Spiced Quinoa Pilaf with Corn and Broccoli

I was inspired by this recipe in the Sunday paper recently. I've been buying sandwiches for my work lunch instead of making things. This one got me back in the low GI lunchtime groove. I really enjoyed it, although I was a tiny bit sick of it by day 5.

Quinoa is a low GI superfood. Gi 51. Corn and broccoli are both good for us of course. I eat a reasonable amount of corn, but don't usually search out broccoli, it was good to highlight it here. And I found a beautiful head of broccoli and two gorgeous cobs of corn at my local farmers market on the very day I was making this.

Broccoli isn't a carbohydrate source, and so doesn't have a GI value. Corn on the cob has a low GI value of 48.

Spiced Quinoa Pilaf with Corn and Broccoli

1 tblsp olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tsp finely grated fresh ginger
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp turmeric
150gm (1 cup) quinoa
500 ml (2 cups) water
300gm broccoli, cut into florets
2 large corncobs,  husked removed
2 tblsp chopped fresh coriander
Feta, crumbled

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion, stirring, for 5 minutes or until soft. Add garlic, ginger and spices. Cook, stirring for 1 minute until fragrant. Stir in quinoa. Add water and stir. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Uncover and place broccoli on top. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to the boil. Cook corn. Remove corn from water. Set aside to cool. Cut down the corncob to remove the kernels.

Add corn and chopped coriander to mixture. Top with feta.

Adapted from You Are What You Eat
Sunday Telegraph 28/2/12

The original recipe used yoghurt as a topping. I didn't have any this week, so used a bit of crumbled goat feta instead. It is accidentally vegan if you leave off the cheese.

It also grilled the corn on the cob rather than boiling it. It was easier for me to boil it that day, so I did.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

Kumara Hummus

I do love hummus. And it's so quick and easy to make hummus at home. Naturally home made hummus tastes much better than store bought.

Recently I found a fabulous blog post about variations on hummus, including the fabulously interesting kumara hummus. And I knew I had to make it sometime soon. I took inspiration from this recipe, and naturally fiddled with it a bit.

Kumara is delicious, and a fabulous low GI superfood. I've been trying kumara in a few new and different ways recently, and enjoying it very much. I commonly use it as a mashed vegie for dinner, but sometimes you want to try something new with an old favourite, or combine two trusted old friends.

Ras el hanout is another wonderful, aromatic spice blend. I have a wonderful pot of it that I bought in Melbourne last time I visited.

Kumara Hummus

450gm kumara
300gm chick peas
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 1/2 tsp ras el hanout
2 tblsp peanut butter
2 tblsp lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
1 tblsp olive oil + an extra slurp if needed for texture
sea salt and freshly ground pepper


Peel kumara, and chop into even sized pieces. Microwave until tender (about 8-10 minutes).

Combine cooked kumara, chickpeas, garlic, ras al hanout, peanut butter, lemon juice, olive oil and seasonings in a food processor. Blend until desired texture. I like mine quite smooth, and not chunky.

Notes
I learnt to use peanut butter instead of tahini in my hummus last year. Nigella Lawson taught me. The peanut butter ratio I used here was probably a bit high, it almost came through as a separate taste. I was a bit distracted when I was making this, and had put more in than I wanted to before I quite realised. Plus my chickpeas didn't cook up into as much as I was expecting.

Because it's winter here and rather chilly at the minute I tried to think of some new ways to use hummus rather than just with crudites. Thus the evolution of the kumara hummus, roasted capsicum and ham pizza! Sadly no picture exists of this original treat. We have pizza and movie night every Friday night, and it made quite a nice change from the usual pizza toppings I use.

I was very excited to find these German crackers on a recent excursion to Sydney. I had originally seen them on a Chocolate and Zucchini post about peacamole. I was saving them for a special occasion, and naturally hoping to make my poiscamole to enjoy them with. Life, and kumara hummus intervened.

