This month’s theme for the Cottage Cooking Club is Oktoberfest. I didn’t make it to any Oktoberfest celebrations this year, but as you can see, I did enjoy a seasonal pumpkin lager. I also enjoyed all the harvest vegetables. Thanks to El Niño, the produce stands are full of a variety of early to late autumn produce, which makes delicious eating easy.
Along the way, I prepared two of this month’s CCC selections and both were wonderful.
Cauliflower and Chickpea Curry
You know a recipe is a keeper if you’re being asked to make it again as soon as it’s gone. This curry lasted us three meals and kept getting better each day.
It’s also a healthy dish, full of fresh garlic, onion, and ginger, with spices like tumeric and cumin – all things that are being touted as immune boosters. There’s only a little fat in it and it’s vegan to boot.
We’ll be having this dish whenever cauliflower looks good at the market.
Roasted Parsnip, Green Lentil, and Spinach
The recipe in the book uses watercress, but it’s something that I find can be elusive around here. It’s one of those things I try to buy when I see it, as I never know when I’ll run across it again. This month was not a lucky one for me when it came to watercress, so I used wilted spinach in its place. The only other deviation from the recipe I made was to dice some of the onion cooked with the lentils and mix it back in, along with the dressing. It’s a trick I learned from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table.
Fearnley-Whittingstall’s dressed lentils are another favourite from this book. The lemon and mustard dressing suits lentilles du Puy perfectly and pairs well with the wilted spinach and roasted parsnips, too. Ah, I thought of another change I made – to make the dressing vegan, I substituted a little sugar for the honey.
I made more roasted parsnips than I needed for this dish, as it’s my favourite way to eat them and I wanted leftovers. Which reminds me, I added in a few sprigs of fresh rosemary when I was roasting them – I promise, that’s the last tweak I made to this recipe.
We’ll be repeating this dish, too, though given what I’ve written above, I’m not sure it will ever be exactly the same twice.
Here are the links to the rest of the group’s posts for this month. I encourage you to check them out – you’ll meet some wonderful bloggers and get some great inspiration for vegetarian eating.
One Wet Foot 
Hi Teresa! Your recipes look terrific, and photos are excellent too, the pumpkin lager seems like the perfect finish!
Thanks, Peggy! The pumpkin lager is a nice yearly treat. 🙂
Your dishes look fantastic Teresa! The cauliflower dish is particularly beautiful with the colours of autumn; it seems like a perfect cool weather bowl of comfort. I think most of us had trouble locating the watercress but I do like that you used wilted spinach in its place in the salad.
Thanks, Zosia! We’re making the cauliflower dish again this weekend – it was a big hit. And wilted spinach was a nice choice for a warming version on a rainy day.
Dear Teresa, you are certainly right about Hugh´s lentil salads/dishes – they are just terrific and I like that you substituted spinach for the watercress, I know that Zosia went the arugula route (also very delicious) – since I just stacked up on parsnips and greens again today, I most certainly will make this recipe on the weekend. And your Cauliflower and Chickpea Curry looks fabulous and healthy and it makes me more than happy to read that you and Kevin enjoyed it so much!
Thank you also for your nice shout-out on fb, I truly appreciate it!
Wishing you and Kevin a wonderful weekend and a very Happy Halloween!
Andrea
P.S.: Fun name for a lager “Schadenfreude” or “glee” sounds rather interesting…
Happy Hallowe’en to you, too, Andrea! And you deserve all the Facebook shout-outs possible – you do such a good job of organizing CCC and your blog is beautiful. I love the name of that beer (it’s also delicious).
Happy Halloween! Love that heap of roasted parsnips in that dish! Looking forward to the next make-up month to make it.
Hi Teresa! I love how you are blending the recipes in River Cottage Veg with techniques from AMFT. It’s all a learning process, isn’t it! Both of your recipes look great. I stuck with the tomato recipes because they were on their way out (and are now gone), but I might try those now that it’s getting colder here.
I think I need to go back and try again with the curry dish. Your photos look extra beautiful in this post. I like cauliflower as much as you do and all the ingredients are those I’ve used in other dishes. Yes, I know it’s a really healthy recipe. Will let you know how it goes the second time around. My mom made parsnips a lot when I was growing up. I don’t know why I don’t. Your dish, with the spinach, worked. I find myself using many of Dorie’s techniques and hints often. That was a great 4-years, wasn’t it? I really enjoyed reading your comments on my post about important moments. Lots of food for though in what you wrote. Thank you. And, BTW, I love beer, more than wine or mixed drinks. Just needed to say that.
I didn’t even know that pumpkin beer was a thing until a couple of weeks ago. I am hopelessly behind the times 🙂
The chickpea curry keeps crossing my path – I think the Universe is telling me to give it a try.
Beautiful, Teresa! The parsnips look fabulous and yay for the good parts of El Niño, right? I have to say that the beer name is absolutely hilarious: “I’ll have some schadenfreude, please.” That was definitely my nerdy chuckle of the day. It reminded me that there’s a local winery down here that had their wine taken off some shelves since their play on words was far cruder…and too crude for many: the wine was called “Sofa King Bueno.” (Say it out loud if you don’t catch it.) I hope that’s not too inappropriate for your blog and please feel free to delete my comment if it is. 🙂 I’m trying to bury it by typing more so it’s not as obvious, hahaha.