#VegBoxChallenge – End of Week 5

Here’s what we had last week

♔Radish salsa (Abel and Cole cookbook) on Lamb’s Lettuce salad with Green Goddess Dressing (Gwyneth Paltrow book), quinoa and fried egg (VERY TASTY)

♔ Coloured Carrots with ginger and sesame seeds (Gywneth Paltrow). Daniel said I was boring for just eating them with some dip (first half of the batch) and that it wasn’t very #VegBoxChallenge, so I thought I’d make something more exiting. I’m very glad I did, they were super tasty this way. I think this might be my new preferred way of eating carrots.

♔ Sweet Potato - Broccoli - Green Asparagus Salad with Avocado Dressing (recipe here) with quinoa and chargrilled halloumi

♔ Curried Jerusalem Artichoke Soup. Recipe from here (unfortunately in German). Very delicious!

♔ Tortilla with roasted potatoes (*), red pepper, mushrooms, red onions and cheddar. This was supposed to be for dinner and lunch the next day, but it turned into dinner and dessert, woops.

♔ The cucumber just went into juice and onto sandwiches. Not very exiting.

* Unfortunately the potatoes from the box were all really green, which I didn’t notice until I washed them. This is probably because I didn’t store them right, which is upsetting, because it meant I couldn’t use them. We used other potatoes instead, I thought I’d be honest about it.

What delicious things did you make last week?

Things to Try Thursday -16/05/13

Hej. I just handed in my (hopefully last ever) individual piece of coursework. It ended up 30 pages long (double spaced and including references, but still) and was quite a pain. First I didn’t know what to write and then I ended up having to cut out 1500 words. Fun times. Now I’ve “only” got a piece of group coursework, a group presentation and three exams left and then I’m done with uni (19 days to go!). As last week, I didn’t have time to actively look for recipes, so here’s just a couple that I came across and thought  were worth sharing. Have you come across anything that you think you have to try out this week? If you have, please share it with me in the comments.

SAVOURY

♚ I  did already try these and they were absolutely scrumptious and sooo healthy (did you know that nori sheets are actually really good for you?) – Nori Rolls 

♚ I love recipe that effortlessly combine healthy and delicious – Chickpea, Spring Onion, Kale and Panzanella Salad

♚ I love roasted any veg soup, so this is definitely my sort of thing – Vegan Roasted Cauliflower Soup

♚ Yummay – Oregano Roasted Brussel Sprout Salad with Pomegranate

♚ I may have told you this before, but I for one am always up for a quesadilla – Crispy Mushroom Spinach and Avocado Quesadillas

♚ A healthy version of an alfredo sauce – Pumpkin Fettuccine Alfredo

♚ A Burrito filled with my favourite vegetable in the whole world? Yes please – Sweet Potato Burrito smothered in Avocado Salsa

♚ Detox seems so much more doable, when it looks this pretty  - Warm Detox Veggie Tower

#VegBoxChallenge – End of Week 3

This is what last weeks’ beautiful veg went into:

♠ Red Lentil - Avocado - Roasted Beetroot - Rocket Salad on Naanbread. This is a super simple recipe that my aunt sometimes makes, it’s super delicious too, I’ll blog it soon

♠ The cucumber went into a tasty green juice. (“Recipe” for example here)

♠ Delicious creamy tomato-ey Thyme-Kohl Rabi Pasta

♠ The salad I blogged about the other day here (broccoli)

♠ Courgette Salad with Red Pepper and Halloumi (recipe here)

Aloha. I have to say the closer I get to the end of my (last ever wahey) semester, I’m struggling a little to be creative with my food, too big the desire to just have something that I know is quick and tasty at the same time. There’s not really room for any error. Nevertheless I’m happy to report that I thought this week’s food was pretty tasty, even if not the most novel, because I had made it before. The Kohl Rabi pasta (which I hadn’t made before and just made up as I went along) actually turned out really tasty, so I’ll blog this recipe as soon as I can.

How did you get on?

RECIPE: Roasted Broccoli Salad with Cranberries

Today just a quick recipe (again one I used for the #VegBoxChallenge last week). This one is very strongly inspired by the wonderful Jennifer from milkandhoney. She made broccoli slaw with buttermilk dressing, which I thought looked absolutely sublime. But due to

♧ not wanting to get my food processor out
♧ Daniel having a nut allergy, so almonds are unfortunately a no-no
♧ Me not being the biggest fan of sour cherries

I made a couple of changes, so I thought I’d show you my version on here too, because I absolutely loved it! There are a lot of delicious recipes on milkandhoney, so I suggest you all go and have a look .

