November 30, 2008: Brunetti XIII

As Michael mentioned, we had Damian and Annette as houseguests for the weekend. They were hit with sizable hangovers on Sunday, their last day with us, so we first guided them to Filter for a cooked breakfast. Somewhat refreshed, they were in a sufficient state for a gentle stroll along Brunswick St and through Carlton Gardens (Damian's a fan of the Royal Exhibition Building) before it was time for one last Melbourne coffee. Surprisingly it was Michael who thought to lead them to Brunetti, where we tend to take all our guests.

Though most of Brunetti's desserts are available year-round, I noticed a few new items entering the sweet rotation - most of them creamy creations served in cups. The larger ones go for $5 or $6, but there are also shot-glass-sized tasters such as the Bicchierini that I chose ($3). Indeed, I think bicchierini is Italian for 'small glasses', so you're probably just looking at a single bicchierino. It contains micro-layers of vanilla mousse and raspberry coulis, a cute concoction with a jam-and-cream flavour. It's a little over-priced but it's the kind of cheery mouthful that could just make your morning.

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With a Brunetti trip for every houseguest (and perhaps a couple extra besides), this cafe has earned its own category. You can read every account here.

November 29, 2008: Savoury quinoa cake

It seemed on Saturday that baking biscuits wasn't enough. Even though I knew I'd probably be eating dinner alone I was compelled to prepare a full meal, telling myself that the leftovers would serve me well for workday lunches. A more accurate explanation is that I was at a loose end without an internet connection. Without the ability to write or read food blogs I resorted to creating more food blogging fodder for later! Of course I couldn't refer to my enormous to-cook list of online recipes; actually, it was a good opportunity to try something from my smaller to-cook collection stored elsewhere.

With soy bacon in the fridge and a full packet of organic quinoa in the cupboard I quickly settled on Clotilde Dusoulier's recipe for mushroom, bacon and quinoa cake, taken from her first book Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen. Like the cornmeal crunch I prepared a weekend earlier, this recipe isn't difficult but it takes a quite some time to bring together - the quinoa must be cooked and other bits chopped and sauteed before you even bother with preheating the oven for the 40-minute bake.

It all yields a hefty feed - Clotilde suggests that these 10-12 serves do well on a buffet table and I'm sure she's right. If only mine looked more appetising! Sadly the sauteed mushrooms tinged the entire cake a sickly grey. It tasted fine, though I would have enjoyed more of the crispy crust and less of the moist centre - if I made it again, I'd try spreading it into a larger rectangular baking dish to increase its surface area and crust. The cake's mild flavour is easily perked up with a side salad of rocket and capers.

Savoury quinoa cake
(based on Gâteau de quinoa, champignons & bacon/quinoa, bacon, and mushroom cake from Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen by Clotilde Dusoulier)

2 cups quinoa, uncooked but rinsed
2 cups water
1 mushroom stock cube
145g soy bacon, sliced
1 onion, chopped
600g mushrooms, sliced
1 teaspoon oil
3 large eggs
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Put the quinoa, water and stock cube in a medium saucepan and bring them to the boil. Reduce the heat to simmer them, covered, until the quinoa absorbs all the liquid - this will take about 15 minutes.

While the quinoa's cooking, heat up a large frypan or saucepan and add the oil. Cook the onion over medium heat until softened (about 8 minutes), stirring it often. Next add the mushrooms and cook for another 5-10 minutes, until most of their liquid has evaporated. Set aside the onion and mushrooms, and use the same pan to cook the soy bacon for a few minutes.

Allow all the above ingredients to cool a bit, then preheat the oven to 200 degrees C and grease a baking dish or springform cake pan.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, salt and pepper. Stir through the quinoa and mushroom mixtures, then the soy bacon and the parsley. Pour the batter into the baking dish and smooth over the surface a little. Bake it for 30-40 minutes, until the edges are golden (or grey-golden!) and crusty, and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow 5 minutes or so for it to cool, then ease the cake edges away from the dish with a knife. Slice and serve warm or at room temperature.

November 29, 2008: Chunky monkey cookies

I was down to my last salad dressing cupcake and a solitary Saturday stretched out in front of me - time for some baking! I believe this recipe was created by Vanessa of vanesscipes, a Brooklyn-based vegetarian blog that's sadly now defunct. I bookmarked these cookies over a year ago and was disappointed to discover a dead link. It took me a couple of days to think of googling the recipe name and check if anyone else had made these. Of course they had - "they" being Valerie of in such a world.

The original name for them is Vegan Banana Peanut Butter Cocoa Cookies - it gives you a pretty good idea of what goes into them, though you might also be interested in the inclusion of coconut oil (I just used Copha). The ingredients list struck me as kind of tropical, and something a monkey would surely love! Combined with their squat, nubbly shape, I feel compelled to rechristen them chunky monkey cookies.

As well as relying on Copha for the coconut fat, I made a couple of other alterations - replacing half of the plain flour with wholemeal, and using raw sugar instead of brown (I was all out). The Copha didn't really contribute anything and I wouldn't bother with it again - Nuttelex should do just fine. The wholemeal flour worked out great, so much so that I'll try a full 2 cups of it next time. My mashing bananas weren't as ripe as they should have been, so I popped them in the oven for 10-15 minutes while it was preheating.

These cookies walk a very agreeable line between sweet indulgence and wholesome snack. They're sturdy with banana and wholemeal flour, but the cocoa and sweetness ensures that they taste like a genuine treat. The cookie dough is quite thick and dry and it made reasonably smooth balls, yet it seems inevitable that the baked cookies will be homely and misshapen. I was unsure about when they were 'done' but somehow got it right - there's crisp resistance on the surface and depths of dense softness within.

Chunky monkey cookies
(based on a recipe from vanesscipes via in such a world)

1 cup wholemeal flour
1 cup plain flour (consider subbing with more wholemeal flour)
1/3 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 very ripe bananas (or firm-ripe bananas, baked for 10-15 minutes until the skin begins to brown)
1 1/4 cups crunchy peanut butter
1/4 cup copha (or use Nuttelex)
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 firm-ripe banana, finely diced

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Lightly bake the first two bananas if they're too firm to mash easily.

In a smallish bowl, sift together the flours, cocoa, bicarb soda and salt. Mash those first two bananas in a separate dish.

In a larger bowl, beat together the bananas, peanut butter, copha, sugar and vanilla until very well combined. Gradually spoon in the cocoa/flour mixture while still beating - it'll be very thick and could take a while to mix properly.

Fold through the diced banana. I found this difficult since the banana is so much more delicate than the dough. I tended to chop the dough up into bits and scatter the banana pieces through it, so that one or two would get picked up as I rolled the dough into balls.

Roll generous teaspoons of the mixture into balls about an inch in diameter, and place them on a paper-lined baking tray (grease-free!). I found that mine didn't flatten in the oven, so I gave 'em a little squash.

Bake the cookies until the the outside lightens in colour and they develop cracks - mine took 10-15 minutes, I think.

November 27, 2008: Houndstooth III

We had visitors in town for the weekend and wanted to start things off with a low-key Melbourne dining experience. I pushed for another trip to Shakahari, but we decided to go for a slightly hipper vibe - Houndstooth on Johnston Street.

They have a fine selection of local - we enjoyed Mountain Goat and Grand Ridge brews - and international (although it turns out Japan's finest beer, Sapporo, is brewed in Canada!) beers, and a small but ever-changing menu.

There's usually just one vego option for each course (out of two or three in total), so Cindy and I only have to choose which courses to partake in - it's $20 for 3 or $15 for 2. We were both bold enough to opt for three courses: an entree, a main and a dessert.

