dinner

Pumpkin Curry & Cauliflower Coconut Rice

Pumpkin Curry:

1 tbsp coconut oil
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
1-2 garlic cloves
1-2 tsp ginger, grated
1 tsp Ceylon cinnamon
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp curry
2 tsp ground cumin
1⁄2 tsp ground cardamom
500 g butternut squash, peeled & cut to cubes
200 g can chickpeas, drained
a handful of green beans
400 g can tomato sauce or diced tomato
400 g coconut milk

Heat a large pan and add the onion & garlic. Cook stirring for 2 mins. Add ginger,
cinnamon, turmeric, curry, cumin & cardamom. Cook for 2 mins. Add the tomato sauce & coconut milk. Bring to boil. Add the butternut squash, chickpeas & green peas. Cook covered on low heat for 25 mins. Taste and add seasoning, if needed. Meanwhile, prepare the cauliflower rice.

 

Cauliflower Rice:

1 medium cauliflower
1 tbsp coconut oil
¼ tsp sea salt
¼ cup coconut milk

Cut the cauliflower into small florets and place them into a blender or food processor with the shredder blade. Pulse into fine rice-sized crust, not into a puree. Heat a large pan with coconut oil in it. Add the cauliflower rice and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the salt and coconut milk. Serve warm with the pumpkin curry.

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Creamy Goddess Avocado Pasta

Sauce:

2 avocados, peeled, stone removed & diced
juices from half a lemon
1 cup zucchini, cut into small cubes
¼ cup cashew nuts
2 garlic cloves
5 tbsp Tesco Free From Basil Pesto
¼ cup oat cream or oat milk
big handful of fresh basil leaves
pinch of sea salt
some black pepper

Pasta:

Tesco Free From Tagliatelle Pasta (or other gluten-free pasta)

On top:

pine nuts
basil leaves
organic parmesan or vegan parmesan
extra avocado, optional
edible flowers, optional
lemon zest, optional

Cook the pasta until tender according to the instructions of the package. Place all the sauce ingredients into a high-speed blender or a food processor and blend until smooth. If needed, add a bit more oat cream/milk to get the texture as smooth & creamy as possible. Pour the sauce on top of the pasta, stir gently and top with pine nuts and basil leaves. Enjoy while warm.

Sweet potato slices with pink hummus

Sweet potato slices with pink hummus

VANELJA’S ROASTED SWEET POTATO SLICES WITH PINK HUMMUS & AVO

2 sweet potatoes, peeled
sea salt
black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200 Celsius / 400 fahrenheit degrees. Slice the sweet potatoes into half inch slices. Spread the slices onto a baking tray covered with baking paper. Pour on some olive oil & sprinkle o salt and black pepper. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the sweet potatoes feel tender. Take out from the oven. Let cool slightly. Spread on some pink hummus and top with avocado slices and microgreens or herbs + finger salt. Serve & enjoy right away!

PINK HUMMUS:

1 or a half small beet, peeled & steamed or roasted
2 cups canned chickpeas, drained
(save about ½ cup aquafaba/liquid from the chickpeas)
2 tbsp tahini
juices from half lime
5 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves
pinch of salt
ground black pepper

Blend the beets and chickpeas together in a blender or food processor until slightly combined. Add the rest of the ingredients. Blend. Add some aquafaba so that you get a smooth consistency.

Hello, love! I have one pretty delicious weekend greeting here for you! And it comes in a form of a pizza. I hope you like sweet potato, because this pizza crust is all about it. I mean ALL about it. Totally and completely. Nothing else added.

One of the most popular everyday foods in our household are mini pizzas made on small sweet potato slices. We all love them. They are super easy to make and it takes less than 30 minutes to get them ready. The only thing that started bugging me in the whole mini pizza process was that I always have to add all the toppings separately on each and every slice. So, as a great optimizer as I am, I started to think how could I use the same idea but in a bigger pizza size.

After a few test batches I found out that when I slice the sweet potato lengthwise with a cheese slicer and place the slices overlapping on a baking tray in a form of a round pizza, it makes a great crust which cooks up quickly. And when I sprinkle on some organic mozzarella (and/or feta or vegan cheese) it works like a glue for the slices and makes the pizza easy to eat. Of course you won’t get it as firm as a normal pizza crust would be, but firm enough so you can eat it decently – and with a smile on your face, because it’s just so so tasty.

As a pizza topping I used loads of greens, lovely vegetables and fresh herbs, which made the whole thing look so generous and verdant, especially when I added some edible flowers on it, that I named it the Green Goddess Sweet Potato Pizza. Talk about life energy and abundance.

If you like it more hard core, go ahead and add some organic meat and cheeses on, if you feel you get your divine energies better that way. My kid loves her sweet potato pizza with some tomato puree, tuna (MSC certified, of course) and pineapple. And as she’s going through some picky state of life, I let her enjoy it that way and won’t push my greens on her pizza.

