I know, I know.... Another meatless post!?

But veggies are awesome! 

Before you click the close button and think "Urgh Wendy's gone vegetarian; I guess we can't be friends anymore" hear me out!

This dish LOOKS like a meat dish! =D?


See!? Okay this may be a bad angle for meat imitation. But it COULD look like some chunks of meat!

It fooled my brother. Multiple times. Before he asked me "what kind of satay is this?? I can't find any meat!"

I know though, that there are people that hate deceiving dishes... it's like your eyes promising your tastebuds some meat and it never gets any... And I'm not going to be one of those people who say "It totally tastes like meat! You won't even miss it!" So if you need some meat you can always add some in. I think chicken will go nicely.

So what's with the infux of veggie dishes?

I hate cooking with meat. It just feels slimey, and smelly and HARD to do! Yeh you'll probably never hear "I just can't be bothered to cook meat" from a vegetarian....But I promise the next recipe post will be a meat dish! In the meantime if anyone wants to make me a nice piece of lean steak (or even better take me to have some!) I'm always up for it ;) Don't lose hope in me though! I will have a meatier post soon! 

I found this recipe from the dozen or so mini recipe books I got at the recent conference (I'm really working up a collection!) I actually picked up this booklet not knowing it was all vegetarian recipes until quite a few pages in. The dishes looked so good, I was salivating anyway.

The recipe book is produced by Sanitarium, a company owned by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church so all it's products are vegetarian, in accordance to its teachings. You can actually order the book online for free and it has amazing photos that will make you drool, vegetarian or not!

Onto the recipe! I couldn't help myself and did make a few changes though.  The ingredient list may seem long but don't be scared! There's no weird ingredients that you only use for this dish and leave rotting in your fridge. Also it's a pretty simple one saucepan dish.

Pumpkin Chickpea and Spinach Satay
Adapted from: Sanitarium Food for Health and Happiness Cookbook

Serves: 4-5
Preparation and cooking time: 30mins

Ingredients

• 2 tsp olive oil or peanut oil
• 1 brown onion
• 2 garlic cloves 
• Small piece of ginger the size of your pinky 
• 700g pumpkin
• 200ml Carnations light and creamy coconut flavour evaporated milk 
• 1/2 cup salt reduced vegetable stock 
• 2 cups cauliflower florets 
• 1 medium carrot
• 1/3 cup crunchy organic peanut butter
• 1 tbsp soy sauce 
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 400g can chickpeas
• 1/4 cup chopped coriander 
• 60g baby spinach
• Boiled rice to serve  
• Chilli (optional)

 Method

1. Make some rice if you don't have any leftovers like me. 
2. Prep all the veggies: Dice the onion, pumpkin and carrot. Chop up the garlic, ginger and coriander finely. Cut the caulifower into small florets.  
3. Heat oil in a large saucepan and cook the onions for 2mins until soft. 
4. Add the garlic, ginger and chilli if you're using it and give it a stir to mix. 
5. Add in pumpkin followed by coconut flavoured evaporated milk and stock. 
6. Bring everything to the boil, cover and simmer for 5-8mins.
7. Add the cauliflower and carrots followed by the peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar and chickpeas. Stir to combine, cover and simmer until cauliflower is cooked (About another 5mins)
8. Turn off the heat and stir in coriander and spinach leaves.
9. Serve with rice.

Per serve: Energy: 1840kJ (440kcal), Carbohydrates 27g, Fibre 10g, Fat 26g, Saturated fat 6g, Protein 20g, Sodium 515mg, Potassium 1245mg, Calcium 115mg, Iron 3.6mg (These values are based on the original recipe and although not stated, I believe it is without rice)


The recipe book is at the back. My dish looks better right? =D 

 

 

I don't usually cook with coconut milk due to it's saturated fat content so to me using flavoured evaporated milk still gave it a nice coconut taste (Don't kill me if you think it doesn't taste 'authentic!') You could also use evaporated milk and add your own coconut flavouring. I had a look at some reduced fat coconut milk, which is where they use coconut extract and water, and some had less kilojoules per 100ml than the flavoured evaporated milk. However the saturated fat content was still higher.

Eg. per 100ml:
Carnations coconut flavoured evaporated milk: 1.1g sat fat
Amoy regular coconut milk: 21.6g sat fat
Amoy light coconut milk (44% less fat): 12g sat fat

How much fat you should have per day depends on your energy needs but I usually recommend 20-35% of your energy should be from fat in accordance with the NHMRC. Also <20g of saturated fat/day, as recommended by the National Heart Foundation Australia. You can see how easy this is to go over when having these products and we havent even gotten into coconut cream!  

Anyway back to the food! The original recipe actually asked for longer cooking times but I found my veggies got too soft and mushy especially when I stirred in the sticky peanut butter. So don't overcook!  My parents tried it without rice and weren't a big fan as it was too mushy but there won't be any problems if you don't overcook it =)

If you want to add meat, lightly stir fry it until cooked and put it aside then toss it back in with the cauliflower. 

As always this will be delicious: I guarantee it! (I should design a Wendy stamp of approval...) All that fibre and protein will keep you full and your body will thank you for feeding it vegetables!

I've got a little bit of leftover coconut flavoured evaporated milk so anyone have suggestions on what to make with it?