Slow Cooker Yellow Chicken Curry

 

My chicken curry is finely flavoured with a homemade curry paste made from aromatic herbs and spices typical of Thai and Vietnamese cooking, and with the addition of healthy vegetables. It is also gluten free and low calorie. The curry cooks slowly and quietly in the pot of your slow cooker, to reward you at the end of your busy day with a delicious meal. 

Air Fryer or Oven Roasted Italian Vegetables with Whipped Tofu Ricotta

Roasted Italian vegetables garnished with Basil Pesto and sitting on a layer of delicious whipped tofu ricotta sauce, is an amazing combination of flavours and textures. It will compliment any Italian main meal perfectly, or will also be delicious served with toasted crostini or sourdough for a fun and healthy appetiser. The vegetables cook perfectly in the air fryer, or the conventional oven.

Creamy Buffalo Chicken Bake, gluten free and with a vegetarian option

 

Creamy Buffalo Chicken Bake, is full of vegetables, gluten free, and simple to make either on the stovetop or as a casserole. It's the perfect meal for a mid-week dinner and also works well as an easy way to stay relaxed and entertain your dinner guests. I know this is originally an authentic American dish, but this particular recipe is claiming it for the Aussies as well. It's delicious!

Green Coriander Pesto and Superfood Pea Spaghetti

 

It's all about being healthy and going green for me, on Meat Free Monday. It's my birthday tomorrow, not a significant one with a zero at the end, but at my age every birthday is special, and I'm sure there will be a few treats, so Monday's repast will need to be simple and delicious. There are some nights when just a quick and healthy pasta dish is required. I try to focus on adequate fibre content with our meals, and sorghum spaghetti ticks all the boxes. Its full of protein, dietary fibre, vitamins and minerals, and its gluten free which is always handy to have on hand, in case of visitors requiring a gluten free meal. This is very much a vegetarian recipe which I cooked last week, and the Yeast flakes which are essentially vegan can easily be swapped out for 1 cup grated cheese. Yeast flakes aren't an ingredient I would normally cook with but it has many other uses so it won't go to waste. I'll be cooking this dish again this Monday. It's ready in 30 minutes, so it doesn't get much easier than that.

This recipe was on the back of the Ceres Organics Sorghum Spaghetti packet (no promotion intended) which I found at our local Mifsud's Fresh Fruit Barn in Mackay. They stock a lot more interesting products than the average fruit barn and the freshest of produce. Quite a few local restaurant chefs shop there frequently. My interest in using sorghum products for cooking was piqued during a recent road trip along the Burnett Highway, an inland rural highway in Queensland, where the broad acre agricultural fields were mostly rust, orange or red coloured sorghum. Sorghum in general has a diversity of uses, from livestock cattle feed to human food, so I was interested to see this sorghum spaghetti in the shop, even though the country of origin isn't Australia, but Bolivia in South America. Never mind, it's still organic and still healthy. We've heard a lot about superfoods and super crops, but not much about sorghum being one of those, but it is.  Bolivian white sorghum is grown for flour for the food industry, so presumably it was used for this spaghetti. I read that it is also grown for the brewing of beer. Whereas red and rust coloured sorghum in the photo below is so versatile that it is used primarily for fuel and cattle feed but has many other uses as well.  Sorghum is an ancient grain native to Northeastern Africa, and requires little water to grow, so is now being considered environmentally beneficial for the planet. This makes it perfect for agricultural use in rural Queensland, which is notoriously dry, although when we travelled through there had been recent flooding. 

Rust coloured broad acre sorghum fields

During our road trip along the Burnett Highway, we also saw this creek sign. We had a good laugh when we tried to say the name, and decided this must be the longest creek name we have ever seen. Toondoonnananigy Creek, probably derived from the language of our First Nations People. 

LET'S COOK with Sorghum Spaghetti:

Ingredients:

Ready in 30 minutes, serves 3-4 (See notes)

1 packet Organic Sorghum Spaghetti (I used Ceres brand)

1 bunch coriander

1 clove garlic, crushed

2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 1/2 cups peas, blanched

1/4 cup Organics Savoury Yeast Flakes

Method:

Cook sorghum spaghetti according to packet instructions, much the same as normal spaghetti but takes a little longer, about 13-15 minutes until al dente.

Wash the coriander and dry it in a herbs spinner. Coriander always needs washing and drying before use, this is an important step.

 In your food processor bowl, place the coriander, garlic and yeast flakes and give it a good blitz. Then scrape down the sides.

Drizzle the Extra Virgin Olive Oil through the lid chute, and process to a pesto consistency. I used all of the oil. Season with salt and ground black pepper to taste.

 Drain the pasta, return to the saucepan, add a little olive oil to loosen the strands, and then stir in the pesto and peas. You have a delicious and attractive meal on the table in 30 minutes.