The entree of the day was a gorgonzola, caramelised onion and thyme tart - it was a nice combination of flaky, soft pastry, sweet onions and creamy gorgonzola cheese. Cindy raved about it - it was clearly the highlight of the meal. Something to try at home perhaps.


The main of the day was a vegetable terrine with ricotta and a rocket and red cabbage parsley salad.

Apparently terrines are often served cold, but I was a bit surprised and disappointed that ours wasn't warmed up a bit. That's probably my problem more than Houndstooth's though. The flavours weren't particularly exciting either, although the salad worked pretty well. Verdict: adequate.

Cindy and I finally branched out at dessert time - lemon tart for Cindy and a chocolate cake for me. The choccie cake was popular - I snagged the last piece. It was rich, moist and chocolatey - definitely a worthy third course. Cindy was equally impressed with her lemon tart - particularly the pastry.

We've said it before about Houndstooth - the food's more homely than trendy, but the atmosphere is friendly and slightly hip. The prices aren't quite what they were, but $20 for three courses is still pretty reasonable.

Read about our previous trips to Houndstooth here and here.

November 26, 2008: Queen Victoria Night Markets III

Yep, the night market is back! The stalls don't seem to change much from year to year (though there's been a slight expansion) and you should be able to find every dish we've previously eaten there.

This time I took a tip from Kristy and bought a carrot and cashew pakoda wrap from Vegie Curry Man. Wrapped fresh in roti-style bread with greens and chutney, this is stall food at its absolute best.

Michael lined up a few stalls down for some Ethiopean food. The lentil sambussa ($2) is a deep-fried thin pastry stuffed with lentils, green chilli, onion and herbs. This was just a diversion from his two-dish combination with enjera ($10), featuring kik alicha (slightly pureed yellow split peas simmered in a sauce of onion, green chilli, herbs and spices) and misir (pureed lentils simmered in a spicy berbere sauce). Michael loved the misir but sadly the enjera is difficult to make the most of when it's tightly bundled up like this.

The night markets' meals have always held more appeal for me than the inedible wares, but this year keep an eye out for More To Love Vegan's Buttons - she's got her own stand packed with all your pin-backed needs!

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You can read about our previous visits to the Queen Victoria Night Markets here and here.

Tokyo Treats - mystery orbs

This Tokyo treat didn't come directly from Michael's brother Matt. He actually gave it to their mum but, fearing it contained something spicy and wasabi-flavoured, she passed it on to Michael and I. Actually, these are just sugared peanuts! Tasty, and not gritty from the sugar, they're best shared around lest you make yourself sick. Just sayin'.

November 23-24, 2008: Grubs

Of all Johanna's posts, my favourite is Gorgeous Grubs. These curiously named sweets are a long time favourite in Johanna's family and it wasn't the recipe that appealed to me so much as the memories she recounted as she rolled them. I didn't plan to make them at all until I was faced with an imminent seminar from a guest speaker at work and a case of baking fatigue. The simple mix-roll-refrigerate process seemed achievable. It also seemed to invite mixing up the ingredients to suit one's own needs and pantry - I went for a gluten-free version, replacing the Marie biscuits with my remaining rice bubbles and some ground almonds. I can envisage mixing in dried fruit and chopped nuts; now that Léna's shared her recipe for sweetened condensed nothing, even a vegan rendition is within reach!

These grubs struck me as the ideal food for a children's party. Not only are they simple to make, they don't require complicated ingredients and their flavour is simple and sweet, not sophisticated. Regardless, they proved very popular with my adult audience! And where do they get their name from? I'm not sure, but I can guess:

Grubs

1 1/3 cups rice bubbles
2/3 cup ground almonds
3 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
400g can sweetened condensed milk
~2/3 extra dessicated coconut for rolling

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the dry ingredients (rice bubbles, ground almonds, cocoa, dessicated coconut or any substitute you want to make). Pour over the condensed milk and stir it all together until well combined. Roll generous teaspoons of the mixture into balls and toss them through the extra coconut.

Johanna likes these best gooey and at room temperature, but they should otherwise probably be stored in the fridge.

November 23, 2008: Cornmeal Crunch

Though I revile them in their raw state, I love love love caramelised onions. They're all it took to have me bookmarking Heidi Swanson's cornmeal crunch recipe a couple of weeks ago, and to prepare it for Sunday lunch. Sweet melting onions aside, I'm unsure whether this turned out quite as Heidi intended. The U.S. seems to offer a wide variety of cornmeal - fine or coarse, steel or stone ground, yellow, white or even blue! Here all I readily see is polenta. Thankfully my polenta seemed to go through the textural changes that Heidi described in her recipe, so my rendition may be a worthy imitation.

I was pessimistic about this small amount of parmesan translating any cheesy flavour to the final dish, but it did fine; actually it was the onions that tended to disappear into the mix. Nevertheless the result is very pleasing indeed, especially with some baby spinach leaves and baked asparagus spears on the side. It's a little heavier than I expected, and I'll plan to add smaller chunks of it to a salad or soak up a soup with it next time. The only reason that 'next time' isn't tonight is that this recipe takes patience - get started well before your stomach's grumbling for service!

Cornmeal Crunch
(from 101 Cookbooks)

1 1/2 cups cornmeal/polenta
pinch of salt
3 medium onions, chopped
olive oil
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
3 cups water or vege stock (I added a vegetable stock cube to my water)

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Grease a baking or pie dish.

In a medium bowl, stir together the cornmeal, salt and 1 1/2 cups of water and set them aside.

Splash some olive oil into a frying pan on high heat, then add the onions. Stir occasionally to prevent the onions from sticking to the bottom - you'll need to stir increasingly often as they brown. Continue until they're collapsing into a sweet mush, this took me at least 10 minutes, and probably 20. Take them off the heat when they're done.

Pour 1 1/2 cups of water into a saucepan and bring it to the boil (this is when I added my stock cube). Add the cornmeal mush, bring it back up to the boil, and stir regularly for about 5 minutes. Heidi says that you want a texture 'thicker than a heavy frosting'. Take it off the heat when it's ready, and stir in the cheese and two thirds of the onions. Pour the cornmeal into your baking dish, smoothing over the top, a drizzle over a little more olive oil.

Bake the cornmeal until the edges are golden and they pull away from the side of the dish a bit. It'll take about 45 minutes. When it's done, slice it up and sprinkle it with the remaining onions.

November 22, 2008: Gingerlee III

Saturday morning did not have the best of beginnings. Michael and I had a group meeting to get to at 10am and the grey skys, whistling wind, and the late Friday night we'd just had didn't make getting up any easier. The only practical means of travel was by foot, through the rain. We arrived a few minutes early but needn't have bothered - there was no-one around. Not at the front door, nor at the back. We huddled in the covered stairwell and watched heavier rain, then hail, sweep through. By 10:20 we'd agreed that there was no meeting and Michael needed a second breakfast.

Turns out Mike and a couple of his friends were making their way to Gingerlee, so we muscled in on their table. Many of Brunwick's fine breakfast destinations house cabinets of muffins, slices, cookies and other delicacies but when I visit I'm usually seeking something more substantial. Not this time! I was delighted to try a passionfruit curd cheesecake, served cupcake-style. It was a baked cheesecake without a biscuit base - soft and fluffy with a double-tang from the cream cheese and the passionfruit. I'm not sure how much it cost, so I really don't know whether it's good value for money. Washed down with a cup of tea after a morning like ours, I know it was worth every cent regardless!

Michael sampled the substantial shakshouka (try saying that three times fast!). At $9.50, it's a generous portion - the Israeli tomato casserole was runny, spicy, and just right for mopping up with bread. However, Michael was less impressed with the baked eggs - it seems that Min Lokal's still reign supreme.

