White Vegetables - Mushroom, White Bean and Cauliflower soup

Things got a bit involved on this site. The dishes became very involved and fancy. But things got very busy at work, and out of work. And it got really cold at night times quite suddenly. So now there is flannelette sheets on the bed and there is this soup. Creamy and comforting and incredibly simple to make. I got home from the gym, 10 minutes of prep cooking. Leave it to simmer while I showered, came back and blended it up and voila. Perfect soup for sitting on the couch snuggled under my quilt.

This is naturally vegan and gluten free. It’s full of protein and things that are good for you. I added diced fried chorizo bits on top of mine because it is amazingly delicious but somewhat takes away from the vegan status. Bacon bits would be equally delicious. But the chopped toasted almonds are pretty amazing if you want to keep it vegan/vegetarian.

Mushroom, White Bean and Cauliflower Soup

Olive oil
1 – 2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and Pepper
500g mushrooms of choice, thinly sliced
1 brown onion, diced
1 small head of cauliflower, broken roughly into large florets.
1 litre vegetable stock
1 litre water
1 cup of almond meal
Tin white beans, rinsed

Garnish

Diced, fried salami
Toasted almonds
Dried oregano
More black pepper

Drizzle a good glug of olive oil into your soup pot and heat to medium. Add the garlic, and cook 1-2 minutes until softened and fragrant. Thinly slice the mushrooms and add to the pot, and a good few cracks of pepper and fat pinch of sea salt. Stir well to mix through the garlicky oil across all the mushroom slices. Fry until the mushrooms release their liquid, then it absorbs/evaporates back again. Remove from the pot and set aside.

Add a tablespoon more olive oil to the pot and add the onion, cook 5 minutes until translucent but not browned. Add the stock, water and cauliflower. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer 15 minutes, until the cauliflower is tender. Add the white beans.

Remove from heat, then puree with a stick blender. Add the almond meal and blend it in, too.

Add mushrooms back to pot, place back over low heat. Cook 2 minutes so that the mushrooms heat up again. Check for seasoning.

Serve, garnished with oregano flakes, plenty of black pepper and toasted almond bits.

If you don’t mind breaking the vegan-ness of this dish, serve with fried diced salami pieces or bacon bits

Happy WA Day - Pumpkin Spice Porridge

Happy WA Day holiday! My husband works on public holidays, so I play the single lady after he leaves for work. I sleep in until a leisurely hour, get up and make things that I like for breakfast that he doesn't necessarily agree with. So in honour of that luxury, I will do a post in real-time! Being a public holiday, I don't want to put too much effort in. And being the second day of winter means it needs to still be satisfying comfort style food. Something I can eat from a bowl, snuggled up on the couch, flicking through cook books.

I love sweet pumpkin dishes. Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin and Maple Bacon Muffins, Pumpkin Spice Marshmallows and all that. Love it. Lance isn't the hugest fan. Nor does he particularly like porridge. So this dish is all me. I have some pumpkin puree from making a pumpkin mac and cheese a few days ago so this dish all came together in the time it takes to make the porridge and boil the kettle for my coffee.

I'm sure you've all made porridge before, so I'll leave it to you to cook it the way you do. Personally, I like to cook my oats in water (or coffee) with a pinch of salt and add milk or butter (or both!) once it's cooked. You can sub the butter for coconut oil, or coconut cream for a delicious vegan version of this dish.

Pumpkin Spice Porridge
(serves one)
1 cup cooked porridge (made from 1/3 cup rolled oats)
3 heaped tablespoons pumpkin puree
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch ground nutmeg
1 tsp maple syrup (plus an extra to drizzle  if desired)
1 tsp unsalted butter
6-8 crushed walnuts

Cook the oats to by your preferred method.

In a small dish, mix the pumpkin, spices and maple syrup. Microwave for 1 minute to heat the mixture.

Stir pumpkin mixture and butter into porridge. Top with crushed walnuts.

Easy Friday Nights - Cheese, Pickled Beetroot and Avocado Toastie with Creamy Sriracha Dipping Sauce.

