Ultimate Middle Eastern Feast!

Well it's been a friggin long time since I last posted... to be honest I was feeling a bit meh about the whole blogging thing. I realised that I don't actually really like sitting behind a computer editing pictures. I also don't really like being sat around with all the yummy food I've just cooked, styling it and making it look like all the magazines for the benefit of a good picture. Bazillion different vintage plates, planks of wood, napkins haphazardly placed across the table just so... The overhead shot with things strewn everywhere, placed exactly where they might lay if it were a family dinner (but there's no one there... 

Being online and active on social media exposes you to the way that so many people showcase their lives. It's not necessarily a bad thing... Instagram has resulted in people seeing beauty in normal every day things, and you see end up seeing the parts of peoples lives they want you to see, and in the light and filter through which you should view it. The thing is, that doesn't really suit me. I can display my life how I like on social media, but if what I show is not 100% true to life, I feel like a fake. I can take a photo of my basil plant and make it look like I grow everything and am totally self sufficient. Not true. But I could make it look that way...

Impression: I went shopping and am totes a
fashionista, yah.
Reality: I went shopping last minute for
a dress and the gold one makes me
look like a gay care bear
(little round legs and belly).

Impression: I'm like, super hipster and the
abstract lighting is a
reflection on my state of mind, amazeballs.
Reality: OOOOO pretty shiny things!

Impression: I'm super important at my job
and manage to juggle it all,
and make it look easy,
cos I've totally got my
shit together #awkwardlean #ditzygrin.
Reality: ERMERGEEERD kill me noooow #dies
#meltdown

You get the point.

I prefer to live a more honest lifestyle. When I cook food, I do it to eat it, to feed others, to show love. That sounds corny but I'm an emotional cripple - so if I cook for you, it means something. Sitting around styling food shots is not my style, I cook to eat, not to make everyone else look at it and say oooo. Just come over and let me feed you.

This dinner was one of the ones where I didn't spend much time making it look pretty. Because who cares, it was bloody delicious. No props, no white boards behind to reflect the light, no wooden slabs underneath to make it look like it was taken on a rustic French table. Just tasty food to eat, that might be something you've not had before. But you'll do it again!

I bought some local flatbreads and slathered on some olive oil and a generous sprinkling of zaatar, a Middle Eastern spice blend that is made up of sumac, salt, sesame seeds and thyme. A quick blast in the oven yielded a soft in the centre, crispy on the outer, base to start layering! As long as it's all in there, it doesn't matter how you layer it. 

Just make sure you style it and Instagram it!

Roasted Cauliflower with Citrus Tahini Sauce
Serves 4, adapted from Suzanne Husseini's Modern Flavours of Arabia.

Ingredients

1 head of cauliflower
Olive oil
sea salt
juice of 2 lemons
zest and juice of 1 orange (save some zest to garnish)
1 cup water
3/4 cup tahini
3 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, mashed
2 medium onions, sliced thin
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts, to garnish
1/4 cup slivered almonds, to garnish

Method

1) Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. 

2) Take the whole head of cauliflower and cut (core included) into 4 thick slices. Place on a large baking sheet, coat with oil and season with salt (I used some pretty awesome smoked salt that I picked up from Pimlott and Strand, extra layers n all that!) 

3) Roast until golden and crisp and cooked through, it should take about 20 minutes. 

4) Mix the lemon juice, orange juice and zest, water and tahini to make a creamy sauce and leave aside.

5) In a frying pan, heat 3 tbsp olive oil and saute the onions and garlic until golden and soft. Pour the tahini sauce over the cooked onions and bring to a simmer until  it thickens slightly. Taste and adjust seasoning as you need to. 

6) Serve drizzled over the roasted cauliflower and garnish with toasted nuts and orange zest.

Roasted red pepper dip (Muhammara)

Adapted from Suzanne Husseini's Modern Flavours of Arabia.

Ingredients

2 red capsicums
2 red chillies
1/2 cup toasted almonds
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
2 cloves garlic, mashed
2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
Juice of 1 lemon
1 cup fresh or panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for garnish
Extra nuts, for garnish

Method

1) Pre-heat your grill until very hot. Place capsicums on a tray lined with baking paper and grill until the skins have blackened. Put the caps into a plastic bag or into a plastic container to sweat and cool down (this will make it easier for you to take the skins off later).
2) Peel the blackened skin from the caps and place into the food processor. 

