Extra fiddly, extra fun Kitchen Adventures
- Joyous Sparks
- Aug 3
- 5 min read
Hello, hello! Welcome to another week of Kitchen Adventures with Joy. This week's adventures were extra fiddly, and also extra fun.
Also extra exhausting, as there was quite an extra number of videos involved. I'm so not doing that again (she said, and then started making plans for how to improve these in future.)
But that's a problem for future me. Present me would like to share her kitchen adventures with you. Let's gooooo.
The adventures started off slow and sedate like, with another cucumber salad:
A smallish cucumber grated and tossed with a dressing made from crunchy chashew butter, lemon juice, a splash of tamari and rice vinegar each, and some grated garlic.
It's a nice, fresh, citrusy taste. Perfect summer salad.
If only we had summer ...
(Dear weather, I may not need temperatures like in Turkey, with over 50°C, but a liiiiittle bit more sunshine? That would be lovely.)
After the salad, I ran around emboyding a disorganised mess for a bit. Mostly because I was trying to make, like, three different things at the same time, while not exactly having figured out how I wanted to make them in the first place. Starting the recap with the easiest one:
The 5 - K curry. I named it that because it consists of five ingredients, which in German all start with a K: Kohl (cabbage), Kurbis (pumpkin), Kichererbsen (chickpeas), Kokosmilch (coconut milk), and curry.
Yeah, okay, curry doesn't start with a K, only a /k/-sound. And yes, there's also onion, garlic, and ginger in there.
But 5K Curry sounds fun, so that's what it is.
Served with lemon millet - millet cooked and then mixed with the juice of half a lemon - that I didn't take a picture of.
You wouldn't think a combination of something that contains both lemon - sumery - and pumpkin - autumny - to work. But it does. It's warm and fresh at the same time in the best way, with some sweetness from the coconut milk, and altogether a good adventure.
After I'd grounded myself by making the curry, and felt less disconnected, disorganised, and lost in the head, this followed:
Didn't I say extra fiddly? Yep. But so worth it.
Though the above is not the final stage of the dish. Let's start at the beginning:
I knew I wanted to make these zucchini rolls. So I chopped up half a Chinese cabbage, a red pepper, and a stalk of leek, put them on a baking tray, mixed with coconut oil, salt, pepper, and tandoori masala, and popped them in the oven. Together with the pumpin, by the way.
Took about 30 mins, then mixed the veggies together with cooked green lentils. Popped the sliced zuchini in the hot oven to soften it, so that the slices would curl. Then rolled everything together.
Have loads of the filling left, which makes an excellent salad. Awesome.
But as I said, the rolls weren't quite finished. I couldn't put my finger on what was missing, I simply knew there was something else, something to complete the dish, to bring everything together.
After waking up the next morning, I had a Greek Philosopher Moment, where you jump out of the bathtub and run down the street buck naked, screaming, "Eureka!"
Granted, it was more like jumping out of bed and running to the kitchen while wrestling myself into my dressing gown, squeaking, "Ooooh, I have an IDEA!"
But the feeling was there.
And this is the result:
Zucchini rolls, baked in a gentle oven in tomato-chili sauce with sesame seeds.
And, guys, I tell you: This is SO GOOD. Like, I had NOT expected this to turn out so UNBELIEVABLY NOMMY. IT's a tase explosion in the mouth, the flavours combining beautifully, and all chased by the slight burn of chili.
So, the fiddly bits? WORTH IT. This is a keeper, definitely.
However. As fiddly as these rolls where ~ they weren't the fiddliest thing I made. Yes! It gets fiddlier!
So, while TikTok is an absolut pest and does Terrible Things to your consciousness even if you are aware of it ~ there is also some great inspiration. And the algorithm has figured out that I enjoy "pack my lunchbox with me" videos. There is one account that keeps crossing my for you page, by a person I believe to be a Japanese lady, making bento boxes, or similar lunch box food arrangements. This person supplied the inspiration, as they sliced cucumber with a peeler and then rolled them with ... rice? Maybe? Possibly some dead animal. I forgot that part!
But the slicing the cucumber with a peeler and then making these rolls? Yeah, that sparked. And so, when there were two cucumbers in this week's fruit-and-veggies box ~ I knew what I would make:
Greek Salad Rolls.
Aka a smallish cucumber, sliced thinly with a peeler and filled with kalamata olives, tomatoes, and vegan "feta" cheese. Later also sprinkled with the "Cheery Spice Blend" from Sonnentor.
Making these was extra extra fiddly - but, oh, SO SATISFYING. So much fun. Very meditative, too. And also very tasty.
And to bring this week to a close, though this was not made with anything that was delivered to my in this week's box:
Quinoa bread! May not look pretty, but is moist and tasty, and very filling. Goes well with sweet mustard spread and also chocolate spread. 😃
...
And. Um. So.
If you've watched some of the videos. You might have heard something about pumpkin pie.
Yes, I did make pumpkin pie! Mini pumpkin pies, in my new muffin forms. The taste test, aka dessert after lunch today, was a success. But there are no pics. Sorry! I forgot to take any, and now I am ~ frankly ~ not in the mood to jump up, root through the fridge (it's so full, OMG, when did that happen?!?), array the remaining pies in an attractive shape, take a picture, connect my phone to the computer again, wait for ages until the pictures have loaded, transfer the picture I want, edit it, and then add it to this post.
Nope. Sorry. Not sorry.
They are good, though, definitely something to make again. So there might be pictures in the future. 😃
(Another thing for future me.)
This now concludes the Kitchen Adventures of the past week. Thanks for reading!
🪷
A note, for your information: There won't be any Kitchen Adventures next week, as I shall be busy the entire weekend of the 08-08 Lion's Gate, at the World Ascension Summit.
Be back in two weeks, with more and new and exciting Kitchen Adventures!
Comments