Moroccan Cauliflower, Rocket & Pine-Nut Side Dish

Inspired by a salad my friend recently told me about while she was gallivanting through Morocco, I re-created it with my wholefoods twist. It’s a lovely side for a week day dinner, weekend lunch or even a dinner party. Serve it either warm straight off the stove or as a salad at room temperature. The original recipe used almonds, however here I have substituted my activated pine nuts. You could use either. It’s incredibly simple to make as it only uses a few ingredients, yet so delicious. I hope you love it!

INGREDIENTS 

400-450g cauliflower, finely chopped either in a food processor or by hand
1 onion, diced
4 large handfuls of rocket, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons butter or coconut oil
a handful of activated pine nuts, toasted if desired
Extra virgin cold pressed olive oil
Lemon juice
Unrefined salt
Cracked pepper
Sumac 

DIRECTIONS

Melt butter /coconut oil in a large frying pan. Sautee onions on low heat until soft. Add cauliflower and sauté until they are just cooked through, stirring occasionally (approx. 10 minutes).

Meanwhile, to toast the pine nuts, add them to a small ungreased frying pan and toast each side on high heat until golden brown. They burn easily so watch them carefully!

Add the rocket to the cauliflower mixture and stir through. Transfer to a serving bowl. Scatter the toasted pine nuts on top and dress with a drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice to taste, and season with salt, pepper and a sprinkling of sumac.

Serves 4

Spanish Omelette (Tortilla Espanola)

Cooked and cooled potatoes are an excellent source of resistant starch, a prebiotic that helps feed the probiotics (good bacteria) in our gut. To learn more about resistant starch, and why you should consume it, read my blog post here. Spanish omelette is one easy and yummy way to incorporate cooked and cooled potatoes into your diet.

It is a typical Spanish dish consisting of egg omelette with potatoes. In my creation I’ve added black pudding or chorizo for extra nutrient-density and some cherry tomatoes and parsley for colour. I like to serve this dish cold to take advantage of the resistant starch properties of cooked and cooled potatoes. It readily lends itself for school or work lunches, eaten straight from the fridge as leftovers or prepared ahead of time for every day dinners, dinner parties or picnic lunches.

Ingredients:

2 large or 4 small potatoes (approx 500 grams)
8 eggs
1-2 tablespoons cream (optional)
1 black pudding (blood sausage) or chorizo, sliced into thin rounds (approx 150g), (optional)
1 large red onion, sliced (or brown onion if red not available)
12 (approx) cherry tomatoes, cut in half (or ½ large tomato, diced)
handful of parsley, chopped
unrefined salt
cracked pepper
1 tablespoon tallow
1 tablespoon butter (or fat of choice)

Directions:

 Preheat grill on high. Thinly slice potatoes and steam until soft (approx 10-12 minutes).

Melt tallow in small frying pan on low heat. Cook the black pudding on each side until browned (or cook underside on the stove top then transfer to the oven under a heated grill element to cook the top side). Leave in steamer until ready to use.

Meanwhile melt the butter in a large frying pan on low heat. Add the onions and sauté until golden brown stirring occasionally. Take approximately half of the onions out and set aside. Add the cooked sliced potatoes, and place the onions and parsley on top.

Blend eggs (and cream) with stick blender until well mixed. Pour egg mixture into the frying pan on top of the potato mixture. Scatter the cooked black pudding/chorizo and cherry tomatoes into the mixture. Season with salt and pepper.

Cook the underside of the omelette on the stove top before transferring to the oven under a heated grill element to cook the top side until golden. Once the top side is golden brown take out from the grill and if the eggs still haven’t set (test by tilting the frying pan to see if the eggs are still runny) then place back on the stove top on very low heat and cook until the mixture is set.

Keeps in refrigerator for a couple days.

Serves 4 as a main or 8 as a side.

Note: I tend not to peel the skin on potatoes unless they are particularly grubby / full of soil. This typically depends on the variety of the potato. Sometimes a little scrub with a brush and filtered water is enough to remove excess dirt.

Variations:

Instead of cooking this in a frying pan you could all the ingredients in a greased oven-proof baking dish and bake in the oven at 120 degrees Celsius for 1 hour or until set.

Creamy mushrooms and zucchini side dish

Who doesn’t like creamy mushrooms? My kids love them so much that I thought that this would be a great way to disguise green veggies that kids otherwise struggle to eat. Zucchinis being the case in point. This side dish is super simple to make with only a few ingredients. Tonight I served this with roasted lamb shanks but it would also make a great weekend brekky served with eggs and avocado. My kids ate the whole serving of this and asked for more.

Ingredients:

1 punnet (150g) mushrooms, sliced
1 zucchini (or other greens of choice eg spinach), thinly sliced
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons cream (I like the thick mud cream)
unrefined salt
cracked pepper

Directions:

Melt butter in frying pan. Add mushrooms and zucchini and season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low heat stirring occasionally until veggies are cooked through and soft. Stir through the cream and gently heat covered for a few minutes before serving (do not allow cream to boil).

Variations:

• omit greens entirely if you want unadulterated creamy mushrooms.

• add a splash of white wine after adding in mushrooms for extra flavour and oomph!

• add a sprinkle of fresh or dried thyme after adding in mushrooms for extra seasoning.