Scotch broth and oat cakes

Time does tick on, huh? Lucky for me I’m home with an unstoppable cough today, so I can catch up on blog writing between coughing fits.

The very first Scottish-ish meal I turned my hand to, in the distant past of about two and  half weeks ago, was Scotch broth accompanied by some oat cakes.

Scotch broth is made of meat, leek, root vegetables and barley – what I grew up just calling “soup”. Obviously I didn’t use any meat, but instead flavoured mine with fake beef stock from Massell. I was also unable to find any leek, it not really being the season for them, so I used lots of spring onion, shallot and garlic tops from the garden instead.

I based my recipe around this one from Jamie Oliver, and this one from Angela Hartnett from the Guardian. I have since found that vegan versions abound, so my apologies if my recipe is exactly the same as other peoples’.

Vegan Scotch Broth

The broth looked pretty, and tasted pretty good in that nourishing, wintery kind of way. I don’t think this sort of soup is ever going to win my heart back from curried carrot or creme of cauliflower, but it made a fairly decent attempt. To make it look pretty, and not go too stodgy, I mucked around a little during the preparation and soaked and boiled the barley in its own pot before adding to the soup. You don’t really need to do this, I was just trying to ensure I didn’t accidentally make porridge.

I served the broth up with some oat cakes. I first tried them in Scotland, and fell in love. For those who haven’t tried them, they’re basically just a dry biscuit (or a cracker, for the yanks) made of oats and oat flour. And they’re very tasty and moreish.

As with the broth, I based my recipe around several others, including this one from TriniGourmet and this one on the Bob’s Red Mill site.

I won’t post a full recipe, but will add that:

• I veganised by using plain old vegan marg, and it worked out well, so no need for shortening if you don’t have any, and
• I used a coffee grinder to make the oats into rough oat flour. I did this for about 3/4 of the oats called for in the recipe.

Home made oatcakes (pictured with mushroom pate)

I was impressed with how easy they were to make, and how tasty and dry they were, and think I think I’ll add them to the standing rotation. (Actually that probably won’t happen, because I always say that and I never do it, but what the hell, why change now?).

They seemed to go down well with Mr also – he didn’t realise they were home made.

 

Vegan Scotch Broth

Serves 4-6

• 1/2 cup pearl barley, soaked for 2 hours
• 1/2 cup lentils, soaked for 20 minutes
• 2 tbs vegan margarine
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 1 swede, diced
• 2 radishes, diced (you don’t have to do this, I just have a radish glut)
• 2 potatoes, diced
• 1 leek or 1 cup of chopped spring onion, onion tops, shallot tops and garlic tops
• 2 litres of stock (I used massell beef stock powder)

1. In a pot of boiling water, cook the barley and the lentils. Drain and set aside.
2. In a large saucepan melt the margarine and fry the onion until soft.
3. Add the vegetables, including leek if you have it but leave the onion and garlic tops out if you’re using them instead. Add the stock ad bring to the boil. Return to a simmer, and simmer for 30 minutes.
4. Add the onion etc tops if using, and continue to simmer for 15 minutes.
5. Serve with bread (or oat cakes).

 

 

 

 

Lemon Cake II: the “healthy” version

Last night we had some friends over for dinner who are of the low fat, considered nutrition mindset. Despite this, I knew I couldn’t help myself but to make a dessert. Out of lemons, because, sooooo many lemons.

I used almond meal again and spelt again, added some polenta, removed the lemon juice, and swapped the oil and tofu for a little sour cream (vegan of course), and the sugar for agave syrup. Instead of icing the cake, I had a syrup to go with it.

The result was fabulous. Mr mentioned that he though it was a “little on the grainy side” but I thought it was fine, and it got good reviews from the adults and kids alike. It was dense, but not fudgey – I think it would be best eaten within 2 or 3 days of baking.

