Roasted Vegetable Salad and Couscous

This can take a while, but it’s fairly low on contact time. It’s a little Moroccan inspired and if you make a big batch it makes a really good lunch as well.

Oil

Pumpkin – 1/2 cubed

Carrot – halved lengthways and then cut about 3cm

Zucchini – halved lengthways and cut about 3cm

Mushroom – 6 Portobello and 6 button

Asparagus – 1 bunch

Chickpeas – 2 cans drained, rinsed and dried

Roquette – couple handfuls

Mixed spice

Cinnamon

Cumin

Fennel seeds

Kale – 1/2 bunch

Couscous – 3 cups

Cranberries – 4tbsp

Lemon juice – 1 lemon

Salt

Roasty things:

Season the pumpkin, carrot, zucchini, mushroom, asparagus, chickpeas and kale with oil, mixed spice, cinnamon, cumin and fennel seeds but try to keep the veggies separate from each other. Roast for about 20-30 minutes at 220C or until fork tender. you may need to do this in batches. you can leave this for as long as you need, it’s good hot or cold.

Cook your couscous according to the package, then add your cranberries, lemon juice and season with salt to taste.

To assemble the salad: get a massive bowl and put down your roquette followed by the roasted veggies (minus the kale) and half of your chickpeas.

To assemble the couscous: stir through the rest of your chickpeas, your kale, cranberries and lemon juice.

To be completely honest, this made just about the right amount of roasted veggies, but it made waaaaay too much couscous. HOWEVER it keeps really well and you can have it cold for lunch for a few days and even though it has other stuff in it, you can still use it as a base for more exciting ingredients to mix in. so get creative with it, muffins! 🙂

P.S: Lunch the next day was pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Creamy Mushrooms and Kale

I’ll be honest, I tried kale in smoothies for a while and that put me off. I decided to give it another try and I thought cooking it would make it taste a bit better.

Garlic – 5 cloves minced

Mushrooms (mixture of button and portabello) – sliced

Kale – a few leaves shredded

Tahini – 2-3 tbsp but as much as you need to get a good sauce going

Water – 1/4-1/2 cup cold water

Salt

Sauté the garlic in a pan and then when the raw edge is gone add the mushrooms and cook down. When they’re soft add the kale and cook until wilted. Add tahini and water to make a nice consistency of sauce and season with salt.

I had this with a beer batard that was toasted lightly.

good start to the weekend

🙂

Deconstructed Sushi Plates

This is insanely good, easy, fresh and mostly raw.

What I used :

Cos lettuce – chopped

Baby spinach

Red cabbage – shredded

Red peppers -sliced and then cut into thirds

Carrots – shaved with vege peeler/mandoline

Avocado – sliced

Asparagus – cut into 3cm pieces and steamed

Smoked tofu – cut into cubes fried

Sesame seeds – toasted

Rice – 1 1/2 cups cooked then dressed with 4tbsp vinegar and 2tsp sugar

Tamari

Sriracha

I served as components and then it became a bit of a fun exercise trying to make your plate look the prettiest 🙂

This is awesome because you can pretty much use whatever you have in the fridge. Although this is true for most of the things I cook, I feel like this is particularly forgiving. And fun. So much fun. ALL THE COLOURS.

#getcreative

Quick Spaghetti Bolognese

This is for when I can sneak home for lunch between classes.

Cook your spaghetti according to the pack. For the sauce all you do is grate 1 whole zucchini straight into a frying pan with some oil, squish a can of tomato in a bowl and then add that to the zucchini when its cooked. Season with salt. Stir in pasta when its cooked. Add cooking water if needed, this helps make it a bit more saucy. Serve with a dollop of hummus and sprinkle with basil.

When you go to eat and stir in the hummus it adds this gorgeous creaminess. URGH. Try it. Like seriously. The zucchini gives it substance and makes it taste so freakin’ good.

The Nectarine Challenge

We got a tray of nectarines for $10 and it then became my mission to use them all in interesting ways so we wouldn’t have to throw any out.

This is that story:

Nectarine Bread

Bread Mixture:

Wholemeal flour – 1 1/2 cups

Raw sugar – 3/4 cup

Baking Powder – 2 tsp

Salt – 1/4 tsp

Vegetable Oil – 1/3 cup

Chia egg

Almond milk – 1/3 cup

Nectarines – 3 whole deseeded and diced 

Chia egg:

1 tbps ground up chia seeds

3 tbsp water

leave to sit for a few minutes until gloopy like an egg

Preheat oven to 200C.

Mix everything together and pour ingredients into a loaf tin. Bake for about 35 minutes, until golden brown and knife comes out clean. Cool for about 20 minutes before eating. Keeps for a few days at room temperature or a few more in the fridge.

Nectarine Cobbler

This recipe has two main components, the filling and the topping.

For the filling:

Nectarines – 5 sliced

Cold water – 1/2 cup cold

Raw sugar – 1/3 cup

Wholemeal flour – 1 tbsp

Coconut oil – 1 tbsp

For the topping:

Wholemeal flour – 1 cup

Raw sugar – 1/2 cup

Baking powder – 1 1/2 tsp

Almond milk – 1/2 cup

Coconut oil – 4 tbsp

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Pop the nectarines into a pan and add the rest of the ingredients for the filling. Cook until comes together. By that I mean that you want sort of a sticky saucy thing happening, don’t dry out too much because it will lose moisture in the oven as well.

To make the topping just mix the ingredients together, basically. You can soy milk or coconut milk if that floats your boat. And any vegetable oil will do, I just thought these were nice. 🙂

To assemble pour filling into medium sized and ungreased oven dish and then spoon topping over making sure you get good it spread evenly all over.

