pumpkin seeds Archives

To celebrate their range of spicy sauces, Heinz hosted a cook-off for me and a bunch of other foodie people. You could use sweet chilli, jerk BBQ, hot pepper, sriracha, or peri peri (you can see the sauces here). Surprisingly, I didn’t opt for a potato recipe.

I came up with jerk halloumi kebabs. I tried all the sauces but the sweet tone of scotch bonnets worked really well with salty, squeaky halloumi. Comforting, nutty cauliflower cous cous went with it and to soak up all that fire some cooling tzatziki-style yoghurt.

Hosted at L’atelier des Chefs‎, there was about 12 of us cooking different dishes. And how different they were! From spiced lamb to crab cakes, from sausage stews to stuffed peppers… there was such variety.

And all of this was to be judged by Celebrity Masterchef winner Lisa Faulkner! No pressure then. I toiled on and produced the dish, and I was pretty happy with it. It came our exactly as I planned. And here I am being judged!

She was very complimentary and loved the kebabs, but fair in that the cauliflower was a little on the plain side. In hindsight, some soaked, spiced apricots or similar running through it would have pepped it up a little.

And with feedback like that it was clear I wasn’t going to win. I was however thrilled that an old chum of mine May won, with her brilliant spicy chilli crab dish. Served on a large platter, diners pulled bit of crab off and chewed noisily at the shells. It was a real crowd-pleaser and a deserved winner.

I still like my dish and will be cooking it often as it’s an easy midweek dinner. The recipe’s below.

Thanks to Heinz for a fun night, and providing me spicy sauces to play with!

jerk halloumi kebabs with cauliflower cous cous

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the kebabs:

500 g Halloumi
1 red pepper
1 red onion
Heinz Jerk BBQ Sauce
1 clove garlic

For the cous cous:

1 large cauliflower
50 g mixed seeds (pumpkin, sesame etc)
2 tablespoons dried onions
300 ml natural yoghurt
1/2 cucumber

For the yoghurt dressing:

Juice of half a lemon

Instructions

First the kebab prep: peel and dice the onion, dice the halloumi, and dice the pepper. Toss in plenty of Jerk sauce and set aside to marinate.
Preheat the grill to high, and a saucepan over a medium heat.
Skewer the cheese and veg. Pop under the grill and turn occasionally, brushing with more sauce.
Grate the cauliflower. Dry fry the seeds until golden and tip out to one side. Add a splash of oil to the pan and fry the crushed garlic for 30 seconds, then add the cauliflower.
While the cauliflower fries, grate the cucumber and squeeze out the excess water. Mix with the yoghurt and lemon juice and season to taste.
When the cauliflower is cooked add the seeds and dried onion's.
Serve the cous cous with two kebabs and dress with the yoghurt sauce.

A curious blend of salads here, a hybrid of two of salad-loving Jamie Oliver’s recipes: the Mad Dog salad from Jamie’s America and cheese and onion salad from Jamie at Home. I love meals like this: every forkful brings new delights. Crunchy, chewy, fresh and wholesome. Go get some.

Pick and mix salad:

2 avocados, de-stoned and cut into pieces

A swig of pumpkin seed oil

A big bag of plain tortilla chips

100g cheddar, grated

Small handful of pumpkin seeds

Small handful of pine nuts

1 large romaine lettuce, torn into pieces

2 red onions, sliced

Extra virgin olive oil

White wine vinegar

200g feta, diced

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.

Put the avocado on a baking tray and splash with pumpkin oil. Add a little salt and pepper and roast for 15 minutes.

Scatter the tortillas in one layer on a baking sheet and toss over the cheddar, pumpkin seeds and pine nuts. After the avocados have had 10 minutes, pop this lot in the oven for the remaining 5 minutes.

Cover the onion in white wine vinegar and a pinch of salt.

Toss the feta and romaine together. Scrunch the onion up with your hand and add this to the lettuce mix. Dress all of it with oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.

Scatter some tortillas on the bottom of a plate, add some salad and poke some pieces of avocado in there. Grab a final handful of tortillas, nuts and seeds, crush them a little with your hand and sprinkle over the salad.