Cauliflower Tabouli with Fennel and Sweet corn

 

This tabouli/tabbouleh has so much going for it. It's packed with vibrant vegetables. And the flavours are phenomenal. It tastes like summer. Zingy fresh mint, sweet kernels of corn, lemony garlicky dressing, all bound together with nutty cauliflower rice.


It's quite filling on its own for a vegan meal, or add some extra protein with grilled tofu/tempeh or falafel. If you're in the paleo space, this salad is dreamy with grilled seafood (fish, prawns, calamari), chicken or pork chops - dusted with sumac spice and drizzled with olive oil.

Raw Beetroot Salad with Beet Greens and Tumeric Roasted Nuts

We are in the middle of a super hot summer down here in the Southern Hemisphere and I’ve caught myself the flu. Yes, the flu. In the middle of summer. Of all the rotten luck 🤦🏻‍♀️.

At least it's a good excuse to share my super flu fighting salad recipe that's packed with vitamins and immune boosting antioxidants 💪🏼 .

Grammed: Pink coconut rice salad bowl

Pink coconut rice salad bowl to make up for the copious amounts of ice cream and chocolate consumed this week #onholiday #buddhabowl

A photo posted by Nessie@bakingequalslove (@bakingequalslove) on Feb 10, 2017 at 6:30pm PST

I bow down to all the mom bloggers out there - man I don't know how that do it! In between running around after a mischievous little munchkin I've found it really hard to blog.  So I've made the leap and ventured into the wonderful world of Instagram! 

Hopefully that will be a way to keep up with a little bit of bakingequalslove blogging in between proper posts! If you are also on instagram you can find me here at: https://www.instagram.com/bakingequalslove/

So as the first 'grammed post - here's a super quick and easy recipe for Pink Coconut Rice Salad Bowl.

Happy New Year, Happy New Things and a Nutty Quinoa & Roasted Kale Salad

Happy New Year everyone!

Hope you had a spectacularly awesome holiday period with your loved ones.

My goodness, I can't believe it is 2016 already!  Where has the time gone? Looking back it has been a couple of months since I last posted. Well, have I got lots of catching up to do with you, dear readers.

They say things in life often happen in threes.

Luckily, it was three good exciting new things that have come our way.  

Life changing, mind blowing, wondrous things.

Procrasticooking: Grilled paneer, edamame & asparagus salad with soy coriander dressing

procrasticooking
prə(ʊ)ˌkrasti /ˈkʊkɪŋ
noun 
    the act or practice of  preparing elaborate meals to delay exam study
    Variant of: procrastibaking 

It's med finals.
It's peak exam stress time.
No sleep. Gallons of coffee.
And of course, plenty of procrasticooking.
A girl's gotta eat right?

I went a little crazy at the butchers last week so we've been having lots of gloriously carnivorous creations recently: slow roasted lamb shoulder, chicken cacciatore, steak with pepper cream sauce, so last night to balance things out, we went green with a Grilled Paneer, Edamame & Asparagus Salad with Soy Coriander Dressing.

If you want a super quick, healthy, mid-week, mid-exam meal - look no further.

Steak Frites for Dad: Scotch Fillet, Sweet Potato Fries, Roasted Tomatoes and Everything Dressing

My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me. ~Jim Valvano

Dads as a species are notoriously difficult to buy presents for.  My dad was no exception.  But I'd like to think gifts don't always have to be things you buy per se but could also be things you do.

So along with obligatory socks and ties, my gifts to dad were small things done with great love.

As a kid, for my dad, I would crawl out of bed in the early hours to watch a rugby game, a tennis grand slam final, or FIFA world cup.  Just for dad, I would relinquish the remote so he could watch the racing even though there was something really good on E!.  And only for my dad, I would sit with him and listen through entire BeeGees, Celine Dion and Albert Hammond albums.   

My dad was my hero.  His gift to me was that he believed I could do anything I put my mind to.  So what's a little BeeGees now and then in comparison huh?
 

