Tag: Vegan

muhammara
Autumn, Condiments, Gluten Free, Snack

Smokey Pepper and Walnut Muhammara

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Another taste of the middle east, another condiment to make life better, to make the ordinary extraordinary.  Maybe I am over stating the case – trying to catch your attention with bold claims.  In truth – I really do love the way having bold flavoured condiments in my pantry and refrigerator can take a group of ingredients and make them special. I wrote a while ago about trying to cook once and eat twice and in many ways I fail absolutely in this – there is either too much or not enough when it comes to leftovers and somehow they rarely work out to be that clever meal remade into something new and exciting the next day.  Condiments are my exception to this, they really are the magic to make meals great and I love having a changing mix of these to make my every day meals better. This sauce is great in that the flavours come together and get even better over a few days and keep for up to a week in your refrigerator.   There are so many ways you can use your Muhammara … In your favourite burger or slider or wrap. Dolloped over your roast vegetable salad. Beside your roast beef, lamb or chicken. Spooned into a jacket roast potato or sweet potato. On your antipasto platter with crusty bread, olives, aged hard cheeses such as goudas, pecorino and chedder and chargrilled vegetables. As part of your mixed lunch salad bowl with some grain,avocado, tomato, […]

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spicey cauliflower and kimchi salad
Gluten Free, Salad

Spiced Cauliflower and Kimchi Salad

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Add some probiotic goodness to your everyday salads with Kimchi.  It tastes good and it is good for you –  and I think that is mostly what we are all hoping for in our cooking. I have used roughly chopped kimchi  here to act as a salad dressing with a spicy fresh kick. I’m using it in the same way you would add vinegar to your  salad vinaigrette – which gives balance and liveliness to the richness of the roast vegetables and the fresh flavour and texture of the herbs. I was very lucky to have been given a big handful of beautiful fresh purple sprouting broccoli grown right here in Queenstown.  Amazing what will grow here, planted in early autumn, wintered over and finished in spring.  It needs just a little luck ( read lots of luck), with the weather and clever gardening skills – not mine, I might add – thanks Isabel and Sarah.  The sprouting broccoli went perfectly with the cauliflower, and the leaves crisped up when roasted in the same way kale leaves do. Other than the gardening none of this is really all that clever, we have all made lots of lovey roast vegetable salads, but the idea of adding the Kimchi as a dressing in the salad is definitely new for me, and lends itself to further using kimchi as a salad ingredient in its own right.  I can also imagine it chopped and tossed through a grain, quinoa or rice salad salad, or […]

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beetroot burger patties
Breakfast, Brunch, Canape, Gluten Free, Lunch, Meal, Salad, Snack, Spring, Summer

Beautiful Black Bean, Beetroot and Brown Rice Burger Patties

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  Explanations to follow, but that said – you really should start making these now! They are so much more than just a vegetarian, dairy and gluten free patty.  To have them made in the refrigerator means you have an easy meal in a multitude of guises ready to go for breakfast lunch or dinner.   I was definitely a reluctant starter but I am now thoroughly in love with these. With winter now officially behind us, I am very excited to start thinking about casual spring and summer eating, barbecues and picnics.  Unfortunately the new seasons vegetables are slow to appear in these southern areas so I am reinventing those same vegetables we have enjoyed over winter in different guises – cutting them differently, cooking them in a lighter style and eating them in fresher simpler ways. With this all said the story for these patties begins with my friend and employer, Angela. Angela had requested a  vegetarian burger patty for work. To be honest I was a little under whelmed by the idea, not something I have ever really considered eating, and because of that I was slow to get going with recipe development.  Moving on though, and not prepared to say no to the challenge, I did get going and have been working on these vege burger patties for a while – there have been quite a number of unfortunate fragile fall apart piles of deliciousness around here! The challenge I made to myself was to make […]

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shakshuka
Breakfast, Brunch, Condiments, Gluten Free, Meal, Snack

