Vegan, Gluten Free, Soy-Free, Nut-Free Christmas Menu Planning (and a recipe for James)

This year Christmas will be had at my Mum’s house. My Mum, my sister and I went out for a coffee yesterday to have chat about what will be on the table when December 25th rolls around.

In a house full of sweet-tooths with dietary restrictions, this means serious planning. I was gonna post a pic of our serious faces to show you but I didn’t actually take a photo – that’s how serious it is!

Just to give you an idea of the lay of the land here at Operation: AwesomeChristmas, check out this list of restrictions:

• One step sister can’t have MSG (even naturally occurring), soy or gluten.
• Mum prefers not to do gluten but makes exception for pastry, and requires trifle.
• Sister likes everything except fruit, and requires rum balls (which she has re-named Amazeballs).
• Step-Dad likes prawns but is allergic to their shells (and that is the last you’ll hear about prawns on this blog).
• Brother is allergic to peanuts and gets creeped out by other nuts but will eat other nuts without incident if you don’t mention them.
• Everybody is gluten free except the kids and the vegans.
• Kids are coming, and kids are picky.
• There are two vegans and everyone else likes to chew on dead creatures (tee hee, crude!)
• I want all the sweets but am vegan and want to stay the weight I am because I am at the upper range for all my clothes and don’t want to go shopping.

Honestly, it’s less like planning lunch and more like answering one of those Lovatt’s puzzles with the grid where you match people with their train and shirt colour.

In the end we came  up with a menu that should suit everyone, we think

Menu for Operation:AwesmeChristmas

Key:     V – vegan    GF – gluten free    SF – soy free     NF – nut free

Snacks

• Dips in Christmas colours (hommus, roast capsicum and pesto with out nuts) – V, GF, SF, NF
• Chopped veggies for dipping – V, GF, SF, NF
• Rice crackers – V, GF, SF, NF
• Christmas lollies – GF, SF, NF

Lunch

• Rice noodle salad – V, GF, SF, NF
• Rice paper rolls with tofu – V, GF, NF
• Rice paper rolls without tofu – V, GF, SF, NF
• ***Roast strawberry and tomato tart – V, SF, NF*
• Caramel onion and Mushroom tart – V, SF, NF*
• Sanakopita minis – V
• Boiled baby potatoes with vegan sour cream and chives  – V, GF, NF, SF option
• Others are bringing a rocket and fig salad, a roast veg salad, and ham and prawns for the meat eaters.

*these will be gluten free if I can find gluten free puff pastry and short crust in Newcastle

*** I have been planning to make this tart for a week, but in my trial-run it was too sour. I have been using roasted strawberries and tomatoes, tomato paste, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, pepper and basil in the filling. Any suggestions for fixing it, please comment – in can be a collaboratart!

Roast strawberry and tomato tart – Trial run

Dessert

• Custard tart with fruit (from Vegan Pie in the Sky)  – V, GF*, SF
• Strawberry Cheesecake  V, GF
• Amazeballs (non-vegan rum balls without rum)
• Vegan rum ball Christmas tree - V, GF, SF, NF (I’ll adapt last year’s recipe to replace the biccies with GF, and the soy milk and soy chocolate with rice milk and rice milk chocolate)
• Trifle – V, GF, SF, NF

I’m so excited I could burst!

The custard tart is from Vegan Pie In The Sky, and I have made it twice before to resounding applause. It’s also very, very pretty:

Custard Tart

The cheesecake is my old go-to recipe, but I’m adding strawberries for good measure. I promised a friend the recipe (Hi James!), so without further ado…

Vegan Strawberry Cheesecake

• 1 x 200g packet of plain biscuits (GF if needed) like Arnotts Nice or Orgran Outback Animals, or Choc Ripple for a chocolate cheesecake
• 2 Tbs vegan margarine
• 2 Tbs non-dairy milk

• 1 cup good quality coconut cream (the whole fat stuff, try Ayam brand in the dark green tin)
• 1/2 tsp agar agar powder
• 1x200g packet Cheezly, Mozarella flavour, chopped
• 100g silken tofu
• 3/4 cup icing mixture
• 1 cup chopped strawberries

