Hawaiian Nights #3 Pudding

What else to eat on Hawaiian night but Pineapple Upside Down cake.

This was a particularly toothsome sweet treat but to go with it I thought I'd make a proper Island recipe called Haupia.

When I first read this recipe I imagined it would be like a coconut custard, a sort of tropical blancmange that would go nicely with the cakey goodness of the pineapple cake but by the time I'd finished my research I was beginning to worry as pictures showed something more like coconut ice, cut into cubes and served on ti leaf saucers.

Anyway, I went ahead and cooked the gloop, and stirred it, and stirred it and stirred it and then put it to set in the fridge.

Come serving time, oh my, it was still gloop and rather unattractive gloop at that. Think wallpaper paste, think porn films, think disgusting.

We did try to eat it, honestly, but we were all laughing too hard.

Hawaiian Nights #2 Main Course

O.k. so this isn't going to be quite the erotic feast of words I had planned for this entry but rather more of a quick summary for completeness.

Hawaii has imported a number of significant food crops, pineapples are extremely well known but actually on the decline as a major agricultural effort. In their place have come large plantations of Macadamia nuts. There is a similar nut tree indigenous to the islands but the nuts are coarser and not so lucrative on the world market. Macadamias have therefore assumed a key role in the island's cuisine.

Macadamia crusted Tofu is surprisingly good. Marinade slices of firm tofu in lime and salt for an hour or so, top with a crust made of melted vegan fat, crushed macadamia nuts, coarse large breadcrumbs (panko style) and a few green herbs and bake in a hot oven for 20 or so minutes.

We served this with a Potato and Celeriac mash (to substitute for Poi) and some foil wrapped parcels of cabbage leaves wrapped around vegetables in a slight imitation of Lau lau. Lacking ti leaves or even banana leaves to make the outer wrapping and without taro leaves for the inner casing meant authenticity was lost entirely but I was still pleased at the way the vegetables turned out and it's a great way to pre-prepare everything. We just popped the parcels of veg into the oven with the tofu steaks and everything cooked while the cocktails were going down.

As a side Lomi Tomatoes, a sort of salsa made from peeled well chopped tomatoes well mixed with finely chopped onion which was a vegan attempt at another Hawaiian favourite Lomi Lomi Salmon.

Still to come - pudding. Don't hold your breaths.

er what?

Yes, it's been a while.

The food experimenting hasn't stopped, in the interim I cooked a 13 course meal for 12 and even at this moment I'm chomping on a Kimchi sandwich made with our own cabbage and winter radish grown on the farm. It's good, but I was too timid with the chillies.

It's just that sometimes I wonder what it's all about. Who really cares what I do with my food after all.

Anyway, expect a small rash of postings while I catch up with the Hawaiian experiment and then it will be Yule.

Hawaiian Nights #1 For Starters

After the serendipitous purchase of a CD of Hawaiian music on a trip to Clapham recently we decided the only way to make good use of it was to host a small Hawaiian supper for our friends.

Of course, never having been to Hawaii brought some obstacles of comprehension and the fact that the traditional diet of this island population revolves around stodge and pig meat other problems but the interweb is your friend when researching alien cultures and a menu suitable for vegans was eventually created.

Getting some of the ingredients proved beyond me - there is sometimes taro in Tesco but I couldn't get there so we had no Poi which was a blow, although previous experiences of eating taro didn't convince me I would have enjoyed it a second time anyway. Lu'au, the young leaves of taro were also in short supply - not entirely unobtainable, there are still a few leafy tops adorning a plant in my greenhouse but perfectly inadequate for the sustenance of several hungry dinner guests even when the issue of calcium oxalate is discounted. So it's not an entirely authentic dining example but it is amusing, particularly with sufficient iced Margaritas for all concerned.

In fact it was the prevalence of alcohol that accounts for the sad lack of pictures of sexy food so you'll just have to imagine what they looked like and thank Tomo Yun for his nice picture of an Hawaiian beach

So for starters we had: Sweet Potato oven fries with a Maui Onion Dip and Musubi.

Sweet Potato fries are easily explained, peel and slice some sweet potatoes (I don't know the variety they had in the Co Op but they were the fairly small, intensely orange sort) and divide lengthways into neat wedges, cover in a little oil, either brushed on or by tossing in a pan with a couple of teaspoonfuls and bake in a hot oven for about 45 minutes turning a couple of times until cooked, browning and crispy. Turn onto a hot plate and sprinkle with salt.

The Maui onion dip really needs those large sweet onions, Spanish or even Hawaiian if you can get them. Since I couldn't I used ordinary cooking onions but blanched them briefly to remove some of the potency.

Make a marinade from 250ml water, 200ml sugar and 125ml white wine or rice vinegar by bringing the water to a boil, dissolving the sugar in it, allowing it to simmer for a couple of minutes then removing from the heat, adding the vinegar and allowing the whole lot to cool to room temperature.

Peel and finely chop your onions, I used about three medium to small ones. Blanch by dropping into a pan of boiling water for a minute. Drain thoroughly and put in the marinade. Leave this overnight to soak. When you need the dip, drain off the marinade and put the onions into a bowl with about half a jar of Plamil Egg free mayonnaise (or your favourite vegan mayo), mix well and add a pinch of celery seed. This isn't fine dining.

Musubi really do seem to be the deep fried Mars bar of island life. You haven't lived until you've tried it! And what is it? Something that is best envisaged as a Spam Sushi roll although strictly speaking it's not a form of Sushi which requires vinegar seasoned rice.

It's another example of inventiveness following on from the introduction of an exotic foodstuff to an isolated community. In this case the foodstuff was Spam, that reviled substance found in tins across the world as an almost indestructible canned comestible, ideal for long ocean journeys of exploration and storage in tropical climates. The nicest touch is that the whole package is used, the Spam for eating and the can for forming the roll, a truely awesome touch of genius.

