This week I tried another new recipe. I used a mix of red, beluga and brown lentils, expecting the first two to cook down and thicken the broth while the third remained firm. The broth didn’t thicken as much as expected, but I did achieve roughly this effect.
This week’s Indian meal consisted of chicken salna, cabbage sabzi, okra in curd, and beet poriyal.
These vegetarian enchiladas are stuffed with a mix of smashed kidney beans and mushrooms seasoned with sage and epazote, corn, and char-grilled sweet pepper, then topped with a tomato-based sauce and a bit of cheese. I served them with a sauce of yogourt, garlic and lime juice.
Recently I cooked a Spanish Stew from the Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health cookbook.
This week I made carrot peas bhaji, cabbage bhaji with corn, besan bhindi and kadalai paruppu sundal.
This weekend I made a fresh batch of muesli. There’s no standard recipe for it, because it’s different every time. This time I used oat flakes, spelt flakes, chia seeds, two types of roasted pumpkin seeds, flaked almonds, dried cranberries, sultanas and cocoa nibs.
Add some type of thick syrup, just enough to stick the small ingredients to the larger ones. Mix everything except dried fruits, as these will burn. I used agave syrup this time, but I’ve used honey in the past and I expect molasses or date syrup would also work. Spread it out on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and bake in a moderate oven (about 350° F/180° C) until it is lightly browned. Stir every 10 minutes. Mine usually needs 30-40 minutes. When it is done, mix in any dried fruits and leave it to cool, then store it in a container with a tight lid.
I like to eat it topped with some Greek yogourt. I buy a large container, mix it with vanilla extract, a pinch of salt, liquid stevia to taste, and a bit of agave syrup to eliminate the chemical taste of using stevia alone. I whisk it and then put it back in the container so I have sweetened yogourt available in the morning, when I really can’t be bothered to mix it up.
In the summer, I often don’t include any dried fruit and simply serve it with fresh seasonal fruit. As it is winter the best I could do was add a few frozen blueberries.
I received a spiralizer recently and decided to make some lightly steamed zucchini/courgette ‘noodles’. These are sometimes called zoodles (zucchini + noodles), but I prefer the portmanteau fausta (faux + pasta) since that covers any vegetable I might use. I used my basic tomato-based sauce to top.
I was pretty satisfied with the result, although I did have to pan-fry the fausta a bit to remove excess water before I added the sauce. I served it with some of the ginger-orange carrots I made earlier.