What I love most about this recipe is that it takes less than 30 minutes to make and you can use almost anything you happen to have in the fridge, as long as you have sweet potatoes. As a person who live is the moment, not planning too much her eatings and at the same time gets VERY hungry VERY quickly this kind of a dish is just priceless.

So, there you go! I hope this delivered you some inspiration for the weekend. May the pizza goddess light your way to the kitchen!

 

V

Makes 1 pizza

 

Crust:

2 medium sized sweet potatoes

olive oil

sea salt

black pepper

pizza spice mix

garlic clove, minced

 

Filling:

pesto sauce

4.5 oz organic mozzarella (and/or feta or vegan cheese)

a couple of handfuls baby spinach leaves

1 spring onion

4 stalks of sweet baby broccoli

artichoke hearts (cooked/from a jar)

3 slices of lemon

pine nuts

olives

fresh oregano

fresh basil

sunflower sprouts

 

Preheat the oven to 390 Fahrenheit / 200 Celsius degrees. Cover a baking tray with a parchment paper. Peel the sweet potatoes and slice them with a cheese slicer or a mandolin vegetable slicer into very thin, almost transparent slices. Arrange the sweet potato slices on the baking tray so that they touch each other, making a circle. Fill in all the holes and also the inner circle, so that you get a circle with no holes or see-through spots. Now sprinkle on some olive oil, salt, black pepper and pizza spice mix. Also add garlic. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes until the sweet potato slices soften. Take out from the oven. Spread some pesto on the crust and add the cheese. Add also the spinach leaves. Cut the spring onion and broccoli into small pieces and sprinkle them on the pizza. Slice the artichoke hearts and add them with lemon slices, pine nuts and olives. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes until the cheese melts and the filling gets a nice tanned color. Take out of the oven and season with fresh oregano and basil + sprouts. Serve and enjoy!

Preparing time: 25 minutes

Cake:

  • 4 organic eggs
  • 10-15 fresh sweet dates
  • 1,5 dl raw cacao powder

Cake tin diameter: about 17 cm / 6,5 inches

Preheat the oven to 200 C / 400 Fahrenheit degrees. Grease/oil the sides and the bottom of the cake tin. Cut pieces of parchment paper to cover the bottom and the sides. Remove the stones from the dates and add all the ingredients to the blender. Blend until smooth. Pour the dough into the cake tin and bake for 20-25 minutes until the surface looks dry. Watch out not to dry the cake too much (a tough job!). Let the cake cool completely before you remove the cake from the tin. Notice that the surface will come down quite a bit. Enjoy with chocolate mousse and nut crust or whipped coconut cream and berries!

CHOCOLATE MOUSSE FROSTING

  • 1 can (400 ml) full fat coconut milk (kept in the fridge)
  • 3-5 tbsp raw cacao powder
  • 1 tbsp organic honey (or coconut syrup)

Take the coconut milk can from the fridge and scoop the white thick paste into a bowl. Add cacao powder and sweetener and whip with a mixer until mousse. Taste and add more cacao or sweetness if needed. Use as a frosting.

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Vegan meatballs:

( 8-10 pieces)

  • ½ heaping cup sun-dried tomatoes
  • ½ cup sunflower seeds
  • ½ cup chickpeas
  • 5 tbsp flax meal (or flax seeds)
  • 1 small onion
  • 1 tbsp Tamarin soya
  • black pepper
  • a pinch sea salt

For frying:

  • 5 tbsp olive oil or coconut oil

Sweet potato pasta:

  • 1 big sweet potato
  • 2 cup marinara tomato sauce

On top:

  • vegan parmesan cheese (recipe in Kiitos hyvää Pikaruokaa cookbook!) or original organic parmesan cheese
  • fresh basil

Preheat the oven to 400 Fahrenheit/200 Celsius degrees. Measure sun-dried tomatoes into blender and blend until quite smooth. Add rest of the ingredients and blend. Pour the dough into a bowl and form small balls with your hands. If the dough feels too wet add a little bit of coconut flour or other flour. Pour generously oil onto a pan and fry the meatballs for about 5 minutes, until they get a nice brown color. Transfer the meatballs onto a baking tray covered with parchment paper. Bake for about 15 minutes. In the meantime prepare the sweet potato noodles.

Peel the sweet potato and prepare noodles with a spiral slicer or julienne peeler. Add 1 tbsp oil onto a pan and cook the nools for one minute. Add the marinara sauce and cook for about 10 minutes.
Take the meatballs out of the oven. Dose some noodles on plates, add meatballs on top. Grate some vegan cheese or parmesan cheese on top and sprinkle on some fresh basil leaves. Serve and enjoy!

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