Of course, Spam is not suitable for a vegan diet but where tradition fails us a niche market is found and Fry's Polony is without doubt an excellent and authentic looking substitute. Unfortunately the plastic wrap this comes in is totally useless for shaping the Musubi so I've used a more traditional Japanese technique for creating bar shaped sushi portions. These ingredients are enough for about 10 pieces, and were formed in a 2lb loaf tin.

Make some nice slices of Polony, about 1/2 cm. thick, cut along the length of the roll to imitate the sort of oblong slices you'd get if turning a can of Spam into slices.

Fry the slices in a few drops of oil quickly until they brown up a little, don't cook for too long, it will get tough. Sit the slices in a bit of Teriyaki sauce until you're ready to assemble the final dish. If you don't have teriyaki sauce make a marinade from 200ml soy sauce with 100g sugar dissolved in it (you may need heat to make it dissolve) and add 100ml rice wine or a splash of sherry and some rice vinegar.

Cook about 200g of sushi rice or other short grain white rice by the absorption method and allow to cool until it can be handled. There is no need to season this at this stage.

Find yourself a straight sided loaf tin or terrine and line it with some cling film. Use enough film to allow for a comfortable overlap. Put a sheet of Sushi nori into it to line the bottom and the sides - it's best if your mould is some multiple of the size of a sheet of nori - and put a layer of rice about 2cm thick when it's pressed down, into the bottom of the dish. Cover the rice with neat slices of Polony laid side by side, then put another 2cm layer of rice on top of that. This should leave some seaweed protruding up the sides. You may need a strip of nori to cover the top of the mould, this will be the bottom when serving, then moisten this with a little marinade (to make the two sheets stick together) and fold the side nori sheet around to complete the seaweed covering. Bring the clingfilm over the whole construction to seal it until you are ready to serve.

Unmould, remove cling film and slice into 10 pieces with a very sharp knife. If liked serve with a little spicy dipping sauce but actually they're quite nice just as they come.

More in the next exciting episode of this blog, where I reveal what we ate for our main course!

Chocolate Chip Ginger Spice Cookies

I made these cookies on the recommendation of rave reviews from all over the internet - they're based on a recipe on the Martha Stewart site veganised by substituting vegan margarine for the butter.



Despite warnings that the dough was impossible to work and that the regime of chilling and moulding was onerous it was easy enough even if there was a Mr. Hanky moment as I rolled the mixture in clingfilm before dropping it in the freezer for a couple of hours. The cookies turned out just like Martha's; looking good and smelling fine.

And I hate them. They are so sweet they set my teeth on edge, the texture is verging on the uncooked - where is the crispness of a decent biscuit here? - and I can taste the bicarbonate of soda...

So I won't be making these again even though Mr. Stripey Cat rather likes them and friends who've seen the picture say it's just what they like.

Alone again

Living alone really isn't healthy. Without the discipline of cooking for another I live on bread and ketchup, savoury rice and the odd experimental dish that very rarely makes the grade.

Yesterday's dinner of Chinese Spiced Vegetables in a Marmite sauce really wasn't all that appetising but today's invention turned out to be a masterpiece of restraint and elegance. Oh yes it did.



Potatoes in a Lemon Peanut Broth.

This sounds a little bizarre but is wonderful, light comforting food that doesn't overpower the senses and allows the simple conjunction of lemon and peanut to shine through. Although you'll be tempted to add extra soya sauce, chillies, all the sorts of strong flavours that are associated with savoury peanut dishes, control yourself, let purity win. You won't regret it.

Choose some nice boiling potatoes and cut them into tidy pieces. Boil in well salted water until just soft, drain and return to the hot pan to dry and go floury.

To make the broth put the zest of a lemon, a small clove of finely chopped garlic and a good deal of finely ground black pepper into a little peanut oil and allow to sizzle gently for few moments to take the rawness from the garlic. Add to this one half pint of water, the juice of a lemon, two teaspoons of sugar, two flat teaspoons of cornflour (slake it in a little of the liquid to avoid lumps) and two tablespoons of peanut butter. Mix all together well and bring back to a simmer, stirring continuously, until the cornflour is cooked and the broth is unctuous. Taste for seasoning. You will almost certainly need more salt.

Serve in a soup bowl with plenty of broth to the potatoes and with coriander leaf sprinkled over.

Tequila Strawberry

I've been trying out some festive recipes to prepare for entertaining friends this holiday season. This is one of the contenders, from the Leith's Vegetarian Bible (not a good book for vegans), very easy to make, showy and good for a giggle but as Paul loathes and detests Tequila, even in this form, I don't think it's going to make the final line up.

To make enough for four, slice 250g of the best strawberries you can buy (which isn't saying much at this time of year) into a lidded container. Add 50g of fine white sugar, granulated or caster, a double measure of Tequila and the juice of a lime. Put the lid on and leave the whole lot to macerate over night in the fridge.

Next day liquidise your mixture which will be fragrant and delicious by now. Put it in a shallow freezer tray and into the freezer. The alcohol will stop it freezing too hard too quickly but remember to give it a good stir a couple of times during the day to keep the ice crystals small.

To serve, dress your cocktail glasses with a rim made of sugar with just a pinch of salt. Divide the ice between the four glasses and top each portion with a measure of Triple Sec and a cherry.

Vegan omelette

Another week and no posts - I should be ashamed of myself but I'm not because I have been cooking a lot, the recipes just aren't ready to share yet. This To Fu Yung is a case in point.



Soft tofu cakes filled with oriental flavourings and vegetables and served over a lime infused crunchy salad. It's a lovely light snack and very tasty but the texture still isn't quite right, so I'm going to have make several more experiments before the method is fit to publish. Pity me.