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You can read about our previous visits to Gingerlee here and here.

November 21, 2008: Soulfood III

Before hitting a gig in the neighbourhood on Friday night, Michael and I stopped in at Soulfood Cafe for the first time in over a year.

Michael ordered these fajitas ($12.50) from the specials menu. They tasted about as good as they look, but no better.

I had a shot at the marinated tofu burger ($12), and ordered it with tandoori sauce. The texture was much more to my liking than the tempeh burger, but it was a little bland. Turn the plate round, though, and you'll see this:

That's a lot of chips, right? And the good news is they're great chips, second only to the rosemary-seasoned gold standard at Grill'd. If only they came with a big pot of aioli.

I like Soulfood, but I wish I could love it. The staff are hip and friendly, the all-vegetarian menu looks promising and the servings offer value for money - only the meals seem a little hit and miss.

If you think you've sampled one of their greatest hits, tell us about it! I could do with some menu guidance.

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You can read about our previous visits to Soulfood Cafe here and here.

November 19, 2008: Leftover makeover - bean laksa

The beans I'd whipped up as part of our Sri Lankan feast a week before were ridiculously spiced - even by my curry-enthused standards, these were a bit much. Luckily, Cindy had the fine idea of repackaging them as a coconut-milk based soup - a kind of impromptu laksa. We figured the bean seasoning would provide most of the flavour, so I just added a handful of kaffir lime leaves and some onion, along with some sliced carrot, broccolini, cubed tofu and a couple of tins of coconut milk. To bulk things up we threw in the rest of the small amount of yellow rice we still had in the fridge and voila, our leftovers are gone.

This worked out pretty well - the bean seasonings still packed a bit of a punch, but the spice was nicely diluted by the coconut milk and rice. The kaffir lime leaves added a nice aroma to the whole meal, and we happily chomped our way through our big ricey mush for dinner and a few lunches.

November 16, 2008: A vegan tour of Box Hill

The decadence I anticipated was a Box Hill yum cha meet-up with the vegan potluck crew. Lisa had intended that most of us bike our way there from the inner north, thereby earning this feast. I withdrew early on the basis of my inadequate bike and even less adequate fitness; a few others developed late-hitting ailments (really! I don't think they were wussing out...) and ultimately Lisa and Michael were the only two hardcore enough to take it on. (You can read Lisa's account of their journey on her blog.)

A bike ride is not the only way to develop an appetite for yum cha. Toby, for example, skipped breakfast, and talking food all the way to Box Hill in Kristy's car seemed to have all three of us salivating. Actually, my hunger to visit the Vegie Hut has been growing for over two years; the restaurant's name and address were written by a vegetarian colleague in the farewell card given to me by my former lab in Brisbane. Once there, overwhelmed by the entirely vegetarian menu, I was happy to cede ordering duties to Toby and Kristy.

We started with congee. I've never eaten this savoury rice porridge before and was surprised how much I liked it. I think it's free of charge when you order two or more items from the yum cha menu. Each other dish below cost $4.20, and my descriptions are little more than guesses - pipe up in the comments if you know better than I do what I was eating!

Though they were deep-fried and delightfully crunchy, I didn't really take to these faux-seafood balls - the texture was a bit rubbery.

These were more to my liking - mixed vegetable cakes, with a crisp-fried crust and a thick, salty sauce.

More crisp, deep-fried vege treats!

Spinach dumplings.

The steamed 'ribs' in black bean sauce were a table-wide favourite.

BBQ mock-pork buns - also a winner.

I think this is steamed siew-mai - delicious, but difficult to maneouvre with chopsticks for a clumsy kid like me!

I didn't really take to these - they tasted chemical-y to me.

These super-processed nuggets, on the other hand? Awesome. I ate more than my fair share.

The four season buns each have a different sweet filling - I scored a black sesame one, while Michael chose taro.

With that, we were full. 'Twas a fine feast for about $15 each. But the edible adventures weren't over yet; Kristy next led us to the most functionally named Vegie Bakery.

This bakery features the kind of breads and pastries I'm accustomed to seeing through a Breadtop window, though these were all vegetarian! There were plenty of faux-meat specimens, but on Kristy's recommendation I chose this little green tea cake ($2.20).

It's not the kind of dessert I usually crave or indulge in, but I was won over by the flaky outer layers and sweet fudgy centre when I later ate it for afternoon tea.

Our final stop was the Golden Age Health & Vegetarian Food Mart for some take-home groceries. Here everyone perused the freezer for faux meats - I wasn't immune, but I also picked up a pack of Toby's favourite ramen and some powdered egg replacer (those salad dressing cupcakes were a timely reminder to try an egg alternative).

Laden down with frozen goods, we all headed home to our respective fridges. What a treat; to discover a new suburb and its food with a crew of like-minded eaters!

Vegie Hut
Address: 984 Whitehorse Road, Box Hill
Ph: 9898 2287
Website: www.vegiehut.com.au

Vegie Bakery
Address: 566 Station Street, Box Hill
Ph: 9898 8666

Golden Age Health & Vegetarian Food Mart
Address: 18b Rutland Road, Box Hill
Ph: 9898 2048

November 15, 2008: Warm pasta & sweet potato salad

After a somewhat decadent night out on Friday and in anticipation of more decadence on Sunday, I was keen to prepare something comparitively light and nourishing for dinner on Saturday. Unusually, I consulted our modest cookbook collection rather than my online bookmarks and picked out this warm pasta salad from vegie food. It takes advantage of the season's asparagus, features sprinklings of feta and pine nuts, and with pasta and sweet potato involved it's definitely a full meal on its own.

Though it's colourful and contains some lovely ingredients, this salad didn't quite work for us. The proportions seemed out of whack, with too much pasta and not nearly enough spinach or pine nuts. The feta we bought was tough and the flavours never really mingled, even as we ate it gradually over a number of days. I'm sure there's a great salad waiting to burst out from this ingredient list, but I think it'll need new proportions and a different dressing to really shine.

Warm pasta & sweet potato salad

750g sweet potato
2 tablespoons olive oil
500g pasta
325g marinated feta cheese in oil
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 bunch asparagus, chopped into short lengths
100g baby spinach leaves
2 tomatoes, chopped
40g pine nuts, toasted

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Peel the sweet potato and chop it into large cubes; plonk it into a large baking dish, drizzle it with the olive oil, season it with salt and pepper, and stir it all through. Bake the sweet potato until tender, about 20 minutes.

While the sweet potato is baking, boil a large saucepan of water and cook the pasta, draining it when it's done.

Drain the oil from the feta and whisk the oil with the balsamic vinegar as a dressing - we added some extra olive oil here to make up for our lack of marinating oil.

Steam the asparagus until tender, but still keeping its colour.

Stir all of the ingredients together in a large bowl - the sweet potato, pasta, asparagus, feta, spinach, tomatoes, pine nuts and finally the dressing.

November 15, 2008: Salad dressing cupcakes

After giving away most of my carrot and peanut muffins, I consulted to my to-cook list again for inspiration. Though I'm not a regular reader of Smitten Kitchen, I'd wandered by a couple of days earlier and bookmarked her recently posted olive oil muffins - not only did they contain olive oil, but also balsamic vinegar! The stuff of salad dressings, I couldn't quite imagine how this would taste, though I suspected I would like it.

