Recipe Round-Up: Blissful Bites

Speaking of healthy recipes, I really love Christy Morgan's Blissful Bites, which is a great collection of recipes. Within each chapter recipes are arranged by season, which I love. I have listed the season each of the recipes below comes from, and I made them in the appropriate season as well.

Barbecued Seitan and Lemon-Kissed Brussels and Butternut Squash (Autumn): The seitan here is both steamed and baked, which gives it a lovely texture. The flavour comes from the homemade BBQ sauce recipe that Christie provides. The vegetable side dish is a great combination, with the sweetness of the butternut nicely complemented by the tang of lemon. I also served this with some roasted potato, and more BBQ sauce. The BBQ sauce is a bit thin and vinegary.
Rating: Seitan :), BBQ sauce :), Brussels and Butternut :)



Sweet Potato Puree, Millet Mashed 'Potatoes' and Mushroom Gravy (Autumn): Wonderful comfort food dinner. The sweet potatoes includes orange zest, which came through a bit too strongly, as well as balsamic vinegar and cinnamon. Millet mashe'potatoes' is a creamy dish made from millet, cauliflower and tahini. It is amazing how creamy and satisfying it becomes, but you do need to keep a close eye on it so that it doesn't catch on the bottom of the pan. The mushroom gravy is classic and absolutely delicious! I served this with a Fry's Schnitzel.
Rating: Sweet Potato :|, Millet :), Gravy :D



Maple-Glazed Tempeh, Millet Mashed 'Potatoes' and Green Beans with Basil-Pecan Pesto Sauce (Autumn): This is one of the suggestions in the book for an autumn dinner menu. We've already spoken about the millet. The tempeh is beautiful and juicy, with a great orange and maple syrup marinade. I took the option to make it a bit more savoury, by reducing the amount of maple syrup a bit and adding a half tsp of cumin. The basil-pecan pesto sauce is served on green beans for this menu, rather than the blanched greens the menu normally calls for. I made a half batch of sauce which was more than enough for 500g of steamed green beans.
Rating: Tempeh :), Pesto Sauce :)



Gluten-Free Savoury Biscuits with Mushroom Gravy (Winter): When life gives you extra gravy, you have to make biscuits! These biscuits use a ready-made GF all-purpose flour (I used Bob's Red Mill). I could only get sweetened apple sauce, so these were a bit on the sweetish side, but still good for gravy. The dough didn't need rolling, I just had to pat it down nicely to be able to cut out the biscuits. They had a slightly dry texture, which was all good once gravy was on top. I got 7 biscuits (and one little one) from this recipe.
Rating: Biscuits :)



Fresh Corn and Zucchini Frittata and salad with Goddess Mint Dressing (Spring): The frittata is amazing! A combination of fresh corn, tofu and zucchini, The mixture is very thick, and is blended in a food processor. Once it formed into a ball in the processor, I had to use my hands to knead through the corn and zucchini properly. Interestingly the cats also went crazy trying to get their paws on this! The goddess dressing has a mild tahini taste and is sweet and tangy, making it very refreshing on greens, cucumber and tomato.
Rating: Frittata :D, Dressing :)



Barley 'Hato Mugi' Pilaf and Dijon Dill Green Beans (Spring): For the pilaf I just used regular barley, as I couldn't find the hato mugi. It is a very simple pilaf, with grain, butternut, spices and basil. The subtle flavour of it went well with the stronger flavours of the beans, which was outstanding. This recipe makes a lot of dressing for the amount of beans, so you may want to increase the beans. I used more than 1 tablespoon of dill in the sauce, because I love dill. There are also crunchy toasted almonds on top, which add another taste and texture. I served this with some Lamyong Crispy Chicken.
Rating: Pilaf :), Green Beans :D



Pineapple Cornbread Muffins (Spring): I made these sweet muffins for an afternoon tea (you can see here they were served with some strawberries and biscuits), but there were some left over for great lunch box snacks. This recipe did not rise much, so don't be shy about filling those muffin liners.
Rating: :)



Strawberry Shortcake Smoothie (Summer): This makes two smoothies, but I enjoyed the whole recipe to myself and was delightfully full afterwards for a bit. I didn't use the option protein powder because I didn't have any protein powder at that stage, but I would add it if I made it again for to make a great smoothie even more satisfying.
Rating :)



Lemony-Lime Hummus (Spring): I love hummus, and this is a great recipe brightened up with lemon and lime for a citrus kick. It goes great with fresh vegetables for a refreshing snack.
Rating: :)



Curry-Red Lentil Corn Chowder (Summer): This made three dinner-size servings, along with some bread and salad to round it out. Fresh corn makes this extra special. It also has miso in it!
Rating: :)



Daikon Canape with Sweet Miso Sauce (Autumn): Check out this pretty looking finger food! I cut the daikon about 5mm thick for this recipe. The sweet miso sauce was quite salty, but it goes nicely with the blandness (in a good way!) of the blanched daikon rounds.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



So this happened at work the other day. Honey is a boarder, and she loves to just laze around on her back, staring at the ceiling, wriggling her toes and washing her face. CUTE!