3) Add the lemon, bread crumbs, garlic cloves, lemon, pine nuts, almonds, pomegranite molasses and olive oil, and blend until it reaches a consistency you like. 

Layer up the dip with the cauliflower, tahini sauce and chopped cucumber and tomatoes for a tasty, healthy, vegan dinner. It's so delicious you won't miss the meat - in fact, we cooked some chicken to go with it and I ended up taking the chicken off as it was better without it!

You can hashtag this recipe all day. #cleaneating #vegan #meatfreemonday #dairyfree #glutenfree (if you use GF wraps) all that stuff.

Get around it.

PS - Do you  have loads of tahini sauce left, like I did?

Try these recipes to use it up - they sounds fuggin delicious and are on my to do list!

Roasted Butternut Squash and Red Onion with Tahini and Za'atar - Ottolenghi

Carrot soup with crispy chickpeas - Smitten Kitchen

Healthy foods, Ottolenghi style

I haven't really been on much of a health kick recently, the exercise has really fallen by the wayside, mostly due to a case of bung legs. Turns out after a couple of expensive trips to the osteopath (including $120 parking fine - City of Perth better spend that well, wankers), it turns out my gluteal muscles aka arse muscles, are not firing {insert fart joke here}. This has caused all kinds of problems from achilles pain, tight and aching calves, and now my lower back is totally rooted. I went to school hopped up on codeine today, and let me tell you, my speech in front of the school about a sports carnival was just gushingly lovely, as was my health class afterwards. I talked. A lot. 

Anyway, without the exercise, I've turned into a bit of a apex predator - eating everything in sight with reckless abandon. This included bowling club priced booze and masses of cake at the Beaufort Bake and Bowls.

But all is not totally lost (the weight sure isn't anyway). I did cook SOME healthy things. I have more healthy things planned too. But not rabbit food, not look-how-alternative-I-can-be-with-my-weird-grains-that-taste-like-wet-cardboard kinda healthy.  

YUMMY healthy food.

Ottolenghi healthy. Plenty.

One night we had Mushroom Ragout with Yoghurt Flatbreads, which was fuggin amazing. Those flatbreads are soft, the dough is easy to make, even easier to work with and when cooked up, but the easiest thing is scooping up bits of tasty grilled mushroom and wine, with swirls of tangy yoghurt and fresh bursts of parsley. Leftover mushies were piled up on buttered toast in the morning and devoured - they kept me going all day (well, until about 10:30 when I went apex predator on some cake I forgot I had).

I also tried the herb stuffed tomatoes, which were Mediterranean in their flavours, salty olives, capers with a bite and surprisingly hearty from the breadcrumbs. I really enjoyed them, and would be great as a starter or as a side to something else - I used some local Gingin Beef mince and cooked it up very simply with basic seasoning and olives in the same pan I  made the stuffing in - it was gorgeous. The best mince I've ever had. 

The highlight though I think was the Quesadillas. These were awesome, and I am planning on making a bunch of these in advance when we go for a bbq, because once they're assembled, all you have to do is grill them. We added chicken to ours, but it's not really necessary. Next time I'm going to amp up the flavours in the beans, and maybe add a tangy, crunchy coleslaw for a bit of a tex mex vibe. Either way, we scoffed them. I made a toasty the next day with the leftovers, and they were still awesome.

You have to have a go at this book. If you're feeling like you're eating yourself outta house and home, the least you can do is eat healthier food. 

I will be eating more outta this book. 

Cauliflower and Cumin Fritters - Yotam Ottolenghi, Ottolenghi; The Cookbook

We always get cauliflowers and I never know what to do with them... I grew up with them being covered with white sauce and cheese then having the bejeezus grilled out of them. Dont get me wrong, I love cauliflower cheese! But you cant have that all the time... and you need some variety! So I stumbed upon this recipe and thought Id give it a try - my first Ottolenghi recipe! Its from his first book, "Ottolenghi".

