If you’d like to tune into the energy of Spring and learn some new, seasonal recipes, this menu is for you! You can either make all the dishes at once, meal prepping for the week ahead, or use the rollover technique of cooking through the menu as the week moves along, enjoying fresh, flavour-coordinated dishes every day! It’s brilliant, bold, and oh so beautiful!

Rollover Menus are meant to connect you to the ingredients and rhythm of the seasons. Every recipe is born from a few building block ingredients and these roll over into new forms throughout the menu, and throughout the week. These menus reflect the way I eat at home, the way I save time in the kitchen, and the way I stay satisfied all week long.

Instead of spending hours in the kitchen every day, I make big batches of whole-food building blocks that I roll into my meals over several days. Knowing that I have a foundation awaiting me in the fridge and pantry, I can intuitively build my meals for the week. Instead of “meal prepping” which focuses on the the same meal for many meals, rollovers allow me more flexibility and spontaneity, satisfying any possible craving I have. 

Each seasonal Rollover Menu follows a formula that gives you the freedom to create a few different recipes from the same shopping list. The building blocks of the RM Formula are: a grain, a legume, a pickle, a topping, a sauce / dressing, a prepped veg, and a leafy green. From these humble beginnings I’ve created recipes that utilize all of these building blocks so that your life in the kitchen is super simple and super satisfying. You can keep the building blocks as they are, pair them up, OR you can make the recipes that I’ve devised with the building blocks for even more fun, and no chance of getting bored!

For the Spring Rollover Menu, my inspiration came from the vegan Persian restaurant I worked at many years ago. Camros was the first organic restaurant in Toronto and my love for the deep, complex flavours of the traditional dishes and high-quality ingredients they served has continued to inspire me and my work.

Mojdeh Rouhani and her family cooked together and shared their beautiful heritage with me and the people of Toronto for many years. The restaurant’s name Camros, refers to a spirited bird from ancient Persian mythology who gathers seeds of life and brings them to people for nourishment and enjoyment — my mission in life! I hope these flavours, aromas, and passion in this menu translates to you and brings you nourishment and enjoyment wherever you are.

This menu features humble roasted veggies that quickly become a show-stopping side dish, simple beans that appear solo and in a beautiful stew, traditional Iranian ingredients, as well as a sweet little sesame treat to round out the beauty of the flavours and textures. At a time when restaurants aren’t so accessible to us all, the feedback I’ve received on this menu has been overwhelmingly positive and often I heard during recipe testing that these dishes “taste like restaurant food!” Let me know what you think 🙂

Display these dishes all together for a menu meant to make your everyday a little lighter and brighter, more delicious, and as a way to connect you to yourself and to others.

See below for the links to the recipes and the full grocery list.

The Recipes

Spring Rollover Shopping List

Ingredients

Fresh Produce

• 2 bunches radishes (more if you love them!)
• 1 ½ lbs / 700g carrots
• 4 heads garlic, medium to large
• 3 lemons
• 1 large bunch flat-leaf parsley
• 1 bunch cilantro
• 4 large white onions
• 3 bunches spring onions / scallions
• 2 ½ cups / 70g baby spinach (more for raw greens in grain bowl if desired!)
• 2 ¼ lbs / 1kg turnips (more if you'd like some roasted!)

Pantry

• ¼ – ½ cup ghee / coconut oil / avocado oil (a knob = about 2 Tbsp. but feel free to use more if desired!)
• ¾ cup / 185ml tahini
• 3 ¼ cups + 2 Tbsp. cold-pressed olive oil (plus more for drizzling)
• 3 Tbsp. pure maple syrup
• 1 ¼ cups / 200g soft, pitted dates
• ¾ cup / 100g green olives, with pits
• 2 cups / 400g brown basmatic rice
• 1 ½ cups / 250g dried kidney beans (or 2 cans cooked)
• ½ cup / 75g pistachio kernels, unsalted
• ½ cup + 2 Tbsp. / 80g brown sesame seeds
• 1 cup whole spelt flour, plus more for dusting
• ¾ cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 ½ cups / 375ml vegetable stock

Spices

• 3 Tbsp. sea salt (more for seasoning / finishing)
• ½ tsp. black pepper
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• ½ Tbsp. ground cumin
• 3 tsp. ground turmeric
• 4 bay leaves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 4 pods green cardamom
• ½ tsp. ground cardamom
• 2 dried limes
• 2 Tbsp. ground fenugreek
• ¼ cup / 25g ground sumac
• 2 Tbsp. dried thyme
• 2 Tbsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. aleppo pepper (optional)

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