Four new vegetarian recipes for quick and slow cooking from the Green Kitchen (2024)

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Over the past 13 years, David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl have gathered something of a cult following with their Green Kitchen Stories blog and a string of successful cookbooks.

In their latest book, Green Kitchen: Quick & Slow, the pair distil their experiences as food writers and parents into a collection of vegetarian recipes that capture the two very different cooking situations they find themselves in during a typical week.

Some of the recipes come together in a flash, using shortcut ingredients and clever planning, while others take the long road, allowing the cook to relax and unwind. As Frenkiel reminds readers, cooking isn't always a means to an end. Sometimes, the most joyful experience is the process itself.

Here are some of their favourite recipes, many with suggested swaps to make them vegan-friendly.

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Crumbled miso tempeh pasta

If you are in the mood for a light and fresh salad, move along. But if you feel like eating a buttery, salty, crunchy and umami-rich pasta for dinner, keep reading. Tempeh is our go-to protein when we want chewy texture, but it definitely needs good flavouring in order to shine, so we crumble it into bits and let it swim in miso butter and garlic, along with some crunchy hazelnuts. To add a fresh note, we stir in spinach. The result is quick, delicious and comforting.

INGREDIENTS

• 300g bucatini pasta or spaghetti
• 80g butter
• 1 tbsp white miso
• 200g natural tempeh, finely chopped or crumbled
• 50g (⅓ cup) hazelnuts, roughly chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 handfuls of baby spinach
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To serve

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• roughly chopped parsley
• grated vegetarian parmesan (optional)
• lemon zest

METHOD

1. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Add the pasta and cook according to the packet instructions.
2. Meanwhile, melt the butter and miso paste in a saucepan over a low-medium heat, then add the tempeh and hazelnuts, along with the crushed garlic. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until the tempeh and hazelnuts are golden all over.
3. When the pasta is ready, drain it, but reserve 100ml (scant ½ cup) of the cooking water. Add a little of this pasta water to the tempeh mixture if it starts to look dry.
4. Add the spinach to the tempeh mixture, along with some of the finely chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon juice. Take the pan off the heat and add the pasta, then give it a good toss to combine. Divide between 4 plates and top with freshly grated parmesan (if using), along with some lemon zest and more fresh parsley.

Serves 4

Notes

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Vegetarian parmesan: Some cheeses, such as parmesan and pecorino, use rennet, an enzyme from the stomachs of cows/goats, meaning they are not technically vegetarian. However, there are lots of vegetarian (and vegan) options available using plant-based enzymes.

Make it vegan: Replace the butter with olive oil and skip the cheese.

Slice, chop, drizzle and toss salad (aka tomato, chickpea and feta salad)

During late summer when tomatoes are in season, this seven-minute salad is often both lunch and dinner in our house. It's packed with flavour, colour and crunch, and doesn't involve any cooking – just a little slicing, chopping, drizzling and tossing. If you want this to be even more satiating, you can swap the chickpeas for pearl couscous, quinoa or rice.

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INGREDIENTS

• 1 large eschalot (French shallot), thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, grated
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 300g mixed tomatoes, smaller ones halved and larger ones sliced
• ½ cucumber, roughly chopped
• 1 avocado, chopped into 2cm cubes
• 150g feta, chopped into 2cm cubes
• 400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• bunch of fresh mint, roughly chopped, plus extra to serve
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp zaatar
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

METHOD

1. Place the shallot in a salad bowl with the garlic and balsamic vinegar and stir to combine.
2. Add the tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, feta and chickpeas, then drizzle over the olive oil.
3. Season with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and toss to combine. Add mint, toss again.
4. Serve topped with the zaatar and a little more mint.

Serves 4

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Note

Make it vegan: Swap the feta for a vegan version.

Harissa eggplant and chickpea traybake

Here, big eggplant chunks are tossed in spices and roasted until charred, then covered in a flavourful tomato and harissa sauce and baked. The result is both crunchy and melty, and so, so tasty. To take it to the next level, we top it with crunchy almonds, mint, yoghurt and tahini. It's delicious. Make it for yourself. Make it for your friends. And if you are lucky enough to have some leftovers, you are going to have the best work lunch the next day.

