Roasted Autumn Veg, Quinoa, Humus & Honey Lemon Dressing

Its that time of year. The leaves are going burnt ocre and red and the woolly jumpers are coming out of hiding. We’re all loving focusing on our #environment pillar, going on windy walks and secretly wishing that soon we might see a little snow.

It’s at times like these we feel connected to the seasons and our bodies crave new types of food. Interestingly we had a Strength Temple Board meeting today and amongst celebrating the growth of our amazing community we decided to lunch on some seasonal root vegetables with an inspired dressing using local raw honey.

We posted a story about this to our Instagram profile and immediately had many requests for the full recipe, so here it is... 

Ingredients:

These quantities will make enough to feed 4 people with a healthy appetite :-)

For the roasted Vegetables

1 Butternut Squash
1 Sweet Potato
3 Red Onions
Brussels Sprouts
7 Cloves Garlic (leave skin on) 

Home Made Hummus

1 tin Chickpeas (or you can soak dried peas overnight)
Lemon Juice
Garlic
Malden Salt
Good Olive Oil

For the Dressing

Fresh Lemon Juice
Good Olive Oil
Chilli Oil
Malden Salt
Wholegrain Mustard
Freshly Ground Black Pepper
Local Raw Runny Honey

Additional

Quinoa

Method:

Chop your veg into bite sized pieces and leave the garlic cloves with their skins on (after they've been roasted you can squeeze unctuous sticky garlic paste out of them.) Throw them into an oven proof dish and drizzle with olive oil and chilli oil. Add a dusting of salt and pepper and cover with silver foil then pop them into the oven preheated to 180 degrees C/  350 degrees F for 30 minutes.

Whilst that’s cooking blend all your humus ingredients together and set aside in the fridge until you’re ready to serve.

Next add 2 tablespoons of good olive oil to an old clean jar along with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of whole grain mustard, 2 teaspoons of honey, salt and pepper. Shake together vigorously to emulsify and set aside.

After the vegetables have had 30 minutes under the foil remove from the oven, take off the foil and mix them together. Then place them back in the oven for about 20 minutes or until they get a little colour. 

Whilst you are waiting, wash a portion of quinoa in cold water and rinse. Cover with fresh cold water and bring to the boil in a sauce pan until it sprouts and is done. Drain and set aside. 

When everything is ready, place some roasted veg in your favourite bowl, sprinkle some quinoa on top and add a large spoon of hummus in the middle. Then drizzle your dressing over the top and serve!

Let us know what you think. We love to get feedback.

Thai "Temple" Green Curry

OK folks - this is becoming my signature dish.  Everyone loves it.  You can modify it very slightly to make it Vegan (just leave out fish sauce and chicken), but my personal favourite is with chicken.

It’s also the most awesome way to get your greens.  A lot of people associate eating greens as a healthy chore that isn’t particularly pleasurable.  I’m here to tell you that I don’t care what your relatioship with greens is like, in blind taste tests EVERYONE likes this recipe - even my young children!  If you only make one of our recipes it has to be this one.  It’s incredible!

It might not be super authentic (whatever that is), but it’s my version of a Thai Green Curry.  I will back up my conviction with the fact that I have been to Thailand and lived with a Thai family in Bangkok for a short period of time.  I sampled all sorts of amazing dishes and this is my adaption of the green curry.

Enough already out the waxing lyrical on it, and let’s get to it!

Ingredients & Method:

Enough for 4 (with a portion or two to save for later - it’s great as a quick snack from the freezer).  Preparation time 10 minutes. Cooking time 1.5 hours.  Actual time in the kitchen approximately 20 minutes.

For frying:
Coconut oil (extra virgin)

For the green Curry Paste:
3 large bunches fresh corriander
2 large bunches fresh basil
5 birds eye green chilli (or enough for your desired heat)
two thumb sized pieces of ginger (skin on)
4 sticks of lemon grass
8 cloves of garlic
4 Kafir Lime Leaves
12 fat spring onions (wash them and use the lot - especially green bits)
thumb sized piece of Galangal
3 teaspoons of Coconut Blossom / Palm Sugar

To add to make sauce:
2 tins coconut milk

To finish:
1 Roast Free Range Chicken
Seasoning (salt, pepper, fish sauce)
Bag of spinach
French green beans
(Basically your favourite greens - any will do.  Other ideas are Kale, Rocket, Watercress)

Method:
Put your chicken into the oven to roast.  I usually do mine for about 1.5 hours at 190 degrees. Meanwhile….

