Soup, casserole, cake and a new family member

Life has been a little crazy over the past couple of weeks which means that blogging has taken a backseat. There are so many posts I would love to be writing as I've been cooking up plenty of interesting meals, unfortunately there aren't enough hours in the day so I haven't had the time to follow most of them up with a blog post.

Our time has largely been devoted to our new family member Ollie. Long time readers of my blog may remember the heartache we experienced last year with our dog Jasper after he was diagnosed with a bone cancer. Jasper successfully went through a hind leg amputation and lived an active and happy 6 months before deteriorating rapidly when the cancer spread to his lungs. It was a devastating experience and has taken almost a year for us to feel ready to accept another dog into our home.

We went through a lengthy period of attempting to adopt a dog via various rescue organisations. After a lot of waiting, red tape and many close calls we ended up finding an older puppy outside of these organisations that was in just as much need, if not more, of a good caring home. A group of young international students had purchased a border collie puppy from a breeder obviously without having any knowledge of dogs or this particular breed of working dog. The pup had been confined to the inside of their house for 5 months, was never walked, trained or even desexed and had developed into a bundle of frenetic energy that just wanted to jump all over people. They were so desperate to get rid of the problem they had unknowingly created and didn't even bother to say goodbye when we took him off their hands!

In just over a week with us Ollie has learnt to stop jumping on people (most of the time), walk on the lead, sit, stay, drop and go to his bed. He is a sweet pup that is very eager to please but there are still a lot of areas where he needs work, including learning not to chase our dear old cat Monty! It has been an exhausting period as he can be the equivalent of a badly behaved toddler at times although it is wonderful to have a canine companion around the house again.

A couple of weekends ago I pulled up some more borage plants to make soup. This dark green soup was very basic and adapted from an old celtic recipe which we initially enjoyed and likened the flavour of the borage to spinach. Unfortunately the leftovers didn't fare as well! The following day the soup was very thick and set like jelly. It thinned out a little after it was reheated although the flavour wasn't as nice as it had been on the first day. The man thought that it tasted like egg yolk and although we did finish our bowls I'm not sure that I would use borage this way again.

The other night I baked a tortilla casserole to use up some very old corn tortillas that had been in the fridge for ages. I made the tortilla casserole from Viva Vegan a while ago and didn't have the right ingredients for it this time so I created my own version. Rather than topping it with a creamy nut/tofu based sauce, I crumbled some plain corn chips followed by grated cheezly. The sauce that was spread within the tortillas included pinto beans, corn kernels and diced mushrooms. I love the concept of a tortilla casserole as it's like a Mexican styled lasagne, this recipe is simple and versatile as it could be changed up to suit whatever vegetables or beans happen to be on hand. This meal was fantastic and just as tasty as I recall the one in Viva Vegan, it's definitely something I'll be repeating again as it was a hit with all of us.

A recent acquisition to my ever growing pile of cookbooks is World Vegan Feast by Bryanna Clark Grogan. I wrote about Bryanna's delicious tofu "fish" fingers recently which is a recipe that is posted on her blog. I have made a handful of recipes from World Vegan Feast recently and they have all been fantastic. I had been eyeing off a recipe for a lebanese semolina cake with lemon syrup from the book and ended up making it with limes as my mother in law gave me heaps from her tree. The semolina cake which is also known as sfoof was supposed to be topped with slivered almonds and as there were none in the house I used some chopped pistachios instead. This cake had a nice tangy flavour from the syrup, a different texture from the semolina and it was so lovely and moist. The syrup is supposed to keep the cake fresher for a longer period. I'm not sure we will be able to test that theory as I have a feeling that it won't last long around here.

Hopefully I'll be able to get back into more regular blogging soon, for the time being I'll leave you with these three recipes.

