Wrap Me Up in the Tastes of Autumn

While we were in Italy, I picked up a bag of red and wheat coloured Organic Kamut Flakes. The bag has been taunting me from behind the cupboard door since I got home and unpacked my bags. Tonight, I took it on, and I think I gave it a pretty fair run for its money. I was totally impressed with this off the cuff meal. It wins for flavour, presentation and healthy ingredients. By far my favourite goodness of August. Sadly, the end of August in Belgium also means the beginning of Autumn, hence a recipe filled with the warmth supplying foods of squash, dried fruit and wheat - I have worn a sweater and a jacket to every day of week this week.

Wrapped Up Kamut, Squash and Adzuki Beans

Ingredients
1 can of adzuki beans - rinsed
1 small pumpkin - washed, peeled, cored and diced
1 1/2 cups of Kamut Flakes (but you could use any grain, pulse)
1/2 yellow onion - diced
1/2 cup of raisins
1 small red pepper - diced
2 cloves of garlic - peeled, diced
1 medium sized zucchini
cumin seeds
mustard seeds


I started tonight's festival of fall flavours by cutting up my squash into cm squares and adding them to a pot of boiling water. I let the little squares simmer for about 15 minutes, while I sliced the zucchini and threw it under the grill for 10 minutes, with a washed red pepper (for the Red Pepper Sauce). I set to dicing my onion and garlic, adding them to my favourite green cast iron pan. I gave the onion and garlic five minutes on their own and then added the cumin and mustard seeds. Next, after dicing the second pepper quite tiny I added it to the pan, with a little bit of water. When my squash was finished, I drained it and threw it in with the onion party. I set my Kamut water boiling at this point - it only needed 6 minutes of boil. It was also at this point that I cracked the can on the adzuki beans, gave them a drain and added them to the crock pot. I pulled the zucchini strips out of the oven, and let them cool. I drained the Kamut, gazed at the pretty pink and wheat colours, and plated them where they acted like a base for the squash component of the dish. I pulled the zucchini strips tight around the kamut, making a bowl for the rest of the ingredients. Once I had blitzed all of the red pepper sauce ingredients I added it and some cilantro to top it off.

Red Pepper Sauce

Ingredients
1 small red pepper - roasted, and seeds taken out
1 tbsp of flax seed oil
1 tbsp of fig infused balsamic vinegar

It was a great meal!!! I could have happily eaten it all night.

The last two days of work have been remarkable. I am so happy to be back at work and be working with some of my very favourite people. The small team of teachers who work in my grade alongside me are wonderful, and the woman who has moved into the room across the hall from me is dynamite! It was great seeing all of the kids from last year, but a little depressing to see that almost every one of them has surpassed my last notch on my height chart. Argh.