Zhoug – spicy-green-delicious

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Zhoug, shakshuka, labna, all words my computer would rather I changed, but which offer a delicious look into another world of  vibrant and exciting foods and flavours. Today it is all about Zhoug. This spicy middle eastern condiment,originally from Yemen and now a favourite in Israel, had somehow missed my food radar. Happily Lily, an inspiring young work colleague – knowing my love of middle eastern foods –  bought me a small jar of both a red and a green zhoug that her father had made.   I was immediately hooked and needing to be able to make this myself, I turned to my ridiculously large collection of recipe books – (it is always good to have an excuse to justify the purchase of more though!) – and found this sauce in a number of my middle eastern recipe books.  After some further reading and research, (reality says – lying around, thumbing through recipe books and surfing the food files of the internet), I have been happily giving these recipes a try! I am sure the real deal is different in its nuances, but I am so happy with the results that I think you should give it a try too.  It will warm up just about anything you wish to eat and will be something you are happy to find in your refrigerator – my friend Lily said you can even freeze it!  Most importantly, this isn’t all about the chilli, it is a whole palate of flavours giving this […]

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simple celeriac salad
Gluten Free, Salad, Spring, Winter

Quick and Delicious Celeriac Salad

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If the fennel I wrote about last week seems still exotic to me what do I now think of celeriac?  Not so sure.   I  wonder why, even though it is definitely not a vegetable I have grown up with or cooked with or eaten – it still almost falls in my mind, to the category of the much maligned swede.  Having said that, price wise it is more of a luxury vegetable, and certainly in culinary sense you will find it much used in french and european cooking – remoulade sauce and salad being very traditional uses of celeriac.  We also often see it on restaurant menus in soup or puree/mash under fish and meats and with its celery flavour it lends itself to all these ideas and many more salads. I have paired it today with walnuts, cornichon, apple, radishes and lots of fresh herbs -dill, parsley and mint.  This salad reminds me a little of my easy-raw-beetroot-salad in its simplicity of preparation and in its ability to satisfy.  This salad works well in many situations, it is great as a side with a main meal or made into a salad meal in its own right.  It works well teamed with lightly smoked and rich flavours – think about – smoked fish tumbled gently through this salad, with boiled egg and your favourite greens, or with chicken or pork braised in rich smoked paprica and lemon sauces or chorizo sausage, or you could eat it as part of a salad […]

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roast fennel and tomatoes
Meal, Salad

Simple Oven Roast Fennel and Tomatoes

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Fennel is one of those ingredients that still seems exciting and exotic, challenging me to try new combinations and create meals that are new to my palate. I let it take me to places I haven”t yet been –  I imagine lunch between the vines on warm summer evenings under ancient trees with family and friends, or Scandinavian winters, open fires and apres ski – melty cheesy baked fennel dishes.  In reality I have traveled little in my life, but from my love of food, cooking and reading about the people, the cooks and the chefs – the places they come from and travel to – food has taken me, in my imagination to these places.  Maybe not real but vivid and enchanting. Winter in my world is at its best now, spring is around the corner and the days are starting to get longer.  Knowing that the shortest days are past I am enjoying these last lingering evenings.  This roast fennel dish is still warming but a little lighter after the heavier, comforting winter meals and could be easily eaten at room temperature on a summer evening. This is leisurely cooking, simple and easily prepared at the end of the day while completing the necessary tasks of the day, or prepared as a simple light lunch. ROAST FENNEL WITH TOMATOES CAPERS AND PRESERVED LEMON Serves two people as a side dish or part of a light lunch, but can easily be doubled and more for a crowd. Pre heat […]

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roast cauliflower salad
Autumn, Condiments, Salad, Winter

Roast Cauliflower Salad with Crunch

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Salads are the stuff of my life at work and at home.  So much so that at times I forget which kitchen I am in!  I’m surprised at what I find or more often don’t don’t find in the kitchen I am in.  In the confusion of what has been done or brought for which kitchen, there is sometimes a creative disjunct and the great ideas and foods that get created are in the rush of life forgotten.  To create a trail of recipes, ideas and memories was always one of the reasons for creating this blog,  for myself to remember what I spend my time doing, and to share these ideas with people I care about.  So sometimes a simple (ish) comfort salad like this deserves a place in these memories as a reminder of meals I have made and want to share. This is a hearty and delicious, comforting salad that can be a meal in itself, or served as part of a selection with your main meal.  Once cold you could extend it a little by tossing through a bag of baby lettuce leaves or mesculin before drizzling with your favourite balsamic vinegar. Some ideas are so simple they hardly seem worth writing about, but it is sometimes these simple things in my pantry that take a meal from ho-hum to delicious.  I hate food waste and to be able to toast up stale bread ends, and scraps of parsley hidden in unexpected parts of my garden, […]

