Beakfast, lunch and sweets

Try as I may, I’ve never been able to knock out a great loaf of bread. Sometimes I might accidentally turn out an OKish flatbread or a decent pan-fried roti but that’s as close I get to fluffy, tall, slice-able thing. So when I read that in Iran bread is king, and is chowed-down upon at every meal, I was not optimistic about my ability to master the dish.

And I was right to be pessimistic.

I followed a recipe in Saraban for Barberi, or breakfast bread. It’s a flat bread, so I thought it wouldn’t be too elusive. It smelled divine while it was rising, and it actually did rise (!). I pulled it into ovals and I pre-heated trays and I baked and I pulled it out of the oven and it smelled great and was fluffy… but was lacking any flavour at all. And it was hard as stone within about 30 minutes.

Ah well, a baker is one of things I am not.

In any case, we had ate it for breakfast, with jams and tea. At least is was photogenicish:

Yes indeed that IS margarine with jam and bread. (Mr style)

For lunch on the same day the bread got another run as a side-kick for the soup. I found a recipe for beet and lentil soup on Turmeric and Saffron, and since our garden is chock-full of beetroot, and I love lentils in soup I decided to give it a go.

Again I was not optimistic about beetroot soup. I’ve eaten beet soup in the past and found it creepy – too sweet, too grass-flavoured.

This time my spider sense was wrong – this soup was really nice. I changed it a little but so little that you should really check out the original recipe here.  To veganise I used vegan stock instead of chicken stock. I couldn’t be bothered with dumplings at lunch so I threw in some little noodles at the last minute, and I left out the beetroot greens, to avoid the grassy flavour. I used dried dill because I didn’t have fresh. and I added some parsley.

Beetroot and lentil soup

On the same day I made some baklava, Persian style. I used my normal recipe for baklava (which has not measurements, so I wont post it), but used rose water in the syrup, and some cardamon in the nut mix to match it to Iranian recipes I’ve pondered on the net.

the resulting pastry smelled gorgeous, but I missed the lemon tang I’m used to. It also had that slightly odd flavour that rose water gets when it’s been heated too long – my fault, for adding it earlier than I should have. Next time I might add a little rose and a little lemon, and see how that goes. That said, even sub-optimal baklava is pretty fabulous.

The verdict? Beet and lentil soup is going into my stack of recipes for extra garden produce. I’m not making bread ever again, I will buy it like we’re supposed to. Baklava is always good, but zi prefer mine with a teeny bit of tang.

The ghost of menus past

I’ve covered around 25 cuisines on this blog now, and one of the best things that has come of it is that the food we eat on a regular basis has changed (and gotten much better!).

Despite incidences of my cooking becoming increasingly rare since I started working again and Mr stopped, there are particular foods that I just keep coming back to when I do get around to cooking. Lately these constants have been Georgian, Turkish and Italian. Pizza, kidney beans, walnuts and tahini replacing the dahl and stir fry dinners of yesteryear.

All this revisiting means I’ve had the chance to perfect some recipes which didn’t work out that well on the first go, so I decided it was time to repost them.

Turkish Brekky

Ok, so this isn’t exactly a cooked meal, but it was fun. While we were in Turkey breakfast was usually offered as a buffet featuring cucumber, tomatoes, cheese, olives and bread, along with simit and tahini with grape molasses (which tastes like caramel). I mocked up a vegan version using agave instead of grape molasses, and using a bit of cheezly. Tasty, healthy brekky!

Next up is the Georgian feast we prepared for some friends who visited recently-ish. It was a little while ago, when our garden was still overflowing with winter crop, so we pulled out all of this:

Garden haul 1#: silverbeet, beetroot, parsnip, cauliflower, cabbage, snow peas, spring onion and kale.

and turned it into this:

Pkhali and eggplant with walnut

… as well as kidney bean salad (lobio), ajap sandal (eggplant and tomato dish), pilaf with cabbage, and fried potatoes, and mini spanakopita which I took to work for Veggie Club.