Sometimes you get home late and  it's dreary, miserable weather and you can’t be bothered with the cooking, but you want something delicious. What is more delicious than melted cheese? Melted cheese with creamy avocado and tart pickles. I’d put this on the grill and immediately regretted not adding some spice. Which I remedied when I remembered the amazing Pig’s Ass Sandwich Lance and I ate at Casselula in New York, with it’s spicy dipping sauce. This isn’t that sauce - not even close, but I needed something super quick and this more than adequately did the job.

So there I was, melted cheesy deliciousness in crunchy toasted bread, creamy spicy dipping sauce and a sipper of Rye. A perfect meal for sitting on the couch after a long day. And it all comes together in less than 10 minutes.

 

Sandwich
(makes 2 sandwiches)

½ Avocado

Pickled beetroot and onion
Sliced Cheddar Cheese - sharp is better but it has to melt well
4 slices light rye bread

Dipping sauce

4 heaping tbsp greek yoghurt
1-2 tsp sriracha (to taste)

Heat your sandwich press

Slice the cheese and layer it onto two slices of bread. Smoosh ¼ of an avocado on each one, then drain and place a few tablespoons of the pickled vegetables on top. Top with the other slice of bread to make 2 complete sandwiches.

Put into the sandwich press and push down firmly to squash together.

In a small bowl, mix together the yoghurt and sriracha to your taste.

When the sandwich is toasty and golden with the cheese fully melted, remove and slice into strips.

 
Eat, dipping into the sauce as you go

Pickled Pink - Pickled Beetroot and Red Onion

I was originally going to put the recipe for this at the end of another recipe, as it is an accompaniment, rather than a meal. But it has turned out so versatile that I’ve used it in so many dishes since then, so I thought I would give it it’s own post, which makes it my easier to just link here for the future. I call this pickled pink – a really simple combination of pickled beetroot and red onion. I was going to add radishes to the mix too, but completely forgot when I came around to making it. I am going to add radishes next time.

It only takes about 10 minutes to make, but then a few hours to cool so factor that in for when you want to eat it. It should last a good few weeks in the fridge.

 

Pickled Beetroot and Red Onion.
1 red onion, sliced into thin half moons
3 medium beetroot, sliced into matchsticks
2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup water
3 tbsp honey
1 tsp sea salt
5 allspice berries
½ tsp peppercorns
½ tsp caraway seeds

 

Slice the onion and beetroot as directed and layer slices in the jar(s) you wish to store it in.

Place the vinegars, water, honey and salt in a small pot and bring to a gentle boil over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Simmer for 5 minutes then take off the heat.

Add the allspice berries, pepper corns and caraway seeds to the vinegar mix. Stir to mix through.

Pour the vinegar over the top of the veges. Leave on the bench top to come to room temperature.

Store in the fridge

 

Work Lunches - Smokey Mango Barley Salad

Not working in the CBD means my food options are extremely limited unless I take a drive to buy something. This is both a blessing and a curse. I see some Instagram feeds of the amazing food options in the city and it makes me sad that I have to really put in the effort to go into the city for them. But it means I have a better control over the food I do eat, making me eat healthier and more cheaply. So it has it’s plusses too.

To help me be prepared for the next day’s lunch, whenever I have the oven on for dinner, I’ll roast a few extra veges. Likewise, whenever I cook some grains, I will cook extra to use in lunches. This is one of my favourite take-to-work lunches. The best part of it is the combination of textures. Silky roast eggplant, soft sweet potato, chewy barley and crunchy bean sprouts all smoky and sweet and savoury and delicious. It is best served at room temperature, rather than cold. I made this batch and it lasted in the fridge for 3 days of work lunches.

Smokey Mango, Sweet Potato and Eggplant Barley Salad

1 small sweet potato
1 small eggplant
Generous splash of olive oil
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp chipotle Tabasco
1 cup cooked pearl barley
Handful basil leaves, torn
1/2 cup mixed bean sprouts (mung bean, adzuki bean, blue pea and lentil is the mix I use)
1/2 mango
1 tablespoon butter
Salt and pepper to season

Dice the sweet potato and eggplant make the sweet potato dice a bit smaller than the eggplant dice so it cooks evenly. Put in a bowl and pour over the olive oil, maple syrup and Chipotle Tabasco sauce. Stir well to coat each piece. Roast for 30-45 minutes until soft. Set aside to cool.

