Recipe Round-Up: Nut Butter Universe

Nut Butter Universe by Robin Robertson is a fun book full of, you guessed it, a range of recipes using nuts and nut butters. This title is now out of print, but has been revised into The Nut Butter Cookbook. Any nut butter other than peanut butter is super expensive here, and buying the nuts themselves to make a butter is not much cheaper, so I have used this book sparingly so far as a result. You can see my other recipe round-up from this book here.

Fire Ants on a Log: This is a fun take on the regular ants on a log. The celery is filled with a mix of almond butter, maple syrup, and cayenne (I just used the tiniest smidge), and then topped with cranberries. I had three sticks of celery, and made 1/4 of the filling, which was the perfect ratio. This was a great snack.
Rating: :)



Vegetable Cashew Korma: This recipe was delicious - big servings that were super creamy and super yum. This recipe uses homemade cashew cream, and a homemade onion/ginger/garlic paste. You were also meant to add some jalapenos to the paste, but I didn't. It was a bit odd, because when I started blending the paste, it turned turquoise! Was I about to poison myself? The internet said no, and the colour didn't come through in the final dish. This is full of potato, broccoli, chickpeas, spinach, and peas. So good!
Rating: :D



Penne Primavera with Avocado Cashew Cream: Another winning recipe! The avocado cashew cream is amazing, though the flavour gets a bit diluted with the hot pasta. But I would make this cream for all sorts of things. Salads, nachos, dipping, whatever. Because avocado sauces don't tend to last well as leftovers, I halved this recipe to serve two. I also, as per usual, downsized the amount of pasta I use. The original recipe calls for 12-16 ounces, I used 8 ounces. I also added some peas and spinach to the vegetables (which included carrot, broccoli, and zucchini). I didn't have any fresh basil for garnish, so I used parsley.
Rating: :D



Szechuan Stir-Fry with Fiery Peanut Sauce: Regular readers know, this sauce was more a smolder than a fire. The strong flavoured sauce is based on peanut butter, with a bunch of other tasty condiments and seasonings added. Cooling it down was easy, just cut back or omit the red pepper flakes. The stir-fry itself is full of tofu, onion, broccoli, shiitake, cabbage and carrot (in place of capsicum).
Rating: :)



Buckwheat Noodles with Ginger-Peanut Spinach: This is an easy recipe, with a peanut butte rand ginger based sauce served with buckwheat soba and wilted spinach. Instead of 12oz of buckwheat soba, I used 8oz of regular soba (with wheat, as I don't need to worry about gluten). I also added extra spinach, peas, and some Japanese marinated tofu because that is how I roll.
Rating: :)



Mushroom-Cashew Breakfast Burritos: This lovely creamy tofu and mushroom scramble is cooked in a sauce cashew butter and almond milk (though I used oat) mix. These worried me a little as it starts off looking very soupy in the pan, but it did cook down to a great sauce. However, it did take a bit longer to get there then the 10 minutes the recipe stated, I started at higher heat and then decreased it as it started to thicken. I served mine wrapped in a large wholegrain wrap, with some spinach stuffed inside as well. Apologies for the terrible photo, I suck at photographing wraps to begin with, and this mix was delicious but not photogenic.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Dim Sim sleeps under the covers with me every night, and often doesn't get up until after me. Then she emerges, with a series of small mrows. Here she is, fresh out of the covers, fur a little ruffled, and her little morning face. I love her!