Slow Cooking

No, this recipe wasn't made in a slow cooker although I suppose there's no reason not to, except I don't have one. It is however, something that can be described as slow cooked food, a reviving fashion in cooking that claims to bring back the quality of meals, prepared with time and care from raw ingredients and first principles.



This is probably the last chance I'll have this year to cook this dish unless I buy air freighted beans from abroad, something I'm not prepared to do except when stressed and heavily pressured when most ethics are likely to find themselves panting by the wayside. The beans I did find, although British, were right at the end of their season, beginning to toughen slightly, not the tender young pods of summer but because of that ideally suited to a more mature form of cookery.

So, to the recipe. It's not clear who has dibs to the concept of slow cooking beans - if you're in America then the Deep South stakes a claim for a dish of slow cooked beans with bacon and served with corn bread but come back to the eastern fringes of Europe and you'll find that Turkey has a long history of stewed beans, slowly simmered to give up their juices into a delicious oily sauce crying out to be mopped up with soft wheat breads.

Could it be some fortunate cross pollination of methods carried by migration across the world or is just that two cultures independently nurtured their precious crops for a careful casseroling to make the most of every drop of goodness? Who knows, who cares?

Since this is a vegan blog we're going to throw the bacon idea straight out of the window. I've never found a really good vegan bacon substitute, the one thing that used to come close were those little baco bits you found in the ready made crouton aisle at the supermarket but since they appear to be made with GM soya beans they've been crossed off the shopping list for years now. Anyway, who needs something that tastes of burnt pig...

650g fresh green beans - french (or runner as long as they're not too old)
1 big onion, finely chopped.
2 cloves garlic if you want, not essential.
150g fresh tomatoes, chopped.
40g tomato puree (who am I kidding with the weight, it was a big squeeze).
200ml water /or/ substitute a good can of chopped tomatoes with juice for the tomato, puree and water.
olive oil.
black pepper.
and a choice of aromatics: use a pinch of cumin or fennel or aniseed or one clove or anything else you might fancy but don't overdo these flavourings.
1 tsp. sugar.
Juice from 1/2 lemon.

In your oven proof casserole, fry off the onion in plenty of olive oil until it begins to brown, throw in the crushed garlic if used, the tomatoes, puree and water (or tin of tomatoes with juice) and season with your choice of aromatics, pepper, the teaspoon of sugar and the lemon juice. Don't add salt.

Put in the topped and tailed beans. Bring everything to a simmer, then put the lid on the casserole and pop in the oven at a low temperature, say 140C, for 2-3 hours, longer is better and if it needs to wait in the warm while something else cooks that's no problem.

Serve hot from the pan with barbeque tofu and bread or put into a pretty serving dish and allow to cool to room temperature to be served as part of a buffet table. I'm sure the beans would taste great the next day too but ours all went in about five minutes.

Minestrone Soup

This infinitely variable and satisfying soup is based on the Elizabeth David transcription of the method. It makes a tremendously large pot of soup but that's fine because it's better reheated on the second day than the first and it can be frozen in person sized portions for instant warming week day lunches.

There is no salt added to this recipe because I shouldn't eat it and prefer to add my allowance to the bowl. If you want to add salt as you cook put it in after the beans are fully softened.

Ingredients
200g dried haricot beans
olive oil
half a small cabbage, chopped finely
3 onions, sliced
3 garlic cloves
herbs and seasoning

3 small potatoes, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
a piece of celery, chopped
400g tin of chopped tomatoes with juice (not economy brand)
a splash of elderberry ketchup or use a glass of red wine if you don't have seven years to spare.

a handful of green beans chopped into 2cm pieces
55g broken-up macaroni or spaghetti, or pastine, or any of the pasta made in small shapes, such as little stars, little shells, etc.

Method
1. Put the haricot beans to soak overnight. Next day melt the sliced onion into the oil, adding the garlic, the cabbage, and plenty of herbs, marjoram, thyme, basil, or whatever may be available. Let this get really soft and slightly golden then add the drained haricot beans. Cover them with 1.8L hot water and let them boil gently and steadily for 2 hours or until the beans are cooked.

2. Now put in the carrots, potatoes, celery, wine or elderberry ketchup and the tinned tomatoes. Allow to cook for 20 minutes.

3. Ten minutes before serving, add the green beans, and the pasta. You may need to add a little more water if the liquid has reduced a lot, don't add more than 500ml.

4. Add a little chopped parsley over each serving and serve with bread. Some may like to add nutritional yeast. (o.k. I know ED would never have said the last bit!)

Nigella's peanut butter chocolate cups

Made these over the weekend, incredibly sweet and rich, even with a reduced amount of chocolate. I can only manage two a day.

Nigella's recipe here adapted for vegans by changing the butter to oil and deleting the milk chocolate. I also used crunchy peanut butter instead of smooth. Worked o.k.

Chili with Sprinkles

For someone who has trouble with all hot spicy food there's been an unusual tendency this autumn to pile in the peppers. Last night I decided on a black bean and smokey tofu chili which was nowhere nearly as delicately spiced as the chili I had at Greens recently but was still tangy, satisfying and strangely fulfilling. You can read my review of the Greens restaurant here.



So this recipe is really only a variation of everyday cooking in most homes and has nothing too noteworthy that should be written down for posterity but those of you who are addicted to crunchy seed mixtures might like to know how easy it is to make your own.

Spicy Seed Sprinkles are made with your choice of fresh, and that's important, dried seeds. You will definitely need sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds and you might want to add sesame seeds or hemp. Cashew nut pieces or unsalted peanuts are also good. A few aromatic seeds can be interesting but don't overdo the strong flavours, a pinch of cumin or fennel is plenty.