RECIPE: Roasted Broccoli Salad with Cranberries
♧ Cut 1 head of broccoli into little florets
♧ Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan. Once it’s hot, add the broccoli, a pinch of salt and dried oregano
♧ Keep it on heat for about 10 minutes or until the broccoli is crispy and cooked
♧ In the meantime, make the dressing. (You need buttermilk, greek yoghurt, sugar and apple cider vinegar)
♧ Finely chop 1/2 red onion
♧ Mix the dressing, the red onion, the broccoli, a handful of dried cranberries and a handful of croutons and there you go.

I thought this was absolutely delicious, so thank you Jennifer

#VegBoxChallenge End of Week 1

This is what I made with all my beautiful veg:

♔ A delicious salad inspired by Jennifer from milk and honey. My version of the recipe is here, for this I used half of the broccoli from my box.

♔ A super tasty asparagus-broccoli quiche. Oh and it’s topped with marinated feta. Recipe here!

♔ Antipasti courgette roll-ups filled with cream cheese and sweetcorn, in a tomato sauce topped with marinated feta. Recipe here.

♔ Moonblush (Cherry) Tomatoes (recipe here). These were supposed to go into the salad, but since that changed, we had them in a halloumi wrap that was served with spicy rice (similar to the one at Nandos).

♔ Salad. I smothered it in an avocado-jalapeno dressing and had it with some green pepper in a wrap. Butterhead lettuce, my actually favourite kind of lettuce, used up (no photo, sorry)

♔ Roasted beetroot, carrot and red onions with cumin. This was surprisingly tasty, thank you for the idea Anthea! Unsurprisingly, I had it in a wrap (needed to use them up, I don’t actually live on wraps) with some greek yoghurt and marinated feta. NOM.

♔ Delightful fennel pasta. I have to say I was super surprised how tasty this was. The recipe is from here. I had it without basil, because my basil decided to be an absolute let-down and be mouldy after only two days (again, no photo sorry!)

So here’s my first blogpost reporting back what I did with all the lovely things I had in my veg box last week and how it went in general. Having made it into a challenge and blogging about it actually really helped me to force myself to use everything up. For example, whilst I had made a food plan for this week, I didn’t think the order through properly. One of our dinners should have been the butterhead lettuce with an avocado-jalapeno-buttermilk dressing, halloumi etc etc. BUT I was so focused on waiting to have it when the avocado had reached perfect ripeness, that I forgot that lettuce doesn’t last forever. So when I realised, that it already wasn’t looking its prettiest on Tuesday, I decided to just have it for lunch in a simpler version instead… I would have definitely thrown it away otherwise (I’m not proud of it, but it’s true), since I’m not a big fan of lettuce at the best of times, and quite picky with things that have gone past there best before date, if it wasn’t for knowing that I’d be annoyed to have to report back, that I threw 1 veg away.

And this post my friends I think shows that I actually made great use of everything. I’m actually very happy with how the first week went. As I said before I used up more than I probably would have otherwise, and I put in a lot more effort to make it interesting (to a big part thanks to people giving great tips), and I think it paid off. I can honestly say that I enjoyed every single one of those dishes. For everything that’s actually a recipe, I’ll post recipes on here next week (hopefully). How did you get on with your veg, what did you make?

RECIPE: Super delicious healthy Quinoa Salad for super busy people

So in my last post I talked about how meal planning can be beneficial, especially when time and money are a bit scarce. I also mentioned making something like a Quinoa salad that can last you for a couple of lunches. I’m sure you know, Quinoa isn’t actually a grain, but a seed. But here’s a random interesting fact for you it’s closely related to spinach and beets, now it sounds healthy, right? It has a high protein content and is a good source of fibre and iron. Oh and it tastes delicious. Did I forget to mention that? I just assumed you knew.
Are you on board yet?
I love making quinoa salads for periods when I’m really busy at uni and know that I won’t be able to prepare a lunch. It keeps for about 3 days and one batch feeds something around the number of a whole football team. Or about 3 greedy people.

So here’s what kept me going through last week.

RECIPE: Quinoa Salad with Kale and Peppers

1) Prepare 1 cup of Quinoa according to package instructions (don’t forget to rinse it). Important: Instead of cooking it in plain water, cook it in the same quantity of vegetable stock mixed with 1 tablespoon of honey and 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

2) Cook 1/2 a cup of Bulgur Wheat according to package instructions. Same procedure as before, cook in vegetable stock with honey and olive oil.

3) Leave the quinoa and the bulgur wheat in a big salad bowl to cool.

4) Chop 1 shallot and caramelize it in a frying pan.

5) Cut 1 red pepper into little squares (obviously remove the stem) and cut two generous handfuls of kale into edible pieces.

6) Add the red pepper and the kale to the frying pan and fry until the kale has wilted a little.

7) Pour the contents of the frying pan into your bowl with quinoa and bulgur wheat and give it a good mix. If you want, you can have a little play with spices.