I did. These cupcakes (let's reclaim the word for the neglected un-iced ones out there!) are moist and lively with citrus and flaked almonds; you probably wouldn't guess the secret ingredients, but they have their roles to play. The one that Michael and I shared, still warm from the oven, was blissful. Since then I've noticed that they have a whiff of egginess at room temperature and I'd be interested in reducing or replacing the eggs in a future incarnation. Deb reckons that, on their own, they're "nothing to compose sonnets over" but I reckon they're actually pretty close! I enjoyed another one later with a bowl full of strawberries, lightly dressed in more balsamic vinegar.

Salad dressing cupcakes
(recipe from Smitten Kitchen)

1 3/4 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons grated orange rind
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons milk
3/4 cup olive oil
2/3 cup flaked almonds, toasted

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Fill a muffin tray with paper liners.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. In a separate mixing bowl, beat together the sugar, eggs and orange and lemon rind for a few minutes. Add the vinegar and milk while still beating and then the oil, gradually. Stir in the flour mix until it's all just combined.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tray and bake for 20-25 minutes, using a skewer to test whether they're done.

November 15, 2008: Shakahari V

We had Doof and Melissa visiting from afar on Saturday, and figured we couldn't really go wrong with a lunch at Shakahari. We've blogged our love of this place many times before, so I won't ramble on again - it's super. The added bonus for this trip was the sunny, daytime weather and the resultant use of Shakahari's really quite fetching courtyard area. There's not many better ways to spend a sunny Saturday than parked out at picnic tables waiting for lunch to arrive. Particularly when lunch is this:

It's called 'Green with buccatini' ($19.50), and is a durum wheat semolina pasta tossed in a basil almond pesto, with pan-seared greens, topped with shredded garlic and herb cheddar style soy cheese all slathered with a reduced lemon myrtle tomato sauce.

It was even better than it sounds - filled with fresh asparagus and broccolini, it even let me pretend I was being healthy.

Read about our previous Shakahari trips here, here, here and here.

November 12, 2008: Spiced new potatoes, curried green beans & yellow rice

Another month, another recipe. For November, the World in Your Kitchen Calendar offered up spiced new potatoes from Sri Lanka. This was clearly intended as a side dish, so I did a bit of poking around the web to try to find some Sri Lankan themed goodies that could accompany the spuds. Thankfully, this website: http://asiarecipe.com/sriveg.html came through with the goods - dozens of vegetarian Sri Lankan options. I decided to go nuts and turn out three dishes: the spuds, some curried green beans and yellow rice.

Everything involved was relatively simple - even with three burners on the go this didn't take me much more than half an hour, with most of the background jobs finished by the time the spuds had boiled. The potatoes were fantastic - tangy, spicy and tender. Cindy even suggested they could replace her standard potato accompaniment. The rice was equally impressive, creamy and flavoursome, almost sweet enough for a dessert. It's probably not a healthy idea to soak rice in coconut milk, but it sure is a taste sensation. The problem was the beans. I'd popped in a couple of teaspoons of curry powder that we'd been given as part of a fancy Oxfam present, thinking it would be relatively mild. Turns out it was anything but - the beans packed a firey, firey, whallop. Too much for us to enjoy unfortunately, so the beans got shunted to one side of our plates to be frozen and rejigged into something more manageable later on.

So dinner ended up being rice and potatoes - a little colourless and dull, but rich, warm and flavourful nonetheless.



Spiced new potatoes

500g small potatoes
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon turmeric
1-2 tablespoons chopped coriander
juice of 1 lemon
oil
salt

Boil the potatoes for about 15 minutes, until they're well cooked. Drain and peel.

Heat the oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds. Once they pop, throw in the potatoes and cook for five minutes.

Throw in the rest of the spices, salt and coriander and cook for another 10 minutes or so. Stir the lemon juice through just before serving.



Curried green beans

500g green beans, trimmed
3 tablespoons oil
2-3 teaspoons of curry powder (make sure the curry powder is not ridiculously spicy)
1 tablespoon mustard
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
salt

Fry the beans in the oil for about five minutes. Add all the other ingredients, stir everything together and cook for another five minutes or so. And you're done.



Yellow rice

3 cups rice
4 tablespoons butter
2 onions, sliced
10 cloves
20 black peppercorns
12 bruised cardamom pods
1 1/2 teaspoons turmeric
3 teaspoons salt
5 cups coconut milk

Heat the butter in a saucepan, fry the onions until browned.

Add the cloves, peppercorns, cardamom pods, salt and turmeric.

Add the rice and fry, stirring constantly until it's well coated.

Add the coconut, bring to the boil and then cover and leave on low heat cooking until the rice is done (maybe 25 minutes). The spices should come to the top while the rice is cooking, meaning you can scoop most (but not all) of the cloves and cardamom pods out before serving it all up.

November 11, 2008: Carrot & peanut muffins

Though I've been baking plenty lately, it's been a while since I prepared myself a mid-afternoon workday snack. (I've been subsisting on store-bought muesli bars, which are tasty enough but far less nutritious than you might think.) I picked these carrot and peanut muffins from my to-cook list mainly because we've had an unloved packet of peanuts in the cupboard for some time. Once those peanuts are ground up, this recipe's a cinch - there's no need for an electric mixer, and I conveniently ignored the bit where Clotilde piped the batter into a mini-muffin tray. Instead I plonked hearty spoonfuls into a standard-sized muffin pan.

Let me tell you what's good about these muffins - they're moist and nutty, just a little sweet, and they have lovely golden caramelised edges. The texture reminds me of cakes that have been made primarily with almond meal. Yet these muffins didn't suit me, somehow - I didn't spend the afternoon looking forward to eating one. When another last-minute guest speaker presented themselves at work later in the week, I shared the remaining nine muffins around and hoped that one of my colleagues might appreciate these more than I did - they certainly deserve to be loved.

Carrot & peanut muffins
(taken from Chocolate and Zucchini)

270g grated carrot (I used two-and-a-bit large carrots)
4 eggs
160g raw sugar
160g ground peanuts
60g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon warm spice mix (I used shakes of cinnamon, ginger, star anise and cloves)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and either grease or line a muffin tray with papers.

Put the grated carrot and eggs into a large bowl and beat them with a fork until they froth up a bit. Beat in the sugar, then the peanuts. Sift in the flour, baking powder, salt and spices and mix until just combined.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tray and bake for 15-18 minutes (use the skewer test to check when they're ready).

November 11, 2008: Vege2go II

Vege2go gets its act together a whole lot quicker than this here blogger. I wrote about them back in February, citing their calzoni pastry and chocolate cake as their weaknesses. One short month later (especially short - it was February!), they announced new improved recipes for both in their e-newsletter! I'm not claiming that they were clamouring for my approval in particular, but their webmaster Stefano did us the courtesy of stopping by and leaving a comment. It all combines to paint a picture of vege2go cheerfully absorbing and acting on well-intentioned criticism, no?

So it's with some embarrassment that I admit that it took us nine months to get back there and try those new recipes. So long, in fact, that the calzoni aren't even on the menu any more!

Nevertheless, there were more than enough other dishes to choose amongst. Though I was pretty tempted by the pastry triangles and the mushroom polenta bake, I ultimately went for the arancini with napoli sauce ($8.95). It proved to be a tasty and hearty meal - not excessively oily or cheesy.

Michael ordered the sides for both of us by going for a discounted meal - a main and two sides will set you back $14.95. The vegetable lasagne, radicchio pear salad and rocket explosion salad (pictured up top) all hit the spot.

We could, nay, should have returned home without dessert, but I was keen to compare the current version of the chocolate raspberry cake ($6.50) with the previous one. It features a crunchy dark choc top and some light soft vegan cake. Though the texture's wonderful, I thought the cake was too light on the chocolate and raspberry.