Very very lightly grease a frying pan and set your seeds in the pan over a gentle heat, moving them around continuously until they start to swell, pop and go golden. You don't want them to burn so take the pan off the heat while you find the tamari or soy sauce and the tabasco if you need it.

With the seeds back over a gentle warmth and swirling them around as you add it, sprinkle in a few shakes of sauce and one or two dashes of tabasco if liked. It will splutter and steam a bit but keep the seeds moving until they are all coated and the seasonings are dry. Tip out onto a clean plate and spread out to cool. Break up any clumps and stir around every few minutes until they cool. They will become crisper as they cool but once fully cooled put into an airtight container immediately (or eat) or they tend to absorb moisture and become sticky again.

The Bane of the Vegan

or Stuffed Peppers.

The very sight of them as the veg*n option on the menu is enough to make any animal free eater give up and go home immediately. Representing all that is unimaginative and low effort in bulk catering, where exceptions to the norm are not welcomed and costs are cut to a minimum, Stuffed Peppers are the absolute pits.

Party organisers be aware, if your caterer cannot or will not cater well for vegans, you won't be getting much of a bargain for your other diners either, whereas any restaurant or hotel capable of cooking interesting vegan food to a price will be right up there with the best for all their culinary efforts. These things are important.



But wait, do these look as if they are stuffed with Batchelor's rice, they do not, and despite the tendency of stuffed peppers to be flavourless, these are not, and if this was the sort of food served to vegans at official functions and formal dinners would I complain? I would not. So how is it done?

Make a mash of about 500g cooked floury potato, 150g cooked celeriac and 350g cooked swede. You can cook them all together in a single pan, cut the celeriac into smaller pieces than the other vegetables as it takes a little longer to become soft.

Chop 150g onions and fry gently with a couple of teaspoons full of a mild curry powder, garam masala or your own favourite mix of toasted coriander, cumin and fennel seeds ground finely. Put in a good grind of black pepper and some finely grated fresh ginger, about a tablespoon after grating. Add about 100g of crushed nuts, I used brazil nuts but hazelnuts or cashews would be fine and if you have them a small handful of raisins or sultanas. Add a little chopped green chili to taste, this should not be a hot mix but just flavoured with scent of chilies. Add this cooked mixture into your mash and stir well.

Stuff your peppers. This amount of mash will stuff about 8 peppers or maybe 10 if they're small. If that's too many for your needs, bake the left over stuffing in a small well greased loaf tin. It can be served with the peppers or saved for lunch the next day. Put your stuffed peppers in an oiled tin, tightly packed to keep them upright and pop the lids back on. Bake for at least 45 minutes at 180C and for half an hour longer if you like your peppers to be well cooked.

To serve with the peppers you will need a sauce. Chop a medium onion with two or three cloves of garlic and put to sweat in a little oil. Add a tin of tomatoes, chopped or whole, a bayleaf or two and six or eight crushed cardamom pods. Allow all this to simmer gently for 20 or 30 minutes until everything is very soft, then hook out the bay leaves and cardamom pods before liquidising the sauce with a hand blender until smooth. Add a pinch of nutmeg and salt to taste and keep it warm until the peppers are ready.

Serve one or two peppers per person, extra stuffing if liked and cover with the tomato sauce, then add a big spoonful of soya yoghurt. Delicious.

Tofu Tempeh Roast

I've been in the wilderness with cooking just recently but last night's dinner was interesting enough to record here. Marinated tofu and tempeh with sliced ginger and sweet pepper rings roasted in the oven until crispy and served with spinach and rice. It's a work in progress, I'd like the marinade to be a little thicker, richer, sweeter and the accompanying vegetables to be just as simple but more succulent still. Even without that, it was a good meal.

For pudding, a rather less successful apple bake using leftover apple puree and a cake batter that I just invented on spec. Took ages to cook and was really rather flat and soggy, but nice enough hot with some Swedish Glace icecream.

Penne Rigate con Piselli

No picture because despite my best efforts the yoghurt split and the whole thing looked a little unappetising because of it but it was much more delicious than it looked and so I'd certainly make it again.

Rigate in Italian means striped or in the case of pasta, ridged. The ridges hold lots of sauce and are most important for this dish but the actual shape of the pasta isn't too important so long as it is tubular. Ditalini, little thimbles, very short cut tubular pasta is often used instead of penne or other forms.

I was lucky enough to find some fresh peas in the local Somerfield supermarket. Despite the vast body of literature you can find supporting the frozen pea for taste and nutrition proper peas in their pods have a magic that's hard to beat. Grow them if you can, but don't miss buying them if they look fresh and young, because it is worth it.

This makes enough for four as a pasta course, three as a main course and two greedy people.

750g peas in the pod
250g penne rigate
garlic
saffron
soya yoghurt
cornflour
olive oil
sesame oil
freshly ground black pepper

Pod your peas, try not to eat too many as you do it. Put a huge pan of water on for the pasta and bring it to a good boil. Put a large pinch of saffron in a small bowl and add a couple of tablespoons of hot water.

In a deep frying pan put a splash of olive oil and a teaspoonful of toasted sesame oil and gently fry off your finely chopped garlic. I haven't given a quantity because everyone differs in how much garlic they enjoy. I used three cloves. Add the peas and stir around in the garlicky oil, season with black pepper, then add a few ladlefuls of hot water and bring to a simmer. Just how much you'll need is debatable, there should be enough to barely cover the peas so that they will cook in water but not too much or the sauce will be overly watery later.

Put your pasta into the fiercely boiling water and set a timer if you're like me and prone to forgetting how long it's had. Read the packet for timings.

Mix your saffron, its liquid, a 125g pot of soya yoghurt (or about that quantity) and a biggish teaspoonful of cornflour. My mistake I think, was insufficient cornflour but then I didn't want a custard, just to stop the yoghurt splitting. Good luck with that.

