Herbs, spices, garlic and fresh lemon pack flavour into the roasted carrots and cauliflower steaks. The smoked quinoa provides a wonderful contrast in flavour and texture!

Should you be really complimentary about your own food?  Like gushingly so?  Because I ate this and thought I’d be really happy if I got this in a restaurant.  The Hodmedods Smoked Quinoa is a thing of wonder and you need to do very little to it for amazing flavour.

For too long restaurant vegetarian food (let alone vegan food) has been very limited.  A mushroom risotto, a nut roast, a stuffed pepper.  Even a plate of chips was considered the veggie option in some places.  It IS changing.  Not only are there dedicated vegan specific restaurants now but even the ‘big players’ in fast food – think McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Greggs 😉 – are introducing vegan options.  Not sure how I feel about that yet.

Anyhoo, vegan food is changing.  It’s NOT boring.  IMHO it’s actually better than its traditional counterpart – and not just because there’s no cruelty on your plate.  It tastes better, the ranges are ever expanding and when it’s as good as this who needs meat?

While this dish is really easy to prepare and cook it does take a little time to cook the roasted carrots and cauliflower steaks.  Totally worth the wait though 😉

You can also cook a few extra ahead of time and then pop them in the oven to warm through for a much quicker (and even easier!) meal.

I wanted to impart as much natural, honest to goodness flavour into this dish.  The roasted carrots are slow cooked with thyme and a little maple syrup.  The cauliflower steaks are drenched in lemon, herbs, garlic and spices before being cooked until tender and golden.

How to Cook Quinoa

The principles of cooking smoked quinoa are exactly the same as cooking plain old run of the mill quinoa.  The ratio of water to seed is 2:1 and I use veg stock instead of just water for even more flavour.  I’ve also written a dedicated blog post on how to cook perfect quinoa here – a very easy to follow walk through guide to getting perfectly cooked quinoa Every.Single.Time.

I used smoked quinoa with the roasted carrots and cauliflower steaks as I wanted a wonderful, earthy contrast to the roasted vegetables.  Roasted carrots are naturally quite sweet, even more so with the addition of a drizzle of maple syrup.  The cauliflower has a lovely golden crust and zingy lemon.  The smoked quinoa brings everything together just perfectly.

Honestly, there was audible moaning from me from the very first bite.  I ate this for the rest of the week.  Even had to buy more cauliflower.

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