Here’s where your blender comes into action again.  Place all of the ingredients for the curry paste into your blender and blend to a paste.  Don’t blend to a super smooth smoothie consistency, but do blend well.  It should look like the greenest paste you’ve ever seen 😃

Heat some coconut oil in your favourite frying pan and add the paste.  It will probably make your eyes water a little (especially if you like hot and spicy and have added extra chilli) so be careful and turn on the extractor fan if you have  one.  Cook the paste for about 5 - 10 minutes.  It will lose some of its moisture and go a dark green colour.  When you get to this stage you know it’s ready for the neXt stage.

At this point add the coconut milk.  Stir the whole thing together and you have your green curry sauce.  Add some fish sauce (about 2 table spoons) and some pepper.  This just needs to be simmered gently for about 10 minutes to allow all the flavours to get to know each other.  Have a taste to check seasoning and add some extra salt to taste if needed.

When your chicken is cooked, remove from the oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes.  Then pull the chicken from the bones and reserve the bones to make stock (not required for this recipe, but we never waste our chicken bones.  See why here.)

Add the chicken to the curry sauce along with your greens.  Cook the whole thing through until the greens are tender (probably about 5 minutes) and then check seasoning before serving with sticky rice, or just on its own.

Let us know how it makes you feel and what you think!

#respectyourtemple

Rich Davis

Immune Boosting Eastern Soup

This soup has just gone down an absolute STORM on our social media platforms.  I guess it’s that time of year (in the UK) where we need this stuff to fight the bugs and fortify our bodies against the cold.

Having said that, this would be awesome in the summer served chilled from the fridge with some crushed ice mixed through as a type of gazpacho.  We’ll definitely be doing that in 6 months!  In the mean time, here’s a note from Richie Norton on this awesome concoction.  ENJOY!……..

 🤒🌿 After my little stint in the Middle East, the adjustment to the UK winter weather and germs being sneezed all over the place, I've somehow picked up a cough that won't shift (yes I'm human after all)! 🤒

If you've been feeling a bit under the weather or hoping to fight off the winter lurgy, I'd recommend you try some homemade veggie super soups like this green beast 🌿It’s full of antioxidants, vitamin C, E and fibre necessary for a healthy body.  It’s really simple to make. Go on - get your apron on and don’t hold back.

Ingredients:
 
• Rainbow chard (dietary fibre/fat free) • broccoli • spinach • carrots • ginger • bunch of coriander, basil • spring onion • clove of garlic • S&P (chilli if you fancy some heat and coconut cream to garnish.)

Method:

Heat through you vegetables in homemade stock.  It’s important that you don’t boil them to death and destroy many of the nutrients.  Just a gentle warm through is sufficient.  When it’s just right,  pop it all in a blender and take it to your desired consistency.  With some blending practice you can go from super smooth to slightly textured.  We sometimes split the soup into two batches, and blend some to super smooth and mix the rest in to leave some variety - it’s up to you and we’d encourage you to experiment.
 
This one got drizzed in coconut cream (naughty) as our final garnish!

Enjoy, let us know how you get on and don’t forget to…..

#respectyourtemple ;-)
 

Vegetable Roast Up!

Colourful roasted vibes right here!

It’s so easy, trust me on this one.  Get some vegetable love into your body with this super tasty Roasted Vegetable Dish.

Ingredients:

Kale, sweet potato wedges, parsnip chunks, capsicum strips, whole garlic cloves, coconut oil, rosemary, malden salt, freshly ground black pepper, lemon juice.

Method:

So simple you can do it blind folded (be careful of the sharp knives of course).  Pre-heat oven to 220 degrees C, chop up your roasted goodies, throw in an ovenproof bowl (exclude kale at this stage), add coconut oil, add your seasoning.   Massage the coconut oil into the veg so it’s all covered and then pop them into the oven.

After about 15 minutes take them out and give them a shake to move the brown bits around and baste in their own juices.

Kale goes in at the end with 5 mins to go; leave until it browns up and goes super crispy.  After 20-30mins ish they will be ready.

Serve with a squeeze of lemon juice for extra ZING!

#respectyourtemple