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INGREDIENTS

• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp sea salt flakes
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 3 eggplants (about 900g), chopped into rough 4cm chunks
• 2 red onions, quartered
• 400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 100g dried apricots, roughly chopped

For the sauce

• 300g tomatoes, quartered
• 3 tbsp rose harissa (halve the amount if you don't like it spicy)
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 6 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 tsp sea salt flakes
• 600ml (2½ cups) water
• 4 tbsp olive oil

For the topping

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• 1 lemon
• 250ml (1 cup) plain yoghurt
• 2 tbsp light tahini
• 50g (⅓ cup) roasted salted almonds, roughly chopped
• ½ bunch of mint, leaves picked and roughly chopped
• sea salt
• black pepper, freshly ground

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 200C fan-forced (220C conventional).
2. Mix the spices with the salt and oil in a small bowl. Place the eggplants and onions in a large, high-sided roasting pan (about 25cm x 35cm). Drizzle over the spiced oil and use your hands to mix everything together. Roast for 30 minutes, turning halfway through.
3. Meanwhile, place all the sauce ingredients in a blender and pulse until smooth.
4. When the eggplants have been roasting for about 30 minutes, add the chickpeas and apricots to the tray, then pour over the sauce. Mix well and return to the oven for another 30 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, squeeze the juice of half the lemon into the yoghurt, then season with a pinch of salt and a good grind of black pepper. Cut the remaining lemon half into wedges.
6. Remove the traybake from the oven and dollop the yoghurt over the top, then drizzle with tahini. Scatter over the almonds and mint and serve with the lemon wedges. This is delicious with pita breads, quinoa, rice or cous cous to mop up the sauce.

Serves 8

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Yoghurt and oat flatbread

Flatbread is arguably the easiest bread you can make, since you only need two main ingredients (flour and liquid), no oven and no proofing time. You can use regular flour here, but oat flour gives it a slightly heartier flavour.

INGREDIENTS

• 100g (1 cup) oat flour, plus extra for dusting
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 125ml (½ cup) Turkish yoghurt (or any other plain yoghurt)
• olive oil, for brushing

For the toppings

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• 250ml (1 cup) Turkish yoghurt
• 1 tbsp zaatar
• 4-8 ripe tomatoes, thinly sliced
• 120ml (½ cup) The Green Sauce (see recipe below)

METHOD

1. In a bowl, mix together the oat flour, baking powder and salt. Add the yoghurt and stir until it comes together into a sticky ball. Cover with a plastic bag or cling film and leave for 15 minutes (this will make it easier to roll).
2. Scrape the dough out of the bowl and on to a clean work surface dusted with oat flour. Shape into a ball. If it feels too sticky, you can dust it with a little extra oat flour.
3. Divide the dough equally into 4 and shape each piece into a ball. One by one, roll them out into oval discs about 5mm thick. Place them in the plastic bag or cling film you used earlier so they don't dry out.
4. Place a cast-iron pan over a medium heat. Once it's hot, brush the pan with a little bit of olive oil, then add the first flatbread. Fry for about 2 minutes on the first side, or until it looks golden with dark spots, then turn and fry on the other side for a further minute. Wrap in a cloth or clean tea towel to keep warm while you cook the rest.
5. To assemble, spread a thick layer of yoghurt on each flatbread and sprinkle generously with the zaatar. Arrange the tomato slices evenly over the top, then drizzle with The Green Sauce. Cut into slices and dig in.

Serves 2-4

Note

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Plain flour works too: You can make the flatbreads with regular plain flour using exactly the same measurements and method.

The Green Sauce

For fun we originally called this Green Sauce #357, because we have made and shared so many similar yet slightly different green sauces over the years. In plant-based cooking, it is just so helpful to have a good green sauce recipe on hand. This takes inspiration from the Argentinian sauce chimichurri. Feel free to play around with different herbs and see which combo you like best.

INGREDIENTS

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• 2 large handfuls of mixed fresh herbs, such as parsley, mint, coriander and dill
• 3-4 slices of jarred jalapeno in brine (or fresh)
• 1 tbsp capers
• 1 small garlic clove
• 1 tsp sea salt flakes
• 125ml (½ cup) olive oil
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp maple syrup or honey

METHOD

1. Add all the ingredients to a food processor and pulse a few times until coarsely mixed. If you don't have a food processor, you can finely chop the herbs, jalapeno and garlic and mix in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients, or simply pound everything together using a pestle and mortar. Taste and add more salt, acidity, herbs or oil if needed.
2. Store in the fridge for 4-5 days in an airtight jar.

Makes 1 x 250ml jar

This is an edited extract from Green Kitchen: Quick & Slow by David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl, published by Hardie Grant Books, RRP $45, available in stores nationally. Photography: David Frenkiel. Buy now

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