1. Crush the biscuits using a food processor (or whack them with a rolling pin) until they are very fine.
2. Melt the margarine and mix with the biscuits and milk to form a sticky, crumbly mess.
3. Press the mess into a tart dish or pie pan or a round spring-form tin.
4. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, but up to 2 hours.
5. Blend the strawberries until they are pureed. Set aside for later.
6. In a large saucepan mix the agar with the coconut cream and bring to the boil
7. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
8. Pour the agar and coconut into a blender with the cheezly, tofu, icing mixture and strawberry puree. Blend until smooth.
9. Pour the filling onto the base and refrigerate overnight.
10. Decorate with more strawberries and serve.

 

Bobotie and Milk Tart, several weeks later (oops)

As per my menu plan, I made vegan versions of Bobotie and Milk Tart several weeks ago. And then I forgot all about the blog and moved on to other things like Coursera and True Blood and Christmas. Oops!

Bobotie is sort of like shepherds pie, except it has an eggy-custard layer instead of a mashed potato layer, and the mince is spiced with curry. I followed the recipe from SA Promo here, however I substituted some cooked lentils and some broken up vegan burgers for the mince, and made a white sauce with a a little extra silken tofu for the topping. There is also a vegan recipe you could follow over at veggie.buntch.net.

Vegan bobotie just out of the oven

Vegan bobotie

The bobotie made for a satisfying, tasty meal, but I wasn’t super keen on the sweet+curry thing. I know that  sweet and savoury tango in most of the cuisines of the world but still I’m not entirely convinced.

I served the bobotie up with yellow rice (using this recipe) and some easy tomato salad.

Yellow rice and tomato salad

I also had a shot at creating a vegan milk tart. I used pretty much every damn vegan custard-replacement in the book, and was delighted with the results. I was less delighted with the pictures, but I did what I could in my dark house with my little camera.

Baked vegan milk Tart (milktert)

Short bread base

• ½ cup spelt flour
• ½ cup rice flour
• ¼ cup plain flour
• 1/3 cup icing mixture
• ¾ vegan margarine

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.
2. In a large mixing bowl mix the flours and icing mixture together until well combined.
3. Rub the margarine in until the mixture resembles a crumbly dough.
4. Press the dough into a pie plate or tart dish and bake for 15 minutes.
5. Allow to cool.

Filling

(This made too much for just the pie, and I had an extra cup of just filling – if you’re playing along at home, only work to about 2/3 of this recipe)

• 1/3 cup sago (or seed tapioca)
• a litre of water to the boil
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tbs agar agar powder
• 1 1.3 cup bonsoy soy milk (in my eyes it’s the only brand that still tastes decent after boiling)
• 1/2 cup coconut cream
• 2 Tbs agave
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• nutmeg and icing sugar, for dusting

1. In a large saucepan bring the water to the boil and add the sago. Cook until the sago is just translucent and drain and set aside.
2. In another saucepan stir the bonsoy, sugar and agar agar powder over the heat until the bonsoy starts to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for five minutes, stirring frequently.
3. Remove from heat and quickly stir the sago, coconut cream,  agave and vanilla into the milk and agar mixture.

For an uncooked Tart

1. For an unbaked tart, pour the mixture into the cooled tart shell and refrigerate for several hours.
2. Dust with icing sugar and nutmeg before serving.

For a baked Tart

1. For a baked tart, pour the filling into the tart shell and dust with icing sugar and nutmeg
2. Put a tray under the pis dish to catch any filling that bubbles over, and bake at 180 degrees celsius for 20 minutes.
3. After baking, grill for 4 minutes or until brown on top.
4. Allow to cool completely before serving.

 

As it happens this may be where I leave South Africa, for now anyways, because I have too many exciting Christmas related posts to write!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ouch! Recipes for stinging nettle and other things from my garden

I love gardening, and the place we’re renting at the moment is perfect for it. The owner has spent 40 years developing the soil, and its beautiful. Sadly though, we moved in a little late in the season, and some of my veggies are coming a long a bit slowly because of the cold.

