Thursday, August 28, 2008

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.

19 comments:

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

Yum! I, too, picked up a fun grain in Italy that has been taunting me (we're Italian grain twins!). But the grain I bought was a bag of spelt berries. Your recipe sounds perfect for MY Italian grain too... even though it DEFINITELY doesn't feel like autumn yet, here in Texas.

Anonymous said...

This sounds like a wonderful dish. I love your presentation. I will def try this sometime soon!

jessy said...

your dish is so beautiful! and how creative, too! i've never had Kamut - and i think i'll look in to getting some. i love new things! it's still summer here, but i can't wait for fall. the parsnips, sweet potatoes, broccoli, pumpkins, onions, etc. it's going to be glorious! and that's great that you've got some wonderful teachers there with you, too! fun coworkers make such a happy work environment! hoooooooooray!

Bianca said...

Oh pretty! I love the presentation with the fancy zucchini slices. I've never tried kamut, but I should. It sounds healthy.

And you're making me sad-ish with the jacket talk. I don't want it to get cold here! Wah! It's still in the 80s here, but I know the cold is comin' in a few months (like October). Oh well, at least it's an excuse to eat more pumpkin.

Lisa (Show Me Vegan) said...

My goodness, so gourmet! And how cool that you're so inspired by your co-workers. That makes such a difference!

aTxVegn said...

That looks so fancy yet sounds so easy to make - I just love it! It will be several months before it's autumn in Texas.

Anonymous said...

I'm with Diann: several months for fall to hit us here in this town, and dishes like this one make me all the more impatient for it.

Anonymous said...

Fall already? It's going to be here soon, but we're still sans sweaters & jackets (for now).

This is so beautiful! Looks like restaurant fare...

- L said...

that looks gorgeous. i absolutely love kamut flakes. so nutty and tasty.

i'm lucky here - there's a local grain mill and the folks mill all kinds of fabulous organic heirloom grains. if you can get your hands on some rolled barley, kamut, and spelt flakes (like rolled oats but, you know, not oats) you should grab 'em up. they make the tastiest hot cereals and granola...

Lori- the Pleasantly Plump Vegan said...

beautiful!

Anonymous said...

Impressive! This meal may have been off the cuff, but it looks incredibly professional! Great job!

Jacqueline Meldrum said...

I haven't seen these grains before. Lovely presentation! I too mourne the loss of summer :(

JENNA said...

gorgeous meal! I for one am all ready for autumn and can't wait for fall produce to be in season!

Katie said...

I love anything with squash in it. Great recipe!

tofufreak said...

oooh! it's so pretty!

does kamut sorta taste like rice?

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

Looks MARVELOUS!

Astra Libris said...

ooooh, I love adzuki beans! Your recipe is positively gorgeous!

Emma said...

Ooooh your food looks delicious!

Thankyou so much for the lovely comment on my blog!

I also just noticed that you have eaten at Mildred's restaurant in London. I have been dying to go there but was put off because you cannot book a table there but from the look of your post, it is definitely worth a visit!

KP said...

The food looks tasty! I will definitely have to try that as soon as the weather gets a bit more chilly!

And I'm doing a creative non-fiction program in college. It actually doesn't exist though, so I'm doing a lot of permissions and class swapping!