Meatless Monday - Quick veggie saute

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This is one of my favourite sides, and makes such a nice change from steamed veg, which is my usual go-to. Any summery or green veg is welcome, as they are quick-cooking and go well together.

I mostly use broccoli, zucchini, cherry tomato, capsicum and snow peas but you can use whatever you have in your fridge - a great way of using up things that might otherwise be on their way out. And steamed zucchini - EW. This is a hundred times nicer!

Start by chopping all your veg into similar sized pieces and leaving your cherry tomatoes whole.

Pop the broccoli in a hot pan with a little water and put the lid on for a minute or two. Take the lid off, add olive oil and cherry tomatoes. When they're softened a little, add the quicker-cooking veg - the zucchini, capsicum and snow peas in this instance. A minute or two before they're done, add a clove of garlic.

When all is crisp-tender, squeeze over the juice of one lime and a good sprinkle of cracked black pepper.

You will love me.

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Meatless Monday - Secret Weapon Potato Salad

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I'm not kidding when I say this is possibly the weirdest, but the easiest potato salad of all time.

I've made really rather elaborate potato salads before, with the dressing made from fifteen different ingredients I had to measure and mix myself. And they ARE good... but so is this one!

And the secret weapon? Coleslaw dressing. Yep, I'm mixing my metaphors, confusing my side dishes and generally breaking the laws of nature. But it's all for a good cause - a fast, easy and delicious potato salad that will make people think you spent hours slaving over it. Excellent.

I won't give measurements, it's all to taste, and easily made to however many servings you want.

Ingredients:
red/Desiree potatoes
green onion, sliced
chopped parsley
hot english mustard
coleslaw dressing

Directions:

1. Dice potatoes and cook in boiling salted water until just tender - you don't want them breaking up too much.

2. Add coleslaw dressing, mustard, parsley and green onions and mix. You can add eggs too, I just didn't bother this day. But it's a great addition! Serve chilled or at room temperature.

  
♥ The linky will be up at 9am every Monday morning, and will stay up until the following Sunday.
♥ Grab the Meatless Monday button and put it in your post, and even on your sidebar if you're feeling generous.
♥ Visit at least one other blogger and leave some love. This is so much more cool if we're in it together!

Slow-Cooked Peas in Butter and Garlic

I eat my peas with honey
I've done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny,
but it keeps them on my knife.


Ok that's not entirely true. I've never eaten peas with honey. Or on a knife. But I recite that little poem just about every time I eat peas, and I've done that all my life!

I actually quite like peas. They're fresh, green, and taste great with gravy. And mint. And mint gravy. But never before eating this dish had I ever closed my eyes and groaned in pure pea heaven.

"Pea heaven?" you say. "It does not exist."

Well let me change your mind. If you like butter and garlic and deep flavours in your veggies, you'll like this. I promise. The peas don't even taste like peas. They taste like little morsels of heaven.

I have adapted the recipe from here. The post that changed my life.

Ingredients:
4 cups frozen peas
1/4 cup butter
2 cloves garlic, minced

Directions:
1. Melt the butter over low heat. Add peas and garlic.

2. Cook over low heat for 20 minutes.

3. Tweet me and tell me you were wrong about peas never being palatable, ever, full stop.

Grilled Eggplant with Chilli and Garlic

I never once had eggplant growing up - as a girl from a small country town never really had the opportunity. I'm sure my mother never had it growing up, so she would never have cooked with it at home. In fact, I'm not even sure our supermarket had such a vegetable. We were a strictly meat-and-three-veg town, by gum, and the most exotic anybody got in their home kitchens was chow mein.

Oh and that tuna-boiled egg-curry powder concoction with th fancy name of "Indienne" which I'm sure nobody but my mother ever made in the history of the world. I should like to leave that memory behind (sorry mum).

So, back to eggplant. I cannot ever remember the first time I tried it, but I remember thinking it always just looked so weird. Like it couldn't possibly taste good. And didn't you have to salt it for like, half an hour before you even used it? Hm.

Well, try it I must have, because I'm hooked. And I cook a whole eggplant and eat it all by myself like it ain't no thang. I've baked it in coconut milk, palm sugar, lime juice and chili, I've made eggplant parmigiana (which is hilarious as I've never enjoyed parmigiana in any other capacity before), I've oven-roasted it, I've made crumbed versions... but the easiest and the quickest is always just to fry it with some garlic and drizzle it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. And sometimes, that's all I want.

Ingredients:
olive oil
1 whole eggplant, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon sambal oelek
Balsamic vinegar
Sprinkle of sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Put the eggplant in a colander and sprinkle with salt. Leave for half an hour then rinse and pat dry. Sometimes I don't even bother...

2. Heat olive oil in a large pan over high heat. Even better if you have a barbecue. Add the eggplant and cook for 2-3 minutes until starting to brown.

3. Add a slug more olive oil, the garlic and the sambal oelek. Cook until eggplant is soft and browned, about 8 minutes.

4. Remove to a bowl, drizzle with balsamic, sprinkle with sugar, salt and pepper to taste and toss.

5. Put on a plate. Add a little extra balsamic. And olive oil. And more balsamic. Not obsessed at all.....