I got shy, and didn’t take a photo, so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

Low-Fat Vegan Lemon Cake

• 2/3 cup almond meal
• 1 1/4 cup spelt flour
• 1/2 cup polenta
• 2 tsp baking powder
• zest of two large lemons
• 3 Tbs raw sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/3 cup agave syrup
• 1/4 cup vegan sour cream (you could use yoghurt)
• around 1/2 cup almond milk (I got sloppy with the measuring here, sorry, so it could have been more)

topping

• juice of two lemons
• 2 tbs raw sugar
• 1 cup icing sugar
• up to 1/3 cup water
• 1/3 cup flaked almonds

1. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees celsius, line and grease a round cake tin.
2. In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients together well.
3. Add the agave, zest, vanilla, and sour cream, and beat until just combined.
4. Slowly add milk, beating with a wooden spoon until a cake batter consistency is reached. Sorry I can’t be more specific – thicker than pancake batter, thinner than muffin batter.
5. Pour the batter into the cake pan, and bake for around 35 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
6. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out and cool completely on a rack.
7. For the topping: in a small saucepan mix the juice, sugar an icing sugar together until there are no lumps. Add hot water, a little at a time, stirring. I used about 3 tbs. Over high heat bring to the boil and stir until the mixture thickens into a syrup. Pour 1/3 of the syrup onto the cake while the syrup is warm and he cake is cooling. Scatter the almonds on top of the cake, and reserve the rest of the syrup for serving. Reserving the syrup meant that sweet-tooths (Mr and I) could have at it with the sugar, but others could be more conservative.

I also made pasta out of spelt and he nettle that is overtaking my veggie garden. I didn’t get a photo of that, either, nor did I measure, but watch out for nettle recipes in a future post.

 

When Life Hands You Lemons…

…Make Lemon Cake!

The rental place I’ve moved into has a meyer lemon tree, which is going great guns at the moment.  I have lemons coming out of my ears, even after I’ve given bags of them away to the neighbours.

As a result, I’ve been experimenting with all things lemon flavoured. The latest semi-success was a lemon and almond cake I made this week.

I’ve never really had the knack with citrus in cake – they tend to turn out sort of like pudding, and this was no exception. I intend to look it up, but I suspect there’s some chemical reaction between the acid and the baking powder.

Anyway, despite the dense texture, this cake was delicious, so here’s a recipe for anyone willing to try it out. If you improve it, let me know!

Vegan lemon cake – only one piece left!

 

Lemon and Almond Cake

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 1/3 cup white flour
• 2/3 cup almond meal
• 2 tsp baking powder
• zest and juice of 2 meyer lemons (or any lemons)
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 cup silken tofu
• 1/3 cup soy milk

Icing

• 2 cups icing mixture
• juice and zest of one meyer lemon
• 1 tbs margarine
• 1/3 cup flaked almonds

1. Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees celsius, and grease and line a round cake tin.
2. In a large mixing bowl mix sugar, flour, almond meal, and baking powder until well combined. Add all other ingredients and mix with an electric mixer until well combined.
3. Pour mixture into the cake tin and bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer poked into the middle comes out clean.
4. Let the cake sit for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool.
5. To make the icing, beat sugar, magarine and lemon juice and zest together until creamed. Smooth onto cooled cake.
6. Toast the almonds in a dry, non-stick pan, then sprinkle over the icing.

Question Time: What are your vego christmas must-haves?

Its nearly Christmas. Well, not here as Georgians use the Julian calendar, so their Christmas is in January.

I’m a hardened, happy atheist, but I still love the food and family part of Christmas. So, as soon as I realised we would be spending Christmas alone together in Tbilisi, I began thinking of what to make for eats. I want to make them extra, extra special, because we probably wont do presents, as we’re spending all our dough on travel, and don’t want to carry any more stuff.

In my fever-growing family there are a range of “must haves”. At my mum’s house there must be mango, my mum’s curry sauce and lots of dessert, my sister and I are not happy unless there is cheesecake and rum balls (my vegan versions) wherever we are, at my Dad’s place there are always mince pies and Christmas cake, and Mr’s family likes to have pudding (like the sago and plum pudding his Nanna made us last year).

What dishes do you and yours consider to be an absolute must for Christmas?

So, I’ve been planning what a vegan Christmas menu for two people, in a cold climate, with no access to vegan junk or convenience foods will be like. I’ve never had a cold Christmas before, so it could be an adventure.

So here’s the big question: what should I make?