The same can’t be said for the weeds. Stinging nettle has found its way its the veggie beds, and has taken over fast. I was going to rip it all out, but further consideration has lead me to realise that a) it stops the slugs and caterpillars from walking straight from one plant to the next, and b) its edible.

And nettle isn’t the only thing going great guns at our place – the lemon tree is continuing to be prolific, and my mushroom container (bought at the Flemington farmer’s market, but also available at CERES and other garden shops) finally grew me some fungi!

My home grown stuff, and my boots. (and gloves and string – not sure where I was going with that).

So I’ve been playing with ways to use our bounty, and here’s the best hits so far.

Nettle and Spelt Pasta

I made this a few weeks ago, and didn’t get a picture, so you’ll just have to imagine the grey-green coloured, hand made noodles.

I used my all purpose pasta recipe, with just the one tweak. I blanched and pureed around two and a half cups of chopped nettle, resulting in about 1 cup of nettle mush. I then added the nettle mush to the flour to make a crumbly dough, before adding enough water to fill it out. Of course the measurements elude me, but you get the idea.

I served it up with a tomato sauce because I was playing host to some kidlets, but I think it would be great tossed with some salt, nooch, garlic and olive oil.

 

Nettle Risotto

Next up was a nettle risotto, with lemon and pumpkin.

Nettle Risotto

I wasn’t going to post a recipe, because I make risotto all the time and was sure I had posted a few here by now. But when I looked for a recipe to link to – gasp! I’ve never actually posted one. So here is my risotto recipe this time with nettle, but use whatever veg you like (I’m a big fan of plain onion risotto).

Risotto with Nettle

Serves 3-4

• 2 cups raw nettle, washed and stems removed (use gloves and be very careful, they hurt)
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 brown onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 1/5 cups aborio rice
• 1 cup pumpkin, small dice
• 6 cups stock of your choice I used veggie
• zest of two lemons
• 3 Tbs lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp dried tarragon
• salt and pepper to taste

1. First deal with the nettle. Wearing gloves remove the stems and any dead leaves. Put the nettle in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil, lower heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Strain.
2. Puree half the nettle, and chop the other half, and set aside.
3. In a large saucepan heat the oil and fry the onion until soft and beginning to brown.
4. Add the garlic and fry for another 5 minutes, stirring.
5. Add the rice and wine, and stir over high heat until the rice begins to turn more opaque.
6. Add 2 cups of stock, the nettle and the pumpkin. Bring to the boil, then return to simmer until the stock is nearly absorbed. Repeat, stirring frequently, until the stock is all used up and the rice is cooked.
7. Stir the lemon juice and zest through, taste, and add salt, pepper or herbs you want – i used tarrgon with the nettle.
8. Serve up hot.

Nettle Pesto

So my nettle use has had a bit of an Italian bent. This time I went with pesto to top some plain pasta. This is easy peasy, but as before, be very careful when handling the nettle.

Nettle Pesto on Pasta

• 2 cups of washed nettle, stems removed.
• 1/3 cup of pine nuts
• 1/4 cup cashews
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 Tbs nutritional yeast
• juice of half a lemon
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/3 cup vegan cheese, crumbled

1. First deal with the nettle. Wearing gloves remove the stems and any dead leaves. Put the nettle in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil, lower heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Strain and set aside.
2. In a dry, non-stick pan, toast the pine nuts until they brown. Be watchful – they take a while but once they begin to brown they burn quickly. Reserve half of the pine nuts for garnish.
3. Toss all ingredients together and blend. I use a stick blender, but a food processor or big blender will work too.
4. serve on pasta, topped with the vegan cheese and left over toasted pine nuts.

Lemon and Hazelnut Cheesecake and Vegan Lemon Butter

My sister suggested I turn my mound of lemons into lemon butter, and I actually found a vegan recipe very quickly. I used this one, and created my own jar of the stuff. Its sweet and sour, and while it is tasty, it isn’t really matching up to the memory of buttery, creamy, eggy lemon butter of my pre-vegan days. I might give it another go with more coconut milk though.

