A Christmas light, biological, ecological. Or maybe vegetarian or vegan. Mission Impossible? No, if you choose Christmas ecoricette. For which you need a lot of eco-friendly, maybe ecoriadattando traditional recipes. Here then some ideas.

Clams, rabbit and strudel

Let's start from the first goal, that of the lightness. To make Christmas parties less heavy without giving up taste, the watchword is only one: vegetables. And many, not the usual ones. As an appetizer, for example, you can bet on the elegant bundles stuffed with escarole, sort of mini-pizzas with escarole, a typical recipe of Neapolitan cuisine. As a first, another classic of the Center-South as the linguine with clams and tomatoes it can be revisited simply by decreasing the extra virgin olive oil and using the liquid of the clams and a dash of white wine. Otherwise, for a fish menu during the Christmas Eve dinner, you can bet onpaccheri with pumpkin and prawns, followed by one sepia baked in the oven with peas accompanied by asalad of fennel, lettuce or escarole, walnuts and oranges. Good also the seafood salads and i artichokes. For the little ones, an excellent light alternative to chips fries are those baked, boiled for about ten minutes, cut into a match and then brush with extra-virgin olive oil. And the meat? For a perfect light Christmas lunch you can focus on the rediscovery of one of the lightest, tastiest and most digestible white meats: the rabbit. Maybe to cook on a pan simply with extra virgin olive oil, white wine, olives, rosemary, garlic, sage and tomato paste. As a sweet, a beautiful strudel of Apple. But without exaggerating …

Territory mon amour

For a Christmas of eco-sustainability, the advice is to focus on strictly seasonal products it's at zero kilometer, which have to travel less and therefore lead to fewer emissions into the atmosphere. Radicchio, chicory. Turnip tops, carrots, artichokes, celery, radishes, mushrooms, beans, pumpkin, escarole, lettuce, endive, leeks, fennel, spinach, beet. The same applies to the fish, of which besides the seasonality it is necessary to evaluate the sustainability of the fishing techniques used as well as the species that is being purchased. At the risk of extinction there are the red tuna, theeel (but there are also breeding), swordfish, cod, race, salmon, tropical shrimp, even anchovies and sardines. The meat, once again, is in the crosshairs: it is estimated that livestock farms are responsible, on their own, for 18% of emissions the atmosphere. However, replacing meat would imply consumption in larger quantities of vegetables, legumes and other ingredients, and therefore one greater quantity of goods transported and a negative impact on emissions. It is therefore necessary to aim, even here, on local meats, verifying the traceability and maybe choosing farms that use products biological for feeding their animals. The Italian breedingin general, they are among the most environmentally sustainable in the world: a recent search for Assica, Assocarni and Unitalia – source of part, but no less authoritative – has calculated that the carbon footprint (ie the amount of greenhouse gas emissions generated along the supply chain) of meat, in a week, is 5.9 kg of CO2 equivalent , just over 5.6 kg of fruit and vegetables.

Pack of veggie recipes (and some even vegan)

For a Christmas vegetarian and vegan, the literature of alternative recipes, here, is now exterminated. Here we can limit ourselves to launching a series of ideas. Among the starters, for example, you can bet on pumpkin fritters, cabbage and potatoes; sweet and sour onions; Raw spinach salad with walnuts, pine nuts, balsamic vinegar and pears. And then, why not, a nice mix of fried vegetables. Among the first, the vegetarian lasagna now it's a classic, be it with i mushrooms or al pesto or a more original lasagna alle nettles. But among the first the mission proves quite easy: for pumpkin tortelli, ravioli and tagliatelle you can resort to the truffle, ai mushrooms, to the chicory, alle walnuts and so on and so forth. Not to mention the risotto with barolo or amarone. One of the most original ideas can be one polenta vegan with spinach puree and chicoryor a lemon risotto with cabbage leaves. The difficult one arrives between the seconds: but if you clear the le lentils from the New Year's Eve dinner, the mission immediately becomes easier with recipes like the meatloaf of lentils, chickpeas and beans, or based on vegetables; and then the most Roman artichokes filled with breadcrumbs, pecorino romano and balsamic vinegar; until the smoked scamorza cake with chicory and potatoes. Also interesting is the bundle of ricotta with chives, while for an unusually delicious dish you can resort to le fried polenta bars. And for the dessert? All easy for vegetarians who can afford almost anything, a little less for vegans. But that can be consoled: from panettone to the Pandoro, from the Nougat to the Genoa Cake, all these delicacies exist now also in the vegan version.