I’m open to any suggestions, but there are some limiting factors. I can’t make any recipe that absolutely requires:

• Blending (I have no blending apparatus of any kind, the best I can do is to push things through a colander. I don’t even have a potato masher.)
• A muffin tray, shaped baking tin,
• Tofu or tempeh
• Vegan convenience products, like cream, cheese, seitan, mock anything, agar agar, yeast, white chocolate, copha, food colouring, etc
• Tropical fruits
• Summer vegies (like lettuce, raw tomatoes, zucchini)
• Any exotic grains, like quinoa, or any not-so exotic grains, like brown rice
• Spices or ingredients from any part of the world that isn’t here. No curry pastes, lemongrass, aniseed, vanilla, smoked anything, fresh ginger, tumeric etc.
• Any equipment beyond the basics – so no ice cream makers, or piping bags, or silicone things or what have you.

What I do have access to is:

• Pumpkin, eggplant, cabbage, mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, beetroot, dodgy tomatoes, pomegranate, lemons, apples, red currants (I think), garlic, onions, herbs (not basil).
• Spices – curry powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, pepper, fenugreek, oregano, thyme, cayenne pepper, coriander seed and ginger powder.
• White rice
• Walnuts
• Kidney beans
• Red lentils
• Nooch
• Raisins
• Bread
• Every kind of jam
• vegan lard (but not margarine), oil, flour, sugar, cocoa, dark chocolate and baking soda (for baking)

So, let the advising begin. What would you make with this stuff?

What would you make if you could have any cold-weather-friendly foods for Christmas?

I’m thinking a stuffed pumpkin and some kind of gravy (because I love gravy), but I’d love more ideas to make my first (and probably only) white Christmas

Greek Week

Okay, so this is another of the countries we culinarily visited while I was busy packing up our house in Melbourne. In fact, I only had time to make two days worth of Greek food and this just isn’t enough, especially for a cuisine with so much linking it to food in Melbourne, so I will be revisiting Greece on the blog in the future. I will introduce Greece properly at that time.

For now, some photos and links for recipes.

Of course, one of the first things I knew I had to make for Greek week was a salad. A Greek salad, of course. It happened to be very well timed – my garden was producing copious amounts of lovely, tasty, brightly coloured mini tomatoes, crisp green capsicum and glossy, leafy greens. I added kalamata olives, cucumber and chickpeas, and left out the cheese. Yum.

Vegan Greek Salad

Next up was stuffed capsicums. Not the green ones from my garden this time, but some pretty yellow ones I picked up at the Preston Market. I stuffed them with herbed rice (parsley, thyme, oregano, sultanas, pine nuts and almonds) and baked them.

Beautiful stuffed yellow capsicum

All plated up with herbed rice

The next day we were heading off on a road trip to see some family for the last time before we set off on our big adventure (the adventure we’re currently on). I decided keep or road food on-theme, and made some spanakopita triangles and baklava, and cheated by buying some dolmades from the supermarket.

Spanakopita

I perused a number of recipes for Spanakopita, then made up my own. The amounts are gone from my memory though, so a brief description will have to do.

You will need:

• Filo pastry
• lots and lots of fresh spinach
• oil
• an onion, diced
• fresh parsley, chopped
• salt and pepper
• vegan cheese, crumbled
• tofu (hard), crumbled
• nutmeg
• soy milk for brushing

1. Pre-heat the oven to (probably) around 180 celsius. Defrost filo if required
2. Chop and steam the spinach.Drain it, squeezing out excess water, and put aside.
3. Saute the chopped onion in a little olive oil.
4. Remove from heat. Add drained spinach, chopped parsley,crumbled tofu and vegan cheese. Mix loosely.
5. Taste, and add salt, pepper and nutmeg as desired (The nutmeg is my addition, as I am a big big fan, feel free to leave it out).
6. Peel off a few filo sheets as one. Fill with the spinach mixture and seal the edges with a little water, to make a triangle shape. Repeat with remaining filling
7. Brush the tops of the triangles with a little soy milk and bake until lightly browned.
8. Allow to cool a little before serving. If you are going to travel with them, allow to cool completely before putting them in a container (or they get soggy).

Melty, wonderful baklava

I was so impressed with how easy and fabulous the baklava turned out to be. I used this recipe, and substituted vegan margarine for the butter. Easy as.

Have Greek food, will travel

We were very satisfied travelers, munching on spanakopita and dolmades and baklava at the truck stop. This will definitely be repeated.

Links

http://rawvegangreece.blogspot.com/  - as it suggestes, this is a blog about a Greek raw vegan. Awesome.

http://www.thisdishisvegetarian.com/2011/03/1408greek-vegetarian-couple-goes-to.html – a story about a Greek couple being refused an adoption due to their vegetarianism.