Once at the dessert counter, I was overwhelmed with the variety of treats available and recklessly bought a second item, this choc hazelnut tiramisu ($6.50). Of all the things I've eaten out of disposable plastic in my life, this is the best. (And given that I ate it at vege2go, there's half a chance that plastic's getting recycled!) Be warned, though - it's a generous serving and you're best advised to share it with a trusted friend. Just be sure you trust them, mind, otherwise you'll be fighting hard for that last mouthful!

Vege2go still do a fine line in convenience food and I admire their commitment to evolving and improving. While they won't be winning haute cuisine awards any time soon, I'd nominate them as the most unceasingly cheerful, friendly and helpful staff I've encountered in Melbourne. And that's something to come back for!

November 10-11, 2008: Grape Cake

In the week following our annual lab culinary competition, I circulated the collected photos from the event and volunteered to collate a cookbook of everyone's entries. Since then the recipes have been flooding trickling in, and one of the first was one of the most surprising! Lab member Bonnie has been residing overseas for many months but emailed this grape cake recipe as a belated competition entry from afar. It'd be nice, I thought, to make, photograph and share around this cake before finishing the cookbook. And that's what I did when we had a guest speaker on Tuesday afternoon.

The idea of a plain cake with whole grapes suspended within it wasn't exactly rocking my world, yet this was perfect afternoon tea fare. The grapes were so soft that one person asked me if I'd peeled them, and the hints of lemon and cinnamon were just heavenly. Though the recipe suggests garnishing this cake with icing sugar or cream, I'd almost prefer not to - for me, its charm lies in its simplicity.

Grape Cake a la Bonnie's Mum

200g butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 lemons, juice and rind
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
a pinch of salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups seedless grapes, sliced in half

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Generously grease a springform cake tin.

Cream the butter and sugar. Mix in the eggs, vanilla, lemon rind and juice in turn.

Sift together the flour, salt and cinnamon. Gradually beat it into the cake mixture. Fold through the grapes.

Pour the cake batter into the tin and bake it for about 15 minutes, before lowering the oven temperature to 180 degrees C. Continue baking until the edges of the cake start to come away from the tin (this took a further 30 minutes for me, I think).

November 9, 2008: Pizza III

The full title of this post should probably be Pizza III: Careless Cooking. We'd actually chosen this meal even before we had breakfast, writing out a shopping list and stopping in at Piedemonte's on our way home from Babka. Yet things went awry when I pulled out ingredients mid-afternoon to make the dough. First, Kitchen Wench's blog (and the dough recipe therein) had mysteriously disappeared (sadly the damage done seems to be permanent). Second, the bread flour I knew I had in the bottom of the cupboard was wholemeal, not white as I had assumed. The third issue was ultimately my undoing - my dried yeast had expired, I tried using it anyway, and a couple of hour's proving only yielded an oily and not particularly airy blob. Michael graciously made an extra trip to the local IGA and bought the rectangular bases you see here, while I prepared the toppings and my stomach growled.

For his pizza (pictured up top), Michael took inspiration from this recipe. Though it's a white pizza he elected to start with slather of tomato paste, then worked his way up through a variety of chunky-cut mushrooms with some fresh parsley, marjoram and garlic. Finally he topped it with pieces of pungent, gooey taleggio cheese. I have a fractured relationship with such cheeses at best, and this one packed a real punch - it was even a little too strong for Michael! Given the odour that lingered throughout the house in the proceeding 36 hours, there'll be no more taleggio at home for a loooong time.

My pizza's a faithful replication of this apple, onion and vegan cheddar pizza I saw at Yeah, That "Vegan" Shit. Working from the bottom up, it features pesto, caramelised balsamic red onions, capers, sliced apple and mozzarella-style Cheezly. The combination of store-bought pesto and caramelised onions came out a little oily, but it's a damn fine flavour mix! The cheezly was a subtle but undeniably creamy addition. I've since tried it grilled on toast - in that situation it melted admirably.

November 9, 2008: Babka

After being part of our Baba trip on Friday night, Mike free-associated his way to suggesting Babka on Sunday morning, and we muddled our way along at 10ish to finally taste some of the famed Babka breakfasts. Surprisingly, we were able to strut straight in and nab ourselves a table - when Cindy and I have previously tried to get a breakfast table here we've been scared off by the queues and headed for wwwash and Ici instead. No such problems this time - whether this reflected the growing number of hip breakfast eateries in the area or a decline in Babka's quality was unclear.

The menu had our hopes up - a choose-your-own-adventure style eggs menu with the key additives (beans, mushrooms, avocado), some intriguing sounding Georgian baked beans, French toast, croissants and a whole board of specials.

The star of the breakfast specials was the menemen, a scrambled eggs filled with tomato, chilli, fetta, mint and parsley on some of Babka's own foccacia ($12). I ordered it in a flash (although the Georgian beans had made things interesting for a moment) and was suitably impressed: well cooked eggs, delicious chunks of fetta, and a variety of flavours from the herbs and the chilli. All mopped up with the fresh and lightly toasted foccacia. I should mention the size - this is a pretty big breakfast for $12, and if you hold off until about 11 to eat it, it should see you through until dinner.

Cindy of course had her eyes on the sweet side of the menu - not the French toast (although Jo did order it, and found it a tad disappointing), but the Russian blintzes ($9.50).

Two little parcels of deliciousness filled with sweetened cottage cheese, sultanas and lathered in a citrus sauce. I didn't even get a taste. She raved about the citrus sauce and, despite initial fears that there was an insufficient volume of food, was well stuffed by the rich cheesy packages.

It's also worth noting the drink special of the morning: a lemongrass and ginger iced tea served with lemon and mint over ice. This barely tasted like tea at all, instead being described as the best lemon cordial ever.

I was quite taken with some of the lunch options on Babka's menu (mushroom stroganoff, potato and mushroom dumplings, asparagus and provolone cheese tart), and our breakfast was pretty impressive, so I'm expecting a further trip pretty soon.

Address: 358 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Ph: 9416 0091
Licensed
Price: Breakfast $6-$12

November 8, 2008: The Union Hotel

A few weeks ago an email popped into our inbox promising us veg-friendly pub food in West Brunswick. I figured it must be a hoax - it's hard enough finding good vego food at pubs in Fitzroy and East Brunswick (the EBC excepted of course), surely there was no such thing in the wasteland west of the trainline. But Cindy is more trusting than I, and figured that our tipster Adrian actually was a regular reader and had our best interests at heart and not some machiavellian pub owner hoping to lure us to West Brunswick and force feed us T-bones and parmas. Luckily, she was right.

As Adrian had informed us, the Union Hotel is a newly refurbished pub sitting a few blocks west of Sydney Road with a history of beer and tits which has been all but wiped out in a pretty stylish makeover. The fit-out is almost complete now, and the interior is low-key, but not without style, while the beer garden looked spacious and welcoming (if only we'd noticed it before finishing our food!). The staff were very friendly and attentive (a little too attentive - they were quick to notice us photographing the menu and very curious as to why), and there was a good variety of beer on tap.

All this was very promising, but the real key to our hearts is through the food. The Union has a comprehensive menu - a wide range of vego starters, a pasta and some marinated tofu on the menu and then a blackboard chock-full of specials, including another handful of vego starters and mains. Score.

We started things off with zucchini fritters with green tobasco aioli ($6). For some reason I was imagining these as being kind of cheesy - more like some haloumi and zucchini fritters that I've had somewhere before. Instead, they were like giant battered zucchini chunks

The batter was crunchy and delicious providing some welcome texture around the zucchini's soft flavours. The star though was the tobasco aoli - tangy and spicy without being really hot, I could have happily dunked anything in this sauce.

