There's a squirrel in the house - preparing, roasting and freezing

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Sunday 17th

I have been overtaken by desire to prepare, roast, and make whole food dishes ready for the week ahead. As I plan possible menus for the week on Maddy’s Menu plan pages.

The ingredients

I remember I have ‘the new Persian Kitchen’ cookery e-book by Lousia Shafia. Persian/Iranian (and Turkish, Middle Eastern) food includes lots of whole food recipes. The first I try is Turkish Roasted tomato and red pepper dip.

Ready to roast

I keep a pretty well stocked pantry so I do happen to have pommegranite molasses, and smoked paprika. The shallot, garlic, parsley are from my garden. Tomatoes and red peppers I bought yesterday – I just love red food – so good to go. I imagine freezing some of this for lunches and dips. This has a lush roasted smokey flavour and I plan to serve it with cauli florets and carrot sticks.

Baked eggplant for babaganoush

I have already made Maddy’s bliss balls (some in the fridge, some in the freezer and some for work). And I have babaganoush (yes the original mousewood cookbook recipe) and humus (from my Masterton neighbour Jane) which I make already and have discovered small quantities of this freeze well. I am feeling industrious and really enjoying handling fresh crisp colourful produce. 

Dishes to do

 Then I made aash-e (a bean soup with Kale), another recipe from

Assh-e simmering

Louisa Shafia's the New Persian Cookery.  Again I had all the ingredients, having bought Kale yesterday at Commonsense organics. I plan to have this for dinner this evening and wonder what David will think. So far his view is he will probably eat as usual for breakfast and lunch, and whole food dinners, if I am cooking. So far so good.