By now the water on the peas should have reduced and the peas will be tender. Carefully mix your yoghurt mixture into the pan to make a fairly liquid sauce that is golden and green with peas and will coat your pasta delightfully. When I did this I panicked and thought the sauce was too wet but actually it wasn't at all once the pasta was added.

Drain your cooked pasta well, mix into the sauce and serve, with a little chopped parsley over the top.

There's posh

Few meals of note in the last week but these were a bit special and good enough to have two nights in a row (since I made enough for four where were you on Thursday!?).

Polenta rounds, cooked, cooled, cut and charred under a hot grill, layered with a creamy carrot, brazil nut and spinach stuffing and topped off with sauteed mushrooms and onions masked with a rich wine and porcini sauce.

We served them with a little steamed cabbage and some boiled potatoes drizzled with extra of that glorious sauce.

To follow, chocolate coconut iced. A work in progress, I think I need a better icecream maker but the flavour was good.

Jam don't shake

We seem to be moving away from the original purpose of this blog but it's hard to do cooking for one in Normandy when you're cooking for two (or more) in Newport Pagnell...

Anyway, on a walk on Sunday we found a hedgerow apple tree where the fruit, and I hesitate to call them crab apples because the tree looked more like a seedling from an eating apple, were heavy, dark and pendulous. Oh no, that's the Rocky Horror Show, I meant to say heavy, enticing and nearly ripe. So I picked a bagful.

This is what I did with my free harvest.



Actually I made more jelly than that, nearly 1.5kg I think although I've not weighed up, but jars are boring to photograph and this presentation nearly shows the luscious shinyness of the of the finished preserves.

To make, chop your apples up skins and all, just removing any bad or bruised bit and put in a thick bottomed pan with just enough water to cover the fruit. Gently bring up to a simmer and allow the apples to cook until they are soft and broken down. Mash them a bit to make sure all the pieces are fully cooked. Then set up your jelly bag and set the pulp to drip for several hours. Don't squeeze the bag if you want clear jelly.

After a few hours, measure your juice. I got 2 pints, 40 imperial fluid ounces and that's a bit over a litre. If you're American you'll have to make your own calculations from that.

For the two flavours I chose mint and chili but actually apple jelly can be flavoured with almost anything, so experiment!

For the mint jelly take a pint of juice, a pound of sugar, 60ml light vinegar (white wine or cider), the juice of a lemon and a quantity of mint. I used a quarter cup (yes, I know, it's about two tablespoons or 60ml by volume) of dried mint but I would have preferred fresh mint. If you have it chop it finely until you have about two tablespoons full... Some people add a drop of green colouring and so might I have done if I'd had any, but use something naturally derived and avoid the chemicals.

Dissolve the sugar in the juice, add the vinegar, lemon juice and mint and bring to a boil. Boil hard for as long as it takes to set, this will probably be more than ten minutes but not more than twenty. I test for set with a teaspoonful of mixture onto a cold plate. Allow to cool a little then push it gently with your fingertip. If wrinkles form ahead of the finger then it's ready to pot. This is the moment to add your colouring if you're using it.

Be very careful not to burn yourself in this next stage. Pot into hot, sterile jars and put the lids on immediately.

For the chili jelly use a pint of juice and a pound of sugar as above. I didn't add any lemon or vinegar and don't think it's needed. Add two teaspoonfuls of dried chili flakes at the start of cooking and proceed as for mint jelly. One problem I had with mine was the flakes floated to the top during cooling. You can get around this by allowing the jelly to cool slightly before bottling but I really like the security of hygiene gained by doing everything while it's boiling hot.

Use as relish for savouries and as a surprise in puddings.

Mind the Gap

Another long absence, sorry. Reasons are I'm not in Normandy, I've not been doing much interesting cooking; living on take away and snacks and my motivation is low. However, enough of the excuses. Bread may be the staff of life but ciabatta are the comfortable old slippers of easy living.



I'd like to start by saying all bread is easy to make. All bread is composed of nearly the same ingredients and it is primarily the proportions of those ingredients and the method of treating them that produces the magnificent range of this essential foodstuff across the world.

So, as we learnt at school, bread is a combination of flour, water, salt and yeast and is still bread even if you leave the last two ingredients out. You can add fats, flavourings, non-wheat flours like corn or buckwheat (yeuchh), extra fruits, vegetable or nuts but none of these are essential. For a well risen yeasted bread the flour should have a good gluten content, for flat breads this is not so important and these differences in flour across the world have informed the style of bread made locally.

Ciabatta is an Italian invention, using an overnight yeasted preparation called a biga which is made up the next day into a very soft, almost sloppy dough. The biga allows a small amount of yeast to multiply itself up to a sufficient quantity to raise the loaves, the overnight wait produces a slightly fermented flavour which adds to the character of the bread. Olive oil is added to enrich the dough. The finished bread is light and chewy with a good crust and an open texture.

Italian bread uses a mediumly high protein/gluten flour which allows big bubbles to expand in the dough without bursting and subsequent collapse while retaining a tenderness to the bite so for best results try to get hold of some real Italian flour, the extra strong sold for bread machines will produce a tough loaf.

Because it is such a wet dough it can be difficult to knead by hand. Some people will work it on a board, my partner has a wonderful open air stretching technique that pulls the dough from hand to hand without ever allowing it to flow to the table, I used a professional bread mixing machine because I could.

After the dough is kneaded it must be allowed to rise for a while, traditionally described until it has doubled or trebled in size which may take an hour or may take four hours depending on other variables like the heat of the kitchen. Then, and it is almost a pouring action, carefully tip your dough onto a well floured board and with a pastry scraper or knife divide it up in to loaves, which are gently formed into the slipper shapes of the finished bread. This stage is important because the dough has a delicate structure, full of air, and this needs to be preserved.

