Macrobiotic summer menu

Grain: Polenta with fresh corn
Protein: Red Lentil Sauce with Dandelion Leaf Condiment
Seaweed: Arame with Sunflower Seeds, Chives & Mustard
Vege: Carrots and Broccoli with Ume Dill Dressing
Pickle: Cucumber Pickle
Dessert: Poached Peaches in Lemon Sauce


Until a couple months ago "macrobiotic diet" conjured up vague images of 70s hippies subsisting on brown rice and steamed veggies. Turns out, while there is plenty of that going on, macrobiotic cooking has its basis in Japanese traditional foods and Chinese medicine. Like other cuisines we've studied, it calls for a plant heavy diet of whole foods, emphasizing seasonal, local and organic. From a culinary perspective, a macrobiotic meal has an elegant balance of flavors and textures.

This meal is mixed and matched from summer menus at this fabulous website. If you're at all interested, it offers a short, non-dogmatic introduction to macrobiotic cooking and seasonally inspired menus.

I'll excerpt the explanation of Menu Planning:

The components of a complete menu include:

* Grain
* Protein
* Sea Vegetable
* Vegetables:
long cooked
short cooked/raw
* Pickles
* Dessert (optional)

To get an idea of this structure that incorporates the Seven Components, the Food Categories, the Expansive and Contractive Forces, the Five Element Theory, and Acid and Alkaline, here are four menu suggestions for the different seasons. Can you feel how each menu feels appropriate for the season? (Note the 5 tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and sharp and the three textures: creamy, crunchy and chewy.)

I can't tell you how impressed I was with these recipes. Few ingredients with clear instructions, that came together exactly as promised! I even entertained guests to rave reviews with the leftovers days later! (With all of about 5 minutes prep - browning the polenta, plopping everything onto the plate.) Go ahead, I dare you to make this food and not feel ridiculously nourished and pleased with yourself.

Macrobiotic pantry ingredients I had to buy:
Arame and Kombu - mmm seaweed! A good excuse for me to branch out beyond sushi nori. Whole Foods has a good pictoral guide to "sea vegetables."
Kuzu - Known as a weed in the south, it's a thickener like arrowroot or corn starch.
Ume plum vinegar - fermented from umeboshi plums, a traditional japanese food. I found it next to the rice wine vinegar, for the same price.
Shoyu - Unpasteurized soy sauce.