Kitchen Adventures: a fun journey of creativity, discovery, and yummy food

Hello, welcome back to Kitchen Adventures with Joy ~ where recipes are more like guidelines, the Kitchen muse has their own ideas, and then ... things evolve.

It's a fun journey of creativity, discovery, and yummy food.

This week's magic is extra magical, and I am so pleased and excited with what created through me in my kitchen this week.

If you are curious as well, read on!

Kitchen Adventures with Joy

So, the first dish that created itself this week ~ is actually the last one to finish. I really felt to cook it yesterday, on Saturday evening. Like, it was a strong urge that said, Do This Now.

So I did it. Only then it became obvious that the dish wasn't finished. Yet I couldn't figure out what else was needed. A sauce, maybe?

Okay, yes. But what kind of sauce? Tomato-y? Or puree cooked pumpkin with some of the chestnut-mushroom spread? What??

So I left the pot alone over night, and today started out with this:

oven roasted veggies

Oven roasted veggies. Still steaming, as you can maybe tell by the weird quality of the pic on the left hand side. 😃

Here we see the lazy way of cooking: just chop up everything, add some oil and spices, pop everything in the oven for about 20 - 30 minutes at 180°C / 365°F.

In particular, this time I chopped up:

• 1/2 cabbage

• 1 yellow potato

• 2 small red potatoes

• 3 small onions

Also added a can of chickpeas for protein.

And yes, two cloves of garlic, they went into the dressing, because I then turned the whole thing into a salad. Go me!

Cheated on the dressing, though, because I used one that came premade, only water and oil to be added.

The result? Is this:

oven veggies salad with carrot pesto

The oven veggie salad.

With pesto. A yellow one. Made with carrots and almonds and turmeric.

Very nice. Also very garlicy. Oops. 😃😃😃

So, while that was in the oven, I chopped the other half of the cabbage, grated more potatoes (1 x yellow, 2 x red), also one zucchino, chopped a clove of garlic, and cried over three onions.

And then everything went into a Samwise Gamgee pan - onions first, then the beans I'd pre-cooked last night (though that probably wouldn't have been necessary ... oh, well), then half a cubed block of tempeh, garlic, potatoes, zucchino, cabbage. And stir. And cook. Until potatoes are soft.

Seasoned with salt, pepper, paprika, rosemary ~ basically the same things the tempeh was seasoned with, in order to blend it nicely into the dish, and keep the flavour.

Also the remainder of a herb mix from last year's Spices Advent calendar.

Yeah, it's almost December, time to use up those spices! 😃

Anyway, the result looks amazing and tastes great:

protein burst stir-fry

I'm calling this the protein burst stir-fry ~ because with all the green beans and the tempeh, that's a lot of protein in there!

I utterly adore sneaing more protein into dishes. In case you weren't able to tell. 😃

Right, and last but not least: Universe gave me sweet potatoes. So I made sweet potato brownies.

sweet potato brownies

Naturally.

And as you can see, they taste so nice that one piece wasn't enough.

Now, usually, this would be the place where I shared what I turned the original recipe into. Um. Maybe I can try?

Recipe-of-a-kind for sweet potato brownies

• 500g sweet potatoes

• 100g gluten-free flour

• 100g walnuts

• lots of agave sirup (like, 8 tablespoons, and then some more because reasons)

• 3 tablespoons linseed, soaked in 6 tablespoons water

• cocoa powder

• pinch of salt

• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

• chocolate sprinkles (or chocolate chips, but I didn't have any so)

• oh, and I added a heaped teaspoon of gingerbread spread, because I felt like it

Yeah,I think that's it?

So, how to make this, approximately:

1. Wash sweet potatoes. You don't need to peel them. Except if they aren't organic. Then it's probably a good idea.

2. Chope into small cubes and cooked in about 400ml of water for ten minutes. Allow to cool down.

3. Mix sweet potatoes, cinnamon, agava sirup, linseed, and gingerbread spread in the pot. Recipe wants you to use a blender or food processor to make apuree. A fork and determination also work.

4. Weigh flour. Mix with cocoa powder. Look, the recipe said 6 tablespoons, I simply dumped in what was left in the box, so no idea how many tablespoons that is. Probably more than six.

5. Crush the walnuts. You can chop them into small pieces. OR. You pack them in an airtight bag and hammer away. Or jump around in the bag. No, I'm not kidding: I did that. Very satisfying. 😃😃😃

6. Once crushed, add to flour mix. Then add sweet potato mix, and stir/knead/glare/punch until you have a dough.

7. Line ovenproof dish with baking parchment and stuff dough into dish. Add chocolate sprinkles/chips and lightly press down.

8. Bake for about 30 minutes at 180°C / 365°F

9. Take ouf of the dish to cool down.

10. Cut and enjoy!

And! Finally! The first dish I started yesterday (bet you frgot all about it) came to a conclusion: it's the Hot One Pot:

Hot One Pot

So called because the sauce ended up being nicely shpishy, I mean, hot.

This is a great, I-don't-have-a-lot-of-time-to-cook, I-want-something-warm-and-filling kind of dish. Also, low on dishes to wash afterwards. Easy to make, too!

First, you chop veggies ~ I still have so many potatoes and onions, guess what I used?

Second, wash green lentils and buckwheat.

Third, gently not-burn your onions in a bit of oil in a pot. Then throw in potatoes, lentisl, and buckwheat. Roast for a bit, add tamari, then 400-500ml of water.

Fourth, bring to a boil, then turn down heat to medium and cook for 15 minutes.

For the sauce, use one can of chopped tomatoes, some chili paste to taste, tomato puree (maybe 3 teaspoons?), 4 tablespoons tamari, some rice vinegar, salt, pepper, and whatever spices/herbs you feel to add. Blend all of that together in a jug, then pour over one pot.

Et voilà, you have made Hot One Pot.

Might not have nice autumn colours, but feels like the kind of food for grey and chilly days. Omnomnom.

Excuse me, I am hungry.

...

Oh, wait, before I dash off: There will probably not be any kitchen adventures write-ups next week. I have an insanely busy week ahead ~ busy to the point that my only hope is that I will at least thave the time to cook.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Thank you for following along, and I hope to see you ~ sometime soon! ❤️