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You are here: Home / Archives for Vegetarian

Roast Cauliflower Soup with Coconut and Turmeric

July 13, 2025 by admin Leave a Comment

This is a tasty soup enriched by the roasting of the caulflower. The recipe is from Laura Davidson’s website A Beautiful Plate and is apprently adapted from this cookbook.

I only had half a small cauliflower (instead of 2) so I ended up adding less coconut milk (I had coconut cream), and it was still a bit thin. I think this also mde the spice a bit more intense, but it was nevertheless tasty and simple. I also used home-made chicken stock.

I make quite a few soups with coconut milk and bottled Thai or Malaysian curry paste as they are pretty simple, but they usually have chicken or seafood in them. I’ve never thought of doing this with cauliflower.

Anyway its a great recipe and its vegetarian so I’m tagging it here.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Soups, Vegetarian Tagged With: cauliflower, soup, thai

Three Middle Eastern Dips

January 29, 2025 by admin Leave a Comment

I love learning about Middle Eastern cooking. I love the flavours, colours, mixture of savoury and sweet, and I also particularly like serving a table full of different plates of food where everyone can help themselves. As well as making flatbread, I like making simple, tasty, colourful dips. Here are two regulars on our table plus one that I invented yesterday.

Carrot and Caraway Dip

Nothing could be simpler than this tasty dip! This recipe comes from The Complete Book of Turkish Cooking by Ghillie Basan. This book is out of print, but Basan is a prolific author, so please hunt down her books. Here’s my take on it.

3 large carrots – peeled and thickly sliced

Steam or boil the carrots until tender. Drain and mash them coarsely.

Stir in 1/2 tsp caraway seeds, 1 tbsp olive oil, juice of 1/4 lemon, 1/4 tsp salt and some cracked black pepper.

That’s it! You can also leave out the lemon juice and instead serve it with yoghurt with some lemon juice and garlic mixed through. Basan garnishes with mint leaves but I’m not a fan of mint.

Beetroot Moutabel with Tahini

Here’s another brilliant and relatively simple dip. It requires a little more time but not much effort. The recipe is from the amazing Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume by Silvena Rowe –  a book that has one of the best cookbook covers ever.

2 medium beetroot
1/2 lemon
1-2 tbsp greek yoghurt
1 tbsp tahini
salt
Peel from one orange (optional)
Toasted walnuts (optional)

Bake the beetroot in the oven for about an hour at 180 C. I usually scrub them and bake them in their skins wrapped in foil. Then peel them with a teaspoon while warm (yes, wear gloves).

Put 1.5 of the beetroot, chopped into a food processor and keep the other half. Blitz with juice of 1/4 lemon, yoghurt, tahini and a pinch of salt. Grate the remaining beetroot and stir it through the mix (this adds texture to the dip).

With the recipe you can add more (or less) yoghurt, tahini and lemon juice to suit your taste.

If using orange peel, toast for one minute in a frypan, cool and place on top of the dip. If using walnuts, chop them and toast them in a pan and sprinkle on top of the dip.

The colour of this dip is amazing.

Charred Cauliflower and Onion Dip

Here’s the recipe that I made up last night.

1/4 large caulflower
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 medium onion
3 tbsp greek yoghurt
Juice of 1/4 lemon
1/2 tsp aleppo pepper flakes (or red pepper flakes) or 1/4 tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp chopped garlic
Sea salt and cracked black pepper

Cut the cauliflower into medium-sized florets and mix with olive oil and 1 tsp salt. Bake at 200C for 20-25 min until it is starting to char on the outside (black not brown).

Cut the onion into about 3 thick slices. Cook in a frypan in olive oil on medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes until it starts to brown/char a bit on the outside. Chop the onion roughly.

Blitz the cauliflower and onion roughly in a food processor with the garlic and some cracked pepper. You want the mixture to be chunky, not smooth.

Add juice of 1/4 lemon, 1/2 tsp aleppo pepper flakes (or 1/4 tsp chilli flakes) and 3 tbsp yoghurt and mix with a spoon (you can mix it in the food processor but don’t overmix it.)

Once again, this is really simple and very tasty.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Dairy, Middle Eastern, Vegetarian Tagged With: dips, middle eastern, yoghurt

Roast Cauliflower & Spiced Honey Carrots with Whipped Hummus

January 31, 2024 by admin 2 Comments

I sometimes say “This dish is going on the Cafe Menu” – which means that if I were ever to start a cafe, this dish would be on the menu. I’ve gathered together three of Yotam Ottolenghi’s ideas and added a bit.

Serves 2 people.

Whipped Hummus
I’m not even sure if Ottolenghi uses this term, but others do. The idea is that the hummus is smooth and creamy.

The simplest thing is to follow Ottolenghi’s advice here. The secret is to use dried chickpeas and use the bicarb of soda to help get rid of the hulls.

Hummus Recipe

NOTE: Save 2/3 cup of the whole, cooked chickpeas (see below).

Carrot and Cauliflower
Divide 1/4 of a small to medium cauliflower into florets. Mix with 1 tbsp olive oil and 1/2 tsp salt.

The carrots are part of a recipe from his book Plenty More. Just buy it. The book is fantastic…. 

Read More »

Filed Under: Vegetarian

Roast Turmeric Butter Cauliflower

August 20, 2021 by admin Leave a Comment

The roast cauliflower part of this recipe comes from Duncan Welgemode’s Africola, a remarkable testament to the Adelaide restaurant of the same name. I’ve paired it with a lentil, tomato and roast capsicum curry topped with raisins and pine nuts, some home made hummus and flatbread.

The cauliflower is simmered for 10 minutes before being baked in a hot oven, with turmeric butter brushed on for the last bit of cooking. 100g butter and 50g ground turmeric.

I should mention that at Africola a lot of the cooking is done in an open fire oven, so the cauliflower has an amazing char to it.

The white sauce underneath is made from tahini, lemon juice and garlic.

But I want to make note of the fig and pistachio agrodolce on top of the cauliflower.

2 tbsp chopped dried or semi-dried figs – soak in 2 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar for 15 mins

1tbsp olive oil
1 eschallot, thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Cook onion and garlic gently in oil for 7-10 mins.

Add 400g tinned diced tomatoes and cook for 5-7 minutes, stirring.

Add the figs and vinegar along with 1/2 tsp brown sugar and 2 tbsp toasted pistachios. (I added a bit more brown sugar)

Season with salt and pepper.

Filed Under: Vegetarian

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THE COOK

I live and cook in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. The region is similar to the Mediterranean, with temperate climate, fertile hills, nearby ocean, wonderful local vegetables, fruit, wine and meat produced locally. Cooking has been a growing passion for me, about connecting culture, creativity, community and spirit. The small garden in our new home is currently being established with some native bush ‘tucker plants’ and a range of herbs. I’ve just bought a yuzu tree!

Photos taken on iPhone 4, 5 and X and a Canon 5D Mk III.

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