Zizi's Adventures - Real Food, Real Stories

Roasted Millet Salad With Garlicy Butternut Squash and Tofu

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Now that we have a tofu tutorial, let’s see a delicious tofu recipe. It is a warm, nutritious grain salad with roasted pumpkin and tofu. It is filling, gives you energy and you can take it for lunch the next day at work.

Millets are major food sources in arid and semiarid regions of the world, and feature in the traditional cuisine of many others. People with coeliac disease can replace certain gluten-containing cereals in their diets with millet. Millets are predominantly starchy. The protein content is comparable to that of wheat and maize. Millets are rich in B vitamins (especially niacin, B6 and folic acid), calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, and zinc.

The idea to roast the millet before cooking comes from one of my new cookbooks, Sprouted Kitchen. It gives an earthy flavour to the dish. I added roasted garlic, butternut squash and tofu to the salad and tossed it with a creamy tahini-lemon-chili sauce. Oh My, yummie!

Roasted Millet Salad With Garlicy Butternut Squash and Tofu

Ingredients (serves 2-3)

– 150 g millet
– 300 g firm tofu
– 350 g butternut squash (or any kind of squash), peeled and cubed
– 3 cloves garlic, chopped
– 4 tablespoons tahini
– 2 teaspoons soy sauce
– 1 teaspoon chili flakes
– 2 teaspoons nutritional yeast (optional)
– juice of 1 lemon
– salt, pepper
– coconut or olive oil

Method

Roast the millet in a dry pan for 5 minutes then set aside. Press the unnecessary liquid out of the tofu, then dice into small cubes (about 1 cm * 1 cm, 0.39 inch * 0.39 inch). Peel the butternut squash then dice into the same size like tofu. Preheat the oven to 180C (356F).

Arrange the tofu and butternut squash cubes on a baking sheet, sprinkle with 2 tablespoons coconut oil, season with salt and pepper. Roast for about 10 minutes then sprinkle with the chopped garlic and roast for another 10 minutes or until golden brown. Set aside. Cook the roasted millet in salted water according to package directions. Set aside.

In a small bowl whisk together tahini, soy sauce, lemon juice, chili flakes and nutritional yeast.

In a big bowl toss the millet and roasted squash, tofu togetherand add the tahini sauce.

Enjoy!

Millet, Oat And Apple Muffins And Meeting Béatrice Peltre

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These gorgeous, yum and moist muffins were baked for a picnic to Szentendre. This riverside town close to Budapest is known for its museums, galleries and artists. Due to its picturesque appearance and easy rail and river access, it has become a popular destination for tourists staying in the capital of Hungary.

This was the first time I used millet flour in baking. It has a subtle flavor, lots of vitamins and minerals, and adds a lovely creamy color to baked goods. I had a good experience with using it so I’ll give it a try next time too. Have you tried millet flour before?

Image is copyright of Béatrice Peltre and is used with author’s permission

This muffin recipe comes from my latest favorite cookbook of Béatrice Peltre “La Tartine Gourmande – Recipes for an Inspired Life. I’ve been a big fan of Béa’s award-winning blog for a while. The first time I found it I couldn’t stop reading her stories and admiring her photos. In a couple of days I went through all her posts! I think it was love at first sight.She is an icon in the food blogging sphere. I think everyone knows her name and wonderful blog. If somehow you don’t, hurry up and check it out, after reading this post. She is a friendly and chatty person, a great cook, a talented baker and knows her way around her camera. Béa’s styling is stunning and the mouthwatering photos she takes, make you jump and run into the kitchen.

I feel lucky because I had the chance to meet and see her at work last August at the Food Blogger Connect in London. I learnt so much from Béa and other speakers of the event. The biggest highlight of attending the conference was to meet my fellow food blogger friends in person. I came away with so much inspriation, idea, a whole group of new friends and ready for action attitude.

Béa at work

Béa’s book transports you to a word of bright colours, flavors and delectable, easy to make recipes. Although she is not vegetarian I hardly found meat or fish recipes in the book so I was happy that I could cook & bake all the recipes only with small changes. Like I did with these muffins. No quinoa flour is available in Hungary so I used millet flour instead. I changed the butter into coconut oil and Muscovado sugar into coconut flower sugar.

Millet, Oat and Apple Muffins

Ingredients (makes 10-12)

– 60 g millet flour
– 30 g oat flour
– 50 g rolled oats, plus more for topping
– 50 g coconut flower sugar (you can substitute with cane or Muscovado sugar)
– 1 teaspoon alkaline free baking powder
– 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
– 175 g apple (2 apples), peeled, cored and grated
– 2 organic eggs
– 50 g coconut oil (you can substitute with butter)
– 2 tablespoons tahini (sesame cream)
– 1 vanilla bean, split and seeded (you can substitute with 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract)
– pinch of sea salt

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C (350F) and line 10-12 hole muffin tray with paper cases.

In a bowl mix together the dry ingredients: flours, rolled oats, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl beat the eggs with the cane sugar until creamy and light, then add tahini, coconut oil, vanilla and mix. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and with a wooden spoon mix until smooth (don’t overwork the batter!). Stir in the grated apple.

Spoon the mixture into the cases, filling them about two thirds full, dividing the batter evenly and topping each muffin with rolled oats. Bake the muffins for about 25 minutes on 180C (350F). Remove from the oven when a cocktail stick just comes out of the muffins cleanly. Leave them to cool on a wire rack.