Poached Asparagus with a Fried Dukkah Egg and Goats Chevre

This year has been our strictest year yet in regards to sticking to seasonal produce. And I have really been enjoying honouring and connecting with the earths cycle in this way but it safe to say that now I'm very excited about the change in variety that is now available.
Asparagus is a big favourite of mine. I'm happy to eat it any time of the day and this dish reflects that. It's lovely for brunch, lunch, a light dinner or can be quite impressive as a side.
The dish can also be split in to three parts that you can use in other ways.
The asparagus prepared this way is just lovely and can be used in or on the side of many dishes.When I was a teenager there was a french bakery/deli near my house that used to do the asparagus this way. It wasn't there for very long but I never forgot the asparagus and I always prepare them this way no matter what I use them in. It makes them look like jewels.

The dukkah can be used in many ways. Just with fresh bread and olive oil, In a wrap with hummus, avocado and salad, on top of a salad, on top of home made bake beans etc etc..

And its also nice in a pretty jar as a gift.
And finally the dukkah fried egg which is hands down my favourite way to eat an egg. It's great with all the usual savoury breakfast suspects.

INGREDIENTS

Serves 1 or 2-4 as a side

A bunch of asparagus

1 organic or bio-dynamic local free range egg

Goats chevre local and rennet free

Dukkah store bought or recipe below

Apple cider vinegar

Freshly cracked pepper

Flat leaf parsley leaves picked apart by hand

Dill leaves picked apart by hand

Olive oil

salt

DIRECTIONS

Put a pot of water on to boil big enough to fit the asparagus in length ways. Hold the asparagus at both ends and snap the ends off, the rough end naturally snaps where it needs to. Get a vegetable peeler and peal an inch or two of the skin from the ends of the asparagus. When the waters boiling add two cap full's of the vinegar to the water and then cook the asparagus for 30 seconds to a minute. Drain them and rinse them in cold water, pat them dry with a clean tea-towel. Coat the asparagus in olive oil and cracked pepper and use your hands to make sure they are well coated.

Put some olive oil in a pan over a medium heat and sprinkle the pan with dukkah and crack your egg onto it. 

When the egg is well cooked on the bottom and there is just a little bit of uncooked white around the yolk, sprinkle the egg with more dukkah, flip the egg and turn it off the heat and leave it in the pan for about another 30 seconds or so.

Put the asparaus on a serving plate, top with the egg, some goats chevre, the herbs and some more olive oil.

DUKKAH

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup of coriander seeds

1/4 cup of cumin seeds

1/4 cup of  raw almonds

1/4 cup os sesame seeds

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 colve of freshly grated nutmeg

cracked pepper

1 tsp salt

DIRECTIONS

Toast the seeds in a large frying pan, stirring frequently until quite fragrant and nicely browned. Put in a blender with the remaining ingredients and blend until fine (but not too fine).

Store in a glass jar for up to a month.

Enjoy!

Lentils and Millet with Silverbeet, Tahini Sauce

Traditionally this lovely Lebanese dish is made with rice rather that Millet. I have to say I prefer it with millet, it has a little more texture. Millet is a seed that is eaten as a grain and is great for you. It is full of minerals, vitamins, serotonin, it's also alkaline and easy to digest. This is very satisfying as a meal on its own, as a side or as part of a huge spread. It can be served hot or at room temperature.

 LENTILS AND MILLET 

Serves 6 as a meal 8 as a side

INGREDIENTS

2 cups of millet

1 cup of french lentils

3 cups of water

2 large onions cut into rings

1/4 of a cabbage thinly shaved

3 tsp salt of good quality sea salt

olive oil

DIRECTIONS

Soak the lentils and millet for 8 hrs, drain and rinse then place in a heavy pot (a cast iron enamel pot if you have one) with the three cups of water and the lid on. Bring to a rolling boil and then reduce to a medium flame. Meanwhile cook the onions in a frypan with a couple of slugs of olive oil on a medium to high heat, tossing regularly with tongs until brown and a bit charred (about five minutes). Put aside. In the same pan (don't wash it you want the flavour from the onions) cook the cabbage the same way. After fifteen minutes the millet and lentils should of absorbed most of the water. Turn off heat and quickly add the salt, a good slug of olive oil and the cabbage. Mix well with a fork then put the lid back on for further fifteen minutes (there will be enough heat and steam to finish the cooking process without the flame on). Place on a serving plater and top with onions.

Serve with the tahini sauce or yogurt and a salad. Or as part of a banquet. It's also pretty good with some fried haloumi on top and a big green salad.

TAHINI AND SILVERBEET SAUCE

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup of tahini

1 garlic clove

 juice of 1/2 -1 lemon to taste

4 silverbeet leaves (stems removed)  washed and roughly chopped 

1/2 tsp good quality sea salt

olive oil 1/4-1/2 cup of water

DIRECTIONS

Place the silverbeet, garlic, salt and lemon and a bit of olive oil and blitz in the blender for a second. Add the tahini and slowly add the water till desired consistency. Adjust  seasoning if needed. Place in a bowl and top with nigella seeds and olive oil.

VARIATION

If your not vegan this sauce is best with a couple of tbsp of natural yogurt stirred in at the end.

Enjoy!

Spelt and Coconut Banana Loaf with Raw Cashew Cream

There always bananas at our house but no one ever eats them and eventually they always go brown. But rather than ceasing to buy them, every week we go through the same charade. So that when they do go brown, we get to eat cake.