The pkhali and the eggplant with walnuts were both really yummy and so much better than my first disastrous attempt at imitating Georgian walnut paste. I’ve been using this recipe from Georgian Taste, however I have included a few cashews to make it even creamier, I have left out some of the garlic in deference to Mr, and I used beetroot this time instead of spinach.

For the eggplant and walnut paste I followed the recipe for pkhali, but left out the spinach altogether. I then fried some strips of eggplant and wrapped them around tablespoonfuls of the walnut paste. Yum.

I also made my first attempt at creating a vegan khachapuri, which is a totally delicious looking, totally un-vegan Georgian cheese bread. It turned out brilliantly, and though it is time consuming to make, I think it will have to go on the “again, again!” list.

I scoured the web for recipes and ended up using a mix of this recipe at food.com and this recipe at Nami Nami, but of course it needed tweaking to veganise.

Slice of vegan imureli khachapuri

Vegan Khachapuri

Makes 2 loaves

For the dough:

• 250ml soy milk
• 3tbs margarine, melted
• 14g instant yeast
• a pinch of salt
• pinch baking soda
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 3 1/4 cups plain flour

For the cheese filling:

• 2 cups cheezly, mozzarella flavour, mashed with a fork
• 1/2 cup Vegusto vegan cheese, strong flavour, grated
• 100g silken boxed tofu, mashed with a fork
• 1 tbs rice flour, whisked with 1/4 cup  soy milk
• 1 Tbs plain flour
• 2 Tbs vegan margarine
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• pinch of nutmeg (just because I ave this thing about nutmeg and cheese – you could leave it out)

Follow the directions as per the Food.com recipe, although only warm the soy milk, don’t scald it.

 

I have no new Italian recipes to share, but I didn’t want to post yet another picture f yet another haul from our garden that made it into a meal – because I’m so amazed at how well this whole growing-our-own-food business is going

Garden haul #2: spring onions, herbs snow peas, lettuce and broad beans.

Dinner from the garden: garden salad, pizza (herbs from the garden and mushrooms from our mushroom box), and broad beans with vegan facon.

 

 

 

 

Vegan things you can buy in Georgia

While it is true that no Georgian I have met so far has managed to hide the confusion and shock they feel when I say I don’t eat meat OR cheese, there is actually quite a lot of vegan fare available in Tbilisi without any substitutions or changes required.

In fact, a lot of the food available in the supermarket here is so good, its hard to be bothered cooking. Its also very easy to find this food, particularly as my local supermarket labels everything in the deli section in Georgian and English, and I have made myself a handy cheat-sheet for reading the Georgian words for milk, dairy, eggs, advent, lent and fasting (some Georgians give up milk and meat for lent and advent, so there are vego versions of the classics available sometimes).

Here are a few of the delights we’ve been tasting in Georgia so far:

Roasted capsicum wth walnut paste

Eggplants stuffed with walnut paste

Walnut Paste with Beet Leave (left) and Eggplant with Cinnamon (right)

Be aware, there are many kinds of walnut paste dishes. They all taste fabulous, but I don’t recommend the one with the beet leaves – its tastes good, but looks like cat vomit, and feels how I imagine cat vomit would feel, because of the hard, stringy leaves.

Every kind of jam and preserve imaginable. These ones are chilli (wth fenugreek and dill, of course), pomegranat and plum (all local products)

Lobiani, a bean pie, or "Lenten" pie

Bean pie filling - savoury, not sweet

Be careful when buying the bean pies – some of them may have an egg wash. This one doesn’t.

Shotis Puri, a Georgian bread

Fastng Khinkali (this one is mushroom, though the potato one tastes better)

What lunch looks like for vegans in Tbilisi - bread, spreads, jam, tea and varenki (Russian dumplings)

Also, sometimes like this- salad, sauted cabbage, seeds, khinkali, tea and Georgian pear lemonade

Also available at Goodwill (supermarket closest to my place) is pre-made fried potatoes with mushroom, roasted vegetable medley, rice dishes, breads, pastries, dips, salads, red beans, red bean salad, red bean soup, Georgian corn cakes, vegetarian spring rolls-looking things, soy milk, vegan lard, and even vegan (though not fair trade) chocolate.