Cooks notes:

• The recipe stated that this feeds 3-4 people. Mr. HRK and I ate this over two small meals, but it could easily be bumped up to feed 4 comfortably by adding some sun-dried tomatoes, cooked mushrooms, or roasted pumpkin or whatever vegetables you would like. Tasty mature grated cheese would also make it more filling than the Savoury Yeast flakes.
• Whilst it was delicious and we really enjoyed this dish, I would have liked even more flavour in this recipe. But that's me, and I love coriander which can be quite a strongly flavoured herb. Any herb pesto could be used though, and next time I make it I'll double the amount of pesto and keep adding it to the spaghetti until I'm happy with the flavour. Ill freeze the remainder for adding to other dishes. 

Is Meat Free or Meatless Monday still a thing? According to various websites I visited it is. I try to stick to it as a matter of routine, and it's an easy way to reset after the weekend when we may have had a wee indulgence or two. It appears that people are also more open to healthy behaviours at the beginning of the week, before the busy week gets on top of them. Just one plant-based day a week is a fun and easy way to do something for the planet and our future.

Warm wishes

Pauline

Golden Zucchini and Spanish Onion Fritters

 

Who doesn't love a fritter, whether it's vegetarian or loaded with corned meat, or in the form of a rosti, a bhaji, or a potato cake. They are all based on the same theme, crunchy on the outside and delicious on the inside.What a wonderful surprise these fritters were, considering they are made with chickpea flour, and are gluten free, dairy free, and egg free, which isn't something I normally think about, so you can just about make them for everyone without needing to worry about any culinary issues. These are perfect for a meat free Monday dinner.

I purchased some chickpea flour from the supermarket especially for this recipe, after I had watched a cooking segment on the ABC News Breakfast programme (Australia), where Alice Zaslavsky, resident chef, presented them to the hosts Michael and Lisa and of course they were devouring them on air, how unkind, although they probably don't have time for brekkie before the show.  They looked delicious and made me just a bit peckish, I hadn't eaten brekkie either by then. Alice didn't actually cook them on the show, however there is a video on ABC Everyday of her making them, and I felt I needed to give them a try in my kitchen. 

Chickpea flour (or besan flour) whilst being free of gluten,  acts like egg when you add liquid to it. In this recipe the liquid from the zucchini after it rests with salt, is enough to bind the flour. As Alice said, the water you drain out of your chickpea tin can also act as a common plant-based egg replacement if necessary, aka aquafaba. The ratio of vegetable to flour is perfect in these fritters, however if you want to add more vegetable such as peas or grated carrot you can.

Let's Cook some fritters:

Ingredients:

Makes 10 - 12 fritters

400 g (3-4 medium sized ones) zucchini

100 g (1/2 a small one) Spanish or red onion

1 teaspoon salt flakes, plus extra for sprinkling

1 cup (110 g) chickpea (besan) flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons olive oil

Method:

1. Use the grating function on your food processor to coarsely grate the zucchini and the onion, or do this using a hand held grater. I don't have a good relationship with graters so I avoid them whenever I can, but if you are ok with them use the coarsest teeth on your grater.

Sprinkle a teaspoon of salt flakes on top of the grated zucchini in a largish bowl and stir through the salt, mix it all up and let it rest for 5 - 10 minutes. It should get really juicy, as the zucchini releases all those lovely juices which binds the chickpea flour together.

2. Scatter the chickpea flour on top of the zucchini mixture, either through a sieve or by mixing it with your fingers to sift out any lumps. Sprinkle in the baking powder.  Stir all of this together with a spatula and it should start to come together to form a ball of batter in your bowl. If it is still too wet to come together, slowly add another tablespoon of chickpea flour until it binds together.

3. In a frypan, add two-thirds of the olive oil (2 tablespoons)  and when it starts to heat up, or "shimmer" add heaped tablespoons of the mixture into the pan, but not too closely together or it will be difficult to turn them over. They should be sizzling slightly. After putting the mixture in the pan, flatten each fritter slightly with your spatula or egg flipper. 

4. As the bases of the fritters start to cook they will become golden and crispy, and that is when you flip them over using your egg flipper and a spoon. Cook both sides, drain them on a kitchen towel on a plate, and whilst still hot, sprinkle lightly with salt flakes. Keep warm in the oven until they are all cooked.

The fritters will keep well in a covered container in the frig for 4-5 days, or an extra batch can be frozen, thawed out overnight and then reheated. I haven't done this, but Alice says to "whack'em in on a lined tray, crank up the oven to 160 deg.for 10-15 minutes, because by the time the oven's heated up, the middles have too."

Garnish with coriander or parsley and dive in.

Variations:

Add some frozen peas or corn to your vegetable combination. Just thaw them by pouring some boiling water over 1/2 cup of either, drain and add to the mixture. Other vegetables can also be used such as grated sweet potato, carrot, pumpkin or beetroot, how versatile is that?

Or add some spices such as smoky paprika, cumin, or curry powder, depends on what mood you are in, and what your gut tolerances are. Surprise your family by adding something different each time.

Thinking of all our friends overseas and in Australia who are still in lock down. Stay safe, the vaccinations can't come soon enough can they?

Happy cooking and delicious eating, 

Pauline