Get a taste of our seasonal Healthy Eating series

We’ve teamed up with naturopath and medical herbalist Paloma Velásquez to produce a series of seasonal Healthy Eating workshops.

The workshops feature vegetables, fruit and foraged ‘weeds’ grown in EcoMatters organic gardens.

We’re sharing some tips and recipes from the series to help inspire some new ideas for healthy eating in your home.

An easy gluten-free staple

Arepas are made from ground maize and just two other very simple ingredients. They are a staple of Colombian and Venezualan cuisines and once cooked, can be filled with almost anything you fancy.

In our workshops we’ve filled them with chickweed spread, broad bean dip or pumpkin seed pesto, fresh salad and feta. Yum!

In this video, Paloma shows us what to look for in the perfect arepas mixture.

How to make Arepas

You will need the following ingredients:

2 cups pre-cooked cornflour (look for arepa flour, masa harina, masa arepa, Harina PAN, Dona Arepa, NOT the cornflour often used in NZ to thicken sauces etc.)
Salt, or other spices, to taste
2 ½ cups of water (approx.)
Oil for frying (or these can be baked in the oven)

Measure cornflour into a bowl, then add enough water to create a dough. You are looking for a texture that you can roll into a ball without it sticking to your hands.

You can make these as big or small as you like, but Paloma recommends a flattened disk of dough about the size of your palm. These can be shallow fried in oil for about 5 minutes each side.

Once cooked, eat as they are, or split and fill with your choice of filling(s).

A nutritious edible ‘weed’

Chickweed is a nutritious edible ‘weed’ which you may well find popping up in your autumn garden.

Also known as Stellaria media, it grows close to the ground in cool places.

Chickweed is packed with vitamins and minerals like iron, magnesium, zinc, calcium, potassium and vitamins A, C, B complex and D.

In this video, Paloma introduces us to chickweed and how it can be used.

Learn more about chickweed here.

You can also use chickweed to make a tasty pesto, which is great with arepas! Try this delicious chickweed pesto, kindly shared with us from the learningherbs.com website.

Chickweed Pesto

2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
2-3 cups freshly picked young chickweed leaves
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
dash of sea salt
handful of walnuts (optional)
tablespoon of lemon juice (optional)
lemon zest (optional)

Place all the ingredients in a food processor.

Our Healthy Eating workshops

Dr. Paloma Velásquez is a Chilean Medical Doctor, registered Naturopath and Medical Herbalist (NMHNZ), and founder of Aruraqi.com

She has been working closely with our EcoHub Education and Community Garden Coordinator Meg Liptrot to create the EcoMatters Healthy Eating seasonal series of workshops, using vegetables, fruits and foraged ‘weeds’ from our organic garden.

To learn more about these workshops or to suggest other workshops, please email Meg.