Harissa a Spicy and Flavorsome Spiced Chili Preserve

This easy to make Moroccan chilli paste (AKA Harissa) adds pop to any dish. At the CO Project, we add an extra half cup of olive oil on top so that our guests can drizzle the flavorsome oil all over our delicious vegetable dishes, adding just a touch of heat and a load of flavour.

What you need

• A handful of any dried chilies you have on hand; you can combine different ones or just have one type

• Boiling hot water

• Whole spices: coriander seeds, cumin seeds, and caraway seeds

• 5 cloves of garlic

• Sea salt and black pepper to taste

• 1 cup of Olive oil

• A high speed blender

How-to Make It

1. Soak the dried chilies in enough hot water to just cover, and leave for 30 minutes to rehydrate and get plump.

2. While soaking, you will then dry roast a teaspoon each of coriander seeds, cumin, and caraway. Dry roasting is when you use a hot dry heavy based pan with NO oil, and you keep moving the seeds around until they get aromatic but don’t burn. Once they have started to release their flavour (you can smell this!) take them off the heat, and once they are cool, place in the blender you will use.

3. Drain the chilies when soft, and add them and to your spices in the blender or food processor. Add 4 of the cloves of garlic and some sea salt and pepper.

4. Start to blend, slowly adding some olive oil until it’s a nice smooth paste. It will become a dark red colour and you want it to be a paste consistency, so add olive oil until you get that and then stop.

5. Taste and add the extra garlic or salt to your taste liking, but be careful as it will be HOT!

6. Put in a clean glass jar and top off with all the extra olive oil. You can keep it for a few weeks as long as you have olive oil on top. The flavor will change over the first few days and may mellow out, so don’t be afraid if it’s too hot when you first start out!

ENJOY!

Quick and Easy Oat Milk Dairy Alternative Recipe

We thought this was going to be super hard, but it turns out that alternative milks are actually very easy to make and way cheaper than the store-bought options (and you save on disposable packaging!).

Oat Milk is so quick and easy to make, and it also is a super inexpensive non-dairy milk choice. It’s also great because even if you have run out of milk, you don’t need to soak the oats overnight!

WHAT YOU NEED

• 1 cup oats

• 1.5 cups of Water

• Blender

• Sieve or cheesecloth

WHAT YOU DO

1. Soak the oats in enough water to cover them.

2. Blend in the blender.

3. Add some flavor, such as honey if you want it sweet or some cinnamon, if you want more flavour, and then blend some more.

4. Pour the liquid through a cheesecloth, fine sieve, or a nut milker to separate the solids from the milky liquids.

5. Your oat milk is ready to drink!

6. Store in the fridge in a closed-lid bottle for 3 days.

Delicious Carrot Top Pesto Zero Waste Recipe

Next time you get a bunch of fresh carrots from the farmers markets or from your garden, don’t throw out the tops; give them new life as an amazing pesto! Spicy and packed full of flavor, this pesto is a perfect zero waste recipe.

The glorious Italian invention of pesto has to be one of the best things to do with all fresh green things. I always thought that pesto had to be made from basil, but the method of pounding or blitzing flower-filled herbs with salt + pepper, olive oil, and garlic can be applied to so many more things, with the same great taste!

WHAT YOU NEED

• A bunch of bright green carrot tops, washed and rough chopped

• 2 cloves of garlic

• 1/2 cup of olive oil

• Salt and pepper

• Blender

• 2 tablespoons of nuts (either sunflower seeds, almonds, or pine nuts)

• Optional: hard cheese

WHAT YOU DO

1. Pop all the ingredients in a blender with a generous amount of the olive oil, and blitz until its a bright green chunky pesto.

2. Grate in some hard cheese like parmesan (you can either skip or use a tablespoon of nutritional yeast if you are vegan), and then continue to blitz away.

3. Check if you need to add extra oil as you go, to get to the delicious consistency of pesto, or some lemon juice and/or fresh chili if you want a bit of extra kick.

4. Pop the pesto in a hot sterilized jar and cover the top with a bit of extra oil. Store in the fridge and enjoy on toast, pasta, salads, and everything else for weeks!