The far more numerous supermarket chain, Populi, also has bread, frozen vegan khinkali, and a some of the walnut and eggplant dishes, though they don’t have an ingredient list. There are also bakeries selling warm, local bread (vegan!) everywhere, numerous popcorn and doughnut vendors (I’ve been told the doughnuts are ok for fasting, so no animal fat or milk, but they may have egg) and plenty of fruit, veg and all the walnuts you can eat (these guys have a for serious obsession with walnuts).

So, you see its a total walk in the park being vegan in Tbilisi, regardless of the incomprehension of the locals.

Eggplant and mushrooms and walnuts, of course

Kamarjoba!

(Yup, that’s the only word, other than bread, that I can say in Georgian).

Last night’s dinner was intended to be all Georgian, all the way, however, of course, it didn’t quite turn out that way.

I had intended to make my own version of the fabulous eggplant and cinnamon dish that I get at Goodwill (the supermarket), and serve it alongside mushrooms and cream, and a red bean salad. Unfortunately I forgot that I  didn’t actually have any red beans, Mr having used them all up in his signature kidney bean, soy sauce and coriander dish the night before. Also, I rarely have the patience for eggplant, and this was not an exceptional evening.

As I didn’t realise that I was out of red beans until I had already made most of the salad, I have to apologise to all of Georgia for presenting my “Georgian Red Bean Salad”, made with chickpeas. The horror!

I am posting the recipe for my version of the eggplant with cinnamon dish, and if you actually follow it, yours should turn out really nicely. I got sick of salting the eggplant and started cooking it too soon, and then didn’t wait long enough before I added the water, so mine was a little undercooked. I also burned my finger, which is bad because I don’t have patience for holding burned fingers under the tap for long enough, either.

Both the mushrooms in cream and the salad recipe originally came from GeorgianTaste, however I am re-posting them with my vegan/available ingredient related changes. If you have access to vegan cooking cream, I suggest you try to follow the original recipe for the mushrooms- mine was great, but real cream would have been even better.

From front, clockwise: Bread, Eggplant and Cinnamon, Mushrooms in Cream, and (chickpea) Bean Salad.

Eggplant and Cinnamon

We’ve been loving the eggplant and cinnamon dish I get at the deli, so I though I’d give it a try.

• 1 medium eggplant, diced, salted for 40 minutes
• 1 onion, diced finely
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• olive oil
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon, or more if you like
• dash cloves
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• dash fenugreek
• 1 tablespoon minced dill (or if you don’t have any, some dill-flavoured vinegar from the pickle jar)
• 1 tomato, diced
• 1 cup water
• salt,to taste

1. Leave the eggplant to salt for ages and ages, seriously! (about 30-40 minutes) I never do this for as long as I should and it makes it a bit crap. Then give it a pat down or a rinse.
2. In as much oil as you are comfortable with (between 2 tablespoons and about 1.3 cup), fry the onion, garlic and eggplant together until the eggplant is soft (this takes a while).
3. Add the tomato, spices, and water. Stir together and leave at a simmer to cook down. This takes about 25 minutes, but check it occasionally.
4. Taste, and add salt as wanted.
5. Serve sprinkled with a little chopped coriander and some pomegranate seeds.

 

Red Bean Salad

Original recipe here.

• 2 garlic clove, minced
• 4 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
• 1/2 red onion, finely diced
• 1/4 cup walnuts, finely chopped, not ground
• 2 tablespoons white  wine vinegar
• 1/4 tsp red pepper powder
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups can kidney beans, drained and rinsed (clearly, I used chickpeas)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Only one step – mix everything together!