Lemon butter in an old peanut butter jar.

I did, however, turn it into the topping for a delicious cheesecake. I need to work on it again though, because the lemon tang completely overwhelmed everything else, and not in a good way.

Ugly lemon cheesecakes

Fabulous Plain Old Fried Mushrooms

Last, we come to the mushrooms. In my first crop I only had enough mushrooms for one meal and the pressure was on to find the most perfect thing to do with them. In the end I decided I wanted to know what they tasted like alone, and how they compared with other mushies, so I fried ‘em up home style with some margarine, salt, pepper and garlic powder. They were stupendously good, and I can’t wait for more mushroom babies to spring up!

Terrible photo of delicious mushrooms

Happy Birthday Mumma!

Today is my Mum’s 50th Birthday (Happy Birthday Mum!), and earlier in the week we had a High Tea birthday party to celebrate.

Its no secret that one of my favourite things is to make little food and sweets, which is good, because one of my mum’s favourite things to do is eat little food and sweets So my sister Katie, Mr, and my brother Jay all got in on the action and we cooked up a feast so pretty I figured I’d better share.

First things first, Katie was  charge of decorations, and she did such a great job. She op-shopped for cake stands and plates, and made everything totally gorgeous.

Katie's handiwork

The spread

The entirely vegan and almost entirely gluten free menu included:
•    Arancini
•    ”Meat” balls (some gluten)
•    Samosas (some gluten)
•    Rice paper rolls
•    Warm mushroom dip
•    Sushi
•    Hommus in cucumber cups (curtesy of Toby and K, who got it from Wind Attack)
•    Cupcakes
•    Chocolate crackles
•    Caramel and white chocolate slice

Cucumber cups and ugly sushi

Samosas and Arancini

Rum balls and Chocolate Crackles

White chocolate caramel slice (well, pink chocolate in this case, and slightly oozing)

Recipes-wise there isn’t much to share. Katie made the rice rolls, the cupcakes came from a packet mix, I’ve covered arancini before, everyone can make chocolate crackles, same goes for sushi, and the samosas came in a box from the Indian grocer on Beaumont St. The caramel slice recipe is mine, but it was a less successful version of a top secret from my book (that I’m still trying to get published – we’ll see). I can share my “meat balls” recipe and the warm dip recipe though.

vegan meat balls

Meat balls
1 cup frys chicken style strips, thawed
1 cup cooked brown rice
1 cup almonds
1 tsp vegan chicken stock powder
1 tsp mixed herbs of your choosing (I use oregano, sage and thyme)
1 tbs soy sauce
pepper to taste
1 tsp cornflour in 2 Tbs of water, to make a paste

1.    Put strips, rice, almonds, stock and herbs into a food processes and process until crumbed.
2.    Place mixture into a bowl and stir the cornstarch paste and soy sauce through.
3.    Mix to form a dough. Taste, add pepper if desired.
4.    Form balls.
5.    Fry balls in a little oil in a non-stick pan until browned on a few sides.
6.    Serve with some dipping sauce such as tomato, BBQ, or sweet soy.

Vegies and dip

Warm Mushroom Dip

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium brown onion, diced
1 cup chopped mushrooms (I like portobellas and/or oysters)
1 tsp vegan stock powder or appropriate amount of preferred salt
1 cup vegan sour cream
pepper
two tablespoons chopped chives

1.    In a large saucepan, fry the onion in olive oil until soft.
2.    Add mushrooms and continue to cook, stirring, until cooked through.
3.    Remove from heat, add salt and sour cream and blend with a stick blender.
4.    Stir pepper and chives through and serve warm.

I usually serve this in the middle of a cob loaf, but finding a gluten free loaf was a no-go, so we stuck it in a bowl near a platter of veggies instead.

Cupcakes!

Cupcakes
I’m no guru of gluten free baking. Most of my attempts have turned into weird, squishy, wafer-like substances, or rocks. But we had success with the cupcakes. Mr did the making, I contribute technical advice, and we totally cheated and used the Basco cupcake packet-mix. To make sure they rose without using egg, we used teensy-tiny cupcake pans instead of a muffin tray, and we replaced the eggs with three spoons of silken tofu. They turned out totally gorgeous, and all credit for their gorgeousness goes to Mr.

