Cooking & Meal Prep Session 1
Cauliflower Vodka Pasta + Muhammara
GET YOUR FOOD ONÂ //Â ISSUE 1 //Â MARCH 1, 2021
Happy Autumn fellow Aussies and Kiwis (and hooray for Spring up in the Northern hemisphere!). Newsletters are going to look a lot more exciting going forward. Welcome to the very first issue of Meal Prep Sessions. On Thursdays (hopefully every week), you will be treated to a peek inside my market bag. I'll take you through seasonal fruit and veg and give you lots of meal prep tips and advice along with recipe ideas so you can truly get your food on in your own kitchen. And then on Sundays, we'll round up the week with All Good Things - new recipes, cookbook chat, favourite links to blogs/ products/ articles/ podcasts.
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FRESH NEW RECIPES FROM THE BLOG
VEGAN CAULIFLOWER VODKA PASTA
Who doesn’t love a good Penne All Vodka – Al dente penne pasta tossed in a creamy vodka-tomato based sauce! Well if you love that, you will want to marry this recipe because it is the most delicious pasta you will ever eat. A creamy, decadent yet light Vegan Cauliflower Vodka Rigatoni – juicy cauliflower florets caramelized to perfection, the zing of garlic and chilli, the bite of preserved artichokes, a heady hit of vodka and non-dairy lush milk to bring it all together. And finally, the umami factor that can only come from miso! Is your mouth salivating yet?
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A Twist On A Timeless Classic
I don't know about you but I do love my rigatoni slightly more than penne. I don't know whether it is the sleek symmetrical cylindrical shape or the fact that the tubes are wider and hold more sauce in their bosom so when you take a mouthful, there are equal parts pasta and sauce. So my twist on the classic Penne Alla Vodka had to be with rigatoni instead.
Now my love for cauliflower is legendary in our home. If I could cauliflowerize every recipe I have ever loved, I would. Cauliflower in pasta is pretty special. If you have never tried it, you will have to ...
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RED CAPSICUM & WALNUT DIP WITH ROAST CAULIFLOWER (MUHAMMARA)
One of the best ways to eat a whole vegetable is to roast it and make a fabulous dip out of it! And if you been on the Baba Ghanoush train for too long, it is time to hop off and try out Muhammara – a delicious Middle Eastern Red Capsicum And Walnut Dip!
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An Easy Muhammara For An After School Snack
Muhammara is an exquisite balance of flavours
the sweetness of the red capsicum
the nutty bitterness of the walnuts
the acidity from the pomegranate and lemon
the smokiness from the cumin and paprika
the spiciness from the chilli and garlic
Roast veggie dips like this Muhammara make an excellent, flavour-packed and nutritious after-school snack. Especially topped with roasted cauliflower (If you are going to fire up the oven to roast some capsicum, might as well throw in some cauliflower, right?). You could serve it with rice crackers or carrot sticks. My boys love it with ....
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What's In My Market Bag ?
This week as usual I have all the colours of the rainbow (something I pointedly aim at incorporating in our weekly meals). Veggies are well represented by cauliflower, purple cabbage, carrots, Capsicum, potatoes, onions, zucchini, tomatoes and cucumbers. Plenty of stone fruit still going strong even as we enter autumn -peaches, mangoes, oranges, pears, papaya and melon. And the most important players - ginger, garlic, lemon, root turmeric and leek which form the base of most of my meals and then some herbs and eggs.
Don't you just love it when your market bag matches your produce? I absolutely adore these Castle & Things sturdy canvas bags with colourful happy lettering.
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Prepping & Cooking!
This week, I am making a quick batch of cauliflower rice (for Cauli Fried Rice), spiralizing zucchini (for Thai Zucchini Noodles), chopping my green and purple cabbage for Cabbage Fritters and chopping my carrots two ways - cubes and angled slices. With the angled slices, I am baking a HUGE batch of Miso Glazed Sticky Carrots (they are great for snacking or stirring through salads or just topping your Weeknight Veggie Dal.)Â
It took me a total of 40 minutes of multitasking to do all the chopping, dicing, spiralizing and cook the dal and stick the carrots in the oven. That is one meal cooked and at least 3 meals prepped.
Avocados are more expensive and the Reed variety will disappear very soon, so I am mashing them with lime juice and freezing them for quick guacs, margaritas and smoothies through the next month or so.
With the mangoes, I am making a big batch of Mango Pico De Gallo that will keep for 3-4 days in the fridge.
I am making this pesto and chutney (I make two jars of a green condiment every week, it is great to have on hand for slathering in sandwiches for lunchboxes or adding oomph to your pasta and soups). It means you can have a delicious lunch like this ready in 5 minutes on weekdays! And finally, this very useful Vegan Makhni Sauce is very good for soaking up all your veggies and protein.
This was a fun prep session. It took me 35 minutes in total to peel and mash 8 avos, juice limes, chop ingredients and make the Pico De Gallo, pesto, chutney and simmer the sauce. At the end of this session, I had two green jars of goodness, a box of chopped salad and a cooked curry sauce ready for weeknights.
