In my kitchen - May 2013

Over the past few months I've enjoyed reading "In my kitchen" posts written by my blogging buddies Johanna, Kari, Vaishali and Sandy and decided to join in too. This monthly event is hosted by Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial. This is what's been happening in my kitchen...

In my kitchen is a coffee machine and bean grinder. This is the third coffee machine we have owned which was purchased four or five years ago, the previous two models we had only lasted about two years before breaking down. I would have to say this is my favourite appliance as it's used every single day. One cup of coffee a day is all I usually need as long as it's a good quality strong one like this.

In my kitchen are lemons from our young tree which are being used up as quickly as they are ripening. The tree went through minor surgery over summer due to an attack of gall wasp, unfortunately some branches with many new buds had to be amputated and subsequently the yield has been less than I was hoping for. I haven't had the chance to make our favourite lemon slice yet and must rectify this soon.

In my kitchen are some animals on my window sill. The jade elephant was a souvenir we bought when travelling to Thailand (this particular pose with the trunk lifted in the air is supposed to be good luck). The glass horse sat on my mum’s dresser for years before she passed it onto me. The jade cat was a gift from my mother in law from an overseas trip and the wooden elephant belongs to the man although he can't recall where it came from.

In my kitchen are home made vegan cheeses and rejuvelac, a fermented liquid used for culturing the cheeses. Artisan Vegan Cheese by Miyoko Schinner was sitting on my cookbook shelf for several months before I finally had the time to delve into it. A lot of patience and self control is required for these recipes to work their magic. There isn't too much hands on work involved although some of the cheeses are best enjoyed after resting for 4 weeks! The cheeses in the photo are a cashew chevre and sharp cheddar with rejuvelac in the background. The sharp cheddar has been my favourite so far.

In my kitchen are delicious meals like these curries; a result of recipe testing for Leigh Drew. I've been enjoying testing for Leigh recently as I'm a fan of her cookbook Wrapped in Pastry and have also loved several recipes I've made from her blog. Leigh's exciting new cookbook will be released later this year!

In my kitchen are some substandard chocolate chip cookies. They have taught me a couple of lessons, to follow my own recipes closely and not to bake things late at night! My fellows had a hankering for something sweet last weekend so I hastily baked a batch of cookies for them. I was slack with measuring and didn't use enough flour which made the cookies way too soft. They also stuck together when I put them in a container as I was frustrated with my cooking blunder and didn't allow them to cool down enough before transferring them. Despite these woes, they still tasted great!

In my kitchen are olives soaking in a pot. They will remain here for the entire month with the water changed every second day! This is the first year our young trees have produced enough olives to bother making an effort with. There are more olives on the trees that are yet to ripen and I plan to experiment with some alternative preparation methods in due course.

In my kitchen are spicy Indian snacks. They are similar to Twisties yet they are coated in spices rather than flavoured with cheese or chicken like regular Twisties. I visit a local Indian spice shop every few months to replenish my hoard of spices and cannot resist their ongoing special of three packets for $4 every time I shop there. They are made from corn meal, rice meal, gram meal, vegetable oil and an assortment of spices. As well as tasting great I also like that there are no suspicious codes to watch out for in the ingredients list.

Thanks Celia for hosting this fun event! I look forward to peeking into other people's kitchens too.

Vegan MoFo - Stopover 20 - Vanuatu

Vanuatu is a group of 83 islands in the South Pacific. The cuisine is mainly based on seafood, root vegetables such as taro and yams, fruit and other vegetables. Papayas, pineapples, mangoes, plantains and sweet potatoes are grown abundantly and commonly used in cooking. Coconut milk and cream are used as the main flavourings of dishes.

The national dish of Vanuatu is called lap-lap, a porridge made with coconut milk. This didn't appeal to me as I'm not a cereal type of gal, so I gathered inspiration from a page full of Vanuatu recipes. I liked the sound of a recipe called green popo curry even though I wasn't sure what popo actually was. Google wasn't helpful with my popo searches initially and insisted on giving me results for poop! When I eventually worked out that popo is green papaya, the recipe had my tick of approval. I've only previously used green papaya for som tam, the notorious spicy Thai salad, so I was pleased to find another way to cook with it.  