I can live with that.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

Warm Spiced Chickpea Salad

I was pretty pleased with this for my work lunches this week. I made this recipe up myself. I drew rather heavily for inspiration on a Spiced Chickpea Salad recipe that I had clipped out of the Sunday paper in March. But it was a very summery sort of salad- cucumber, tomato, chopped and served cold. Even though I liked the sounds of it, and do want to try it at some time, it just didn't seem right for the very cold wintery weather that we have been experiencing this month. After all we had our first snowfall of the year two weeks ago! The earliest snowfall that I remember since living here. So I decided that I should have more of a warm veggie salad. And it worked pretty well. I felt frightfully virtuous eating this all week, and that's what it's all about.

I'd forgotten to add the zucchini at this stage- but you get the idea

Warm Spiced Chickpea Salad

1/2 packet of chickpeas, soaked overnight, drained, rinsed, then boiled til tender

1 large kumara/orange sweet potato, cut into bite sized chunks
1 punnet of grape or cherry tomatoes
1/2 head of broccoli
A handful of beans, trimmed
1 zucchini, cut into mouth sized chunks

2 tblsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
1 onion, diced
2 eschallots, diced
2 tsp garam masala

Heat oven to 180C/350F.

Place kumara in a roasting dish. Drizzle with some olive oil. Mix to cover. Roast until tender, and edges browning (about an  hour in my oven, but should be quicker in most). Place tomatoes on baking paper on a tray, drizzle with oil, and roast until tender as desired.

Steam or blanch broccoli, beans and zucchini.

Heat olive oil in a shallow fry pan. Add onions and eschallots. Fry until soft. Add garam masala and cook til fragrant.

Assemble chick peas, vegetables and onion  mix in a large container.

Notes
Of course you could easily use tinned chickpeas, they are just so much nicer if you do them yourself. There is a bit of lead time, but basically no work, so they're pretty simple, and quick really. I probably had the equivalent of two 400 gm cans of chickpeas here.

Broccoli isn't my most favourite vegetable any more. It is frightfully good for you, and I did have half a head of it in the fridge, so in it went. You could substitute any vegetable you liked. I'd keep the kumara though, it really worked well. I only used the eschallots because they were lying about too, they do add a nice sweetness though.

It was a bit fiddly cooking the vegies in different ways, but I was just puttering around on a Sunday afternoon, and hadn't really planned this as a tactical strike. I should have just chucked them all in the oven to roast together I suspect.

Garam masala is a beautifully fragrant Indian spice blend. It's well worth seeking out.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

Quinoa with Roast Cauliflower

I have been making this for about a year. I was rather unfamiliar with quinoa a year ago when I started making this. Now I've made it multiple times, and it's always delicious. This recipe makes a great, nutritious work lunch, and is very adaptable, as you can throw in whatever assortment of leftovers you have lying about the place- it's particularly fabulous with some leftover chunks of roast pumpkin.

Quinoa is a Bolivian seed that has taken the western world by storm. So much so that it is causing problems in Bolivia. It is even being adopted by New York Jews as a controversial new kosher food for passover.

I always feel conflicted about food miles when using quinoa. All the brands I've ever found have been grown in Bolivia. I've never found any grown in Australia, maybe that will happen sometime soon. When I made this today I was able to use a glorious cauliflower grown locally in Canowindra. Hopefully this can help combat the Bolivian effect.

Gorgeous local cauliflower

Quinoa with Roast Cauliflower

1 medium cauliflower, cut into small florets
olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
80gm red quinoa
300mL chicken or vegetable stock
1/2 small bunch chives, chopped
soft marinated goats cheese

Preheat the overn to 170C

Spread the cauliflower florets evenly in a roasting pan, do not crowd them. Drizzle with just enough olive oil to coat them lightly, and season well with salt and pepper. Roast the cauliflower for about 20 minutes, shaking the pan from time to time to ensure it cooks evenly, until it starts to caramelise and become tender.