Bean Salad

Mushrooms in Cream, Soko Arazhanit

Originally from this recipe. My version, below, makes enough for two, as a side dish.

• 1 clove garlic, minced
• a little olive oil
• 1 cups of mushrooms, trimmed and thickly sliced
• 1 tablespoon of vegan margarine (I can’t get margarine so I use vegan lard here)
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• 1 1/2 cups soy milk (unsweetened)
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 tsp powdered cloves
• sat to taste

1. Cook the garlic and mushrooms in a little oilve oil until soft.
2. Add the margarine and flour. Stir constantly until a soft dough forms, then continue to stir and cook for about 5 minutes (this “cooks out” the floury flavour).
3. Add a 1/4 cup of soy milk, and stir into a paste. Continue to add milk, a little at a time, until you have added 1 cup.
4. Add the spices, pepper, bay, a little salt and parsley, and leave to simmer for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Mixture should have thickened a little. Add extra soy milk if needed, and stir through. Remove bay leaf, and serve  with rice, pasta or bread.

Vegan in Paris

French food is generally famous for being stinky, fatty, meaty, cheesy and glorious, but it doesn’t really come to mind when thinking of vegan options.

So, what can a vegan, who speaks no French* and can’t afford the restaurants, eat in Paris?

Baguette!
Baguette is probably the best bread in the world. It is nothing like the nasty, dry, “french” stick bread you get at home. Instead it is soft, chewy, flavoursome and fantastic-smelling, and the perfect base for a yummy vegan sanger on the go. We had ours with some vegan cheese, salad, and either tofu, Tartex or vegan sliced “meat”, and sometimes snacked on baguette with jam or peanut butter. I was basically in bread heaven the entire time we were there, and at 90 cents for a loaf nearly as long as my arm, they make for a perfect staple for gluten-tolerant vegans.

Baguette at the Louvre

Little travel tip: we have carried one plastic container with us throughout the whole trip, and use it to store pre-chopped sandwich fillings, such as tomato and vegan cheese, and tofu, ready to pile onto whatever vegan sandwich base we find. It makes things much simpler, and saves us buying loads of single serve things and expensive, crappy lunch options. Its also useful for carrying of storing leftovers in hostels and bnbs, and carrying sugar so it doesn’t get all through your stuff when you switch locations

Crepes!
Okay, so clearly you can’t just tip your vegan hat at any old crepe, eggy things that they are, but there are some crepes that fit the bill – made of buckwheat and water only, and available in most supermarkets and mini markets, and, I’m told, some stalls.

Crepe filling

 

Crepe and Le Torre Eiffel

We had ours with chocolate sauce and fruit, but you could also eat them with a cheese sauce, veg or vegan mince, which brings me to what you can find to eat in a supermarket in Paris…

Shopping for Vegans in Paris

There are two places we did most of our shopping in Paris, disregarding the fruit shops and boulangeries (bakeries)- ordinary supermarkets, and Namo Bio. In ordinary supermarkets we found a number of vegan staples, including vegan margarine, (BioSoft I think?), peanut butter, mixed nuts (although nuts are very expensive if you haven’t brought your nut cracker with you),  several brands of soy milk, wheetabix, raw sugar, Alpro soy desserts, and the like, but no tofu, and be warned, the tinned beans and lentils generally have chicken fat, lard, bacon or other pork products in them.

Namo Bio hoard - vegan deli slices, bread, champagne and truffle flavour Tartetx (I know, right?), choc-hazelnut spread, fairtrade tea, and Cheezly

We were very lucky to also be situated close enough to a vegan-friendly grocery store, Namo Bio, which served us well with lots of tofu, vegan burgers, vegan choc-hazelnut spread, organic fruit and veg, vegan cooking cream, even more Tartex, soy yoghurt, and the very best vegan cheese I have ever tasted. It was called Cheezly, but didn’t bear the Redwood logo, so I don’t know what’s going on there. It was a hard cheese, and tasted completely divine, creamy and full and perfect with no weird soy after taste. When I get home I intend to do a “best vegan products in the world” post, and this stuff will definitely be on it.