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korean carrot crepes
Autumn, Gluten Free, Meal, Salad, Savoury, Snack, Spring, Summer, Winter

Spicy Kimchi and Carrot crepes

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Korean Kimchi has been front and centre of my attention this year, I am hooked on this crunchy, spicy, nutritious condiment.  You really do have to love something that tastes so good, is simple to make, and is good for you.  My https://freshkitchen.co.nz/kimchi-everyday/ has become my go to condiment, and this is another way of including it in my every day meals. The inspiration for these crepes comes from “Green Kitchen At Home” by David Frenkiel & Luise Vindahl, a beautiful book that is high on my wish list. These are great to have as a sharing, construct-it-yourself-at-the-table meal, or you can make and wrap them in advance, put a little extra dressing in a jar and take for a picnic or packed lunch.  The crepes are light, easy to eat and delicious, complimenting the ingredients and holding together perfectly. I love that by adding carrots to the crepe batter, it adds colour and extra vegetables into my life. I used the blender to make my crepe mix and the carrot was completely blended in, giving the batter a beautiful golden colour.  I think it would also look beautiful if you finely grate the carrot and make the mix with a whisk so you can see the shreds of carrot in the batter. I bought a beautiful big organic chicken for this and cooked it with hoisin sauce and garlic. I used only the breasts for these crepes and now have the carcass quietly boiling away to make bone broth and there […]

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mushroom pearl barley parsnip rosti pie
Autumn, Meal, Winter

Mushroom, Pearl Barley and Parsnip Rosti Pie

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Despite the fact that we celebrated the shortest day last week and dreamt of spring skiing and a returning to summer, I found myself yesterday subject to a very cool winter blast . Today the sky is clear and frost lies heavily on the ground and, as the winter sun streams into my kitchen, I am cooking both to warm me now and give comfort and shared happiness later. This is another delicious slow cooked comfort food for these bone chilling days that also comes back again the next day tasting even better. Use this as a substantial vegetarian main with a platter of roast vegetables and some lightly steamed green vegetables to the side, or as a comforting side to a steak with a big green salad.  (Members of  my family are beginning to think there is a vegetarian plot happening in their midst, so tonight I will distract them with a steak!) MUSHROOM, PEARL BARLEY  AND PARSNIP ROSTI  PIE Serves four as part of a main meal and can easily be doubled or altered to fit the size of your cooking vessel. Pre heat oven to  170 -180’c   Begin by rinsing and cooking the pearl barley in a pot of lightly salted water with a sprig of rosemary, thyme and bay if you want.  This will take approximately 15 to 20 minutes. Drain and put aside once cooked. Meanwhile heat a large pan with a tablespoon of olive oil and equivalent of butter (or two tablespoons of olive […]

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lentil and black bean chilli
Brunch, Gluten Free, Meal, Winter

Everyday Lentil and Black Bean Chilli

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I read a phrase last week that captured my interest  “cook once eat twice”,  sort of a no-brainer,  but for some reason we have always shunned leftovers.  My cooking is spent avoiding left overs knowing that in most instances they will be abandoned mouldering in the refrigerator and one of my biggest hates is food waste!   So, thinking on this, I decided to consider meals that could be cooked in larger quantities and reinvented to seem new second time around. Where better to start looking than the young people I work with, these are busy people juggling finances, work and fun. From my conversations with these inspirational people came the idea for lentil braises – one was eating a chilli and one a Bolognese, straight away I had my idea to run with.  Thanks ladies! The next issue confronting me, and a surprising number of other people I talk to, is that of including more meat free vegetable rich meals in life that wont leave the meat eaters thinking something was missing.  Once again lentils are a great answer. If you need any further reason to make this, then that reason has to be that it is a real store cupboard / refrigerator meal.  You can change up the ingredients and use those lonely carrots, bag ends of vegetables and pulses and at the end have a delicious meal (and a good conscience for your efforts!) This is a weekend cooking-at-leisure meal that it will be better for time […]

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