Up until now we have been limited in the Hungry Pumpkin kitchen. We have boiled and stewed and fried and sizzled, but only having a stovetop to cook on has placed a boundary on what we were able to do. Today, however, we have some good news: the Hungry Pumpkin kitchen has levelled up, and baking is coming your way! That’s right, friends, we got ourselves a small and practical convection oven! Naturally, we had to try it out right away, so today we decided to make some baked mixed vegetables. A combination of small potatoes, eggplant, carrots, and zucchini are gracing our plates today.
To round out the meal, we also prepared a cucumber salad that we decided to experiment with a bit. We chose this because we had some cucumber in the fridge that we really needed to use up, and as we looked at it thinking what to do we were reminded of a Greek sauce made of yoghurt, grated cucumber, garlic, olive oil, and salt that is known as tzatziki. This sauce can be used as a dip for fries, a sauce for dishes, or even as a form of soup! Vegan tzatziki can be made according to the original recipe but with vegan yoghurt instead of the dairy version. We decided to do our own thing, however, since we like to prepare things from basic ingredients at Hungry Pumpkin. This keeps the dishes cheaper and limits the salt and additives that are present in our food.
Recipe, preparation and cost
|
|
Quantity(g or ml) |
Price for 4 person (EUR) |
|
Main dish |
|
|
|
Zucchini |
500 |
0,85 |
|
Eggplant |
500 |
1,00 |
|
Carrtots |
400 |
0,48 |
|
Potato |
1000 |
0,99 |
|
Sald |
4 |
0,00 |
|
Olive oil |
50 |
0,30 |
|
Herbs |
5 |
|
|
Salat |
||
|
Cucumber |
400 |
0,60 |
|
Chickpea |
50 |
0,24 |
|
Aquafaba |
150 |
0,71 |
|
Salt |
3 |
0,00 |
|
Olive oil |
35 |
0,21 |
|
Together |
5,36 |
We began with the potatoes since they need the longest time to cook. Since they were small ones, we washed them well and cut them a bit to get reasonably sized pieces and then put them in the oven. With tabletop convection ovens like ours, it is important that the food does not touch the outer glass cover, since this would prevent the hot air from circulating properly and thus would not evenly cook the vegetables. We baked the potatoes on a low metal grill without seasoning for 15 minutes. We then salted them a bit and drizzled olive oil on them (though this step could also easily be done before you start baking them).
After 20 more minutes we added in carrot slices and put the zucchini and eggplant (both of which had been marinated with olive oil and salt) in on a higher rack to allow the hot air to heat the vegetables evenly. The whole thing then baked for an hour, so we used this time to make our salad.
Our dressing involved some improvisation sprinkled with trial and error. We used the liquid from a can of chickpeas. This liquid is also known as aquafaba, and has interesting properties that allow it to replace eggs in many contexts. When whisked, it will froth up like egg whites, and when mixed with oil it produces a mayonnaise-like substance. We decided to try and use it to make our yoghurt-like salad dressing. With our trusty stick mixer we began frothing the aquafaba and then gradually added oil. This was done very gradually to prevent it going thick like mayonnaise. At the same time, we also added some chickpeas to further thicken the mixture. We seasoned this with dried dill leaves and used it on the salad.
All of the ingredients together would come out to 5.36€ if you were to buy them, but ours was much less since we had potatoes, zucchini, and cucumber from the garden. Those of you with a garden at home know how convenient it is. That being said, any recipe can be adapted to incorporate cheaper vegetables from the store by only using those that are in season. Either way, this is a great method of keeping your costs down when cooking.
Nutritional value
|
|
With lunch consumed quantity |
% From daily needs |
|
|
Energy |
506,35 |
kcal |
25,3 |
|
Proteins |
10,415 |
g |
18,6 |
|
Total fats |
22,824 |
g |
51,9 |
|
Carbohydrates |
70,08 |
g |
|
|
Starch |
41,175 |
g |
|
|
Sugar |
16,208 |
g |
|
|
Fibers |
14,95 |
g |
59,8 |
|
Calcium (Ca) |
115,008 |
mg |
11,5 |
|
Iron (Fe) |
3,706 |
mg |
37,1 |
|
Magnesium (Mg) |
127,518 |
mg |
31,9 |
|
Phosphorus (P) |
297 |
mg |
42,4 |
|
Potassium (K) |
2157,728 |
mg |
107,9 |
|
Sodium (Na) |
807,565 |
mg |
146,8 |
|
Zinc (Zn) |
1,928 |
mg |
19,3 |
|
Copper (Cu) |
0,598 |
mg |
66,4 |
|
Manganese (Mn) |
1,24 |
mg |
53,9 |
|
Selenium (Se) |
2,039 |
µg |
4,1 |
|
Vitamin A |
852,875 |
µg |
85,3 |
|
Vitamin E |
4,333 |
mg |
28,9 |
|
Vitamin D |
0 |
µg |
0 |
|
Vitamin C |
83,638 |
mg |
83,6 |
|
Thiamin (B1) |
0,417 |
mg |
32 |
|
Riboflavin (B2) |
0,335 |
mg |
22,3 |
|
Niacin (B3) |
5,096 |
mg |
35,1 |
|
Pantothenic acid (B5) |
1,895 |
mg |
31,6 |
|
Vitamin B6 |
1,253 |
mg |
83,5 |
|
Folic acid (B9) |
152 |
µg |
38 |
|
Vitamin B12 |
0 |
µg |
0 |
|
Vitamin K |
48,193 |
µg |
68,8 |
In eating this meal, we got just over 25% of our daily energy needs. The majority of the proteins came from the potatoes, but we also got some from the zucchini, eggplant, and chickpeas in the salad dressing; despite all of this, we only managed to get 18% of our daily protein requirement into this meal. This would need to be increased in other meals in the day to balance things out. 51% of our daily fat requirement was met because we had oil in both the cooked vegetables and in the dressing. We also consumed lots of fibre and vitamins and minerals through the baked vegetables. Potassium and sodium saw 100% of our daily value appearing just in this one meal, while 85% of our vitamin A requirements were accounted for. The meal was low in selenium, calcium, zinc, and the food did not contain vitamins D or B12, as is typical for vegan foods.
If you have any questions about today’s lunch, ideas for future lunches or nutritional exposés, or just want to say hi, write to us at hungry.pumpkin.blog@gmail.com (we don’t bite!… unless you’re a yummy vegan dish).
The Hungry Pumpkin team
Additional reading:
https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/cucumber_yogurt_salad/