Namo Bio looks like this

With our stash of vegan stuff we had some good lunches and dinners, including some of my favourite soup, Creme Du Barry, and a decadent lunch of fruit, bread, cheeze, “meats” and chocolate, yum.

 

Decadent lunch part 1 - fried bread, Tartex, tomatoes, vegan deli slices and Cheezly

Decadent Lunch part 2 - apple and choc-hazelnut spread

Maoz again, with not so great results

Maoz on the river Siene

Hmmm...

Paris boasts another of the Maoz vegetarian felafel chain, which we liked so much in the US. Unfortunately I can report that the one in Paris kinda sucks. The felafel were edible enough, but the salad options were mainly just the creepy kind of pickled, overcooked carrot, watery olives and sad lettuce – none of the roasted cauliflower and broccoli or chickpea salad we found in New York. That was disappointing enough, but when we were left with upset tummies (which we suspect is a result of Maoz, but there’s no telling when you’re travelling) the thumbs down was solidified. Very unfun, and annoying because there are so few vegan options, I hate to have to diss one.

For those who visit Paris soon, Mr says it was good last time he was there, so it might still be wrth a look, despite my crappy experience.

Out for lunch at Saveurs Veget’ Halles
Website: http://saveursvegethalles.fr/

The one proper meal we had out (like, at a table and stuff), was at Saveurs Veget’halles, near Notre Dame. We ordered two set lunches, one with a starter and one with a dessert, for the best of both worlds, cheapo style.

We got an asparagus salad, which turned out to be a few pieces of asparagus with a little bit of salad. It looked bright but a little forlorn, but the asparagus was well cooked and lovely and the salad came with ingenious spray bottles of oil and vinegar, and of course, yummy French bread, so we weren’t complying.

Asparagus Salad

For mains we had the mushroom something with blackberry and ginger sauce, and a plate of what turned out to be seemed veg with a creamy chive sauce. (I read chive sauce and pointed, not stopping to think what “vapor” meant).

Mushroom loaf thing

Steamed veg with great chive sauce

Both meals came out with a scoop of perfect mashed potato and a scoop of quinoa. The mushroom and blackberry-ginger sauce was the definite favourite. It was sort of a loaf, which tasted great on its own, but even better with the sauce, a flavour combination I’m looking forward to trying at home. The steamed veg were, unsurprisingly, a little bland for a main meal, but tasty enough with the sauce.

For dessert I tried to order a chocolate cake, but ended up being served a carrot cake muffin. I didn’t say anything about it, because there is no knowing whether I ordered the wrong thing, or they sent out the wrong thing. It tasted pretty good, was nice and warm, and came with vegan cream on the side, but Mr thought it wasn’t sweet enough, so I got the whole thing to myself. (No complaints there).

All in all it was a really nice meal, and if I had the chance to go again I would, but I’d probably order something a little more decadent.

Link love

This post was really helpful – http://www.hungryhungryhippie.com/vegan-in-paris/

Also, this one (and the whole blog) – http://veganparis.com/2009/01/13/vegan-paris-on-a-budget/

As per usual, I suggest vegans avoid all the posts floating around about being a vegetarian in Paris, cos they seem to be mostly about how great cheese is and the few vegan options they noticed.

*This is where I learned all the French I know: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuXdhow3uqQ. Well, this, Eurovision, and two years of chef training (no, I am not a chef, it was a high school thing, and I never really got past how to make a proper club sandwich, a clear soup, clarified butter, pastry and pesto). So I can read a menu, an point out the shape of the chopped veggies, and then award points (as long as it is 8, 10 or 12) but not much else.

 

More Italian Stuff

There are a few Italian things I didn’t get around to making this time, partly due to a 10 hour, unconsummated hospital visit (everyone is fine) which will have to repeated sometime this week partly due to stupid drunk people who had accidents on Australia Day. This means that sadly I used up all the vegies I had planned to make antipasti with in a midnight stirfry, and also used some of the ingredients intended for polenta.

