Although I tend to make dinner with cooked whole grains, since evening is the perfect time to nurture our body with warm wholesome food that nourishes and grounds our body, it is beautiful to have a spacious dinner from time to time with homemade sourdough bread and various dishes together. It has a different quality to the meal experience. Personally, this also brings me back to the time I was living in Europe, where I learned the beauty of experiencing mealtime in spaciousness with conversation and appreciation of the course menu.
Here on this Sunday dinner, we didn’t have any course menu, but I prepared different dishes that would go well with each other, as well as with the bread.
Today’s Menu
- Whole spelt sourdough bread
- Zucchini soup (recipe here)
- Savory black lentils (recipe here)
- Green salad
- Pickled cucumber
- Lightly marinated celery salad
- Seasonal fruits with coconut-cashew probiotic whipped cream for dessert
Whole spelt sourdough bread
I have been exploring and refining my whole spelt sourdough bread for over a year. I personally don’t digest wheat products well (though durum wheat works somewhat better for my system). Also, breads baked with yeast do not make my body happy. Therefore, baking sourdough spelt bread myself has been a wonderful alternative to enjoy bread. Whole grain sourdough spelt bread is not easy to make to satisfy my expectation for the consistency, as spelt does not rise the bread as well as wheat does, and it is more so when it is with whole grain spelt flour. But these days, I have been finding the way to bake it so that it rises more and is softer and moister in texture. If you have any tips and inputs for my ever-refining practice of baking, please let me know!
Zucchini soup
Zucchini soup is one of our favorite soups in the summer time. It is beautifully creamy, with a lightly bitter flavor and is so delicious. Especially when you add some sautéed mushrooms and vegan sour cream… we are sighing with delight when we eat this. You can find the recipe here.
Savory black lentils
Another favorite of ours is the savory black lentil! This is just so delicious that we cannot stop. This dish is a wonderful protein source, and eating black colors are very healthy and important. You can find more about it here together with its recipe.
Salad and pickles
Raw food such as salad, marinated vegetables, and pickles brings a typical summer feeling to the meal. I mixed three different beautiful kinds of lettuce we got at the farmers market with some home made dressing. I usually won’t add any salt in my dressing, but this time, as I used the marinating liquid of the celery dish to make the dressing, there is some salt in it. (Look below the recipe for the celery dish.) The cucumber pickles were the last ones from the batch I made late last summer. It is time to finish those ones as the cucumber season of this year has just started!
Lightly marinated celery salad
The lightly marinated celery salad was the invention of the day. As I wanted to make one more vegetable dish, I saw some celery stalks in the fridge and thought of making something lovely with them. It turned out so beautifully with the lemon juice and lemon zest. Crisp, fresh, and gentle.
freshly cut celery 
massaged with the salt and marinated with lemon juice
Lightly marinated celery salad
Celery
Salt
Black pepper
Lemon juice
Lemon zest
Olive oil
- Cut the celery in thin slices diagonally. This will make longer shapes which brings pleasant consistency to eating. You can cut celery lengthwise, but it will then leave the long fiber. Also, a diagonal cut will allow the flavor to permeate into the celery better.
- Put the cut celery in a bowl, add some salt and massage the celery to break down the fiber. Add some lemon juice, grind some black pepper, then cover the bowl to let it sit in the fridge for over an hour.
- When you are ready to serve, take out the bowl from the fridge. Drain the liquid into another container. (This can be used for the salad dressing!) Add some lemon zest and mix. Then serve on the plate and add a drizzle of olive oil on the top.
