Veggie bakes with crumble toppings are an easy way to to make a feel-good dish that will go down a treat. A crumble topping is EASY and means that you don’t have bother of having to roll out pastry – yay. Bakes make an excellent dish if you want to make something tasty that dinner guests will love.

The limit with ‘bakes’ is pretty much your imagination! There are infinite varieties of fillings, sauces and toppings that you can make.

In today’s recipe, I’ve created a delicious butter bean and coconut bake, with cauliflower as the vegetable. This bake also benefits from rosemary and freshly grated nutmeg, for an extra infusion of divine culinary alchemy. Be sure also to check out the video I have made and printable recipe (scroll down for those).

Today’s topping is made with oats (I use gluten-free oats), which I ground down in my food processor. I also add sunflower seeds (ground down roughly).

You can actually use oil to bind the topping together, although in this recipe I simply used water… just enough to get everything to bind together into a crumble.

Everybody just loves a crumble. So simple, yet so feel-good!

I discovered that rosemary and nutmeg go together, quite by chance some while ago (not that I particularly believe in chance haha). One day I was dancing in the kitchen – from one ingredient to the next – tuning in – asking ‘hey what ingredients want to be part of this delightful alchemy right now?’. And they spoke to me!

Rosemary and nutmeg are grown in totally different climatic zones. Rosemary is more temperate and Mediterranean, whilst nutmeg is more of a tropical spice. However, they just love, love, love being together, like long lost friends – they delight in their union and make a fab team.

They both support brain health, increasing blood flow to the brain and improving cognitive function (woohoo – yes please to anything that improves my brain health!). Both rosemary and nutmeg hold alchemical keys to unravelling turbulent minds whilst imparting calming, yet invigorating energies. They are both amazing antioxidants, have good anti-inflammatory properties and are supportive to overall health and wellness.

I’ve written an article here all about the health benefits of rosemary…

So let’s make this bake. It’s the sort of thing I would serve if I have guests over and works well with a colourful salad, veggies, peas turmeric rice or roast potatoes. Pretty versatile really.

Here’s a helpful video I made to walk you through the process…



Vegan Butter Bean Coconut Bake with Rosemary & Nutmeg (gluten-free) Yield: 4 portions Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 30 minutes Total Time: 45 minutes A vegan butter bean coconut bake with cauliflower, rosemary and nutmeg. Made with a gluten-free oat and sunflower seed topping. Print Ingredients Main veggie part of the bake 1 large onion

1 small cauliflower

Drizzle olive oil

150ml water ( 2/3 cup)

1 tablespoon rosemary (fresh finely chopped)

1 teaspoon sea salt (or to your prefered taste)

Big twist pepper

200g butter beans pre-cooked (1 1/2 cup)

100g creamed coconut (see HERE Extra sauce for the main part 1 teaspoon (heaped) tapioca starch (or cornflour)

1 teaspoon (heaped) onion powder

75ml water Topping 100g ground oats (between 3/4 & 1 cup)

100g ground sunflower seed ( 2/3 cup)

Sea salt (to taste)

Big twist pepper

1 teaspoon (heaped) dried parsley

Water to bind. Instructions ***check out my video above for helpful visual guide on how to make this first*** Chop cauliflower into small pieces. Chop onion into small pieces. Heat oil in large pan and then saute the onion for a minute or two. Stirring occasionally but then replacing the lid. Add the cauliflower to the pan and saute for another couple of minutes. Stirring occasionally but then replacing the lid. Destalk and finely chop the rosemary. Add the water, stir ingredients and replace the lid to keep the moisture in and allow steaming of the cauliflower to happen. Cook for ten minutes (approximately) to steam the cauliflower - stirring occasionally. Add the rosemary, salt, pepper, butterbeans and mix in. Chop the creamed coconut. (please note: Creamed coconut comes in a solid block form and melts on heating. It's delightfully rich and fragrant. If you don't know what creamed coconut is or where to get it, please see my article here: What is creamed coconut (versus coconut butter or coconut cream)?) Add the chopped creamed coconut to the pan and allow it to melt in by stirring, replacing the lid between stirring to keep the moisture in. Extra sauce for the main part Put the tapioca starch (or cornflour, if that is what you have) and onion powder in a small mixing bowl. Gradually add the 75ml of water to it and stir. If you add the water all at once, you'll just end up with lumps from the onion powder. So add a little, stir it, press out any lumps - add a little more water, repeat. When done add this to the pan and mix in. This will add more moisture/sauce to the whole thing and will thicken up really quickly upon mixing. When done (the cauliflower should be steamed, with a nice bite - rather than over-cooked and mushy) put it into an oven-proof dish. Crumble Topping Grind oats in a food processor. Grind sunflower seeds in a food processor. Put oats and seeds in a bowl and mix in salt, pepper and dried parsley. Add a small amount of water to allow the crumble ingredients to bind together. Add slowly and only small amounts (otherwise, it will end up soggy). Rub the mixture together with your fingers to create a crumble topping. Pop the topping on top and press down gently and evenly. Pop the dish into a pre-heated oven at gas mark 6 (400F / 200C) and bake for about 30 minutes, until the crumble is gently tanned on top. Serve right away and enjoy. This crumble bake also works nicely the next day cold.

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