Another dish that caught my eye was citrus (orange and lemon) baked fish in coconut cream. This captured my interest as I had been keen to try out a different tofu baking technique that Kari had posted about earlier this month - orange baked tofu parcels. I adore baked tofu but have never wrapped it in foil with seasonings prior to baking before. I envisaged that the tofu would retain a much softer texture this way.

The green popo curry was very spicy and flavoursome, the green papaya appeared to have a fairly neutral taste and a pretty study texture. The tofu turned out to be very tender and did a fine job of soaking up the orange, lemon and coconut flavours it was baked with. Although I adore lemon and limes in just about everything, I'm not as keen on oranges in savoury items so I can't see myself making this dish again the same way. I did enjoy trialling a new approach of baking tofu and am excited about trying out a totally different combination of flavours I have in mind for tofu baked parcels next time.  


Green Popo (Papaya) Curry (Adapted from a recipe on this page)

2 tablespoons dairy-free margarine
1 large onion, thinly sliced into half moons
2 cloves garlic, mined
2cm piece ginger, minced
3 small thai green chillies, minced
1 tablespoon curry powder
300ml light coconut milk
½ cup water
½ teaspoon salt
1 large popo/green papaya (1.2kg), outer skin peeled, seeds removed and cut into bite sized pieces
1/3 cup lemon juice

Melt the dairy free margarine in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, ginger and chillies and fry for 5 minutes or until the onions have softened. Stir through the curry powder and cook for a minute then pour in the coconut milk, water and salt.

Add the papaya and stir well. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir through the lemon juice and serve with cooked rice.

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Did you know?

Pentecost Island in Vanuatu is where the origins of the modern thrillseeking activity bungee jumping can be traced back to. Land diving was an ancient practice which used tree vines rather than a bungee cord. The goal was to land close enough to the ground to graze it with your hair or shoulder. It was proof of their manhood (for the survivors anyway) and it also ensured a good yam harvest for the following season!

Do you want to know where else I've been this month? Click here for the round up.

Gluten free polenta cake for potluck

Gluten free baking is something I've been meaning to try for ages. Unfamiliar cooking styles like this can seem rather daunting at first and failures in the kitchen are never fun which is probably why I had put it off for so long. A vegan, gluten free potluck to celebrate the 3rd birthday of Planet VeGMeL was exactly the motivation I needed to delve into the world of gluten free baking (Planet VeGMeL is a site containing an aggregated feed of 57 Melbourne based veg*n bloggers which my blog has proudly been a part of since it's inception).

Last year I mistakenly included miso in what I thought were going to be gluten free tofu quiches for the potluck so I was extra careful to check every single ingredient that went into this cake. I was also mindful to ensure my cake tin was free of traces of crumbs from previous baking. Bryanna Clark Grogan's semolina cake has been enjoyed by us a few times now so I decided to attempt a gluten free version of this for the potluck.

After spending time looking up substitutes on gluten free baking sites, fine polenta appeared to be the best replacement for semolina. There were many options as a cake/pastry flour alternative and as I had an unopened packet of a gluten free flour mix in the pantry I decided to give this a shot. This cake took 5 minutes longer to bake than the semolina version and came out with a few cracks on top which wasn't necessarily a bad thing as it provided extra areas for the syrup to drizzle into.

As a initial gluten free baking experience it wasn't a bad effort yet I wasn't entirely impressed as I preferred the original version so much more. Having said that, I'm not the biggest fan of polenta and didn't really appreciate the texture. Regardless of how I felt about the cake, it was lovely to catch up with other bloggers again and share some delicious food. If you haven't done so already, check out the fantastic zine which a few bloggers contributed to and Danni did a wonderful job of editing. Happy birthday Planet VeGMeL and here's to many more!


Gluten free polenta cake with lemon syrup (Adapted from World Vegan Feast)

¾ cup raw sugar
¾ cup water
grated zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lemon
1½ cups fine polenta
½ cup gluten free flour mix
1 teaspoon turmeric
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1¼ cups raw sugar
1 cup soy milk
zest of 1 lemon
½ cup olive oil
¼ cup pistachios, chopped roughly

Place the sugar, water and lemon zest in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir through the lemon 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 or spray lightly with olive oil. Combine the gluten free flour, polenta, turmeric, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. With a hand held mixer, beat together the soy milk, sugar and lemon zest in a large bowl until the sugar has dissolved. Add the dry ingredients as well as 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 35-40 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Allow the cake to cool 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 approximately half of the cooled lemon syrup on top. The remainder of the syrup can be refrigerated in a sealed container for later use.