It's kind of healthy enough that you can pass it off as breakfast or any meal really. Here I've teamed it with cashew cream and strawberries. It's great on its own, with ice cream or toasted with butter.

The Cashew cream is lovely with seasonal fruit or a myriad of other fruit based cakes.

The addition of the lemon juice to the milk makes the cake light and moist. 

SPELT AND COCONUT BANANA LOAF

INGREDIENTS

2 1/2 Cups of spelt flour

3/4 cup desiccated coconut

1/2 cup of raw honey

1 tsp of bicarb soda

1 1/3 cup milk*

juice of half a lemon

1 cup of mashed banana's (2 large or 3 small bananas)

140g coconut butter

2 eggs (organic, free range & local) lightly beaten with a fork

* I use Bio Dynamic milk or Raw organic milk (sold as bath milk in australia due to pasteurising law's) if you wish to make this cake dairy free use a nut milk.

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees celsius and line a tin with baking paper, I use a 19 x 19 cm deep square tin. Melt the honey and the coconut butter on very low heat, set aside. Add the lemon juice to the milk, set aside.

Place the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and add all of the wet ingredients, mix with a wooden spoon until well combined. Pour into the tin and bake for 45 minutes - 1 hour. Test with a metal skewer, it will come out clean when it's cooked.

RAW CASHEW CHANTILLY CREAM

INGREDIENTS

1 Cup of raw cashews soaked overnight or min 4 hours

juice of 1/2 lemon

2 tbsp of raw honey

1/2 vanilla pod

1/2 cup of  filtered water

DIRECTIONS

Drain and rinse the cashews, scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod (you can put the empty pod into your honey jar or sugar jar for added flavour.....lovely in tea).  Put all of the ingredients into the blender except for the water, put it on high speed adding the water a little at a time until you have a very smooth and creamy consistency. It will take a couple of minutes.

Enjoy!

We did!

Hunza Pie

    

I made this pie the other night and took it over to a friends house for dinner. No one there had ever heard of Hunza pie, I'm sure lots haven't but that was funny for me as it would have to be a dish that has had the most longevity in my life and one that ignites many memories.

My mother learnt how to make it in the late 60's in Sydney. My father came across his first Hunza pie around the same time in Nimbin, they hadn't met yet. At this time they had both separately chosen a vegetarian lifestyle along with hundreds of thousands of youth across the western globe in the wave of a then new counter culture, Hippies.

Hunza pie was born from this movement and was named after the Hunzakuts, a tribe in North Pakistan that apparently had a good organic diet and long life span. However they never made Hunza pie.

I have eaten and made many a version of this pie, below is my current version that I'm pretty pleased with. My very clever, very good friend brought her Hunza pie over earlier this year with the genius inclusion of turmeric. I have not made one without it since.

INGREDIENTS

serves 8

Pastry

2 1/2 cups of wholemeal spelt flour

130g of virgin coconut butter*

cold water

a pinch of salt

Filling

a big bunch of silverbeet *

1 cup (uncooked) of brown rice cooked and cooled
1 large onion diced

2 eggs (organic, local and free range)

2 cups of grated cheese (rennet free I use Nimbin)

2 tsp of salt

1 tsp of tumeric

*Use virgin coconut butter in savoury cooking as appose to extra virgin which has a strong coconut flavour. Virgin coconut butter has no odour or flavour when cooked

* you can use any green leafy vegetable I think silverbeet works best in this though. I grow my own, it's super easy to grow. It grows all year round and once you get it going it continues to be bountiful.

DIRECTION

Place flour and salt in a bowl, grate the coconut butter and rub into the flour with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Slowly add water a little at a time, working the dough with your hands until you have ball. Roll pastry out with a rolling pin and place the pastry into a greased and floured pie dish (24cm). Put it into the fridge for at least 30 mins.
For the filling put the silverbeet in a bowl and pour boiling water over it. Drain immediately, squeeze out excess liquid and roughly chop. Mix all the filling ingredients except for 1 cup of cheese. Fill the pastry and top with the remaining cup of cheese. Bake at 200 degrees celsius for around 50 minutes or until golden.
Serve with a tomato relish or chutney and a green salad
Keeps for a few days in the fridge and reheats well in the oven.

Enjoy!

Breakfast Quinoa

This is more of a basic formula than a recipe. It's visually pleasing, very satisfying, delicious, quick to make and very good for you.

DIRECTIONS

Cooked quinoa, I find a handful (15-20g) is enough for one person and it only takes ten minutes cook.

Seasonal fruit

Nuts or seeds

Maple syrup

 Labne or yogurt if your not vegan. If you are it's just as good without

I recommend giving the labne a go if you haven't made it before. It turns yogurt into something thats creamy and amazing and it takes little effort and just a bit of planning ahead.
To make lebne place a good quality full cream organic or bio-dynamic plain yogurt in muslin tie up with string and hang in the fridge over a bowl for one or two nights, discard the collected liquid. Un wrap and store your labne in the fridge in an airtight container or a bowl with a plate on top.

Below -  Quinoa with strawberries, kiwifruit, macadamias, labne and maple syrup.

Below -  Quinoa with apples, dried fig, pumpkin seeds, labne and maple syrup.

  Enjoy!