This dinner is a breeze

There are nights when you want to think a little more about what you’re cooking for dinner and nights when you want to think a little less.

This is for those easier nights. It’s a scrounging-around-for-something-good recipe, and it truly delivers because the simple combination of ingredients includes a nice variety of textures and flavours.

You skillet-cook the lot: black beans and baby spinach leaves, broccoli and cherry tomatoes.

On top goes an avocado-and-lime mash, followed by a sprinkling of my favourite spice blend, za’atar (although you can skip that if it’s a dealbreaker).

The dish is so close to things I make fairly regularly and have never written down that when I saw it in a cookbook, I blinked, the way you do when you see an old friend in an unexpected place.

The recipe is from Green Kitchen at Home (Hardie Grant, 2017), whose Scandinavian authors, David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl, also write the blog Green Kitchen Stories.

I changed just two things, both of them having to do with the avocado.

First, I doubled it, because, well, I wanted more of that creaminess in every bite. Second, they instruct you to form it, dipping two spoons into hot water and passing a scoop of the mixture between them, “turning and smoothing each side until a neat quenelle is formed.”

Nah. Not with a recipe that’s otherwise so unfussy. I didn’t give it a second thought. After I mashed, I dolloped. Note: If you can’t find za’atar, a Middle Eastern blend that is available in the spice aisle of better-stocked supermarkets, either leave it out or substitute a squeeze of lime, some toasted sesame seeds, and pinches of dried thyme and cumin.