 Cauliflower and Cumin Fritters with Lime Yoghurt

Serves 4

Ingredients:

For the fritters

1 small cauliflower (about 320g)

120g plain flour

3 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley plus a few extra leaves to garnish

1 garlic clove, crushed

2 shallots, finely chopped

4 free range eggs

1 1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground tumeric

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

500ml sunflower oil for frying

For the lime yoghurt

300g Greek yoghurt

2 tbsp finely chopped coriander with a couple of leaves reserved to garnish

grated zest of 1 lime

2 tbsp lime juice

2 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Method:

1. Make the yoghurt sauce first by whisking the ingredients (reserving a little oil and sprig of coriander) all together in a bowl. Put aside in the fridge, pour over a little oil and sprinkle with a couple of leaves of coriander to serve.

2. Prepare the cauliflower by removing the leaves and dividing into small florets. Cooking in a large pan of simmering salted water for around 15 minutes until soft. Drain.

3. Meanwhile, whisk together in a bowl the eggs, flour, parsley, garlic, shallots, spices, salt and pepper. When mixed well, add the soft warm cauliflower and stir breaking down the cauliflower into the batter.

 mmm spices and parsley!

 batter without cauliflower

 batter with the cauliflower

4. Heat the sunflower oil (at a depth of 1.5cm) in a wide pan and heat.  When very hot, spoon 3 tbsp worth blobs of batter carefully into the oil to cook.  Avoid overcrowding them, cook maybe 3 at a time spacing them apart with a fish slice.  Fry for 3-4 minutes each side then remove from the pan and drain on kitchen paper.

5. Serve immediately with the yoghurt sauce.

This pic is obviously served without the sauce because we ate it, I didnt make much of it, we gobbled up the fritters and then I remembered to take a pic of them once they were cold! Oooops!

They were quite nice, but a bit heavy. Id say thats because I only had 2 eggs to use and the recipe asks for 4...... again, oooops! If I made them again Id go easy on the tumeric, I could taste too much of it and it was all I could taste. Its a good recipe to use I think, if you wanna get veges in the kids without them knowing (or your bf for that matter!). Id be tempted to see how they cook in the oven, not fried, to make them a bit healthier?

Food Discovery!

I have recently discovered a packet meal, that are preservative and gluten free and 100% vegetarian... Im not a huge fan of packet meals, as they always taste the same and I would prefer to cook it myself anyway, then I know whats in the food Im eating. However my old roommate Rose turned me onto these little packets of wonder! Theyre all indian meals, and vary in range of heat from one to three chillies (though I have only ever found 2 chilli meals, which vary in heat anyway lol) and are really tasty! The brand name is Gits, its made in India and exported (the food miles are the only negative I have found so far...), and I buy them from the Waneroo Market "supermarket", and they're about $3 each, which I think is reasonable!

Today for lunch Ive eaten Pau Bhaji, and the description on the back says "the original fast food from Bombay, Pau Bhaji literally means bread and mixed vegetables. The Bhaji, ie mixed veg, is cooked with a medley of spices and herbs, cooked to perfection in large pats of butter and garnished with coarsely chopped coriander leaves and diced onions. The Bhaji is served with small loaves of bread called Pau. An ideal snack that can be a meal in itself, Pau Bhaji offers you a taste of Bombay that leaves you craving for more". Aside from the marketing talk, its pretty accurate in whats in the box, and I love that they explain what the name means. Not many people really understand the Indian words used in menus etc so its great that they're demistifying the terminology! Now I know what Pau and Bhaji mean when I encounter them on a menu!

Most important thing is the taste though... yum!! Im no Indian food buff but to me, its nice. It would be great mopped up with some garlic naan, and its full of flavour and has a great texture. Its very tomatoey, which is explained when I look at teh ingredients - 35% tomatoes. Followed closely by potato at 31%. Over half of it is already just vegetable, which I love to see. While it DOES taste a little like something from the packet, its still one of the best foods Ive had thats packaged - and as a former uni student I tried one of everything at some stage!! I would serve the better ones of these (Im on my way to figuring out which ones are the best!) as sides if I were to cook an Indian feast for friends, simply to cut corners (as I know some of my friends would never know the difference!).

The list of ingredients shows only herbs, spices and vegetables, NO E numbers, perservatives, random thickeners, stabilisers, flavour/colourings... not one.

Happy days :)