We had quite a few choices for mains - passing on the vegie lasagne and the broccolini pasta, and settling on one option from the specials board and one from the standard menu. I went for the standard option - grilled marinated tofu with sauteed Asian greens with a salad of mixed leaves, herbs, carrot and enoki mushroom with a tamari and chilli dressing ($16).

This was one of Adrian's specific recommendations, and it was an outstanding choice - perfectly cooked tofu, loads of fresh vegies and a beautiful sweet/spicy dressing. This kind of dish belongs at a specialist vegetarian restaurant, not a pub - highly recommended.

Cindy couldn't go past the pumpkin ravioli with a mushroom, sage and butter sauce ($12).

These were some soft little parcels of sweetness, slathered in a very, very rich sauce. It'd be wise to order a salad on the side of this, but we'd already committed ourselves to the fritters, so Cindy had to work through it with only a few sneaky bites of my salad for some lightness. Still, you'd be hard pressed to find too many better $12 pub pastas.

We were too far gone for dessert, and the sweet options were much more limited than the savoury. But then who goes to the pub for sweets? Beer works much better with chips than with ice cream. The Union Hotel is almost guaranteed to be a success - I'm sure there's a huge catchment of people west of Sydney Rd crying out for delicious, reasonably priced pub food in a laid-back, friendly atmosphere. The staff did know we were powerful and influential food bloggers, so they may have turned on the charm just for us, but it's unlikely - we'll have to go back in disguise just to make sure.

Address: 109 Union Street, Brunswick
Ph: ? - they may not have a phone yet - it wasn't busy enough to require a booking anyway.
Website: http://www.theunion.com.au/home.htm (presumably still under development - note a remnant of their old, not-safe-for-work past: http://www.theunion.com.au/links.html)
Price: Entrees $6-$14, Vegie mains $12-$16

November 7, 2008: Baba II

We made a return visit to Baba on Friday night, this time in a group of eight peeps from my workplace. I had my sights firmly set on the mixed dessert plate and planned my savoury courses accordingly - again, the smokey eggplant ezmesi shared around with bread ($5), followed by the sublime spiced pumpkin pide ($14). Meanwhile, Miki ordered the Imam bayildi ($15, above) - a claypot of eggplant and tomato ragu crowned with a deep-fried labne ball. This, like the other non-vegetarian claypots ordered around the table, was not huge and would have benefitted from some bread or couscous on the side. Nevertheless, it was a delightful mix of flavours and textures - Miki loved it, but was generous enough to give me a taste.

Michael ventured further into the pide menu, choosing a combination of Milawa goats cheese, roasted beetroot, stinging nettle puree and pickled turnip ($14). This was another winner, with Michael singling out the vibrant pickled turnip as the star.

Sadly, Baba's service hasn't been streamlined at all since our last visit. The staff seem perfectly efficient, and I can only assume that there just aren't enough of them on the floor on any given night. Much of my group grew restless as I doggedly waited to catch someone's eye with the purpose of requesting the dessert menu. I zoomed in on the Tatli mezze, which the menu states as requiring a minimum of two people, and bullied Michael into sharing it with me. (I figured other people might want a taste, too, once they saw it!) Then disaster struck - as I excitedly placed the order with our waiter, he said that we couldn't have the Tatli mezze unless everyone at the table ordered it. For us, the minimum wasn't two - it was eight.

I consoled myself with an order of cinnamon-sugared donuts with pistachio and thyme honey ($8). They took so long to arrive that, even given the other service hitches, I wondered if they'd been forgotten. When the donuts did appear, though, they were super-fresh and hot and there were plenty to share around. I'm not a big honey fan, and there was a lot of it here, but the thyme brought something unique to it.

There's no denying that the food at Baba rocks, but boy is it delayed gratification! Next time I'm up for Levantine on Lygon, I might make a reservation at Rumi.

____________

You can read about our previous visit to Baba here.

November 2, 2008: A lovely lemon slice

Finally, I present my long-weekend dessert contribution. I hunted through my extensive list of bookmarked recipes for something a little special, different from my usual chocolate-based cakes and cookies, that could still be baked ahead of time and transported without too much fuss. Ellie (aka Kitchen Wench) has done her fair share of baking, so her excitement over this lemon slice had it ranking very highly on my list. The recipe originally comes from Belinda Jeffery's Mix & Bake - you may have noticed that Ellie's having some site problems at the moment, but I've since been able to source this recipe from cakestorm.

I baked this in a much smaller tin than it was intended for. Consequently, the base was rather thick and the lemon topping took far longer to set than the recipe directed. Worse, the base was overcooked and rather tough. The icing sugar and pistachios that Jeffery suggests as a garnish seemed a bit fussy for this weekend away, so instead I just packed a box of frozen mixed berries as a garnish. The overall effect was pretty lip-puckering! Nothing that a glass of milk couldn't fix, mind.

For all that, the lemon topping was actually very, very good; easy to put together (just whisking, no custard-style heating), the right balance of sweet and sour for my taste, and with a delectable sticky golden crust where the slice met the pan. It even won the approval of lemon-dessert-obsessive Jo-Lyn.

A lovely lemon slice

Base:
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
grated rind of 1 lemon
180g cold, unsalted butter
2 tablespoons iced water

Lemon topping:
6 eggs
3 cups castor sugar
grated rind of 3 lemons
1 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup plain flour

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C; lightly butter a baking dish and line it with paper.

The base is like a shortcrust pastry. Put the flour, icing sugar and lemon rind in a food processor and pulse to mix evenly. Cut the butter into cubes and add it to the mix, pulsing until the mixture has the texture of breadcrumbs. Trickle in just a little water, and process the pastry until it just forms into a dough ball. Press the pastry dough into the baking dish - I used the back of a spoon to smooth it out. Bake the base for about 18 minutes, or until it starts to colour (this took me a little longer since my base was thick).

Turn the oven down to 150 degrees C, and get going with the topping. Whisk together the eggs and sugar in a large bowl, then the lemon juice and rind, still whisking. Sift in the flour and whisk again. When the base is relatively cool, pour over the filling and return the slice to the oven, this time for 35-40 minutes (more like 50 minutes for me) until the topping is set.

Store it in the refrigerator - you can cut it most neatly while it's cold, though I think it tastes most pleasant at room temperature.

November 1, 2008: Tofu waldorf salad

Next up: our lunch offering for the long weekend. We've had success with mock tuna salad in the past but were looking for a change. This tofu waldorf salad from Joni of just the food was just the ticket. The grapes stay fresh and juicy for days, and the tofu, pre-fried with garlic, filled the house with a warm, savoury aroma. Though I intended this mainly as a sandwich filling (insulating the bread from sogginess with some baby spinach leaves), I liked it even more without the bread - just plonked on a plate with a handful of the spinach leaves.

Tofu waldorf salad

500g extra firm tofu, chopped very finely
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup grated carrot
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
1/2 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
1 cup grapes, halved
1 cup mayonnaise (I used less)
salt and pepper, to taste

Start by chopping the tofu, as above. Heat the olive oil in a frypan and saute the tofu and garlic until they're golden (this will take about 10 minutes). Set them aside to cool. The frying/cooling stages are a good time to do the rest of the chopping and grating directed above.

Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl, and chill before serving.