Yesterday was dad's birthday.  He would've been 57 had it not been for the big bad cancer that took him 8 years ago.   

So every year now, my gift to him is still to cook something he loved.  To remember him. To celebrate him. To show how much I love him and miss him.

{rocking it bruce lee style since way back}

One of the things dad loved the most was a good steak.  So this year for dad's bday meal I made steak frites with Scotch fillet, Homemade sweet potato fries, Roasted tomatoes and Everything Dressing.

Happy Birthday Dad.

Resisting the inner fat kid: Roasted Kumara and Almond Salad with Feta and Chickpeas

I have an inner fat kid.

Much like the proverbial angel/devil on one's shoulder, my inner fat kid whispers delicious nothings in my ear:  Go on, eat that whole family sized block of chocolate, you know you want to...

And from time to time, I succumb to its urgings.  Yes, I ate that whole bar of Whittakers Hokey Pokey Chocolate. On my lonesome.  For breakfast. 

What's more, I've found the more you feed the fat kid, the stronger they get.

Like when my two besties came down for a girly catch up weekend a couple weeks back.  It was a glorious weekend of gossip and giggles, wine and cheese and chocolate and churros.  An epic eat-a-thon weekend.

{harbourside markets, wellington, nz}

But, alas when one is knock, knock, knocking on 30s door, one finds that for every binge, there needs to be an equal and opposite detox.  So the plan was to atone my eating sins with exercise and healthy food for a few weeks. 

It was super hard.  Inner fat kid was not happy.  Inner fat kid resisted.  There was a lag period, a struggle for dominance, a battle of the wits with the casualties being a whole pack of hokey pokey flavoured marshmallow easter eggs, another whole packet of pineapple lump easter eggs, half a block of blue cheese, lots of ice cream and half a block of black forest chocolate.  Junk food: why you so tasty??

But eventually I triumphed, with the help of some delish salads like this Roasted Kumara and Almond Salad with Feta and Chickpeas.

You say Sweet Potato, I say Kumara Salad with Coriander Lime Dressing

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. ~Voltaire

If there's one lesson I keep having to reminding myself time and time again is that you simply can't please everyone.  Like the famous scene in Anchorman sometimes you just have to agree to disagree.

Even on subjects far less contentious than the meaning of San Diego.

Like for instance, in the weekend I had a discussion with my husband about the definition of "ice block".
For me an ice block is any frozen dessert in the shape of a block on a stick.  C reckons if it's made of dairy then it's an ice cream regardless of whether it's on a stick or not.  But "ice block" is descriptive, I implored.  It's about substance, C counters.  For the sake of an harmonious marriage we agreed to disagree.

Tomato, tomato.

Which brings me to this pot-luck-fav of a recipe: Kumara Salad with Coriander Lime Dressing.   While the rest of the world calls these delectably sugary root veges "Sweet Potatoes",  in New Zealand they're known by their Maori name Kumara.  Which, in my humble opinion, is an altogether sexier name.

Edamame, fennel & orange salad and a huge Happy New Year!

Happy New Year beautiful people!  May 2012 bring you all success, happiness and deliciousness.

We've just come back from our action packed South Island adventure.  It was rugged.  It was amazing.  It was hardcore.  We camped, tramped and road tripped our way through the deep south, visiting some of the most beautiful places on the planet. Cannot wait to post some of the gazillion photos I took on our trip. I can barely lift my right arm 'cause I took so many.  Don't know if you heard me counting.  I took over a thousand. (I actually did!!)

{sneak peek from our south island road trip}

I also have loads of new recipes I've tried out from our Christmas festivities which I'm dying to share with you so am mucho excited bout being back to blogging.  Bring on twenty twelve baby!

Since it's a fresh new year, let's start off with a fresh salad recipe: Edamame, Fennel & Orange Salad.

