Eggplant & Chickpea Curry

This is a slight variation on a recipe I found on the NZ Herald Website. It is a nice curry that makes use of summer vegetables.

Serves 4

Ingredients
• 1.5 medium eggplants, cut in 3cm cubes
• 100ml olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 tsp curry powder
• 1 green chilli, seeds removed and chopped
• 3 tsp garam masala
• 2 tsp coriander
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 400ml coconut milk
• 100g cherry tomatoes
• 1 can chickpeas
• Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 2 handfuls of spinach
• ½ cup chopped coriander

Method
1. Put eggplant on a plate and sprinkle with salt. After 20 minutes rinse and pat dry.
2. Heat the oil in a large pot to a medium heat. Add the onion and garlic. Cook for 2 or 3 minutes until starting to soften. Add the curry, chilli, garam masala, coriander and turmeric. Stir for 1 minute until fragrant.

3. Add the eggplant and stir until well coated in spice and continue to cook until starting to soften. Add the coconut milk. Cover and cook on a low heat for 30 minutes. Add the tomatoes and chickpeas. Cook for a further 10 to 15 minutes until all soft and delicious.

4. Before serving season with salt and pepper and fold through the spinach and coriander.

Beetroot Hummus, Cream Cheese, and Avocado on Toast

I had this for a light lunch at The Hangar Café in Wellington recently, and fell in love, so had to make it myself!

For the Hummus
- 1 can chickpeas
- 1-2 cooked beetroot (I used 1 medium one, from the garden!)
- 1 finely diced / minced garlic clove
- 2 Tablespoons tahini
- Juice of 1 lemon
- Extra virgin Olive oil.
Whiz up everything except oil in a food processor. Slowly add oil until it reaches a desired consistency.

Serve with cream cheese, avocado, pumpkin seeds, on wholegrain toast or bagels. Yum!

Easy Chilli Miso Hot Pot

This chilli miso hot pot is uber refreshing, and healthy, any time of year. I made this recipe up, and didn't measure it out, so apologies for the vagueness....

Ingredients (for about 2 people):
- About 1/3 a pack of medium tofu
- Seasonal savoury vegetables. Being summer I used 1 carrot, 1 courgette, 2 celery ribs, about 6 mushrooms and 1 spring onion, which worked a treat. Chop into medium sized bits.
- Miso paste (about 2 Tablespoons)
- Dashi (I used 1 japanese fish dashi sachet)
- Hot water (about half a medium pot worth).
- Togarashi (japanese chilli flakes mix)
- 2 packets udon noodles
- A bit of grated ginger
- A couple of garlic cloves
- Optional: Seaweed (wakame is best)

Method:
Put the water and dashi in a pot and bring to a light boil. Add all the vegetables and simmer until just cooked through (about 20 min). Add tofu and cook a further 5 min.

The udon noodles don't really need cooking. You can just put them into the serving bowls with some boiling water, while you're waiting for the soup.

Right at the end, put the miso paste into a small bowl, and mix along with a couple of tablespoons of the soup liquid (until it forms a nice liquidy paste). Add this into the soup.

Drain the noodles, and put them back into the serving bowls. Pour over the soup. Top with seaweed and togarashi to your liking.

Food interlude - Salt Sugar Fat - How the Food Giants Hooked Us

Recently I finished reading this book: Salt Sugar Fat - How the Food Giants Hooked Us.

I wanted to mention it, because I would highly recommend it. It's basically all about how western culture has come to revolve around certain types of food, solely for the benefit of the food giants making money. For example did you know that cheese is now in everything, because back in the 1980s there was a big move to low fat milk, and the big dairy companies needed to come up with a way to use the left over fat....?? Did you know that one of the big reasons sugar is in so many foods is that its cheaper than almost everything else, so the more sugar in a product, the cheaper it is to produce it?..... It started out a little bit dry, as it's so detailed, however in the end I couldn't put it down, as I was gob smacked ...... A must summer read for those of you interested in how we got to where we are....

http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/0812982193

Kumara Chickpea Salad

Wow, how lucky we are to have had such nice weather over Xmas and New Years in Wellington this year.... weather for salads such as this yummy kumara and chickpea one, which we ate in our sunny courtyard for lunch today. Happy New Year ;-)

Ingredients:
- 1 medium orange-fleshed kumara
- 1 420g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- 1/8 red onion, or half a spring onion, sliced
- 100g salad greens such as baby spinach, or cos lettuce
- handful pumpkin seeds
- large handful chopped coriander leaves (I didn't have coriander today, so used mint, but it didn't taste as good).

Dressing:
For the dressing, I used Jamie's coleslaw dressing:
- 1/2 lemon
- swig extra virgin olive oil
- 1 T dijon mustard
- 125ml natural unsweetened yogurt
- freshly ground black pepper


Method:
Preheat oven to 180deg. Chop kumara into 1cm cubes. Drizzle over some olive oil. Bake for around 20 minutes or until well cooked. Allow to cool.
Transfer to a large serving bowl, and add greens, pumpkin seeds, and chickpeas. Drizzle dressing over and serve immediately.