November 1, 2008: Three-shades-of-brown bubble slice

Leading up to our very long weekend away, the crew agreed that each couple would prepare a dinner, dessert and some lunch. Michael's already shown off the lip-smacking cashew curry he brought along for dinner, and this is an off-the-menu extra snack that I made. It's a variation on my old family favourite, bubble slice. I went for a different effect this time, hoping that walnuts and dates would complement the ground wattleseed that I wanted to include. I also replaced much of the butter and sweetener with some leftover coconut cream. It was a mixed success - the walnuts and dates worked together nicely, but I couldn't taste the wattleseed at all and there was too much of the rich binding ingredients for the amount of rice bubbles and nuts involved. Even so, there weren't any leftovers to contend with on our arrival home!

Three-shades-of-brown bubble slice

1 cup walnuts, chopped
3/4 cup dates, chopped
3 cups rice bubbles
~120mL coconut cream
4 tablespoons golden syrup
4 tablespoons crunchy peanut butter
60g butter
1 tablespoon ground wattleseed

Grease a medium-large tray. In a large bowl, stir together the walnuts, dates and rice bubbles.

Melt the coconut cream, golden syrup, peanut butter and butter in a saucepan over medium heat, bring to the boil and then simmer for 5 minutes. Stir through the wattleseed.

Pour the sweet butter mixture over the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Press the mixture into the tray and refrigerate for at least an hour. Slice into squares and serve.

October 31 - November 4, 2008: A (long) weekend at Wye River

In each of the first two years we lived in Melbourne, I somehow managed to be out of the state for work when the Melbourne Cup came around. Now I'm not a horse-racing fan, so I wasn't particularly upset, but it did mean that we've repeatedly missed out on the traditional Melbourne 4-day weekend in early November. This year we were able to rectify things, deciding to make up for lost time with a five day 'weekend' at the beach with a gang of similarly lazy friends. We stayed here - a beautiful three bedroom holiday house up the hill in Wye River, a smallish town just down the Great Ocean Road from Lorne.

Things started slowly. Mike swung around and picked us up on Friday afternoon and we headed off for the coast. With a quick stop at Fandango for a late lunch: scrumptious Mediterranean foccacia for me and apricot and date toast with cinnamon cream cheese for Cindy. Fandango = awesome.

By the time we made it down to Wye River (and up the perilously steep driveway), a grim kind of drizzle had settled in, precluding too many outdoor adventures. So we hung around the house waiting for the second car-load of people to arrive and gradually getting hungry. Luckily, Cindy and I had come prepared - I'd pre-made a gigantic batch of our roast potato and chickpea curry, which finally heated up just at the rest of the gang pulled into the driveway.

On Saturday I got up reasonably early and spent an hour or so on the deck alternately reading and birding. Eventually one of the local king parrots realised that I might be a source of food and came to keep me company. By the time everyone else was up and about, another couple of parrots had come to try their luck. Lesson: parrots eat muesli.

The bureau had made it pretty clear that our long weekend at the beach was going to involve very little in the way of actually beachgoing - cloudy days with temperatures in the high teens were all that Victoria could muster for us. Still, we decided we should get out and about and traipsed into town to see what Wye River had to offer. There's a general store, a pub and a beach - for some reason our first priority was to redirect the river so that it flowed down the beach a few metres east of its original route. I think this would have changed the face of Wye River if the brilliantly constructed dam hadn't been torn down later in the afternoon by anti-progress 8-year- olds.

After poking around the town for a while (and deciding that the pub's one vego meal - a $21 vegie stack - wasn't for us), we wandered back up to the house. At this point the xbox lured Lee and Ryan into fierce competition, Mike jumped in the car to go and fetch Jo, and Tracy, Kristen and Cindy decided it was nap time. I decided to take advantage of the lack of rain and go for a stroll up the river and into the forest inland from the town. The major highlights: a couple of koalas, heaps of honeyeaters and parrots and some very peaceful bushland.

Downsides: hills. By the time I got back to the house Tracy and her army of offsiders were working on dinner - turning on the style with an outstanding roast pumpkin pasta - not to mention a pile of cast-off chocolate via their chocolate-obsessed housemate. Good times.

After feeling pretty proud of myself for getting out of the house and spotting some koalas on Saturday, I discovered on Sunday morning that I should have saved my energy. Some weird grunting sounds drew my attention our very own Koala, climbing up a tree right next to the balcony.

Also: more parrots. They seemed to enjoy the birdseed Ryan picked up from the shop even more than the muesli.

After breakfast (and an epic xbox basketball match between Lee and I) Tracy, Lee, Ryan and Kristen hit the road - Ryan and Kristen only had a few days in Victoria, and it seemed crazy for them not to spend any time in Melbourne. The rest of us decided to tackle one of the dozens of short walks in the Otways - a five kilometre loop to Little Aire Falls. Unfortunately, we pulled into the carpark where the walk began just as the rain started to tumble down. Still, once we'd polished off our packed lunches the clouds had started to lift and we set off. The rain had driven most of the other tourists away, so we had the walk almost to ourselves.

After a quick chip-stop in Apollo Bay on the way back it was leftovers for dinner, 500 lessons for Cindy and I, and Dexter DVDs to round out the evening.

Monday dawned with a pretty aimless quartet of holiday-makers, content to mooch around reading and chatting for a few hours before eventually working up the enthusiasm to take on some more exploration of the area. This time we headed to Cape Otway. The walks around the cape are quite different to the Otway forest walks - lots of scrubby heathland with no trees taller than a couple of metres. Still, after stopping off at the old cemetery, we stumbled across some yellow-tailed black cockatoos, a sparrowhawk and an echidna before getting a bit bored with the fairly repetitive vegetation. The lighthouse was closing by the time we arrived (and costs money to visit), so we just viewed it from afar.

We had time on the way back to call in at Mait's Rest - a short rainforest walk nearby. Despite the first three of us almost stepping on it, Mike noticed one of the more intriguing local fauna - the carnivorous Otway Black Snail, that feasts on worms and other snails.

Mike and Jo took on the last night's dinner, putting together a wonderful pumpkin and spinach gnocchi for our delectation. (It was a ricotta-based gnocchi, so they were no help in explaining our failed attempt at potato gnocchi.)

After regular visits from the king parrots and crimson rosellas, the sulfur-crested cockatoos discovered us on our last morning at the house. They entertained Cindy and I until it was time for us to pack up and hit the road, winding our way back to Melbourne (via breakfast in Lorne and some successful op-shopping in Lorne and Geelong).

It seems clear to me that five day weekends are the way of the future - load up a big house with friends, take some good books and red wine, go for the odd wander in a nearby national park and gorge yourself on meal after meal of delicious food. What a life.

(I realise this is meant to be a food blog - Cindy will save the day shortly with three delicious recipes that provided snacks, lunches and dessert over the weekend.)

October 27, 2008: Baked zucchini and 'bacon' risotto

Safeway in Carlton has stopped selling a whole bunch of fake-meat products, so when Cindy stops by Allergy Block for something, she inevitably walks out with armfuls of ridiculous soy products. This week it was fake bacon, and she already had a meal in mind - a baked zucchini risotto with bacon on top thanks to Patricia at Technicolor Kitchen. The idea of a baked risotto suits my lazy cooking style perfectly - all the non-stop stirring required for a standard risotto means I can't wander aimlessly around the loungeroom while dinner's on (or that I can, but dinner ends up ruined). This is much easier: mix everything in a baking dish, bake, stir and serve.

Now I'm no risotto purist, but this came out as well as any stove-top stir-a-thon risotto that we've tried to make before - the grain's stocky and tender, the zucchini flavour spread deliciously throughout and the salty fake bacon strips adding a bit of texture on top. The whole dish was maybe a little on the salty side, but that's probably down to our lazy powdered stock as much as anything else. For an easy and delicious pile of comfort food, this is a weeknight winner.