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

Coconut Jam

My new official favourite food is Coconut Jam – a local caramel-like spread made from sugar, glucose and coconut (and sometimes Karat banana, something I’ll blog about later).

It can be eaten straight out of the jar, put on pancakes, scones, or made into tarts, and it is soooo good. Being partial to all things sweet I’m glad to have found it hiding out next to the peanut butter at the Blue Nile, a local supermarket, as there isn’t much here in the way of vegan sweets, especially if the vegans in question are also trying to avoid the evils of high fructose corn syrup and aspartame, which seem to be in every damned thing.

But back to the positive. I’ve made caramel out of coconut before, but its pretty exciting to have all the work done for you, and because it is made right here in Pohnpei it has the added benefit of helping the local economy and agriculture, which could use the boost. Go local!^

Here are a few photos of what we’ve done with it so far, and a recipe (if you can call it that) for banana and caramel tarts:

Coconut Jam is ready for its close up

Pancakes with Kalamansi and Coconut Jam

Scones with (coconut) jam and cream*

Making Tarts

Banana and Coconut Caramel Tarts

Makes 12

• 2 sheets of shortcrust pastry or home made equivalent (I made my own with flour, sugar, coconut oil and ice water, but didn’t measure, however there are plenty of recipe son the net if you want to make your own).
• 3 small bananas (one aussie banana is equivalent)
• 1 jar coconut jam (or home made caramel, or soymilke caramel flavour)

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Lightly oil the cups of a muffin pan, or lay out 12 patty pans/muffin liners on a tray.
2. Cut rounds from your pastry to fill 12 cups of a muffin pan/liners, and gently press to make the tart case.
3. Bake cases until just beginning to colour. (this took me 20 minutes, but as I used coconut oil a marg-based pastry may be different).
4. Turn cases out and allow to cool.
5. Chop the banana/s and place bits of banana at the base of each tart case.
6. Add a heaped teaspoon of caramel/jam to each tart, then put them back in the oven for a further 15 minutes.
7. Allow to cool and serve with vegan cream.
   

   The finished product

Vegan Cream

enough for 20 tarts

• 1 packet of silken tofu (297g, I used Mori Nu)
• 1/2 cup soy milk
• 1/3 cup icing mixture/powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 tsp lime juice

1. Add all ingredients and blend until smooth.
2. Refrigerate for one hour.

Notes

* My photos are a bit sucky and are likely to stay that way while we’re in the FSM as our kitchen/house has bad lighting, and our plates are black. The ones that don’t suck were taken in an apartment we no longer live in.

^Go Local is a campaign of the Island Food Community of Pohnpei, encouraging people to grow and eat local foods in order to benefit health, income, food security and cultural preservation. I intend to blog about the various local foods we try under the Go Local tag.

Lentils for wealth

In parts of Italy, people eat lentils at New Year to bring wealth. They are also eaten throughout the year, braised, stewed or in soups. I made some basic braised lentils and served them with a mixed bean salad.

We may have missed New Years, but hey, the year hasn’t progressed too much yet, so we may still be in with a chance to affect our fortunes.

Dinner

I’m not a lentil-lover at the best of times, and I was really off my game here. I dont know if it was the lack of salt (we’re trying to cut back), the addition of carrots, or just the lentily-ness, but they tasted quite bland.

Pretty oregano sprig makes up for lack of flavour

The beans were yum, just steamed and then drizzled with olive oil and some chopped sundried tomatoes, but the pairing made for a very fibrous (read: chewy) meal.

Yummy bean salad

The saving grace of the meal was dessert (of course!).

I recently bought an ice cream machine, and I’ve been playing with it a lot. I made some Mango and passionfruit gelato, from a recipe in The Mediterranean Cookbook, by Joanna Farrow and Jacqueline Clarke. I substituted coconut milk for the dairy.

It was very very tasty!

mmm, gelato