The Odd Fork

The Odd Fork goes vegan, lowcal and gluten free today! After many pinches, it turned out that chickpea pasta is the No1 gluten free option for tasty, nutritious pasta meals. An avocado pesto chickpea pasta was the first successful recipe that turned the Odd Fork into a chickpea pasta fan!

So for the above vegan pasta recipe, the Odd Fork used a medium beetroot which it washed thoroughly, dried and wrapped in aluminum foil. It baked the beetroot in a preheated oven at 400F, for approximately an hour until the beetroot was tender.

Meanwhile, the Odd Fork boiled a portion of its favorite chickpea pasta, drained it but kept one cup of boiled pasta water aside. It soaked into this water 2 tbsps of dried cranberries.
When the beetroot cooled, the Odd Fork unwrapped it, peeled it easily and cut it in small pieces.

For the beet - cranberry pesto the Odd Fork just mixed in its blender the baked beetroot pieces, a tbsp of red vinegar, 2 tbsps of olive oil, a clove of garlic finely chopped, salt, a pinch of hot paprika, a pinch of sweet, red paprika, a pinch of nutmeg, 2 - 3 fresh spearmint leaves, a small spring onion finely chopped and the soaked (and of course drained) cranberries.
The Odd Fork blended well on a high speed all the above until a smooth paste formed. To adjust the thickness of the pesto it added some of the pasta water that had kept aside.

The Odd Fork mixed quickly the warm, boiled pasta with the beet - cranberry pesto and served immediately with fresh chopped parsley and sunflower seeds.

The Odd Fork does not stick to food categories, nutrition plans, food trends etc .;
It tries, as much as possible, to pinch everything! So, when it discovered in an organic store chickpea flour pasta, it thought to give it a try.

For a simple first recipe in order to taste more the genuine flavor of the main ingredient (the chickpea pasta), and less the sauce flavor, it thought of making a quick avocado pesto. Besides, avocado is a superfood and so are Chickpeas, so why not follow this healthy food road to the end? -the odd fork thought.
And with this decision, it made in no time a vegan, light and gluten free meal full of protein which gave it the energy to pinch strange food even harder, like this:

It peeled a ripe avocado, cut it into pieces and blended it with the juice and zest of a lemon, a clove of garlic, some black pepper, a little olive oil, and enough oregano until the mixture was a smooth, green cream. This happened while the pasta was boiling, but the odd fork was pleasantly surprised when it found out that the pasta had already boiled even before the pesto was ready!
The odd fork kept aside some water from the boiling pasta and poured it into the pesto -it was never keen on very thick pasta sauces.
Missing something? Of course, salt is missing but you see the odd fork went through a "free" phase that day (gluten-free, lactose-free, salt-free, etc.).
The pasta however, turned out to have a great taste!

Although salt-free, the spicy black pepper, the aromatic, juicy lemon, the umami flavor of the garlic and the intensity of the wild, Greek oregano gave the pasta a Mediterranean mark which made the fork really happy! The chickpea pasta had a slight chickpea flavor but not to the point of being annoying to the palate.

But the odd fork does not stop its healthy pinches here. It has other vegan posts at his blog store which it will soon upload.

The Odd Fork has an often sweet tooth, so it pinches cookies!
Cookies which are easy to make and at the same time full of good, nutritious stuff. Another good thing is that they come in various flavors!

For this unusual -but very aromatic chocolate option, the Odd Fork used:

- a jar of good quality peanut butter, made of 100% peanuts (220 grams)
- 100 grams milk chocolate with stevia, melted
- 1/3 cup of coconut sugar
- 2 sticks or 2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
- 1 teaspoon of pure almond extract
- millet flakes
- some shredded coconut

The Odd Fork emptied out the peanut butter into a bowl and mixing well, it added the melted chocolate, coconut sugar, espresso powder, almond extract and millet flakes (about 2/3 cup or some more, until a dough was formed).
Millet flakes are gluten free, cheap to buy and they have a pleasant, mild taste, but feel free to use oat flakes, buckwheat flakes or anything you like.
Finally, the Odd Fork added some shredded coconut (found also that very moment in the kitchen shelf, so why not?).
It dropped the cookie dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet and baked in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 10 - 15 minutes.

It let cookies cool for 20 - 30 minutes, carefully removed from cookie sheet and stored them in a cookie jar.
They turned out lovely, great with morning coffee or milk, or just practically any time!

The Odd Fork pinches everything and today it pinches lovely chocolate quinoa breakfast cookies which are sugar free, oil free, lactose free, gluten free... But definitely yummy!

If you want to pinch these cookies too with your morning coffee, you 'll need:

- 1/3 cup quinoa
- a handful of black raisins
- a ripe banana mashed well with a fork
- zest of an orange
- a little cinnamon
- 1/4 cup coconut (or a little more)
- about 100 grams of black chocolate pieces (adjust the amount to your taste)

First wash thoroughly the quinoa under running water and rinse it also very well (it will not taste bitter this way). Boil it using twice as much water (although the Odd Fork always uses a little more water). Just before the water is completely absorbed, add the raisins.
Increase the heat on the stove and cook stirring constantly with a wooden spatula until the liquids are absorbed. Be careful as the mixture sticks easily to the bottom of the pot.

Remove the pot from the stove. The quinoa mixture will look like sticky risotto.
Let it cool a bit and add the mashed banana, zest, cinnamon, coconut and chocolate (for the sugar free option use black chocolate with stevia). Adjust the amount of coconut in the quinoa dough, so that you can almost shape the cookies with your fingers.

Shape the cookies on non-stick Parchment Paper and bake at 180°C for about 10 - 15 minutes.
Pinch them warm or cold!

The Odd Fork found itself with enough fresh broccoli, so it decided to make a healthy, simple, cheap -but still odd, broccoli sorbet!

For about a quart of sorbet:

- a medium sized broccoli
- a cup of water (use the water the broccoli boiled into)
- a cup of sugar
- juice of a lemon
- the zest of half a lemon
- some Greek ouzo and some Greek mastic liqueur

To make this excellent broccoli sorbet with lemon - ouzo flavor, just boil the broccoli, rinse but keep aside a cup from its water. Boil the broccoli water with a cup of sugar and the juice of a lemon for 1-2 minutes.
Blend the syrup with the broccoli and the zest of half a lemon until the mixture is smooth.
When totally cool, add a little of Greek ouzo and some Greek mastic liqueur and refrigerate in your ice cream maker.

If an ice cream maker is not available, put the mixture in a plastic ice cream container in the freezer and every once in a while blend the frozen mixture to make sure your sorbet will be smooth.
Alcohol gives a smoother texture and instead of ouzo you can use vodka, gin or anything you like.

Feel free to experiment, feel free to be odd and strange!
Besides you never know, maybe with a green ice cream like this you can finally trick your kids into eating broccoli!