Borage soup (Adapted from a recipe on celtnet)

2 tablespoons dairy free margarine
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup basmati rice
4 cups vegan chicken stock (I used Massel stock powder)
450g borage leaves, washed thoroughly
½ cup cashews
1/3 cup water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
¼ teaspoon salt
Salt and pepper, to taste
Garnish borage flowers

Melt the margarine in a stockpot over medium heat and fry the onion and garlic for 5 minutes or until softened. Add the rice and stir thoroughly so that all of the grains are coated. Pour in the vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Stir through the borage leaves and allow to cook for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the cashews, water, lemon juice and salt in a blender and process until a smooth paste results. Stop the blender and scraping down the sides a few times if necessary. Transfer the contents to a bowl and refrigerate. Rinse out the blender with warm water.

When the borage has cooked for 20 minutes, transfer the contents of the pot to the blender and process in batches until it is completely smooth. Return the blended soup to the stockpot and reheat gently. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve the soup ladled into bowl with a dollop of the cashew cream, garnished with borage flowers.


Tortilla casserole (Inspired by Viva Vegan)

1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
150 g mushrooms, diced
1 teaspoon cumin
1 heaped teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 x 400g tin pinto beans, drained and rinsed
400g fresh tomatoes, chopped (or use a tin)
3 tablespoons tomato paste
½ cup water
½ teaspoon smoked salt (or use regular)
6 small corn tortillas (15cm diameter), cut into halves
Large handful of plain corn chips
100g cheezly, grated
Serve with cashew cream, guacamole and salsa picante

Preheat oven to 180C.

Heat the oil in a deep sided frying pan over medium heat, add the onion and fry for about 5 minutes or until soft. Stir through the garlic for a minute, then add the mushrooms and cook until softened. Add the cumin, oregano, cayenne pepper and smoked paprika and stir until fragrant then add the corn kernels, pinto beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, water and smoked salt. Allow to cook for 10 minutes.

Spread a thin layer of the sauce in the bottom of a 20cm x 20cm baking dish and layer a couple of tortillas on top. Repeat the layering another 2 times finishing with the sauce on top. Crumble a large handful of corn chips on top followed by grated cheezly. Cover with foil and bake in the oven for 20 minutes then remove the foil and bake for a further 10 minutes. Serve with cashew cream, guacamole and salsa picante.


Sfoof - Lebanese semolina cake with lime syrup (Adapted from World Vegan Feast)

¾ cup raw sugar
¾ cup water
grated zest of 1 lime
juice of 4 limes (about 2/3 cup)
½ cup pastry flour (low gluten)
1½ cups fine semolina
1 teaspoon turmeric
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1¼ cups raw sugar
1 cup soy milk
zest of 1 lime
½ cup olive oil
¼ cup pistachios, chopped roughly

Place the sugar, water and lime zest in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir through the lime juice thoroughly, then pour the contents into a jug and refrigerate until required.

Preheat oven to 180C.

Line a 23cm round cake tin with baking paper and grease lightly with dairy free margarine. Combine the pastry flour, semolina, turmeric, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. With a hand held mixer, beat together the soy milk, sugar and lime zest in a large bowl until the sugar has dissolved. Add the contents of the small bowl and the oil and beat at medium speed for 5 minutes. Pour the batter into the cake tin and sprinkle the chopped pistachios on top. Bake for 35 minutes on until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Cool the cake for 10 minutes, then remove carefully from the tin. Using a bamboo skewer, pierce small holes all over the top of the cake then pour the cooled lime syrup on top.

Borage and tofu ricotta cannelloni

There has been a patch of borage in our front garden for several years which is pretty much impossible to get rid of. The borage plants have been removed on weeding days although they are incredibly resilient and always reappear before long. The plants have lovely bright blue flowers which happen to be edible and look very pretty as a salad garnish so I've been quite happy for the plants to remain in the garden as long as they are under control.

The man had been complaining about them recently and was threatening to do another borage cull. It led me to think that if the flowers are edible perhaps it is also the case with other parts of the plant. It turned out that my hunch was right! Searching on the internet led me to fascinating discoveries about this formerly pesky plant, the leaves, stems and flowers are all edible. I've been excitedly talking about using borage in recipes ever since!