Meanwhile rinse the quinoa and place it in a small saucepan with the stock (if using homemade stock add a pinch of salt). Bring the stock to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, gently for about 25-30 minutes until the quinoa is tender and the liquid has evaporated.

Place the quinoa in a bowl with the cauliflower, scraping the roasting pan to get all the crisp bits and any remaining oil. Add the chives, crumble in the goats cheese. Season to taste. Mix gently to combine and evenly distribute the cheese.

Serve the quinoa as a light meal or with braised lamb shanks.

Cath Claringbold. Good Weekend 15/5/2010

Notes
My oven is always slow. It takes much longer than 20 minutes in my oven to roast the cauliflower.

While it is better if you add some cheese to it, sometimes I've run out and it's still delicious. It's fine with or without chives too.

My 10 year old son is even happy eating this! For some reason cauliflower is his favourite vegetable and he even like quinoa- although he prefers to call it worms.


I often throw in some other veggies when roasting the cauliflower- such as parsnip, carrot and pumpkin. This then makes enough for a whole week of nutritious tasty low GI work lunches.

Couscous and Vegetable Soup

It's heading into autumn in Australia, so this post is about a soup I last made a few months ago now. Actually I've been making this soup regularly for over 10 years. I usually tweak it a bit, but it always smells fragrant and fabulous. I've tried it as a Quinoa and Vegetable Soup, but it wasn't as good, so I think I'll stick with using couscous. 

I've always made this with regular couscous, but have recently discovered that it has a medium GI of 61-65. Israeli pearl couscous is lower GI (52), so I'll have to try it with that next time. I've only used pearl couscous once, it was quite a few years ago, and don't remember liking it very well, but it should be fine in a soup, where it is more a textural component.

Couscous and Vegetable Soup

Looks like I used a kumara this time as well

2 tblsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 chicken breast fillets, cut into 1cm pieces

2 cinnamon sticks

1/2 tsp ground cardamon

1/2 tsp paprika

2 tblsp tomato paste

425gm can diced tomatoes

1.5L hot chicken stock

1 carrot, peeled and chopped

1 zucchini, chopped

4 yellow button squash, quartered

90gm (1/2 cup) couscous

2 tblsp coarsley chopped coriander

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan, add onion and cook over low heat until soft, then add chicken and cook a further 3 minutes. Add cinnamon sticks, cardamon and paprika and stir over low heat for 3 minutes until fragment.

Add tomato paste, tomato and chicken stock and season to taste. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook over low heat for 10 minutes.

Add carrots, cook for  5 minutes, then add zucchini and squash and cook a further 10 minutes, or until vegetables are just tender. Gradually pour in couscous and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Remove cinnamon sticks and serve in warm soup bowls sprinkled with coriander.

Serves 6

Notes

Adapted from a recipe in Australian Gourmet Traveller August 1997

The original recipe includes 1/4 tsp chili powder with the other spices. My family don't like chili heat, so I've never added it, but I'm sure it would be nice.

I love pumpkin, so often add a chunk of that with the carrots.

The quinoa wasn't awful in the soup, but there just wasn't as much compared to the couscous and it changed it somehow. It might be worth trialling adding more quinoa.

Cross posted from Soup, Soup, Glorious Soup

Poiscamole

I've made this delicious dip several times now. It's always tasty, and always slightly different. I've made it with thawed frozen peas, or cooked peas, which changes the texture and consistency of the final result somewhat. Uncooked peas give a slightly drier result.

The recipe is from the wonderful Clotilde Dusoulier's amazing Chocolate and Zucchini blog.

Peas are a wonderful, delicious, low GI (48) vegetable.

Poiscamole

300 gm frozen peas ( raw or cooked)
A bunch of coriander, washed, dried, leaves plucked (as much as you want, I love corainder  and usually use a decent sized bunch)
2 tblsp nut butter (almond butter or ABC, almond brazil cashew, butter)
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 tsp sweet chilli sauce
salt to taste

Place peas, coriander, nut butter, garlic, sweet chili sauce and salt in a food processor.