After a further proving (see above) the loaves are baked in a very hot oven for about 20 minutes until brown and lovely.

Blogging World

The blogging community has a penchant for memes and interactive challenges.

Charlotte at the Great Big Vegetable Challenge threw up an invitation to take part in the fun activity of making vegetable faces as a wet weather pastime and have your efforts displayed in her slide show.

You can see my poor potato head here and when you've looked at all the entries, some of them considerably more artistic than mine, look at the rest of her blog. It's a cracking read.

Cauliflower: Pickled.

A couple of months ago I was expressing a desire for cauliflower pickles which I only half assuaged with a jar of Pickled Carrots. I couldn't find anything to buy in France and in England, well, I've been so disappointed with commercial pickles that I can't bring myself to part with the money. But the need is still strong.

There were some excellent cauliflowers available last time I went to the SuperU so I decided to bite the bullet and be good to myself.

Surfing the web to see what's on offer there by way of recipes I found that
Alice Waters an American cook and restaurateur of some renown has published a recipe for Cauliflower Pickles in Tarragon Vinegar so to forestall any accusations of plagiarism I'm sure Alice would be the first to agree with me that her basic method is in fact the standard pickling system used since long before Mrs. Beeton and applicable to all. Why she chose tarragon vinegar we may never know but my reason was prosaic. I had a bottle that was destined for my son but forgotten by his Dad on his way through my kitchen. Seemed a pity to waste it.



The herby thing pushing between the jars is tarragon in my garden.

For these two jars of pickles, take one large but not enormous firm young cauliflower (quiet at the back!) wash it well and divide it up into lovely neat pieces. Make them small enough to pack tightly in the jar or you'll have a lot of vinegar for not much pickle. And they're easier to eat that way.

When the cauliflower is prepared pack your clean and sterile jars with the florets, then fill the jars with vinegar - like I said I used tarragon vinegar but cider vinegar is fine, make sure it's at least 5% strong. This odd step is just to estimate your vinegar needs and in fact I used about 800ml if you want to skip this part.

Tip the vinegar into a non metallic saucepan, add two teaspoonsful of salt, some mustard seed (try three teaspoons), a couple of cloves of garlic cleaned and halved, half a dozen peppercorns and the thing I was missing, coriander seed; a couple of teaspoons of that too. Throw in a bay leaf, a chilli or both if you like. Bring this to the boil and then drop in all the cauliflower. You'll need more than filled the jars raw because it shrinks a bit as it cooks. Simmer for a couple of minutes, you want to keep the vegetable crisp but make sure it's sterilised by that steaming brine.

Scoop the cauliflower out and pack it tightly into your jars. Pop the garlic and other large seasonings in amongst the florets, then bring the juice back to a good boil and pour it into the jars to cover the cauliflower completely. Make sure the small spices are divided evenly as you do this. If there's not enough vinegar to cover, just boil up a little more. On with the vinegar proof lids and you're done.

Observant readers will notice that one jar is clear and the other jar is yellow. I couldn't decide whether to make the pickles yellow or not, there's some precedence in history but it might be a bit tacky in today's stripped down society. Anyway, after I filled one jar I put a pinch of turmeric in the vinegar that was left and then filled the other.

Store in a cool dark place for three weeks or so before eating and refrigerate after opening.

Soup or Stew?

Tonight's dinner or what to do with a handful of slightly past their best vegetables.

To recreate this gourmet treat in your own home take a potato, a carrot, an onion, some green beans and chop into bite size pieces. Simmer altogether in just enough water to cover adding mixed dried herbs, salt and pepper to taste. If you have celery then definitely add some, it makes a lot of difference.

When the veg. is cooked stir in a big spoonful of miso, add extra water to the broth if necessary and bring back to temperature. Serve with bread and if liked, nutritional yeast or other flavourings.

Go on, try it, it's much nicer than it sounds and has the advantage of being almost entirely fat free.

Horta

The Greeks are well known for their healthy and economical practice of harvesting their weeds and vegetable garden thinnings to make delicious dishes of cooked greens. It is said that at least 28 different plants are used, in varying combinations according to season and availability to make this nutritious addition to the daily diet.

Having tried various weeds for taste over time I can't say I'm a fan of all of them. Hogweed was a particular disappointment when I experimented with it earlier this year and nettle soup is only really edible if well flavoured with plenty of other more appetising additions.

However, I am a fan of wild sorrel which grows on the farm in amongst the grass in the fields. It's easy to find, and the only plant you might mistake it for is young dock. That won't poison you but is no gustatory treat. Sorrel can be recognised by its softer smoother appearance and the arrow shaped points at the base of the leaves.

I also picked a small handful of some sort of mustard or rape greens, clearly naturalised from a farm crop at at a previous time and now endemic around the yard. To add to these leaves I took a few nasturtium leaves for their peppery taste, a sprig of sage, another of mint and a big bunch of thinnings from the beetroot crop. These tiny beet plants have not yet grown proper beet roots but are just tiny red flushed leaves on scarlet stalks.



To add to these tender leaves, really fresh and delicate enough to use as salad, I picked half a dozen pumpkin vine tips, just 15cm from the end of each vigorous shoot. As well as providing me with a tasty vegetable this will have the advantage of slowing the plants down and forcing them to devote their resources to the wonderful pumpkins already formed and swelling.

Each shoot tip has a few soft leaves, a fleshy and crunchy stem and if you are lucky a few really tiny flowers and baby fruits.

Chop the pumpkin tips coarsely and gently fry in a little olive oil until hot. Add the well washed and roughly cut up greens, stir around in the oil and add a splash of water. Put on the pan lid and allow the vegetables to cook in the steam.

Many recipes for call for a longer cooking in more water and this may be good advice if you are using bitter weeds like dandelion or sow thistle but for dainty morsels like these it is not necessary.

