No Food Blog today

We've eaten too much too soon and forgotten to photograph it.

Out to lunch

Today Mr. Stripey Cat and I were lucky to be invited out to lunch at the house of a new friend, Rosalind, one of the very few other vegans in all of Normandy.

Rosalind and her delightful children put on a wonderful spread for us. The starter was a thick borscht with delicious sourdough bread. The main course was a Marinated Tofu and Chickpea Bake from Linda Majzlik's book "Vegan Barbecues and Buffets" (ISBN 1 897766 55 6) served with salads of artichoke hearts, french beans and cocktail tomatoes. This was really delicious and although I don't own the book myself I've persuaded Rosalind to copy the recipe for me so that we can make it again for ourselves. The pudding was a refreshing plum crumble with added ginger, again absolutely lovely although by then we were almost too full to appreciate it.

It's so nice to be treated to a special meal like this and I look forward to the day when I can return the favour. Thank you very much Rosalind.

Enchiladas for two

Dinner tonight inspired by Mexico, created with the contents of the store cupboard.

Wheat tortillas were wrapped around a filling of onions, kidney beans, sweet corn and celeriac seasoned with thyme, basil, cumin and chili paste.

They were placed in a well oiled baking dish and covered with chopped tomatoes and nutritional yeast moistened with extra tomato juice. Baked in a hot oven for 40 minutes they were delicious and filling.

What they lacked; sweet peppers in the mix, coriander leaves in the herbs and limes to squeeze over at serving time but those weren't such terrible omissions and we can remember them for next time.

Blackberry Crumble 22/07/07

Blackberry Crumble made with the first, unexpected, blackberries of the season.

Crumble topping is so easy - take a quantity of flour, half its weight in a good vegan margarine and a quarter of the weight in fine sugar.

Rub the fat into the flour, mix in the sugar and gently sprinkle over fruit - either raw soft fruit as here or prepared lightly cooked apples or pears - until you have a thick layer. Pat down gently but remember this should be a crumble, not a shortbread crust. Add a further sprinkle of sugar for colour and sparkle. If you like extra spice add this to the fruit before covering.

Bake until the crumble is golden and fragrant, about 40 mins at 180C. The fruit may bubble up from below so set your pie dish over a tray if you don't want to make a dirty oven.

Eat with soya cream, yoghurt or dairy free vanilla icecream.

Paul took this

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1257/875471145_af51a8c01b.jpg

Saturday was a long day

And I didn't get a lot to eat so late in the evening, for me anyway, I made a couple of easy, luxurious sorts of food to cheer myself up.

Above, Canapés with Coarse Cut Guacamole. The avocados were in a perfect state of ripeness so it seemed nicer to keep the natural texture.

Below, one of the problems with food blogging. If I tell you that this baked pudding has bananas, muscovado sugar, coconut milk and rum in it your imagination will tell you it's likely to be delicious (unless you hate one of the ingredients of course) but if I show you the picture you may be put off. Don't be, this is a really easy and totally wonderful pudding. Be sure to allow at least two bananas per serving.

Saturday was a long day

And I didn't get a lot to eat so later in the evening, for me anyway, I made

Sausages

This was a surprisingly delicious dinner, the highlight of which was the sauce which was rich, salty and delightfully inadequate causing an instant craving for more which cannot be satisfied.

The sausages are made with ground hazelnuts and breadcrumbs bound in a thick roux flavoured with thyme and marmite. The mixture was then formed into sausages and shallow fried. The potatoes, Ratte, are some of a very few that we grew this year which escaped the blight. A firm waxy salad potato with a good flavour and texture. Lightly cooked Savoy cabbage completed the meal.

The sauce was made by deglazing the sausage pan with a little of the cabbage water, some vegan stock powder, a good glug of red wine and a splash of soy sauce cooked down until glossy and thick.

Rice Paper Spring Rolls

This didn't work out quite as well as I hoped - I wanted to cut the rolls into sections and serve each section on an endive spoon which would hold a drizzle of dipping sauce within it and carry the morsel to the mouth.

My wrapping technique needs practise because the rolls simply weren't tight enough to work the way I wanted them to.

However, they tasted pretty good. The filling was rather different to the traditional one, using matchsticks of fresh courgette from the garden with matchsticks of potato, lightly cooked and mixed with garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, mint and chillies. Peanuts would have been a good and authentic addition but I had none and lemon grass would have lifted the whole thing to a new level.

Needs more work!

Wanted

I was going to make hazelnut "sausages" tonight and the reason I haven't is another story that doesn't really fit here so instead I thought I'd write a quick wish list for things missing in my French kitchen that I'm beginning to feel the lack of.

Blender/liquidiser/food processor - now I normally claim these things are not essential because miracles can be achieved with a sharp knife and good technique but for grinding nuts or making breadcrumbs they really are a time saver. Easier to make hummous or felafel mixtures too. I do have a stick blender, a real bargain at 7 euros which whizzes a soup adequately but it's too underpowered to be of use for anything else.

Mandoline - again, a sharp knife will substitute but for making paper thin slices of vegetables a mandoline is essential even if you do have to watch your finger tips like a hawk.

Ice cream maker - I can count on the fingers of two hands the number of times I've actually used my ice cream maker in the UK but suddenly in France it's become a necessary of life, explain that!

Bamboo Steamer Trays and lids - I'm beginning to get tired of fried.

Microplanes - funny how nearly everything comes back to cutting implements. My microplanes are used everyday for grating garlic, ginger, horseradish and I miss them.

Pestle and mortar - maybe if I had a set here I wouldn't miss the food processor so much.

There's more, but that will have to do for now.

Aren't these endives pretty? I hope to do something fantastic with them tomorrow.