Also, I know someone f who is a Planet VeGMeL recently made vegan spanakopita, but for the life of me I can’t find the recipe now… any help?

 

 

 

Go local – Kalamansi

Remember back in Malaysia Week I posted a recipe for Ais Limau (Lime Cordial), saying I had to use the wrong limes?

(sorry wordpress isn’t letting me link at the moment, must be something buggy. It’s here http://roundtheworldvegan.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/devil-curry-and-ais-limau/)

Not anymore! Now we have an abundance of kalamansi lime at our disposal. Awesome.

Kalamansi limes are tiny, green or orange skinned fruit with a light orange centre, that taste limey, but not as tart as the ones we’re used to at home.

They look like this:

Green (and one orange) kalamansi and a small lemon to show size

What can you make with them? Everything!

I have been making Ais Limau, using them to flavour spicy soup (such as assam laksa) squeezing them into sambals and over stir fries, and generally enjoying them in every way I can before we go home and never see one again.

A jug of brown sugar Ais Limau

The best use of kalamansi so far though, would have to be my recent Kalamansi Pie attempt. However, as the pie took several false starts, I don’t have a recipe so much as a story of how not to make pie.

The Making of Pie

I started with the idea that I would make pie exactly as I have many times before: Soak agar in water/juice/sugar, then cook, then set in pie base, then eat.

I set about squeezing all the tiny kalamansi at about 2pm. They are very seedy on the inside, so I squeezed them through our very crap collander.

Dead limes in our crap collander (don't let the photo fool you, its very crap)

Then I added water and sugar, and sprinkled in some agar agar to soak. I left it alone for a good 15 minutes before bringing it to the boil, and cooking for another 10 minutes, allowed it to cool just a little, and poured some of it into the pie shell.

It smelled good, it looked good, but in the words of Miss Clavell, something was not right.

It wouldn’t set. Not in the freezer, not on the bench, not in the fridge. And my pouring seemed to have melted quite a lot of the shortcrust pie shell. Oh no!

So, I poured it back out (shortcrust crumbs included) added more agar, and set about soaking and boiling again.

While this was going on, i notice my pie shell was looking very much worse for wear, so I popped it into the oven to dry off.

I went back to the lime mixture, which still wasn’t thickening, and decided to add more sugar and just keep boiling. In my frustration I forgot about the pie base until I noticed I could smell something caramellish- when I pulled it out the edges were dark brown and the base (where it got wet) was beige. Damn.

Back to the lime mixture, after soaking and boiling for a third, unsuccessful time I had decided to give up and ask the internet – surely soeone would know what I had done wrong?

As usual, the internet knows all. It is thought you need to use more agar when working with citrus – that could be the problem, but as I had already used enough agar flakes to set a small rhino (no, it doesn’t make sense as an analogy, just go with it), that probably wasn’t the problem.

Then I spotted it: apparently some fruits, such as pineapple, mango, kiwifruit and papaya, have an enzyme that breaks the bonds of agar, so no matter how much you put it, it just wont set. Kalamansi weren’t mentioned, but I made the mental leap that it was from the same part of the world as papaya, mango, pineapple, and, well, fuck it, my agar wasn’t setting, and I had to blame it on something.

So, now what? Would I ever save my pie? I turned again to google, and found this recipe at the Gluttonous Vegan (http://www.thegluttonousvegan.com/2009/09/killer-key-lime-pie.html), which uses a corn flour slurry. Of course! I had forgotten about corn flour in my rush to use my special imported agar flakes.

So I slurried the lime, and it thickened nicely, and I poured into my slightly burnt pie case and stuck it in the fridge at around 5pm. That’s right, three hours of pie making later. There was now much too much lime mixture (with the added slurry-bulk) for me to cover it in a layer of coconut cream pudding as I had planned, so I left it to have on the side (as with the rest of the dish, it hadn’t really worked and was lumpy, anyway).

After dinner I pulled it out, wondering if it would be at all edible. To my great surprise it was much better than I could have imagined! The texture was perfect, the extra bulk had quietened down the sour lime so that it was tangy but not over-powering, the crust tasted like heaven with its chewy, caramelised bits, and the coconut lumps weren’t noticeable at all.

Pie!

*sigh of relief* I will be making this again, but next time I’m going straight to the power of corn flour.