Borage soup was the most common hit when searching for recipes and not far behind was a regional dish from Liguria, Italy for borage and ricotta ravioli. The Spanish parboil the leaves and then deep fry them and the Polish use borage to flavour pickled gherkins. I was very tempted to try out a soup first and then figured I may have better success with converting my fellows onto the borage bandwagon with a pasta dish. Ravioli sounded like a bit too much work so I went with making cannelloni instead.

Some care needed to be taken when picking leaves from the plants as the older leaves are covered in fine spines. The spines are supposed to disappear when they come into contact with liquid so I was a bit concerned when they remained after soaking them in water. When I had cooked them in a stockpot they were almost gone although there were still a few remaining.

I used my broccoli and tofu ricotta cannelloni recipe as the basis and tweaked it a little. On occasion my pasta dough hasn't worked out terribly well using half semolina, half flour so I went back to a straight flour mix this time and gave the dough a decent knead before it's resting period. For the filling I increased the amount of nutritional yeast and salt and also added in some lemon juice and nutmeg.

The young man was very surprised that it didn't taste awful, in fact he rather enjoyed the meal. He had misgivings about borage due to it's name. He was associating it with porridge which he doesn't like at all as their names are pronounced the same way. From what I had read, it was supposed to have a mild cucumber taste although mixed up in the cannelloni it was difficult to get a proper sense of it's flavour. It's appearance reminded me of a spinach cannelloni yet it had a slightly chewier texture.

It was pleasing that we all enjoyed the meal, especially as the star of the show was plucked from the garden and has been growing like a weed. The real test will be how we fare with something like borage soup which I'm planning to try soon. I'll leave you with a few tidbits about borage that you may find interesting as well as the recipe.

Interesting facts about borage

• The origins of borage can be traced back to Syria and it's cultivation spread throughout the Mediterranean.
• It is an annual herb that was traditionally used for culinary purposes and as a medical remedy.
• Nautropaths use borage to treat PMS and menopause symptoms. It has anti-inflammatory properties which diminishes respiratory symptoms.
•  Borage is used for companion planting with legumes, spinach, the brassica family, strawberries and tomatoes. 
• They attract lots of bees to the garden. Can you spot one in the photo?
• 100g of borage contains 10% of your daily needs of calcium and 20% of your daily requirements of iron so it's a great thing for veg*ns to eat. It's also a very good source of Vitamins A and C. 

Resources used when researching borage

• Wikipedia page about borage
• Herb Expert - cooking with borage
• HAGC - The courage to cook with borage
• Self - Nutrition Data

Borage and tofu ricotta cannelloni (Adapted from my other cannelloni recipe)

Pasta dough

1 1/2 cup plain flour
pinch salt
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons olive oil

Place the flour and a pinch of salt into a bowl, mix together thoroughly and make a well in the centre. Pour the water and olive oil into the well and work the flour into the water slowly until the mixture comes together. Turn it out onto a clean bench and knead for 5 minutes or until the dough is smooth. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and rest for 30 minutes.

Borage and tofu filling

400g fresh borage leaves, washed thoroughly
350g firm tofu
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
pinch nutmeg

Bring some water to the boil in a stockpot. Cook the borage leaves for 2-3 minutes or until wilted. Drain into a colander then rinse with cold water. Squeeze out as much liquid as possible.

Place the cooked borage, tofu, nutritional yeast, garlic, salt, lemon juice and nutmeg into a food processor bowl and pulse for about a minute. The resulting mixture should be soft and crumbly and the borage finely chopped.

Tomato sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
700ml jar tomato passata
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
pepper, to taste

Heat olive oil in a medium saucepan, add the onion and cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes until the onion has softened. Stir through the garlic for a minute then add the tomato passata, basil and salt. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Season with pepper to taste.

Cannelloni assembly

Use a pasta machine or rolling pin to roll out thin sheets of pasta. Cut out rectangular shapes of pasta measuring the width of your baking tray. Place a line of the filling down the centre of the pasta, then roll up to enclose the filling. Repeat until the pasta or filling runs out.

Spread about 1/4 of the tomato sauce over the bottom of a 30cm x 20cm baking dish. Place the cannelloni tubes in the tray then cover with the remaining sauce. Cover with foil and bake in the oven at 180C for 40 minutes or until bubbling.