There are a few Italian things I have made though, which haven’t made it into the blog so far.  This is a post about them.

Tomato Bread

I love making bread – its very calming, it smells good, and there’s just something satisfying about easting home made bread. This one has tomato paste and chopped sun dried tomatoes in it. I made one loaf, and one group of tomato scrolls, with extra tomato paste, cheezly and olives.

The loaf

Sliced

Scrolls

Big Salads

Contrary to what the posts might show, we have also been eating a lot of delicious vegies! Here are a few pics as proof.

Big sweet potato and brocoli salad

Berries and mint salad dressing

Roast onion and tomato salad

Eggplant

Bean and facon salad

Bruschetta

I made Brushcetta with my home made tomato bread. I don’t seem to have a picture, which is sad because it was very pretty. So, you’re just gonna have to trust me that it was fab. We used mashed cannellini beans with lemon juice, and a mixture of chopped tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil and olive oil. Yummy lunch.

Stromboli (ok so not exactly Italian)

I’ve seen it around, but I’ve never actually eaten stromboli before. Its basically pizza, rolled up to make a loaf.

I was about to tell you that Stromboli came from Sicily, and was named after the eponymous volcano. I’m certain I read that somewhere. If I did, the lying liar of a web article appears long gone.

It turns out stromboli is American, not Italian, created near either Philadelphia or Spokane. So, its “italianesque”. Like nachos are “mexican-inspired”. Damn yanks, ruining my idea of the history of my favourite foods.

So, its not actually Italian. Doesn’t matter, it’s still delicious!

I make pizza frequently, and I’m sure I had a recipe from somewhere else at some point. These days I just go by my gut, so follow on if you dare.

From the outside

Vegan Stromboli

for vegan pizza dough

• about 200ml lukewarm water
• 1 tsp sugar
• about 1 tablespoon yeast
• about 3 cups bread flour
• pinch salt
• some more olive oil
• herbs for sprinkling
• olive oil and soy milk – for a wash

for the filling

• oil, for frying
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 capsicum, chopped
• 1 cup mushrooms, chopped
• 4 tbs tomato paste
• 2 x picnicker sausages(vegan cabana)
• 1/2 packet cheezly
• 1/2 cup pitted olives

1. Make sure the water is really lukewarm. You should almost not be able to feel it when you put you finger in it. If it is too warm, wait, as heat destroys the yeast.
2. Add sugar and yeast to the water in a large cup or small jug, leaving it plenty of room to froth. Let them sit for 15 minutes, until starting to get very frothy (on a warm day it can double in size, on a cold day it looks like frothy beer).
3. Sift flour into a large bowl (you know, if you’re a sifter – not me). Make a well in the centre, add yeast mixture, and slowly combine to form a dough, as for the pasta.
4. knead the dough on a floured surface for 15 minutes (set the timer, it always feels like you’ve been kneading for longer than you have). The dough should become smooth and elastic, and should be a little warm.
5. Clean the bowl, oil it, and leave dough in it to rest, covered for 45 minutes, in a warm place (i put mine by the window or on top of the oven if it was on earlier in the day).
6. While it is doing it’s thing, you can make the filling. In a frying pan, heat the oil, add onions, and fry for 10 minutes, until translucent. Add mushrooms and capsicum, and fry for a further 10 minutes.
7. Remove from heat, add olives and chopped sausage. Leave to cool.
8. By now the dough should have doubled in size. Punch it down (for dough newbies, that’s literal – punch it in the middle, just once). Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and knead for just 30-60 seconds.
9. Roll out into an oblong shape – we’re not making pizza, so try to avoid the temptation to through it in the air and make circles.
10. Leaving an inch around three edges, coat the dough in the tomato paste. The cover with the cooked mixture, and finally with the cheezly.
11. Roll the dough up to make a loaf shape.
12. Pop it into a baking dish, brush with oil and soy milk, and spinkle with some dried herbs (i like rosemary or oregano).
13. Bake at 170 degrees celsius, for 20-25 minutes.
14. Allow to cool a little before cutting into slices to serve.

