Recipe Round-Up: Bowls of Goodness

Hi friends, here is a recipe round-up post. I had it sitting in drafts mostly written for ages, so I just added a couple of other ones I had made so I could post it. This is the second half of my 'recent' round ups from this book, the first half I posted on the 22nd of November... who would know that five days later my world would crumble so completely.

Anyway, please enjoy this post of recipes rounded up from Bowls of Goodness by Nina Olsson, which is a very good book. I realised that this is quite a long post, so feel free to just scroll down and look at the photos as you go. You can see my other posts from this book here.

Asian Coleslaw: I had some wombok (aka napa) cabbage to use up, and happened to have all the ingredients on hand for this. The slaw itself is made from white cabbage (wombok in my case) and apples, but I also added some carrot. It is tossed with a coleslaw dressing that includes peanut butter and lime for a bit of a difference. The dressing combined with the shredded apple made it all very liquid. I served this with some roasted green beans and some BBQ sausages.
Rating: :)



Gado Gado: The peanut sauce in this recipe called for both tamarind and lime, and as a result was really sour. I wonder if the recipe should have read one of either. I added some leftover marinade from the tempeh (which was garlic/ginger/soy/maple) to try and smooth out the sour, plus some extra agave, but it was still so sour and the peanut taste was lost. The rest of this bowl has marinated tempeh, black rice, green beans, toasted coconut, bean sprouts, papaya, and coriander. The bowl itself was good, but the sauce needs a major reworking.
Rating: :| due to sauce



Masala and Millet Bowl: Millet is one of those grains that doesn't get enough love, but I am here to love it. In this case, the millet is mixed with roasted vegetables (I used cauliflower, radish, carrot, and cherry tomatoes) and chickpeas. The vegetables and chickpeas are tossed with spices (I left out the chili powder) before roasting. The bowl is topped with avocado, nuts or seeds (I used pepitas) and a herbed yoghurt sauce. The avocado and sauce were essential, as it would have been a bit dry without it. But lovely when all mixed up. I also served this over some baby spinach.
Rating: :)



Laksa Noodles: It's your girl, here making laksa without chili and not as coconutty! This recipe includes making your own laksa paste, and seems a bit fussy but once you have made the paste and prepped the rest it comes together very fast. Obviously I left out the sambal oelek in the paste, to get all that gingery garlicky lemongrassy goodness without the spicy, so I understand that I made it not really a laksa, but it worked for me. The noodles also have tofu,mushroom, broccoli, green beans, and beansprouts on top. My amounts were a bit different to what the recipe called for, but overall it added up to about the same. I also used light coconut milk further diluted with some water in the broth, so I could enjoy the creamy without making myself sick. The noodles are topped with a quick pickled cucumber, that was also meant to have onions in it but I left them out.
Rating: :)



Slutty Pasta: I love puttanesca. It is tasty and normally comes together very quickly. This one is a bit more time intensice, as it involves roasting some tomatoes, onions, and garlic that are blended to make the sauce with basil and olives (and chili, which I left out). I didn't add any extra pasta water to the sauce, as it was already plenty of sauce. And I am glad I didn't as the sauce could have been a bit richer as it was so adding water would have made it quite dilute. As it was I had about twice the amount of sauce I needed, so I froze the rest for an easy meal at a later time. I added some kidney beans to this to bulk it out, as well as some kalamata olives and capers, and topped with nooch.
Rating: :)



Royal Korma: Another recipe where you make your own paste, and another instance where I left out the chili!The paste uses toasted almonds, but next time I would just use almond meal for ease. The paste is cooked with red onion, coconut milk (it calls for 800mL, so I used a mix of light coconut milk, oat milk, and water), and tiny diced carrots and cauliflower (I used a bag of ready made cauliflower rice). Served with brown rice, a simple raita, naan bread, and an apple and onion pickle (that I of course left the onion out of). This made big serves, but wasn't super filling.
Rating: :)



The Loyal Lentil Chilli: An old standby but given a few fun twists. By now you know, this was not actual chilli, because I left out the chillies! My chillies are chill in the sense of having no heat. As well as lentils, the chilli also has butternut squash (which I love and gave a really nice sweetness). It also has coconut milk, so of course I did my as described above dilution trick. Do chillies have coconut milk> Does that really make it more of a curry? Oh, I also used some tinned lentils because making things more convenient is a good thing some days. This was served with a simple yoghurt sauce, a quick pickled cucumber, rice, and coriander. It was a lovely combination.
Rating: :)



Back To The Roots: This bowl is a comforting mix of broccoli mash, roasted veggies, sauteed kale, and carrot, tahini, and miso dressing. I used half the amount of broccoli and got three serves. The broccoli is mashed with tahini, lemon juice, and hemp seeds, so isn't very smooth! The roasted veggies are sweet potato and red onion as well as including some pumpkin seeds in the mix. The bowl is also served with some 'clean salad'... whatever, anyway, I only used spinach for my salad (not sprouts or herbs), which was lightly tossed in sesame oil and vinegar. But the real star was the sauce, which was SO YUM! Worth making on its own.
Rating: :), but :D for the sauce alone



Pulled Jackfruit Bowl: This recipe uses a homemade BBQ sauce to cook down jackfruit and shiitake mushrooms. It ended up being very liquid, so I had to simmer it enthusiastically for several minutes at the end to get the sauce to thicken up. No one wants watery jackfruit! The bowl is also served with some coleslaw (which was nice but had a strong taste of olive oil in the dressing), and some sweet potato fries. I also served it over some baby spinach. A nice combination.
Rating: :)



Herbed Potatoes: I made a half recipe of this lovely side, which is roasted baby potatoes tossed with baby spinach and a dill pesto sauce. The pesto sauce was meant to be mostly based on chives, but all that raw chive action would not be good for my tummy. So I used extra parsley and some baby spinach in place of the chives. I also used some Vegenaise in the pesto in place of the optional creme fraiche. I roasted the potatoes a bit longer in my oven to get them nice and brown on the outside. Served with some store-bought BBQ tofu for a nice dinner.
Rating: :)