make my version of the caponata, but substituting the ingredients that I could for Latin products. So, go ahead and prepare it so that even if you do it on Sunday you will be able to reinvent it with it during the week and I assure you that it tastes even better than what it has just been done.
You can serve it as a companion to any meat, chicken or fish or serve as an antipasto for a party with fresh bread or cookies.
What you should have:
- 2 pounds of fresh eggplant
- 1 medium red onion
- 2 pear tomatoes
- 10 black pitted seedless olives cut in half (or kalamata)
- 3 piquillo peppers (or peppers)
- 1 small chile serrano without veins or seeds cut it in small pieces
- 2 cloves of fresh garlic, finely chopped
- 1 1/2 tbsp of vinegar of Jerez (sherry wine)
- 1 1/2 tbsp of agave honey (or honey)
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 1 tbsp of fresh coriander
- Salt and pepper to taste
What you should do:
Chop the eggplant with peel and all, in squares of a little less than an inch. Add salt and leave in a strainer in a deep container to release moisture while you cut the other ingredients.
Cut the onion, tomatoes and peppers in equal proportion to the size of the eggplant.
In a skillet in medium high temperature, add the olive oil and sauté the garlic for a minute. Then add the serrano and fry for another minute while stirring.
Then add the onion and sauté until it starts to turn translucent and then add the tomato and eggplant and fry for another five minutes or until the eggplant is cooked. Continue stirring so that it does not stick and everything mixes well.
When the eggplant is cooked, add the peppers, olives, vinegar, honey and stir everything well.
Add salt, pepper to taste.
Finally, add the cilantro and remove from the heat. It is ready to eat hot or as soon as it loses temperature it takes to the refrigerator and then to serve cold on a toast of bread or salty biscuit. The next day he will know a lot better.
If you can’t find the piquillo that comes in a pot or can, use normal peppers. The sherry vinegar can be substituted for any “sherry wine”, botijas for Kalamatas, agave honey for honey or brown sugar or cane and serrano for red pepper or jalapeño pepper or poblano.
Doreen Colondres is a celebrity chef. Author of the book The Kitchen Does not Bite. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram @DoreenColondres and visit www.LaCocinaNoMuerde.com, www.TheKitchenDoesntBite.com