Monochromatic Green Dinner

On Saturday evening 23 September 2023, I hosted my monochromatic green dinner for 4 at our apartment in Goteborg. This was part of an assignment for the EAT-HDK course I am doing here in Gothenburg, Sweden. (See the invitation below). Pondering who to invite, I invited friends I thought would enjoy this unique experience and challenge of eating just one colour. The added challenge was creating both vegetarian and gluten-free food as one of our invited guests prefers to eat gluten-free. My husband Glen helped document and shape the pizza bases on the night.

Naturally Green
We invite you to our home
For a fun interactive night
Our first naturally green dinner
At 18:00 on 23 September 2023
Yes, with gluten-free options too
Bring a green drink to share
And dress in green if you dare

Menu

• Spinach pizza with your choice of greens to top. Choose either spelt sourdough or gluten-free.
• Crunchy salad with lime oil
• Mazing matcha roll filled with zesty lime cream cheese; gluten-free
• Melt-in-your-mouth matcha cookies; gluten-free, some with matcha ice cream, some eaten with leftover matcha lime cream cheese
• Extras: chilled frozen grapes, matcha kit kats from Japan
• Drinks; chilled green tea, pear mocktail, homemade green juice* by Brandy and Carl.

Choose your own toppings:
Homemade pesto, blue cheese (that looks green), mozzarella if you hide it underneath for the photos, avocado, roasted broccoli, roasted kale, pak choy, snow peas, baby spinach, pickled gherkins, fresh basil, dill, toasted pistachios and toasted pumpkin seeds.

As I love baking and creating recipes, I made two types of pizza dough. The first one was a spelt flour sourdough with pureed spinach and kale, and the second dough was a gluten-free pizza dough made with Caputo gluten-free flour with pureed spinach. For dessert, I experimented with two types of homemade gluten-free flour blends and baked matcha butter cookies, adapted from an existing recipe for spelt butter cookies and a new recipe inspired by a Japanese blogger and swapped out the cake flour for a homemade gluten-free blend with a matcha lime cream cheese filling.

The overall feel of the evening was informal and relaxed.  I invited them as I thought they would enjoy the interactive experience.
I suggested everyone wear green clothing. Our guests offered to make a healthy green juice. I had everyone take part in constructing their own pizzas.

Homemade Green Juice

• Spinach – 1kg
• Cucumber – 3
• Apples – 4
• Pears – 4
• Spirulina –  1tbsp
• Fresh ginger – 4cm piece

Outcome and Summary
We all discovered that we were extremely full by eating only green; having a pizza base with the extra fibre of spinach added into the dough and drinking a healthy green juice. Most importantly we needed to leave room for dessert that I had created.