Just beet it: Roasted beetroot, caramelised onion, goats cheese and orange salad

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious. ~ Tom Robbins

Ahh beetroot.  Love em or hate em you gotta admit they are a striking vegetable.  Intense and majestic, so deep red it's almost purple.  I used to hate beetroot.  Mainly because I'd only ever had the canned stuff.  The sugary pink gelatinous slices you get in burgers that made the buns soggy and left pink smudges on the lettuce.  Yuck. 

But then I had a culinary experience that changed my life: I had the degustation menu at the incomparable French Cafe in Auckland and my gastronomical horizons were forever widened.  Never had I experienced such sophisticated flavour pairings, intricate techniques or inventive textures.  That meal truly made me fall in love with food all over again.  One of the dishes was the French Cafe signature: Roasted goats cheese, caramelised onion and beetroot tart and it completely changed my entire outlook on these ruby red gems.

I was a hater no longer. 

And in an homage to that glorious tart I wanted to recreate those flavours in salad form with a Roasted Beetroot, Caramelised Onion, Goats Cheese and Orange Salad.

Black & Blue Weekend: Black Swan & Blue cheese and pear salad with honey roasted walnuts

{Blue: honey roasted walnuts for the salad}

Black 

{via fanpop.com}

We watched the movie Black Swan with Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in the weekend.  Absolutely mesmerizing - amazing acting, beautiful costumes...but it was just plain creepy.  No scrub that - it was frrrrrreaky.

{via media.theiapolis.com}

I am definitely not a scary movie fan.  The Sixth Sense gave me nightmares for weeks.  But having danced for most of my childhood, I couldn't resist a ballet movie.  The dancing, the costumes, the Tchaikovsky score - it was both hauntingly beautiful and gave us major heebie geebies.

Oh and did I mention the clothes? Bring back ballet chic baby.

{Jacket love - via chosen4evr.xanga.com}

Blue

This weekend I also made Blue Cheese and Pear Salad with Honey Roasted Walnuts and a Honey
Mustard White Wine Vinaigrette for C's dad's bday party.  God, I love this salad!  What a combo...creamy pungent blue cheese, sweet crunchy walnuts and crisp fresh pear.  What's not to love?

AND it took all of 15 minutes to make max. Just throw it all together...instant deliciousness.

Ginger steak salad, superwomen and super lashes

The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, is an absolute superwoman.  She is a mom of four, runs a cattle ranch and still finds time to run an amazing blog, write a book and take amazing photographs. Not to mention all her recipes work like a dream.

But when I come to think about it, I actually know a lot of superwomen.  I'm sure I'll end up blogging about all of them sometime but today I want to introduce you to Mel.

She is one of the brightest women I've ever met - a veritable brainiac.  Top of her class pharmacist, attentive wife, caring sister, doting daughter and the most thoughtful and fun friend.  And did I mention she looks like she should be a model? If she wasn't my friend, I would totally hate her.

We were in first year pharmacy together and became friends on the elevator on the way up to the very first lecture.

Mates at first sight.

We had a lot in common, both loved shopping and clothes, eating, talking, we were both closet (ok not so closet) science geeks, extremely competitive and shared OCD tendencies when it came to studying and organising and well, life. 

Mel went on to actually become a superstar pharmacist while I changed my degree four times and ended up a corporate lawyer now applying for med school.  Clearly one of us had her head screwed on better than the other.  We've had our fair share of silly girly shenanigans, triumphs and tragedies, and when I changed degrees and later she moved away, we inevitably don't spend a heck of a lot of time together.  But as is the magical time-travel like phenomenon that is the bond of old friends, whenever we do hang out it's like we're 18 again and nothing has changed. 

We've both developed love of cooking and baking.  I think it appeals to our inner science geeks - the precise measuring and timing, the alchemy of ingredients turning in to dishes and recently she introduced me to a scrumptious recipe from the Pioneer Woman blog for Ginger Steak Salad.