Spinach satay buckwheat pasta salad

So I was eating very basic things to save money, and I've been holidaying in Christchurch, for my mum's 60th, and celebrating Seder with my Jewish boyfriend... then all of a sudden it's the end of March and I haven't blogged in weeks.

Sorry kids, now I have a video camera (thanks, Sarah) AND a decent digital camera (thanks, Jay!) I have no excuse to post pictures of what I've been cooking.

Tonight is the committee hearing for the Marriage (definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill and I'm going to a little picnic down in the Parliament Gardens as part of a peaceful demonstration of our support.

I've baked a Vermouth Banana Grape cake to bring, and wanted something light but filling, so I'm making my satay pasta salad. I've made variations of this with and without peanuts, with brown rice, a myriad of vegetables, plain and spicy, vinegary (I love vinegar), salty... Play around with this recipe until it tastes how YOU like it to. I like using fully grown spinach plants because I slice up the stems for extra crunch.

Apple cider vinegar may even help prevent Type 2 diabetes!

I've made this with buckwheat pasta because it's delicious, but you could use rice pasta, brown rice, jasmine rice, spaghetti, zucchini sliced with a vege peeler and blanched, whatevs.

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 250g pack of Orgran Buckwheat Pasta

2 eggs

1 large onion, diced

3-5 Tablespoons olive oil/coconut oil/ghee/lard

2 small spinach plants (chopped), or a few handfuls baby spinach

2 fresh tomatoes, diced

2 Tablespoons peanut butter or nut/seed butter of your choice (I used Purebread almond & hazelnut butter)

1 Tablespoon tamari (or gluten free soy sauce)

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon honey/palm sugar/rapadura sugar 

1/4-1/2 teaspoon minced chili pepper, or chili powder 

3-5 Tablespoons homemade stock (for meat eaters chicken/beef stock, but for vegos vegetable stock)

1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar (or white wine vinegar, or malt vinegar if you like strong flavours)

Salt and white pepper to season (be generous here, peppery pieces of peppercorns are also good)

Preparation

Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling, salty water. I find buckwheat pasta takes a little longer than normal pasta to cook. Rinse, and cool in a colander.

While the pasta is cooking, caramelise your onion slowly in your oil/fat of choice. A low heat for a long time, with an iron frying pan is perfect for this.

Chop your grown-up spinach's stems and dice your tomatoes and add to the onion, cook a few minutes more.

Add your sweetener, nut butter, tamari, chili, stock and stir until combined. Add the vinegar, pepper, pasta and chopped spinach, and stir. Season and add more vinegar as necessary.

Hardboil your eggs, then add to the salad.

Serve outside, in the sunshine, or have a picnic under the moon and the stars.

Would you believe I have photos of this, but I can't quite get them off the camera, yet? My laptop is NOT behaving.

http://www.listofimages.com/

Chickpea and spinach curry

So I asked a few of my best Twitter friends (who are also my friends in real life, we're a bunch of internet geeks) which were my favourite foods they make I should blog about.

Chickpea curry is one of my favourite foods. It's hearty, healthy, makes your house smell like India... and I make it wrong. I have been to India. None of the curries I ate tasted anything like what I make. Then again, none of the curries I buy at the takeaway store down the road taste like the curries in India. The beautiful Indian men who cook them change them for our tastes. Less sulfuric black pepper, less mustard seeds, more cream and butter and richness and thickness. Anyway, I love my chickpea curry. I hope you do too.

Ingredient:

1 medium onion
2 tablespoons coconut oil or ghee

1 teaspoon garlic
2 teaspoons curry powder
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon ground tumeric

3 teaspoons ground cumin

1 standard can diced tomatoes
1 standard can OR 300 g chickpeas
200g spinach (fresh or frozen, baby or adult)

Directions:

1. Chop the onion very finely while the oil heats in a large pan. Or make some ghee. It's really easy and so so delicious. Also very good for you!

2. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is translucent.

3 .Stir in the curry powder and garam masala, ginger and cumin. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, for one to two minutes longer.
4. Add the canned tomatoes, and chickpeas, simmer (with some fresh stock if you have some around) until the curry is almost the consistency you like.
5. Add the spinach, cook until soft.

6. Serve with quinoa, brown rice, or cauliflower rice. 

Flickr|blackbiscuits

Freeze any leftovers in meal-sized containers for a very quick and delicious work lunch (or a dinner when you run out of food in your house, although maybe you're more organised than me and that doesn't happen to you...)

Oh and if you want to be REALLY fancy a decent butter chickpeas recipe can be found HERE