When the vegetables are cooked, just a few minutes, tip into a bowl with all the juice formed and dress with plenty of olive oil, salt to taste and lemon juice. Eat hot or allow to cool to room temperature.

Riz Etranger

A pan of Paella, made a couple of nights ago. Paella is another form of peasant food, created from the staples of the Spanish Eastern coast repertoire, rice, beans, saffron and then enlivened with whatever is to hand which for vegans simply means extra vegetables. (Meat eaters get portions of stringy meat; rabbit or chicken, snails and seafood.)

In this dish I added just a few extras making a very simple and soothing meal drenched in lemon juice and salt, for two to share straight from the pan.

The essential ingredients then are Paella rice from Spain although any shorter grained risotto rice would do at a pinch, olive oil, saffron, large white beans (precooked), chopped green beans, good stock, onions, garlic, tomatoes and any extras you like e.g. chopped red and green peppers or mushrooms. You might even add asparagus tips or peas if the fancy took you. Try to stop before it ends up looking like a compost heap.

Chop onions and garlic and fry off gently in a large flat pan, a proper paella pan is the best but if you don't have one don't let that stop you. Add rice to the pan and stir around in the hot oil then add any other vegetables that can stand long cooking and the stock. Add a big pinch of saffron and bring to a simmer. Add in turn all the other ingredients depending on the length of time they will take to cook. Test the seasoning often and add Mediterranean herbs, salt and pepper to taste. Top up the stock if it looks like drying up before the rice is cooked. There is no need to stir continously as in risotto but move things around occasionally to stop it sticking and burning.

When the liquid is absorbed, the rice is tender and the vegetables cooked, garnish with lemon segments and chopped parsley and serve in the pan. It's perfectly acceptable to eat with spoons straight from the cooking utensil if each person sticks within the area on their own side of the dish. Nicking tender morsels from the other diners is considered poor manners!

Bhel Puri

One of the best things about this stay in the UK is the ability to pick up a variety of world foods and know they are genuinely authentic to their country of origin. Nothing attenuated for an ignorant and uncaring French clientele here.

I don't recommend shopping in Tesco, ever, but I was there and from the ethnic shelves collected a bag of sweet and sour sev, cornflake and lentil mix. Perhaps a little light on the puffed rice but an excellent base for the snack or light meal known as Bhel Puri.




This is an infinitely variable dish in that nearly every individual part may be substituted with something else but the basic format is fixed; a light crispy base of puffed rice and sev noodles, a salad mixture of cooked potatoes, finely chopped raw onions and diced tomatoes, a fresh green chutney of coriander, mint, green chillies (as many as you like), salt and garlic thinned with a little water or lemon juice and a luscious brown date and tamarind sauce, sweet and sour with subtle curry spice flavours. These separate parts are put onto a dish in the proportions preferred by the diner, mixed all together and eaten with joy.

Bread roll

and other stuff we've been eating in the last few days.

Since arriving in the UK quite a lot of meals have been prepared and I have to admit they have only been average. I don't know if it's something in me, some subtle virus affecting my taste buds or something to do with the ingredients - mostly store cupboard and local early to late Co-op. At any rate, although they've looked o.k. I've had no desire to photograph or release their recipes to a wider audience.

However, for the record meals have included:
an all day vegan breakfast, thai green curry, barbecued tofu and aubergines (we really were at a barbie cooking on communal veggie charcoal), leftover barbie food with leftover thai curry (an interesting experience), roast spuds and broad beans with garlic, spinach lasagne al forno (which turned out nice but strangely lacking in any real excitment) and last night a Sheep Free Pie with chickpeas and miso, again looking the part but let down by rather inappropriate potatoes (stored early Swift, designed to be eaten as first early potatoes and really hopeless after a week or two in store) and slightly hard chickpeas even though they seemed well cooked when I popped them in the pie dish.

No idea what I'll be cooking tonight, I feel a shopping expedition coming on. If anyone would like the recipes for the food listed above, I could tell you, but then I might have to kill you. I really don't think they show vegan cooking at its best.

gon' fishin'

Missed a couple of days - sorry.

Above the Bubble and Squeak from Sunday. Mashed potato, cooked cabbage mixed together and fried golden brown in lots of olive oil. Uses up all your cooked vegetable leftovers but potato and a brassica are essential.



Last night we had Gado Gado and didn't even take any pictures...but these are the beans I picked from the garden to go in it.

May be missing a few more daily entries as we're taking a trip but normal service will be resumed in 10 days or so.

Fruit Cake

It might seem slightly bizarre to bake this English teatime speciality suitable for the foggy rainy isle on the hottest day of the year but there is method in my madness.

Once the cake is mixed and baked, relatively easy and trivial tasks, then whenever anyone needs a nutritious, calorie rich snack they have only to go the cake tin, take out a hand sized portion and get out of the kitchen. No cooking, no hot stove, no hassle.



For this cake you'll need an approximately 25cm tin, we have a springform which makes getting the cooked cake out easier. Ideally it should be lined but you'll get away with greasing and flouring.

Put 750g of mixed dried fruit in a sauce pan and add 125g of sugar, 450ml of water and a big teaspoonful of black treacle. Bring to a simmer, stirring often and let remain on the heat for a minute or two. Turn off the heat and allow the fruit to steep in the hot syrup until cooled. *** I came back to this entry after a year and realised I'd not mentioned any fat in the recipe. I'm guessing there should be 125g margarine melted into the above mixture with the fruit but can't at the moment remember exactly what I did. Anyway this will work. Sorry. ***

In a mixing bowl combine 450g white flour with a sachet of baking powder (about two teaspoonsful) and some spice. I used a teaspoon full of cinnamon and a half tsp. of allspice.