8) Eat It’s good by itself or combined with some humous, olives, feta cheese and pitta (if you’re feeling decadent).

Things to Try Thursday: Leeks

As my fridge is still pretty packed with leeks, I’ve decided to do a Things to Try Thursday just for leeks. Because I’m cool and that.
There won’t be any sweet recipes, so instead of organising them by sweet or savoury, I organised them by which food blog I found the recipes on”

Serious Eats
- Sweet Potato Leek Soup
- Polenta with a Leek and Mushroom Ragu
- Leek Fritters (because we love fritters!)

Closet Cooking
- Mushroom and Leek Wild Rice Salad
- Wild Leek Pesto Pasta
- Fiddlehead and Leek Tart covered in melted Gruyere (mmmh)

Our Kitchen
- Leeks Vinaigrette and Roasted Potatoes with Herb Oil

Dana Treat
- Pizza with Silky Leeks, Smoked Mozzarella and Eggs

Delicious Days
- Risotto with Leeks and Winter Squash

Smitten Kitchen
- Leek and Mushroom Quiche
- Leek Bread Pudding

Food 52
- Leek, Lemon and Feta Quiche 
- Leek Tart with Ricotta and Pea Purree 
- Layered Mushroom and Leek Paté

Things to Try Thursday, 12th of January 2012

SWEET

1. This one looks like a little delight for breakfast, or second breakfast, or mid-afternoon snacking: Cherry Chocolate Coconut Granola

2. I believe this is a German kind of cake, it’s absolutely delicious and you should all try it: Baumkuchen

SAVOURY

1. These Quinoa Cakes look a lot crispier, than the ones, I made a while ago: Quinoa Cakes with Roasted Red Pepper

2. This definitely looks interesting: Wild Mushroom Vodka Soup 

3. This looks so delightful, and elegant, and mysterious and mmmmmh: Black Sesame Tart with Mushrooms and Feta 

4. As we established last week, I LOVE a fritter, so this is definitely a recipe to be tried: Aubergine, Buffalo Mozzarella and Mint Fritters 

5. And last but not least: because Haloumi can be so delicious: Haloumi, Rocket and Pomegranate Salad

Things to Try Thursday, 5th of January 2012

SWEET
1. Fruit has fruit sugar in it, which means that roasting will lead to caramelization, i.e. goodness: Roasted Banana Muffins

2. Always up for a cheeky cheesecake. Again especially when it involves caramel: Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars

3. Fleur de Sel can be more than interesting as well! Dark Chocolate Shortbread with Fleur de Sel

SAVOURY

1. Since it’s the new year, and we’re all trying to shift that weight we gained from the christmas holidays… Why not do it in such a delicious way: All Green Grilled Zucchini Tacos

2. Staying on the healthy track: Spinach, Feta and Blood Orange Salad

3. Pretty standard: Black Bean and Quinoa Burger

4. I love the idea of having little salsas and dips around to make every dish this little bit more interesting. This shall be one of them in the near future: Spicy Lemon Date Spread

5. Not so healthy but HELLOOOOO! Olive and Goat Cheese Turnovers (I’d probably replace goat cheese with feta cheese though)

6. These just look too pretty and delightful to be a thing. But I think they might be. Bite-sized baked brie

 

Things to Try Thursday, 3rd of November

SWEET

1) I already mentioned my endless love for anything involving Chai flavours: Chai Spiced Buttermilk Pancakes

2) I’m not actually sure about the idea of cornmeal in a cake, but it looks and sounds delicious nevertheless:  Cornmeal Cake with Fresh Corn and Berries 

3) NOM: Plum Kuchen

SAVOURY

1) This one doesn’t only bring pasta and pure elegance together, it’s also perfect for this season: Delicata Squash Pasta Shells with Brown Butter Bechamel

2) Always up for a cheeky soup here and there: Creamy Mushroom and Roasted Cauliflower Soup

3) Did you know that you can eat raw brussel sprouts? I definitely didn’t. To be honest, I don’t really eat them too often anyway, but who else but Joy from JoytheBaker could make me want to try it. Here’s a recipe for a delicious sounding salad: Apple, Pomegranate and Brussels Sprout Salad

4) Another salad, this time with Avocados and Wasabi and other deliciousness: Avocado Wasabi Salad

5) This one’s from the same blog as the previous one, which is a vegan blog! Although I’m not a vegan myself, I often find vegan recipes very inspiring. This one uses all sorts of things that I like: Bread + Aubergines + it’s a lasagne: Rustic Bread and Aubergine Lasagne

6) Another Lasagne-y thing, but this time it’s pretty too: Aubergine and Pine Nut Rolled Lasagne

P.S. Isn’t this the most beautiful vegan wedding menu (and I do realise you’ve probably not looked at any before, so it definitely will be) you’ve ever seen?