Whizz to desired consistency (I like leaving mine a bit chunky).

Can easily be made the day before you need it. Keeps well in the fridge for a couple of days.

Notes
The original inspiration is here. I'm very excited because I managed to find a packet of the Dr Karg Seeded Spelt that Clotilde has with her Peacamole on a recent trip to Sydney. I'll have to make another batch soon. She calls hers Peacamole, but I prefer the name Poiscamole.

The first few times I made it I just used it in fairly traditional ways, as a dip with crackers or crudites. Which was delicious of course. Last time I tried a few new uses as well. Instead of pesto, on pasta for a simple dinner.

With a pasta salad for a work lunch.

All delicious. It's so versatile!

Coriander and Lime Hummus

I've been having a bit of a hummus revival the past few weeks! I've been soaking and cooking chickpeas for the first time in at least 20 years, and greatly enjoying it. I've learnt that cooking a whole packet of chickpeas is really a bit much when you just want enough for a 400gm tin. Half a pack is enough for that, and you still have some left overs for adding to salads, without having to eat chickpeas twice a day all week.

I've long wanted to try flavoured hummus but never really got around to it. I've made this recipe twice. Once using lemon juice and tahini, the second time using lime juice and peanut butter. Both were good. But the lime version was greener, punchier, much more tasty, and absolutely delicious. And will keep the scurvy at bay....

With some pita crisps or crudites it makes excellent nibblies for friends or a great work lunch.

Coriander to Australians is what Americans would call cilantro. I absolutely love coriander- can't get enough of it. I pile it thickly in a layer on sandwiches, and particularly love it in combination with avocado and sweet chilli sauce. I've never understood why some people seem to dislike it- I always thought that they were just strange! But this recent article in the New York Times helps explain why some poor people just can't eat it! I must say I would almost find that to be a disability.

Coriander and Lime Hummus

The leaves from a good sized bunch of coriander (about 1 cup firmly packed fresh coriander leaves)
2 cloves garlic, quartered
400g cooked chickpeas, drained (or 400gm tin chickpeas, rinsed, drained)
2 tblsp (40ml) olive oil
1 1/2 tblsp (30ml) lime juice
1 tblsp (20ml) peanut butter
3 tsp sweet chili sauce
1 tsp ground cumin
Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste


Process the coriander and garlic until finely chopped.

Add the remaining ingredients; process until almost smooth. Season to taste.



Notes
Adapted from a recipe in the Australian Women's Weekly November 2010. The recipe originally had lemon juice and tahini, but I had a heap of limes in the vegie crisper and thought it would be interesting to try that, particularly in light of my recent Peanut Butter Hummus Triumph. The lemon/ tahini version was nice, but didn't quite sing as much as the lime/peanut butter version. The lime version was also moister than the lemon one, not sure why. With the lemon one I had to add a bit more oil and lemon juice, and still got a relatively dry consistency. This one was perfect as is.

Lemon tahini coriander hummus

The original recipe had 2 tsp of sweet chilli sauce, which wasn't quite enough. I tried 3 tsp the second time I made it. Still not quite there. I'm nearly out of sweet chilli sauce at the moment. But after I replenish stocks, next time I'll try a tablespoon, to give it a bit more zing.

I will only eat one brand of sweet chilli sauce, which sadly isn't available in my patch of small town Australia. I'm looking forward to stocking up on an upcoming trip to Sydney.

Purple Carrots!

On a recent trip to the local farmers market (only held monthly here sadly) I came home with a bunch of purple carrots.

I'd seen them in magazines before but never had any, so was keen to try them. They looked such an amazing colour- I'm sure they're full of antioxidants and healthy stuff like that. Regular orange carrots are low GI (41), I can only presume that purple carrots would have a similar value.

Carrots aren't my favourite vegetable it really must be said- I much prefer asparagus, avocado, corn or edamame. I particularly dislike raw carrot, but am moderately partial to it when it has been cooked. I even make a rather delicious carrot soup by choice at times. It would be rather fun to make a purple carrot soup, maybe I'll have to try that some time.