Combine the fruit with the dry ingredients and mix well, then pour into the tin and smooth the top. Add some glace cherries if liked, press them down into the surface so they won't burn.

It will take about an hour to bake at 170C but check after 40 mins and again at 50 minutes. My oven is a bit uneven and not very well regulated and I burned the bottom of the cake a little. If it looks too brown too quickly turn the heat down a little. When a knife/skewer comes out clear of moist cake mixture the cake is cooked.

Allow to cool in the tin for half an hour, then remove onto a rack and allow to cool competely.

Serve with tea.

Turning Japanese

losing the plot

Posts are slipping behind, sorry.

Last night's dinner was unremarkable, macaroni and cheese. The sauce was made with soya yoghurt flavoured with nutritional yeast and other seasonings. It was o.k.

Possibly the only thing I have to say about it as a dish is that for a while now reading food blogs I've been amazed by the number of bloggers raving about Mac'n'Cheese. Maybe I've led a sheltered life but it took me weeks, maybe months to work out that this title referred to a standard menu item from my British youth and was not some esoteric reference to the haz cheezburger desires of the lolcats or even a description of a simple facsimile of a certain Burger Chain's output.

So I'm naive, what can I say!

Tonight, we just drank. The homelife of the Stripey Cats is a bit less than lovely at the moment, but we're confident things can only get better.

Chips

A trip to the beach on the last day of July produced a dilemma. Should we stop for frites from a beachside vendor or head home and make use of our own hard won potatoes?

Sanity triumphed, delicious as frites are straight from the stall a lot of their appeal lies in their immediacy, achieved at some cost to quality and healthful practice. We cooked our own chips.

Note these are styled in the British manner, chunky, uneven to an extent, neither prissy matchsticks nor processed extrusions. Frying is in two operations, a first dousing in hot oil to seal the outsides and cook the middles, followed by a second immersion in the reheated oil to bring everything to a glorious golden brown.

We did make some concessions to the Continent; garlic mayonnaise (made with the Plamil vegan mayo) is an innovation worthy of adoption but at least some of the chips were doused in salt and vinegar to honour tradition.

jelly belly

Tonight's dinner was unmemorable, quinoa with a vegetable stew, reminiscent of 7 vegetables couscous but lacking any guts or authenticity, so that's not been recorded as it contributes nothing to posterity.

However, we did have a pleasant luncheon dessert; a Summer Fruits Jelly made with morello cherries and blueberries from the garden, simmered in a light syrup made with vanilla sugar and enriched with a few tablespoonfuls of Creme de Cassis. The jelly was set with agar agar, just 2g of the powder was sufficient to set a half litre of compote. Purists will note that agar powder is considered less good than the flakes as it is more heavily processed but it worked well for this recipe.

Gnocci in Tomato Sauce

Peasant food - something to make with a lot of potatoes and a lot of tomatoes. Distinctly filling and calorific, loaded with herbs, garlic and olive oil.

Make Gnocci from potatoes cooked with several cloves of garlic, mashed with a big spoonful of pistou and a glug of olive oil. The mash is then kneaded into a dough by the addition of flour and formed into small dumplings, traditionally shaped with ridges from the back of a fork. These ones aren't really ridged very well, I was in a hurry.

Cook the dumplings in a big pan of boiling water, have the water boiling as you drop them in and as they rise to the surface scoop them out with a slotted spoon or sieve and drain.



Arrange the boiled dumplings in an oven proof dish, cover with a rich tomato sauce - the herbs in our meal tonight were sage, rosemary and lovage - add nutritional yeast flakes, some grated nuts or some bread crumbs for a crispy topping and bake until the sauce is bubbling and the top of the food is browned.



Serve with a green salad and a good wine.

Mea culpa

This post is to fill the gap left by an unrecorded Saturday.

Yes, we ate but I have to admit that I perverted my partner and so we both indulged in savoury rice...

Potstickers

A form of Chinese dim sum dumpling, made as authentically as I know how but that's not saying much...

Pot stickers use a wrapping dough made with flour, a little oil (sesame is best) and some nearly boiling water, just enough to make firm dough. Knead it well and allow to rest for 20 minutes before rolling out tiny nuggets into very thin 8-10 cm circles. If you have access to a good Chinese supermarket you can buy wrappers ready made.

The filling - in this case finely chopped stir fried mushrooms, onions and cabbage flavoured with garlic, ginger and soy sauce - is then enclosed in the manner of a Cornish pasty or alternatively as a little money bag shape.

The dumplings are first fried until their bottoms become crispy golden brown and then steamed in the same pan by adding a half cupful of hot seasoned stock and covering with a lid. The dumplings' tops are cooked in the steam and the liquid loosens the fried bases from the pan. Let the dumplings cook for about 12 minutes after adding the liquid, adding a little more hot water if they look like drying up too soon. There should be almost no liquid left at the end of cooking.

Serve with a dipping sauce of soy sauce, rice (or sherry) vinegar mixed with a little grated ginger and fresh garlic and diluted by about an equal volume of water.

Potstickers

A form of chinese dim sum dumpling, made as authentically as I know how but that's not saying much...

Two Courses, Two diners, Two cooks

Ratatouille - that most abused and currently most filmic, almost unique example of French vegan dishes.

To cook authentically; Each vegetable must be prepared and cooked separately before assembly into the final glorious melange. Use onions, courgettes, aubergines, peppers and combine with tomatoes, basil, black pepper and as much olive oil as you can accommodate. Don't forget the garlic. This was my contribution to the meal.

For pudding we had

Bananas - Drunk as punch.

Unlike my rather caramelly and browned coconut milk simmered bananas these are cooked in sugar and alcohol alone. The simmering reduces the alcoholic content considerably leaving soft and soothing bananas in a rich sweet sauce that calls out for the addition of vegan vanilla icecream. This is Paul's own creation.