Bloggers night out at Gasometer

I haven't been using Twitter very long and am not in the habit of constantly checking up on the numerous tweets that people send out frequently so it was fortunate that I happened to be checking my Twitter page right when Theresa of The Tropical Vegan announced that she was coming to Melbourne. Theresa was travelling for work and her arrival on a Sunday night meant that she was free for a dinner date. After a bit of tweeting back and forth dinner was arranged at Gasometer.

It was wonderful to meet up with the lovely Theresa as I have been reading her posts for a couple of years and enjoy her recipes as well as hearing about gardening and house projects and more generally life in the tropics (Townsville) because I am quite fond of the Far North Queensland region. Which is exactly what we spent our time chatting about as well as our families, jobs, pets and of course, veganism, food and blogging.

Theresa had her heart set on the pastrami burger which is the perfect choice for an out of towner. I chose to try something different and ordered the broccoli, spinach and leek pancake with roasted root vegetables. The pancakes were light and delicious, the combination of greens in the filling tasted fantastic, the flavour of the leeks was apparent without being overwhelming and the creamy paprika spiked sauce on top brought it together perfectly. An even nicer surprise were the roasted vegetables on the side, the potatoes, beetroot, carrots, garlic and beans were delicious, cooked to perfection and presented attractively on the plate. This was the largest quantity of vegetables I've had in a meal at Gasometer.

When Theresa and I said our farewells, we both had little surprises in store for each other. Theresa made this adorable elephant for me as a thank you which has the sweetest little tail, gorgeous eyes and just look at that big long trunk. I haven't come up with a name for him/her yet but I really think it needs one. 

In the afternoon, I made a tangy lemon slice which was a recipe I had bookmarked from Kari of bite sized thoughts. I won't bother posting the recipe as I didn't change anything apart from adding a bit of lemon zest to the base. The only issue was I hadn't taken note that the slice needed to be refrigerated 2 to 4 hours prior to slicing. With just under an hour to spare, I whacked it in the freezer for a bit which seemed to suffice. I brought along some of the slice for Theresa in case she was in need of a sweet snack during her stay in Melbourne.

It's always a fantastic experience to meet up with other bloggers even for a shy introvert like me. I'm glad I got the chance to meet Theresa in person and look forward to catching up again one day, if not in Melbourne then perhaps in the tropics!

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This is the third time I have posted about eating at Gasometer, you can read my initial post about the old US diner styled menu here and the current Eastern European menu here. Since I last posted about Gasometer, I've eaten here a few more times but haven't had my camera with me.

The mushroom schnitzels are challenging the pastrami burger as the man's favourite meal, they have a lovely crust on the outside and a tasty mushroom filling inside with an interesting texture and is served with a delicious gravy. It comes with a huge amount of mashed potato which isn't terribly exciting and some garlicky green beans to make you feel good about having something green on your plate.

We have also tried the pretzel and the mamaliga fritters from the smaller plates section of the menu. The pretzel is a perfect dish for sharing between 2, 3 or more people, it's a huge freshly baked bread topped with large flakes of sea salt and fennel seeds and served with a mustard butter. The mamaliga fritters were a bit hit and miss for us but we aren't huge fans of polenta. I was expecting a higher ratio of the vegan goats cheese filling to the outer layer of polenta and the quantity of vegan cheese didn't seem to be consistent between the balls with some of them containing a very small amount. The accompanying sauce tasted great and made the fritters a bit more interesting.

I would also like to add that the waiting staff at Gasometer are very accommodating about taking home leftovers for those times when you happen to order too much food. It's a difficult task to get the man interested in trying other places these days as Gasometer's food has totally won him over.

Gasometer's new menu hasn't had much coverage since I last reviewed it. Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe is the only veg*n blogger I could find that has posted about it recently.

Gasometer
484 Smith St, Collingwood
Ph: 9417 5538

Lemon poppy seed cake

This may look like just another cake, to me it's a lot more than that! I'm fairly certain that this would have to be one of the best cakes I have ever baked, vegan or otherwise. It ticked all of the right boxes - light, moist, lovely flavour without being too sickly sweet and it was very simple to bake. The only box it didn't tick is that it's not exactly healthy which doesn't bother me as life is too short to worry about eating the right things all of the time.

