For the past few months, I have been testing recipes for Carla's in-the-works cookbook about one-dish meals. Andy and I tested a bunch of recipes around christmas, and then took a few weeks off from testing, before another big spurt in the last few weeks.
Carla has recently discussed a slight change in direction with her publishers - so I won't be testing any more. However, I have really loved the recipes we have tested, so I'll post some photos here to give you an idea of the excellence that Carla manages to come up with.
White bean peanut dip tastes like yummy peanut sauce, in dip form. What else could you want?
Carla's spiced oven wedges have become a popular side dish, like here with sausage rolls.
Baked lemon tofu with green beans reminded me of an excellent flavour combination that I haven't taken advantage of in a while - lemon pepper. Duh, but yum.
Cream Sausage & Tomato Pasta was really easy to pull together, and very yummy.
The sauce, bubbling away on the stove after maybe 10 minutes of prepping and cooking.
Franks & Beans, which we actually served as "Bangers & Beans" using sausages, was super tomatoey and hearty. Served with a side of creamy mushrooms, and some toast, this was almost brinner.
One of our favourite recipes is Carla's Crumbed Seitan. The crumb mixture is a lot more interesting than our usual, so we've had this a few times.
All fried up, these schnitzels are crispy and tasty.
We had them once with garlic mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy.
Then another time we served them up with mashed sweet potatoes (the ones with purple-red skin and white insides) and Easy Cheesy Gravy from
Ultimate Uncheese.
And the leftovers from that were turned into parmas - a jar of enchilada sauce and some leftover cheesy gravy, and popped in the oven for a few minutes.
Two cuisines meet in Ethiopian Sweet Potato Stew, which matches the spices of Ethiopian cooking with the peanut stews of Western Africa, with sweet potatoes and chickpeas.
Seitan, marinated overnight in Thai BBQ marinade and then baked with some veggies and frozen spring rolls, made for a really yummy and really easy weekday dinner.
Red Seitan Curry required more effort than the last meal, but was well worth it on a Sunday evening. The seitan is cooked in the curry itself, so it is full of flavour with a texture that is quite different to typical seitan.
Corn bread scones were simple to make, full of flavour, soft and delicious. Declared by Andy to be the best corn bread I've ever made.
We served our scones with Kidney Bean & Sweet Potato Chilli, a thick and herby stew which we topped with jalapeno slices.
We made the chilli with a mix of orange sweet potatoes, and these beauties with an ugly white exterior but a brilliantly violet inside.
The chilli was reincarnated later in the week as Chilli Muffin Loaves, light little muffins with chunks of sweet potato and bean throughout.
Home made tofu is beautiful when marinated and baked, and Carla's Pan Pacific Marinade didn't disappoint.
My advice is to keep your eyes peeled for Carla's cookbooks, because if the recipes I've tried are anything to go by, they will be excellent.