I wasn't particularly adventurous with my exciting purple carrots. I peeled and blanched them and ate them with Nigella Lawson's absolutely delicious peanut butter hummus. It was fun. They tasted like carrots, but were quite a bit more subtle in taste than regular orange carrots. Next time I will have to try to get some of the pale lemony coloured carrots.

(almost) Nigella Lawson's Peanut Butter Hummus

A new book from Nigella is always a treat. I think that I have all of her books, at least I don't think I'm missing any. They're generally all quite thick doorstoppers, and I certainly haven't made every recipe from them, but have made a recipe or two from most of them. And I don't remember any flops.

I first made a wonderful capsicum salad from How To Eat. An amazing gammon from Nigella Bites. Ok, so maybe Nigella Bites was a bit of a flop- both stylistically and in form- but that gammon was nice. Gammon is a little known, little consumed product in Australia, and the smell of it made my butcher very nervous. We took him a piece of the end result to try as I remember.

And so I was very excited to receive Nigella's new book Kitchen as part of my Christmas haul. I like her recipes, and I love her chatty conversational style in the introduction to her recipes. You can hear her voice saying the words as you read.

There are always scads of new recipes that I want to try in a new Nigella book. When I was away at Christmas I succumbed to the lure of Lemon Meringue Fool- oh my that was so good. No pictures of that, it was gobbled up too quickly. And it possibly wasn't low GI. 

The other recipe that I was really drawn to was Peanut Butter Hummus. It was interesting- my initial reaction was lip curling disdain, but it was Nigella's chatty introduction to the recipe that swayed me. Elegant. Without the slight clagginess that tahini can give. She goes on to talk of the palate-thickening clay of tahini. And it was an Oprah lightbulb moment for me. I do like hummus, but sometimes if the tahini ratio isn't right- well it's claggy. Just the perfect word for it. So when I thought about her non-claggy, elegant peanut butter hummus, then I knew that I had to try it. 

Peanut Butter Hummus

(adapted from Nigella's Kitchen)

400g cooked chickpeas (of course a tin would work very well, but it's rather simple and so satisfying to cook your own, even if it does take a little bit of planning)

1 clove garlic, peeled and roughly chopped

3 English tblsp (45ml) olive oil

3 English tblsp (45ml) smooth peanut butter

Juice of half a lemon (about 20ml)

1 tsp Maldon salt

1 tsp ground cumin

2 English tblsp (30ml) Greek yoghurt

drizzle olive oil

ras el hanout to serve

crudites or low GI crackers, to serve

Put chickpeas, garlic, oil, peanut butter, lemon juice, salt and cumin into a food processor and blitz to a knobbly puree.

Add the Greek yoghurt and process again. If the hummus is still very thick add another tablespoon of yoghurt and oil.

Taste for seasoning, adding more lemon juice and salt if you feel it needs it.

Serve drizzled with good olive oil and sprinkled with ras el hanout

Notes

I made a half recipe of Nigella's version (and took it to a friends place for nibblies before a bbq). Mainly because a whole recipe wouldn't fit in my ancient food processor. I've made it twice since the weekend. So easy to whizz up once you have the stuff. 

I cooked 2 packets of 375gm of chickpeas, which resulted in 1850gm of cooked chickpeas- why oh why did I cook 2 packets? So, 375gm packet chick peas makes roughly 925gm of cooked chickpeas. I must remember this for next time. I've got a lot of left over chickpeas. I had a chickpea salad for lunch at work today. I'm trialling freezing them, my mother reckons I can do it. So I've got a huge container of frozen chickpeas ready to go. Should be handy if it works.

Chickpeas are a wonderful low GI food (GI 36). Canned chickpeas seem to have a slightly higher (but still low) GI value (38-42). Peanut butter is low GI (although/because it is high fat)

Ras el hanout is a glorious North African spice blend. It has a beautiful aromatic, sweet aroma, and tastes fabulous. I have a wonderful pot of it which was a souvenir of a visit to Maha in Melbourne. 

