Because wheat-based pasta dishes are so much heavier to digest than gluten free pasta they give the illusion of a filling meal, particularly the ones with vegetarian sauces such as this one with cauliflower, peas, mint and quinoa. So the challenge was to find another ingredient that would “beef up” these dishes and also increase the quantity of vegetables.

This recipe is based on one from Matt Moran’s When I Get Home—which originally included panko breadcrumbs (to give a crunchy texture to the dish)—but replaces the breadcrumbs with quinoa to make it gluten free and also adds cream to make more of a sauce.

We think it’s pretty tasty.

Ingredients

1 tbs butter
¾ cup quinoa flakes
250g gluten free pasta (we like San Remo spirals made with maize, potato, soy and rice flours)
½ large cauliflower, cut into small florets
1–1½ cups peas
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
¾–1 cup cream
2 tbs olive oil
Handful of mint leaves, finely chopped
1 cup finely grated pecorino cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Melt the butter over medium heat in a large sauté pan and add the quinoa flakes. Fry till golden brown and crispy. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Bring some water to the boil for the pasta and cook to the directions on the packet.

Heat the olive oil to the pan and add the cauliflower florets. Cook until golden brown and softened (around 8 minutes). You can add a couple of tablespoons of water to the pan to help soften the cauliflower. Stir through the garlic and peas, and cook for 1 minute. Add the cream and bring to a simmer. Add the cooked pasta, toasted quinoa flakes, mint and pecorino cheese. Stir until all the cheese has melted.

Season with freshly ground salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

Growing up, every Sunday involved a roast. One very fond memory I have is roast lamb with mint sauce. Nana used to send me out into the backyard to pick the mint fresh from the garden. And it was nice as a kid to be included in the cooking process in some small way.

Jim was feeling particularly inspired by Maggie Beer’s saltbush mutton recipe. It’s fairly simple to prepare but you need a long cooking time so it’s perfect for a lazy Sunday at home. We opted to cook with a leg of lamb instead of the much fattier mutton. Because we have an uneven fan-forced oven, we also had to adjust Maggie’s cooking temperature so the meat didn’t dry out.

Roast lamb
Start with a leg of lamb, cut some slits into the meat and insert garlic slices and rosemary sprigs, pour 125ml of warmed port over it, then cover it and roast in the oven at around 140°C for two hours. The meat must be basted with pan juices every 30 minutes to stop it from burning or drying out. After two hours, pour another 125ml of port over the leg of lamb and continue cooking uncovered in the same way for another two hours. Before carving the meat, rest the lamb for at least 20 minutes.

We served this with a selection of roast vegetables that we love.

Roast vegetables
2 medium potatoes
A thick wedge of pumpkin
1 sweet potato
3 small beetroots
Rosemary

Cut the vegetables into roughly even pieces (around 4cm) and sprinkle with fresh rosemary sprigs. Toss with olive oil and a couple of tablespoons of butter, and bake, turning once or twice, until they’re golden and crunchy on the outside but soft on the inside (about an hour).

It’s worthwhile cooking the beetroot in a separate dish, or at one end of your baking dish, because otherwise it discolours all the other vegetables when you’re turning them.

Parsnips, carrots, onions and garlic are also wonderful roasted. Roasted garlic is particularly useful if you intend to make a jus or gravy with the meat juices from the pan.

While the lamb is resting, make the delightful mint sauce, just like Nana used to make.

Mint sauce
4 tbs fresh mint leaves
2 tbs caster sugar
2 tbs boiling water
8 tbs white vinegar

Finely chop the mint and place in a small bowl. Sprinkle with the sugar and pour in the water. Stir once to mix and allow it to stand until the water is cool. Add the vinegar and mix well. Spoon this over your sliced meat at the table.

The meal was delicious! The lamb was delicately flavoured by the rosemary and garlic; any fat on it had melted away. The meat simply fell off the bone after cooking for that long but was still beautifully moist and tender. The mint sauce added a semi-sweet zingy quality, which was quite refreshing on the palate. And the rich flavour of the vegetables complemented it all well.

Now…what to do with all that leftover roast meat…

I am a massive fan of the humble pea. I think it comes from my childhood, helping Mum out by shelling the peas for dinner. They’re so sweet, fresh from the pod…it usually went something along the lines of one for me, one for the bowl. I also loved just-cooked peas with a bit of melted butter stirred through. Heaven!

Peas are delicious and so good for you. They’re an excellent source of dietary fibre and protein. They also provide vitamin C, niacin, folate, beta carotene, iron, zinc and potassium. That’s a lot of punch for something so small!

While most people opt for the convenience of frozen peas (after all, shelling peas is time-consuming), you can’t quite go past a fresh pea. They’re worth the effort because they taste so much better. I get excited when I see them at the greengrocer and yesterday I was even happier to see that broad beans were also available.

For me, that meant it was time to make one of my favourite lunches: smashed peas and broad beans on grilled ciabatta. Thank you, once again, Jamie At Home.

The dish is essentially the age-old combination of peas and mint, beefed up with broad beans, lemon and cheese, served on crusty toasted bread. Yum! Jamie suggests buffalo mozzarella on top but I prefer Persian feta.

It does look a bit like green mush when smashing it all up with the mortar and pestle but don’t be deterred, it is absolutely delicious and surprisingly filling.

It’s ideal for spring/summer because the mint and lemon juice are cool and refreshing with just the right amount of zing from grated pecorino. Pair it with a glass of pinot gris and now you’re really onto something extraordinary!