Roughly chop the mango, add a tablespoon of butter and season. Put in a small saucepan and bring to a gentle boil over medium heat and simmer for 5 minutes or until the mango has broken down. Stir well with a fork to help break it down, or puree if you can be bothered.

Combine barley, sweet potato, eggplant and stir through the mango sauce. Gently fold through the bean sprouts and basil leaves. Eat! Or take to work and eat!

Beetroot and Coconut Gnocchi with Green Tea Butter Bean Sauce

For me, the easiest way to make sure I eat well and healthfully is to be prepared. And because I can be seriously lazy, or time-poor (or both), I like to do prep work lazily too. One of the easiest tricks is to just cook too much and you have immediate leftovers. Whenever Lance and I cook a roast (because usually the prep work is a team effort on roasts), I always roast more vegetables than we’ll eat, which I then will use for lunches to take to work. Given that I don’t peel any vegetables, only scrub them before roasting, it really is no extra effort at all. So when Sunday came around and we popped a roast on, I also roasted 2 large beetroot and set them aside to make this dish.

You may remember my sweet potato and coconut gnocchi that was inspired by a dish I never ate at Solomon’s? Well, what we did eat was beetroot and coconut gnocchi, and that was amazing too. So I wanted to give that a go, as well, giving the flavours a Skamp twist. To be honest, these gnocchi were slightly too dry for my liking. I imagine they need either some egg, or perhaps just some oil added into the mixture to bind it better. The sweet potato texture didn’t require anything extra to hold their shape and the mouth feel was perfect. These were a touch dry, so next attempt I will add maybe 2 tbsp coconut oil to the beetroot mixture. Eating it with sauce took away the dryness, but it needed the sauce.

Seeing as the beetroot are really earthy, and I was going to add some leftover rosemary roasted lamb to the sauce, I decided to add caraway and rosemary to the gnocchi to enhance this rich earthiness and the flavour was unbelievable. For the sauce, I made a ‘creamy’ sauce out of butter beans and green tea, to add grassiness to the earthiness, with some fresh lemon and parsley to brighten the flavours up. Then added some peppery watercress and sweet bee pollen to garnish and round out the flavours even more. So. Good. To keep this vegan, you can omit the roast lamb (and bee pollen if that’s your deal). I tasted the sauce and some crumbs without the lamb and it didn’t need the meat.

Beetroot and Coconut Gnocchi with Green Tea Butter Bean Sauce

(serves 4)

2 large roasted beetroot

Coconut flour as necessary – I used 10 tbsp

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

½ tsp caraway seeds

1 tsp fresh minced rosemary

Coconut oil for frying

Sauce

1 tin butter beans, rinsed and drained

1 cup strong brewed green tea

2 shallots, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 zucchini, finely sliced into rounds

Big handful parsley, roughly chopped

1 cup shredded cooked lamb

Salt and pepper to taste

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

Bee pollen and cress leaves to serve

Preheat the oven to 150C to keep the cooked gnocchi warm. Pop the kettle on. Brew a cup of green tea, allowing to steep for a good 5 minutes at least, to develop the flavour. Set aside until ready.

Put the beetroot into your food processor and pulse to break up. Add the salt, pepper, caraway seeds and rosemary, and process until smooth. One tablespoon at a time, add coconut flour and pulse to combine until it forms a dry-ish dough, similar texture to play dough.

Scoop teaspoonfuls and roll to form gnocchi shapes, put on a plate. Heat a frypan to medium and add a knob of coconut oil and allow to melt and heat. Add a handful of gnocchi at a time, fry for 3 minutes or so until ‘golden’ and then flip and cook the other side. Set on a plate and pop in the oven to keep warm. Repeat with all of the gnocchi.

In your blender, blend the green tea and butter beans until smooth. In a pan or small pot, add the butter bean mixture and zucchini and gently simmer for 10 minutes or so until thickened slightly, warm and the zucchini is soft. Add the cooked lamb and after the meat has heated through (approximately 5 minutes) add parsley, lemon juice and salt and pepper.

Scoop some sauce onto your serving plate, gently place the gnocchi on top and scatter cress leaves and bee pollen to serve.