Nigella topped hers with finely chopped peanuts, mixed with smoked paprika. 

I'm toying with the idea of replacing the cumin with ras el hanout, but don't know if it would be overpowering. I've got so many chickpeas I might need to give it a go sometime

Check out the Foodies Reading Challenge 

Pumpkin, Chickpea and Spinach Satay

It's funny how sometimes you find a recipe and BAM that night you've already made it, and soon after that you've blogged it. And yet other times you find a recipe you Really, Really want to make. Maybe you even buy a whole cookbook on the basis of one recipe. And years or decades later you still haven't tried that recipe. Or you've cooked other recipes again and again and never blogged them.

Today's recipe is a BAM. I came across this blog post on a lazy Sunday morning recently, and I made it that very evening. I only need three work lunches that week, and this made a big, big pot of satay.

Of course I fiddled with the recipe a bit. I had a large capsicum lurking in the vegie crisper that I wanted to use up, so I added that. I added a carrot for good measure- I'm not particularly good at eating carrots otherwise, but am more than happy to whilst hidden in a satay.

generous drizzle of soy sauce
1 onion, diced
1 large red capsicum, diced (or whatever you have lurking in the vegie crisper)4 medium size garlic cloves, crushed
3 tsp of grated fresh ginger
1.5kg butternut pumpkin, peeled and chopped into 2-3cm cubes
1 carrot, peeled and diced375mL can of light and creamy coconut flavored evaporated milk
1/2 cup vegetable stock
1/2  cauliflower
1 medium floret broccoli
1 pkt of firm tofu
1/2 cup of crunchy or smooth peanut butter
1  tbs soy sauce
2 tsp brown sugar
400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
150g  baby spinach leaves
Optional: + 1/4 cup chopped coriander + 1 long red chilli, seeds removed, finely chopped

Heat a generous drizzle of soy sauce in a large sauce pan and cook the onion for 4-5 minutes until soft. Add the capsicum, garlic, ginger (and optional chilli) and cook for 1 minute, stirring to combine. Add pumpkin and carrot cubes and stir to combine. Pour in coconut flavored milk and stock, bring to the boil. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until pumpkin is just cooked. Add the cauliflower and broccoli, cover and cook for 3 minutes. Then stir in the tofu and cover; continue to simmer for 3 minutes. Ensure the cauliflower and broccoli are tender (and the tofu is now less firm to touch) before adding the peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar and chickpeas; stir to combine and heat through. Stir in the spinach (and optional coriander) until all combined. 


Notes
My pumpkin all but dissolved. Not a bad thing, it just was. I cut it into bite sized pieces as I much prefer that to larger chunks, but I wasn't quite anticipating the complete disappearance of form. Still yummy.

I was rather apprehensive about frying the onion in soy sauce instead of oil, worrying that all I would taste would be soy. It wasn't. I'm not sure what difference it makes really. I have no problems with a small amount of oil to fry onion in a dish like this- I reckon there are worse things you can eat, but I was interested to try this method. It would be higher in salt as a compensation for lower in fat I suspect.

I used crunchy peanut butter as that was all we had in the cupboard on the day. My son likes crunchy to eat, I will usually only eat smooth as a spread.

I think I might have forgotten the sugar.

I absolutely love coriander so heaps of that went in, and I put a chilli in, but it was very mild one I think and I couldn't detect any heat.

I served it over quinoa (the ingredient of 2010?). It was delicious and would be easily adaptable for including many other vegies too.

This recipe made a vast quantity, and because I made it in the week leading up to Christmas and we were going away I eventually wasted about half of it, as I didn't think it would freeze well because of the milk. I only managed to eat half of it despite having it for lunch and dinner on two days, feeding it to Mr Adventures once and then lunch for me on another day. I would make a half quantity if I were to make it again. But then would have half a can of milk left over, and would have to find a use for that.