Over the past month or so, our lemon tree has been taunting me. From a distance it appears there are plenty of fruit ready to be picked. When I'm about to rip some off ready for baking I discover green patches on the base or one side of the fruit and have to resort to the lemons from the grocers. So I have continued to wait patiently, planning many more recipes to make than I possibly could with my limited supply of fruit. It's only the first season the tree has been in the ground and with over 30 lemons this year, I'm optimistic for an even bigger crop next year.

Right up on the top of my list to make was a lemon poppy seed cake. I was planning to adapt it from an orange poppy seed cake recipe that my mother in law had given me years ago but I couldn't track down the recipe. A quick search led me to a lemon poppy seed cake on taste.com.au that needed a few vegan substitutions to be made. A further replacement had to be made for the self raising flour when I found a few nasty weevils lurking within my packet. Using plain flour plus baking powder for the self raising flour, nuttelex for the butter, soy milk for cow's milk, a bit of extra lemon juice and egg replacers I was delighted with how light and moist the cake turned out.

An interesting point to note from the recipe was that the poppy seeds were required to be soaked in warmed soy milk for 15 minutes initially. There was no explanation for this on taste.com.au so I did some further research and found that it was to soften the seeds and prevent them from drawing moisture out of the cake whilst baking. I'll never know if this made a difference as I don't think I'll make it any other way now!


Lemon poppy seed cake (Adapted from a recipe on taste.com.au)

50g poppyseeds
3/4 cup warm soy milk
1 cup raw castor sugar
2 cups plain flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3 egg replacers (I used 3 teaspoons Orgran whisked with 6 tablespoons water)
185g dairy-free margarine, softened
zest of 1 lemon plus 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Icing

1 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon dairy-free margarine
2 tablespoons (or a bit more) lemon juice

Mix the poppy seeds into a jug containing the warmed soy milk and allow to soak for 15 minutes.


Preheat the oven to 180C and line a 23cm x 10cm loaf tin with baking paper.


In a large bowl, place the castor sugar, plain flour, baking powder, egg replacers, dairy-free margarine, lemon zest, lemon juice and soy milk/poppy seed mixture. Beat with electric hand beaters until all ingredients are thoroughly combined. Pour the mixture into the lined tin and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile, mix the icing sugar together with a teaspoon of dairy-free margarine and slowly drizzle in the lemon juice, stirring all the time. If the icing becomes too runny, stir through some more icing sugar. When the cake has completely cooled down, spread the icing on top of the cake then refrigerate for 5 minutes to allow the icing to set.

Chickpea soup with mint and lemon

Recipe bookmarks tend to pile up and get out of control if you're a person like me. I am always adding more to the list and my occasional attempts to cull the older ones that have been hanging around for a while doesn't really seem to work. I guess I am addict when it comes to hoarding recipes!

I bookmarked a chickpea, lemon and mint soup from Green Gourmet Giraffe almost two years ago now. Johanna had made an interesting soup from Stephanie Alexander's cooking bible The Cook's Companion which is a cookbook I was given as a wedding present many years ago. The main reason for bookmarking Johanna's post was to remind me to look this recipe up in my copy as the size of this book and the thousands of recipes within can be rather daunting at times.

With some mint in the fridge that needed using up and a few lemons on my tree that were finally ripe, now was the perfect time to give this a try. I did forget to buy celery that was intended for the soup when I was out shopping and made a few vegetable alerations. Stephanie's method was different to other soups I had made and I didn't really follow her instructions and used my intuition more than anything. As I prefer my soup to be on the thicker side, I decreased the amount of stock which turned out to be a wise decision.      

The only issue I had with the recipe was the amount of lemon that was written in the ingredients, it was listed as the juice of 2 lemons. Lemons come in various shapes and sizes and some are juicer than others. Like Johanna, I only used about one and a half lemons and found this to be on the strong side initially although the addition of the mint and parsley garnishes did a good job of balancing out the flavours. This soup was lovely and creamy and simple to make, it just requires a bit of planning ahead as the chickpeas need to be soaked in advance.

Chickpea soup with mint and lemon (Adapted from The Cook's Companion and Green Gourmet Giraffe)

250g dry chickpeas
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 leeks, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
1 medium potato, peeled and diced
6 cups vegetable stock
Juice of 1½ lemons (just under half a cup)
½ teaspoon salt
freshly cracked black pepper
2 tablespoons fresh mint leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

Soak the chickpeas in a bowl filled with water overnight or at least 8 hours. Drain and rinse thoroughly in a colander.