I wrapped it up in a tea towel and took it into the city for yummy dinner in Flagstaff park, to fuel us for an e-reader shopping expedition. Good stuff

Some left over stromboli for lunch

 

Pizza

I used to love Lebanese pizza, but it has been a long time since I’ve had any, given it is usually covered cheese.

Lebanese pizza looks like other pizza, though the dough is covered in Zatar (a mix of oregano and spices) with only one or two other toppings added.

I cheated, which is the theme of the week really, and used zatar bread bought at my local Middle East Bakery, on Hope st. We picked a few toppings, based on what we’d seen at Tabets on the non-veg pizzas.

The results were:

Tomato, sundried tomato and capers,

Tomato pizza

Mince pizza,

Mince and capsicum

and Cheezly with olives and tomatoes, not pictured.

Zatar pizza made for a quick and delicious meal. Using pre-baked Zatar means you get a cripsy pizza, and you need to use pre-cooked or no-cook toppings. You could make your own dough to get a softer base.

 

Felafel – my fail, and some reviews

Felafel is a vegan staple, for Melbournians at least, as its widely available and always vegan (so long as you remember to hold off on the yoghurt and garlic sauce).

We buy it when we can’t be bothered to cook, but we also make it at home sometimes, albeit from a packet mix.

I had intended to make it from scratch, but that really wasn’t going to help me with my new lack of kitchen time. So, this time, I bought the frozen ones from the Middle Eastern Bakery on Hope st.

I rushed out of the house the morning of intended felafel night, pulling them from the freezer for Mr, who had agreed to make the dinner that night. I briefly glimpsed a warning on the packet, “this product should be defrosted in…”. I assumed fridge, and put them in. I should have actually read the packet.

That night I got home, with bought hommus (SUPER slack week), to find Mr in the kitchen, none to happy.Turns out it does not say to defrost them in the freezer, it says to defrost them in a collander. Because they get soggy if you don’t, and then they don’t fry. In fact, it makes them fall to pieces and turn into felafel crumbs, like this:

Fall-apart Felafel

So, that’s how we managed to stuff up frozen felafel. They did turn out yummy nonetheless, though next time I’ll go back to using the Orgran mix, which is fail-proof.

The rest o it worked though. Yummy tomatoes, fresh bread, Aldi hommus (the King of bought hommus, IMHO), and greens from the garden.

A quick tip for newbies – When you lay the bread out, rip it gently along the edges so that you end up with two disks. Offset these a little, then add the filling and roll up. I often wondered why my felafel rolls dripped, and so I paid close attention to the people at the Middle East Restaurant. This is what they do, and it works

Bread in two pieces stops drips

I thought I had taken a photo of the finished felafel, but clearly i didn’t. Sorry

___________________________________

If you’re feeling really slack, or want to pretend that felafel isn’t deepfried (you can’t deny the truth if you make them at home), you can always go out. Here are my top three picks for Brunswick/Coburg felafel.

Middle East Restaurant, Sydney Road. I can’t find the address for this at the moment, but its the sit-down restaurant above Moreland road, on the East side of the street, that claims to have the best vegetarian felafel. This shop is my pick if you love the trimmings – pickels, tabouli, tahini sauce, and lots of chilli, as well as Tamarind drink to wash it down with.

Pit Stop Kebab, cnr Moreland rd and Sydney rd. This place makes toasted felefel rolls, without pickels, but with the added benefit of having vegan hot chips and wonderful home made dolmades. Yum!

Aghadeer, Sydney road, west side, near Moreland road. Aghadeer does your basic felafel – tabouli, tomato and onion with hommus. Its open more often that Pit Stop though, and you get to listen/watch singing and dancing that is usually going on in the function room behind.

 

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.