Indian Spiced Kumara

We here at Adventures are happy to be featuring ingredients riding on the crest of popularity. Last week it was ingredient of the moment quinoa. All gluten free and trendy. Today it's kumara. It's in vogue. It could save African children from dying. Kumara is the Maori word for sweet potato, and is replacing sweet potato as a term in Australia as well as New Zealand. I like the sound of it. Kumara.

I love kumara, and I love dates. So this recipe for Sweet Indian-Spiced Sweet Potato cried out to me for me to make it when I saw it a week or so ago. It's almost low GI, well, medium GI probably, possibly low GI. And it tastes great, so that's good. Of course, I tinkered, through both necessity and desire. And it was good.

Kumara is medium GI (61). Dates are low GI- although I'm not sure how this can really be- (39-45), a veritable health food. I like to think of medjool dates as nature's caramel.

The observant among you will notice slightly more than 6. No point in cooking with dates and not having a cooks treat. 

Indian-Spiced Kumara

2 kumaras, diced
6 medjool dates, pitted and chopped
2 tblsp sultanas
1 tblsp soy sauce
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1/4 tsp garam masala
1/4 tsp curry powder
1/3 cup water

Steam kumara in microwave until tender. Set aside in a bowl.

Place the rest of the ingredients in a blender, and blend until creamy.

Pour sauce over the kumara, stir to combine. Season if desired.

Notes
The original recipe had sugar but I used wondrous sweet medjool dates, and it really was quite sweet enough, I think it would have been cloying with added sugar, it was more than fine without.
It's probably a bit silly to use both garam masala and curry powder. I can't imagine that this is a tradition use of indian spices by any stretch. But I didn't have any chili powder in the house. And it worked out ok.

This was a really versatile dish. I served it with couscous (medium GI 65) and green veg (asparagus and zucchini this week), and it made a great work lunch. My lunch is almost vegan, well apart from the butter I use to cook my couscous, but you could avoid that, I don't want to.

I used some for my pizza this week.

Indian spiced kumara, red onion and capsicum pizza

I turned leftovers into wraps on the weekend, the sweet note was really nice then too.

Japanese Quinoa Salad

Oops I did it again. I was half way through making this before I realised that it was Accidentally Vegan (well it would be if you use vegetable stock, which I did and leave out the honey I guess). It could be gluten free, if you used the tamari (I think that's GF, although I'm not a GF expert).

It's great where inspiration can strike. Thumbing through this weeks Good Living (the Tuesday Food and Wine supplement in the Sydney Morning Herald) my eyes lit up at the kids recipe- a spinoff from the Junior Masterchef phenomenon no doubt. Japanese Quinoa Salad.

I had some fabulous quinoa in the pantry and thought it would look fantastic in this salad.

Actually I think it looks prettier uncooked and in the packet, but it's still a nice effect.

Japanese Quinoa Salad

1 cup quinoa
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 large carrot, peeled, julienned, blanched
1/2 red capsicum (bell pepper), julienned
Large handful snow peas, topped, blanched
1 small cucumber, washed, julienned
1 bunch coriander, roughly chopped
1/2 cup cashews, toasted, roughly chopped
1 toasted nori sheet, ripped into bite sized pieces
2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
Baby spinach leaves, washed

Dressing
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp finely grated ginger
1 tsp tamari or soy sauce
1 tsp honey, optional

Wash the quinoa by rinsing it in cold water and strain well. Put washed quinoa and stock into a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to the boil, then lower heat, cook over low to medium heat for 25 minutes, or until soft, and water absorbed. Set aside.

Combine cooled quinoa, carrots, capsicum, snow peas, cucumber and spinach. Add the coriander, cashews, sesame seeds (reserving some to serve).

To make the dressing, mix all ingredients and stir lightly.

Dress the salad and toss lightly, sprinkle with nori and extra sesame seeds.

OMG I can't believe how delicious this salad is. My new favourite lunch, and I haven't even had a chance to blog my old favourite lunch yet. Interestingly, both involve quinoa. Although not all quinoa experiments are as successful as I found out today when I toyed with a sweet quinoa dish.