Go Local – Karat Banana

One of the most amazing things here is the variety in bananas. For a girl from the land of one variety- that I don’t even know the name of, because they’re just “bananas” – its a little baffling, to be honest.

I don’t know how many varieties there are, I’ve been told around 40, but the shops have 3-10 types on a normal day, and there are posters around educating people on the beta carotene levels in 15 varieties, all grown here on Pohnpei.

The king of the beta carotene bananas is the karat (Kar-arch) banana. It is fat, has red skin and is bright orange on the inside. Like this:

Karat Banana

Karat bananas have 2230 micrograms of beta carotene per 100 grams, which is around 100 times more than white flesh bananas. It has been used as infant food here for centuries, but has fallen out of fashion lately, although there is a campaign to bring it back. In a place where there are a lot of starchy foods available, and much more American imported junk food than fresh produce, vitamin-rich bananas are pretty handy. Also, they make your pee fluorescent yellow., which is almost a plus in itself.

Now, I’m not a huge fan of bananas myself. Mr eats a few every day (even at home in Oz), but I only have them when the mood really strikes me. However, as on of the only regularly available fruits on the island, I’m learning to like them a little better.

Here’s how we’ve been using our karat:

Karat Smoothy

• 1 Karat banana
• 1 scoop protein powder (we are using Sun Warrior, Vanilla flavour)
• Some soy milk

1. Blend.
2. Drink. (easy)

Karat looks like egg yolk

Finished karat smoothy

Banana, Caramel and Coconut Ice-cream Tart

• 1 pre-made pie base
• 1 karat banana
• 1 Akadahn banana
• 2 taiwang or another type of banana
• 1 jar coconut jam
• 1 cup coconut cream
• 1 tbsp cornflour

1. Slice the taiwang and akadahn bananas (or any type) and cover pie base.
2. Smoosh the karat banana and add to other bananas.
3. In a small saucepan heat the coconut jam until it becomes a little runny, then remove from heat and pour onto bananas.
4. In a small bowl, mix the cornflour into the half the coconut cream to form a slurry.
5. Clean the saucepan, then heat the other half of the coconut cream in it.
6. When the coconut cream is hot, add the slurry and it will thicken.
7. Remove from heat, pour over caramel.
8. Freeze pie, and thaw slices slightly in fridge as needed.

Karat-Caramel Tart

Karat Banana Spice Bread

• 2 karat bananas
• 2 other bananas (any variety)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp ginger powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1/2 cup wholemeal flour
• 1 1/2 cup white flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 to 1 cup milk (depending on smooshiness of your bananas).

1. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees celsius.
2. In a large bowl, smoosh bananas and add sugar, spices and oil. Mix with a hand blender until smooth.
3. Add flours and baking powder, and combine to form a very thick dough.
4. Slowly add milk until you reach a muffin batter consistency (sorry I can’t be clearer, it really depends on how big and ripe your bananas are. Hmm, that sounded a bit off.)
5. Pour batter into a large loaf pan or normal cake pan.
6. Bake for 45-60 minutes.

Banana Spice Bread

“Romantic” fried chicken dinner and the best apple pie ever

When I think of a romantic dinner, I think candles, wine, maybe some music. Fried chicken and tv doesn’t usually come to mind. But that’s what we went with on Friday night, and it didn’t turn out half bad.

Candles = Romantic (also, flash=bad photo of candles)

I was already making the seitan (yeah, i totally made seitan) when Mr called sounding very tired. We decided to stay in and have a quiet night together, which to be fair, takes hardly any discussion, as it’s what we usually do.

Non-alcoholic, fizzy, sweet "wine"

Mr sounded like he needed a pick-me-up, so I decided to try to make it a little more romantic than usual. Also, I was avoiding doing an assessment. So while the seitan was setting, I went to the shops and bought some “wine”, and got a copy of a “romantic” dvd from the library. Ok, I got carbonated non-alcoholic dark grape beverage and Season 4 of the West Wing, but you get the idea. Oh, and we don’t drink, so don’t own wine glasses, so the “wine” was served in ordinary glasses. Class? We haz it.

For eats, I had already decided Friday would be the time to try a very American meal of fried chicken, vegies and apple pie.

Simmering Seitan

I used the recipe from Vegan YumYum to make the seitan. I didn’t make any tweaks, but the reader should beware that I ended up with enough seitan to fee about 6 people, not just 2.