Heat the olive oil on medium heat in a stockpot and add the coriander and cumin seeds. When the seeds begin to sizzle and smell fragrant, add the leeks, carrot and potato. Cook for 10 minutes until the vegetables have softened, stirring occasionally. Add the chickpeas and vegetable stock, bring to the boil and simmer, covered for 1 - 1½ hours until the chickpeas are soft.

Transfer the contents to a blender and process in batches until smooth. Pour the soup back into the pot and reheat on low. Stir through the lemon juice and seasoning to taste. Ladle into bowls and garnish with mint and parsley.

Raita for curry night

When the man and I were gobbling down gobi pakoras a couple of weeks ago, we decided it was time for us to host another curry night with his family. It was a great excuse to eat some more pakoras and spread their deliciousness around. This time I decided to experiment with some other vegetables and used some broccoli and sweet potato as well as cauliflower.

Terry's coriander chutney was perfect with the pakoras last time so I had to make it again. I also wanted to try a second dipping sauce this time, something cooler and not as spicy for people with lower heat preferences. After searching for vegan raita recipes, I settled on using a tofu based one from Vegetarian Times. It was very simple to put together and after an initial taste test I was concerned that there was still a slight taste of soy present so I added a bit of garlic just in case. I have found in the past that blended tofu sauces and dips develop more flavour after sitting in the fridge for a short period. The garlic may not have been entirely necessary in this recipe although no-one seemed to mind it either.

I made a small portion without cucumber as one of the dipping sauces for the pakoras and added cucumber to the remainder which was used as a cooling condiment on the dinner table to have with our curries. The pakoras were a huge success, particularly the broccoli and cauliflower ones even though the batter didn't work out quite as well as it had previously. Perhaps it wasn't a wise idea to mix it up too far in advance prior to using it.

Stay tuned for another post about our curry night soon!


Tofu raita with mint and cucumber (Adapted from Vegetarian Times)

224g silken tofu
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons brown rice vinegar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic, minced (optional)
1 thai green chilli, seeded and minced
1/2 lebanese cucumber, diced
1 tablespoon fresh mint, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon cumin

Place the tofu, olive oil, lemon juice, brown rice vinegar and salt in a blender and process until smooth. Transfer the contents to a bowl and stir through the garlic, chilli, cucumber, mint and cumin. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Lemon slice

In my childhood there were a couple of sweet recipes that various family members were renowned for bringing along to gatherings. One aunt used to make a chocolate peppermint slice which I veganised for last Christmas. The other popular sweet that used to appear at these family dos was a lemon slice. A different aunt was responsible for this recipe which I had completely forgotten about until recently.

My mum offered to bring it along to the young man's party as my niece and nephew adore this slice. It turned out to be a big hit with my brother-in-law (on the man's side) so mum kindly emailed me the recipe to pass onto him. After scanning the ingredients I had a feeling it would be simple to make a vegan version, dairy-free margarine for butter, soy condensed milk for regular and Nice biscuits instead of Marie.

The slice turned out to be just as delicious with these vegan modifications as I recall it previously. It's a cinch to put together and appeases most tastebuds so I will certainly be making it again.
  

Lemon slice (Adapted from an old family recipe)

250g Arnott's Nice biscuits
1 cup desiccated coconut, plus extra for topping
300ml Soymilke soy condensed milk
50g dairy free margarine
2 lemons, finely zested and juiced
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essense

Place the biscuits in a food processor and pulse until the biscuits become a fine powder. Transfer the processed biscuits to a bowl and stir through the coconut and lemon zest.

In a small saucepan, heat the condensed milk and margarine together until the margarine has melted, stirring frequently. Pour into the bowl containing the biscuits, coconut and lemon zest and mix everything together thoroughly.

Spread the mixture evenly in a 28 x 18cm tray lined with baking paper. Place in the refrigerator for 15 minutes or until it sets.

Meanwhile, place the icing sugar in a bowl. Add the vanilla essense and slowly drizzle in some of the lemon juice. Mix together until a thick icing results. If the icing is too thick, add a little more lemon juice and if it's too thin, add some more icing sugar.

Spread the icing over the top of the biscuit layer and then sprinkle dessicated coconut on top of the icing. Return to the refrigerator for another 30 minutes then cut into small squares. Store in a container in the fridge.