Notes
Suggested as suitable for 8-12 year olds to make, but is easy enough for adults to make too.

I can't stand raw carrot, and think it's actually inedible, and since I've already eaten some once this year, I decided to modify this recipe by cooking the carrots, and greening it up, with some snow peas and spinach. I was planning to add asparagus (just because I love it, and the season will end soon) but the stuff available yesterday was about as thick as my forearm, and didn't look appealing.

I  upped the amount of cashews because it seemed a bit stingy, and you can never have too many cashews now can you? And I doubled the amount of coriander, just because I love it so.

I just realised I forgot the ginger from the dressing! Oops. Still delicious. I used the honey, I may try it without, I was planning to, but it really is delicious as is, did I mention that? So now I don't really want to mess with perfection.

 Because this makes a reasonable amount of salad, and since I'm using it for work lunches it will last me the majority of the week, so I only made up the quinoa, carrot and capsicum. Then each day I add fresh greens to it in my lunch box. And I carry little containers with the seeds/nuts/nori/dressing to keep them fresh and crunchy, to keep the texture nice. No point in having soggy salad just because you're at work, there has to be one highlight to the day.

I'm planning on topping it with the asian flavoured tofu that I have lurking in the fridge (no-one else in the house is in danger of touching it!), but didn't get around to that today. I'm sure it would work with a tin of soy beans mixed through as well.

Never a dull moment with lentils

The Young Ones may never have had a dull moment with lentils, but I imagine that the rest of us have. Lentils have a bad reputation, not altogether fully deserved I believe. I have made and loved a brown rice and lentil soup for 15-20 years. I'm well aware that it does sound Rather Awful. But everyone who has tried it always wants the recipe.

Lentils are low gi wonders. They are nutritional powerhouses- full of protein, fibre and nutrients. And they are tasty too. There are different varieties to play with as well. I used some Australian grown Puy style lentils that I had lying about the house.

Browsing through the Essential Ingredient recently I noticed they have some black lentils, which I think they called Lentil Caviar. That is possibly going a bit far, but I know what kind of lentils I'll be trying next.

So my eyes lit up when flipping through the latest issue of Cuisine (a marvellous food mag from New Zealand) and I saw Ray McVinnie's current Quick Smart article. More a series of food suggestions than actual recipes, this month he features lots of delicious suggestions for grains, pasta and pulses- all right up my low GI alley.

Lots of fabulous suggestions- Spicy Quinoa and Pork, Barley and Asparagus Bake, Orzo with Roast Pumpkin and Kumara. The one that really caught my eye first was Lentil Egg Salad. It looked the perfect weekday work lunch suggestion. Easy to prepare ahead, yummy, and an excuse to have some bacon and eggs, and call it healthy.

Lentil Egg Salad

Boil some green or brown lentils in plenty of water with half an onion, a carrot and a stick of celery until the lentils are tender. Drain, discard the vegetables, toss the lentils in a little extra virgin olive oil, season and serve in a salad with cos leaves, soft-poached eggs, watercress sprigs, crisp bacon, capers, walnuts and a dressing made by pouring a big splash of red wine vinegar into the fat in the hot bacon pan after the bacon has been added to the salad.

I cooked up a batch of lentils and then made it into quite a different lunch each day for the week.  I think it's quite a hangover from my (lengthy) student days that I can quite happily eat the same thing for 3 or 4 days in a row. By day 5 though even my tolerance is wearing a bit thin. This lunch was good for padding out a week, it was reasonably different each day depending on what left overs I had to play around with. One day I used the leftover mango and blueberry salsa.

Another day I had some chopped mushrooms, corn and capsicum. It was quite the production in the staff dining room, cutting my egg and avocado and shelling pistachios.

I forgot to take photos of the first few days, which I thought were the best with leftover asparagus and mashed kumara. You could use basically anything and get a different, tasty, low GI lunch every day.