The recipe says that you have to be careful not to boil it, as it may turn out rubbery. I avoided boiling, but may have had the temperature down to low, as it turned out a little soft. Mr loved it, but I found the texture a bit creepy.

Dinner

We had it with roasted potatoes, greens and white beans, and steamed carrots. We have everything with carrot at the moment, because we just evicted a crop from our garden to make room for beans.

For dessert, I made apple pie. I used this recipe as inspiration, and it turned out wonderfully. Crisp, flaky pastry, no burned edges, yummy not-too-sweet apple filling.

I substituted the 6 tbs each of butter and shortening that the recipe called for with 8 tbs of Nuttelex lite and and 4 tbs of canola oil, which seemed to do the trick. The secret is keeping everything very cold, which isn’t too hard in our chilly kitchen at the moment.

We had it with some packet-mix custard. I could go on and on about it, it was seriously delicious!

A slice of Pie

Chowder, Cobbler, Cornbread and Beans

Sunday: Corn Chowder and Peach Cobbler

During my search I didn’t find much info on Corn Chowder, so I wont share a history with you.

Basically, chowder is a thick, creamy soup with stuff in it. In corn chowder, the stuff is corn and potatoes. I used the recipe for Chipotle Corn Chowder from  Vegan YumYum, although I didn’t make mine Chipotle-ish. I added a little bit of Tofutti Sour cream (which I am using in everything lately, as it has become a staple), and left out the chilli.

It was creamy, corny, and filling, although I have to say it don’t got nothing on my mumma’s cream of corn soup. Sorry, just saying. Even though it isn’t as good as my mum’s, it was pretty fab, and we both had seconds, so it was doing something right!

The corn chowder looked like this:

Corn Chowder (crap photo taken by hungry person)

The Peach cobbler was made with a recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. I made two individual cobbles instead one big one, cos the last thing we need in the house after all this American food is left-over desserts!

Peach cobbler in a ramekin

I only had tinned peaches, and buckwheat flour,

but decided to make do. Mine turned out tasty, but the buckwheat flour didn’t harden the way I had hoped, do the topping was a little spongy. It wasn’t a bad dessert, but probably not one I’ll make again.

Monday: Beans and Cornbread

Corn meal was used by the Native Americans, from whom the Europeans took the idea. Cornbread is a quick bread made from cornmeal, eaten mostly in the South and Southwest of the USA, where it became popular because wheat bread was very expensive. Why was wheat bread expensive? I don’t know.

I had my cornbread with beans, which seems to be the way to have it. I made my usual beans, recipe below including secret ingredients, and used this recipe for cornbread, from the PPK. I used 1/2 polenta and 1/2 cornmeal (finer than what they use in the US, bought from BAS Foods on Victoria street.) According to the internets, this is Yankee Cornbread, not the Southern style. This is because I didn’t add pork products or make it in a skillet.

I may have over cooked it a little, as mine was certainly not what I would call moist. On its own it was dry and not very flavourful, and was beginning to get disappointed. But then I tried it with the beans. It. Was. So. Good! I couldn’t believe the transformation that occurred just by dipping it in some beans. It went into the beans as a boring and bland caterpillar (stay with me now), and came out the other side a beautiful butterfly of yumminess.

Conrbread and Beans

I ate mine at work last night, so excuse the left-overs-in-plastic-ware picture.

I get why its such a staple now. I suggest everyone give it a try, next time you plan to make boring old beans and rice. The recipe takes about 5 minutes to prepare, and 35 minutes in the oven, which is only a little longer than brown rice.

Keira’s Beans Recipe

serves 3-4

• 1 onion
  

  Cornbread and beans is ready for its close up

• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 cans barlotti beans (or any other smallish, redish bean)
• 1 can chopped or crushed tomatoes
• 2 tsp Massel gravy powder (secret ingredient #1)
• 1 tbs organo
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tbs cocoa powder (Secret ingredient #2)
• 2 tsp pomegranate syrup (Secret ingredient #3)
• 2 tsp Massel beef flavoured stock powder

1. Separately, chop the onion and garlic finely.
2. In a large saucepan, cook the onion until it becomes transparent. It can take about 10 minutes, don’t skimp! Never undercook your onion.
3. Add garlic and fry a little longer (about 2 minutes).
4. Drain the bean juice off, then add beans to the pan, along with a little water (about 3 tbs) and the gravy powder. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Add the tomatoes, oregano, cumin and cayenne pepper. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat to simmer. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Return to a low heat. Add the pomegranate and cocoa. stir through.
7. Taste test. If it tastes great, stop here. If it isn’t salty enough, add the beef flavoured stock. You could use the vegie sock, but not the chicken stuff, as it is to sweet for this dish. The saltiness will depend on what was in your tin of tomatoes, I use unflavoured tomatoes, so they need a little extra.
8. Leave over low heat for a further 5-10 minutes, and serve with the cornbread, or brown rice.