Bake for about 40 minutes until golden on top and cool for about 10 minutes before serving.

Honestly if I had another nectarine surplus I’d probably make the cobbler again just because it was slightly easier to make and faster, but mostly because it was such a good balance between being tart and fruity, but also had a kick of cake-y-ness but they were both nomtastic 🙂

Chickpeas and Cabbage

Onion – 1 whole onion sliced

Garlic – about 3 cloves minced

Mustard Seeds – 2 tsp

Cumin – 2 tsp

Tumeric – 2 tsp

Cabbage – half head shredded

Chickpeas – 1 can rinsed and dried

Peas – about a cup

Fry off the onion until translucent, then add garlic, cumin and mustard seeds and cook until they’re aromatic. Add in the cabbage and cook down. Add the chickpeas, then once they’re brown add in the peas. I used frozen so I just waited until they were heated through and served with basmati rice.

So quick and easy and delicious 🙂

Tempeh Stir Fry

So I had my first tempeh experience.

I still don’t know how I feel about it.

I kind of just made up this recipe blind so maybe if I had followed someone else’s it would’ve been better, who knows.

Ingredients:

Olive oil

Onion – 1 whole pealed and sliced

Garlic – about 7 cloves chopped finely (to taste)

Chilli – about 10 chopped finely (to taste)

Broccoli – 1 whole head cut into florets

Snake beans – small bunch cut into about 3-4cm lengths

Coconut Milk – about 1/4 cup

Tempeh – 1 pack cut into small cubes

Salt

With this I fried off the onion until translucent, then stirred in my garlic and chilli. While this is happening I fried my tempeh cubes in a frying pan to brown them off a bit. When the onion mixture was fragrant I added the broccoli and snake beans and cooked for a few minutes. When that was done I added in the coconut milk and after a bit I added in the tempeh. The coconut milk isn’t meant to make this into a curry, just to add a bit of moisture to the dish and it did actually give it a lovely flavour. Always remember to season!

I served this with some soba noodles.

Vegan Shepherd’s Pie

I made this because my friend asked me for a pie recipe. And what am I, if not a people pleaser?

There are two main components to this, the filling and the potato topping

For the filling you’ll need:

1 spanish onion sliced

7 cloves unbleached garlic minced

7 thai chillies minced

1 large red capsicum chopped

2 large eggplants cubed about 3-4cm

2 black zucchinis quartered longways and sliced

1 bunch of asparagus cut into 2cm lengths

salt to taste

For the topping you’ll need:

1 red onion

1 cup frozen peas

7 small gold potatoes

about a cup almond milk

1 tbsp tahini

1 tbsp vegetable oil

salt to taste

I started off with the potatoes, dicing into 3cm cubes and then boiling for about 15-20 minutes until they’re fork tender.  Once they’re done, mash with the tahini, vegetable oil and salt and then add as much of the almond milk as you’ll need to get the mash to a creamy consistency. Caramelise the onions in some vegetable oil. When that’s reached, fold in the peas and onions.

For the filling I sautéed the onions until translucent, then cooked down with the capsicums for a few minutes, then stirred in the chillies and garlic  until their raw edge is gone and stir in the eggplant and cook down until soft. You may need to add some water to get this process started. While these are cooking add the zucchini. When that’s almost cooked through add the asparagus as you don’t want these to lose their crunch. At this stage add salt.

Pour the filling into a large oven bake dish and cover with the mash. Bake at 200C for about 25 minutes until the top is lovely and golden and crunchy.

NOM DOWN, FRIENDS.

Tofu, snake bean and mushroom stir fry with roasted capsicum sauce

After a big week it’s always good to sit down to a nice meal. Picked up some awesome capsicums from the markets today, they were massive! And they inspired me to make a roasted capsicum sauce which is now my favourite, I think.

So easy to make, just heat up the oven to 210C

Ingredients:

4 large capsicums deseeded, quartered

4 large tomatoes kept whole

2 onions, peeled and halved

6 cloves of garlic kept in skin

squirt of vegetable oil

salt

And roast for around 30-40 minutes until they’re showing a good amount of colour. Take them out of the oven and straight into a food processor with the tomatoes, capsicums, onion and the flesh of the garlic and whizz until smooth.

While that was in the oven, I started on my stir fry and for that I used:

splash of vegetable oil

250g firm tofu

10 thai chillies

8 cremini mushrooms

large handful oyster mushrooms

4 snake beans

salt

I cut the tofu into quite small cubes and fried until golden in the oil, then added my chillies that I chopped very finely and my mushrooms and snake beans which I cooked until tender. Super easy and so yum!

Served with somen noodles which are quite light.

I know these flavours don’t normally go together, but trust me it works. That sauce could honestly go with anything ❤

Fried Rice

For this I used brown rice, so I cooked one and a half cups of dried brown rice and boiled in a large pot full of water after washing. The veggies I used were bok choy, carrots, broccolini, capsicum and spinach. Fried an onion in coconut oil then added chilli, garlic, bottom of the bok choy, carrots, broccolini and capsicum. Then I stirred in some tamari and sriracha. While this is happening you wanna fry the tofu in a small amount of coconut oil, I used firm tofu and cut into little cuboids. Once the rice is cooked after around 40 minutes rinse in warm water and drain and add to the vegetables. Add the tofu into the vegetable and rice mixture and stir in the tops of the bok choy and spinach. I recommend that you taste and season at this stage once everything is together. Squirt through some lime juice and a little raw sugar to make sure you’ve got your sweet, sour, spicy and acidic senses all tingling at pleasant levels in perfect harmony.