Zucchini, Carrots, Flour and water
This week was a week full of delicious flatbread! Pizza, Pita, Pasta… Ahhh it was a delicious week that’s for sure, and lucky for you - really simple to make!
What I had available to work with:
Last week I didn’t do a whole lot of cooking so I had leftover veg in the fridge and freezer to use, which is great.
When I made those satay noodles, I also cooked a bunch of beans to serve on the side and had a lot leftovers!
What I cooked:
Beetroot Pasta with Cauliflower and Parsley Bechamel
I simply chopped a beetroot into cubes and boiled it with the pasta.
To make the sauce, I steamed frozen cauliflower and blended it with fresh parsley, garlic butter, milk salt and pepper.
In a saucepan, melt more garlic butter, add a tablespoon or so of sourdough discard (you can use flour instead if you don’t make sourdough), a bit of milk and cook it over medium-low heat, constantly stirring until it thickens.
Add the cauliflower mix into the saucepan mix and enjoy!
Realist Confession: This evening, I chose to cook abnormally later than usual, so the idea was to make a cauliflower bechamel, but I got lazy because of the time and simply ate the pasta with the blended cauliflower. I did finish the process the following day, and the result, of course, was significantly better.
Swap Outs:
Cauliflower: any other vegetable. Parsnips, broccoli and peas come to my mind straight away.
Add Ons:
Cheese! - a makeshift cheesy sauce could definitely go with some cheese I just didn’t have any on hand.
Stuffed Wholemeal Sourdough Pita Flatbread
Stuffed dough
Flatbread with the previous nights ‘stuffing’ as a dip.
For the dough:
345g wholemeal bakers flour
190g milk
165g levain/ sourdough starter
110g yoghurt/ kefir
20g olive oil
7g salt
Combine all the ingredients together to form a dough. Let it rest for 15 minutes then knead to form a smooth dough. Place the dough in the bowl, cover it with a tea towel and let it proof for about 8 hours on your kitchen bench. The dough, when kneading, will feel quite firm, but after letting it proof, it becomes much nicer to work with.
When you are ready to use, you can stuff it with different fillings or simply portion, roll it out into a circle, and pan-fry it to eat as a flatbread.
I used half the dough to stuff with the cauliflower bechamel and the other half I placed in the fridge to slow down fermentation and simply pan-fried a couple of flatbreads when I wanted to eat it. I ate the remainder of the dough I placed in the fridge within 2 days, but you can test to see if it lasts longer. I recommend eating these fresh to make sure they are still deliciously soft.
How I ate it:
As delicious as this was on its own, I ate this in three ways:
1. The stuffed bread with thyme roasted carrots and zucchini, hummus and sauerkraut
2. Flatbread with the filling as a dip, the thyme roasted veg beans and sauerkraut as a side.
3. Flatbread with baked beans and fried eggs for breakfast!
Pizza
At the same time I made the flatbread dough, I made the pizza dough.
This saved me a lot of time because they use similar ingredients and can both be stored in the fridge to slow down the fermentation process. Essentially this means instead of cooking 2 nights, I cooked one and all was left to do the next day was place the toppings on the pizza base.
This is no woodfire Italian pizza base and I am still working on making a better sourdough pizza dough, but to save you time I will add the recipe here and you can assess for yourself
Wholemeal Sourdough Pizza Dough
Makes 4
320g wholemeal
220g water
64g levain/ sourdough starter
55g milk
6g salt
10g olive oil
Mix all the ingredients together. After 10 minutes pull the dough into a smooth ball. After 30 minutes do one set of stretch and folds. Repeat this two more times. Let the dough bulk rise on your kitchen bench for 4 -5 hours. Place it in the fridge until ready to use.
Breakfasts
Oat and chia seed porridge with apple and pear slices, granola, cacao nibs, tahini and honey.
Scrambled eggs with Brazilian tapioca stuffed with persimmon slices.