Baking with pumpkin

Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin Bread, Pumpkin Cookies, Pumpkin Muffins…the list goes on. Americans like to bake with pumpkin.

Its not something we do here very often, we usually turn our pumpkins into soup (or curry), or eat them roasted, so I have been intrigued.

The first time I baked with pumpkin was for my cookbook, and I made a chocolate pumpkin pie. It was sweet, creamy and a little odd to my taste-buds, being used to having pumpkin with gravy, not chocolate. It was pretty good though, and a very unusual dessert by Australian standards.

Now that I am cooking the USA, vegan style, I figure I should probably get on the baking with pumpkin bandwagon.

I chopped, seeded, skinned and baked one of my whole pumpkins. I let it cool, and gave it a good mash. Great…now what?

Scouring the internet, and my cookbook shelf, for recipes with pumpkin, I found some interesting looking recipes for pumpkin bread, and a recipe for pumpkin cookies (biscuits!) from my Lickin’ The Beaters cookbook, which looked promising.

So, off to work. I made the pumpkin read first, by combining a few recipes I found around the traps, including this one from IVU, and this one from gluten free goddess. Mine used white sugar and maple syrup as sweeteners, white and buckwheat flours, canola oil and sour cream as fats/wet ingredients, and I added walnuts. I didn’t use an egg replacer, and it didn’t matter.

Pumpkin Bread: My favourite!

As it turns out, pumpkin bread would be better described as pumpkin cake. It was awesome! I made two loaves, cutting the recipes by a third, and after two days (now) we have already run out (and there are only two of us). It was moist and sweet and spicy and just generally scrumptious. Definitely a winner, and something I plan to make again and again. In fact I might have another crack next week, with the remaining mashed pumpkin, which is sitting in my freezer.

Next were the Pumpkin Maple Cookies. I followed the recipe for these, uncharacteristically adding no changes or substitutions. They looked promising, but turned out a little underwhelming.

Maple Pumpkin Cookies: Not my favourite

They were spongy in a way I wasn’t keen on, and had a strong earthy flavour, which I just don’t think should be found in sweets. I think this recipe would be a good fit for some people, especially those who are less sugar-addicted than me, but it just wasn’t right for our house. To prove it, we have a biscuit jar full of them, hardly touched by either Mr or myself.

Today, I also made pumpkin muffins. I ditched the US theme temporarily, and made them savoury, as I just didn’t feel like any more of the maple syrup/mixed spice/pumpkin combination this week. We ate them with pumpkin soup, of course!

So my muffins are falvoured with nutritional yeast, tomato paste, salt and sage, and I used vegan sour cream as the moisture/egg replacer. The recipe for my savoury, not at all American pumpkin muffins is below.

Savoury pumpkin muffins and pumpkin soup

Savoury Pumpkin Muffins

makes 9

• 1 tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
• 1 tbs dried sage
• 2 tbs nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp salt
  

  Mmmm, muffins

• 1 cup pureed pumpkin
• 2 tbs sour cream
• 1/6 cup canola oil
• 2 tbs tomato paste
• 2 tsp dijon mustard
• 3/4 cup white flour
• 1/4 cup wholemeal flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp soy milk

1. pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees, oil a muffin tray
2. In a large bowl mix herbs, yeast, salt, and all wet ingredients together (except milk).
3. Sift in flour and baking powder, and beat well.
4. Add milk now if the mixture is a little dry.
5. Spoon mixture evenly into muffin tray, filling each cup about 2/3rds full. It make 9 muffins in my tray.
6. Bake at 170 for 15-20 minutes, or until a knife poked in the center comes out clean.
7. Cool in tray for 10 minutes, then turn onto rack to cool further. Serve warm with margarine.