Baked zucchini and bacon risotto
(a vegged up version of Technicolor Kitchen's recipe)

2 cups arborio rice
5 cups vegie stock
60g butter
500g zucchini, chopped into little half-moons
3/4 cup grated parmesan
1-2 tablespoons chopped parsley
salt and pepper
145g soy bacon rashers

Preheat the oven to around 200 degrees.

Mix together the rice, stock, butter and zucchini in a baking dish, cover and bake for around half an hour. The risotto mix comes out of the oven quite liquidy, but thickens up pretty quickly once the cheese is stirred in and it starts to cool a tiny bit.

Add the parmesan, salt, pepper and parsley and stir for a few minutes until everything starts to thicken up.

While the risotto is cooking fry up some thinly sliced strips of fake bacon to drape artistically across the clumps of risotto you dish up.

October 27, 2008: The Vegeterranean

After offering her a little assistance with her project, I was thrilled and more than a little proud to see colleague Elise submit her thesis recently. I was even more thrilled when, the following week, she presented me a card and gift, thanking me for my help. Along with a cute little potplant, there was this vegetarian cookbook: The Vegeterranean by Malu Simões and Alberto Musacchio.

Simoes and Musacchio, a married couple, are the creators and owners of Country House Montali, a Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant and hotel in Umbria, Italy. In this book, they tell the story of their meeting, coupling, and the development of the Country House, as well as sharing many of Malu's original recipes from the restaurant.

As you might imagine, these recipes aren't exactly the kind of thing you knock up for dinner after a day at work. Many have multiple stages and involve fiddly techniques such as piping , pasta- and pastry-making. But the reward for such efforts is evident - the thick glossy pages feature stunning full-colour photos of each dish. Here some that I'm aching to taste :

• alua, an Indian-style breakfast of semolina, fruit and nuts;
• crespelle fantasia, light pancakes stuffed with aubergine cream, served with a cheese sauce;
• torri di zucchine ripiene con crema di piselli, zucchini towers stuffed with pea cream and roasted almonds;
• ravioli sud tirolesi, a spinach and potato dough ravioli stuffed with two kinds of mushroom and topped with juniper cream and shallot sauces;
• coxinhas encantadas, a Brazlian-style fried pastry stuffed with a creamy herbed eggplant mix;
• cannoli di radicchio e pere, radiccio, pear and smoked cheese rolls; and
  
• their most popular dessert - volcano di cioccolato, a chocolate volcano cake served with liquorice ice cream and kiwi sauce.
  

There's also an instructive introductory chapter on basic ingredients, techniques and foundation recipes, such as béchamel, choux pastry, stock, puff pastry and even seitan. I noticed a lot of cheese throughout the book, though the recipe for a vegan Sacher might well warrant the cover price for those eschewing animal products.

I found the background stories throughout the book overly verbose and florid, though there is one tale of vegetarian triumph over Italian beauracracy that's worth a read. We haven't yet tried any of the recipes, but you'll be the first to see them here on this blog when we do. For now, I've taken pleasure simply from curling up on the couch with this sizable volume and imagining life in a glamourous, rural, technicolour and vegetarian-friendly Umbria that may well only exist within its pages.

October 26, 2008: Chilli & lime roasted chickpeas

Has anyone out there roasted chickpeas? I'd spied them as a seasoned snack in the health food aisle of the supermarket but never eaten them. I bookmarked a couple of recipes by Susan V earlier these year, but didn't get around to trying them until be'ershevaboheme6 had a shot and loved them.

Their descriptions had me anticipating a crunchy, nutty snack but that's not what I ended up with. My chickpeas soaked up the lime juice nicely, dried and shrunk and dried and shrunk, but didn't actually dry out to crunchiness. They were tasty and tender, to be sure, but hardly the chip substitute I'd been hoping for. Perhaps I just need to cook them longer and dehydrate them even further, though I fear they'll shrink away to nothing if I try!

October 26, 2008: World Vegan Day

In Melbourne World Vegan Day is celebrated on the last Sunday in October, and we were there to join the festivities at the Abbotsford Convent. Brimming with stalls of food for now, food for later, activist groups, skincare and clothing, there were also bands, presentations, raffles, workshops and even vegan speed-dating. And boy, was it popular! The density of people was definitely equal to the crush at the Food & Wine Festival market days we've attended.

Our first priority was lunch, and Michael took his place in the line at the Las Vegan Bakery stall for a deep-fried rice ball with satay ($5). I think it was worth the wait, and certainly worth the price, though thank goodness for the garnishing salad - these fellers are really rich!

I joined the even longer line for a feed from Enlightened Cuisine. Among other things, they offered a choice of two out of five dishes with rice and a drink for $12. I couldn't resist the sweet and sour 'pork', and picked out the curry 'lamb' in consideration of Michael. I'm glad I did - the 'pork' became a little dry and tough in the hotbox, yet the 'lamb' and potato chunks were stunningly tender.

By this time we'd run into many of the folks we first met last week at the vegan potluck (as well as another vegan blogger, Léna!), and Kristy alerted us to a chocolate demonstration going on inside.

This guy's from Loving Earth, a local company making raw, organic, sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, fair trade, single origin chocolate. Hippy central, huh? Regardless, there's no room for pining dairy, sugar or the other standards when you get a taste of their iced chocolate. It's super-thick with an intense and complex fruity flavour. It also included a multitude of ingredients I'd never heard of, including purple corn extract, maca, mesquite powder, camu camu, and Lúcuma powder, as well as a few I did know - cocoa, ice, water and agave syrup!

Though this was the extent of what we ate while there (give or take a few free samples!), we couldn't resist buying and stashing a few sweets to enjoy throughout the week.

The first was this apple pie from Himalaya Bakery ($5). It had a few more sultanas than I'd prefer, but it was still made for a fine afternoon tea between two.

Then came three packages from Tart'n'Round. They create tempting treats that are free of wheat, gluten, dairy and egg, and though I was prepared to resist, Michael was keen to take advantage of their 3-for-$15 special and I crumbled like a gluten-free biscuit. We first sampled this rum'n'raisin brownie and it impressed me the most. Though it looked formidably dry and crunchy, the centre was delightfully soft and fudgy.

The cherry bliss balls almost lived up to their name. Though they contain real cherries, there weren't any discernable fruit pieces in these. Michael kindly remarked that they weren't as good as my home-baked cherry slice.

Finaly, these choc-orange biscuits were a tad disappointing. They contain only orange flavouring, rather than real fruit, and the gluten-free flour gave them a somewhat chalky texture. We were still compelled to eat them all!

That chalky biscuit was the only teensy blemish on an otherwise lovely day. Even more than the great food, I was struck by the air of inclusiveness at World Vegan Day - if you're vegan, vegan-friendly or just vegan-curious, I'd encourage you to check it out next year. The same site's already booked for October 25, 2009!

October 25, 2008: Cafe Lalibela

Jo-Lyn had mustered up a gang of us to check out The Go Show in Footscray - a strange combination of bus tour and community arts extravaganza that was on as part of the Melbourne Arts Festival. We've not spent enough time exploring the astonishing array of food options in Footscray, so this was a good opportunity to sample something new. Between the Melbourne Veg Food Guide and the Cheap Eats Guide, it became clear that Cafe Lalibela was the place to be, so Cindy booked us a table for an early dinner.

There aren't too many surprises at Ethiopian restaurants, particularly for vegos - it's lentil stews, split pea curries, maybe a few vegies and a few little piles of salad. Cafe Lalibela offer up yetsom beyaynetu - a mix of all their vego dishes plonked on a glorious platter of injeera. We were early enough (or the others were late enough) to be granted full ordering responsibility, so it was vego mix all round. This equated to two gigantic platters, with enough food to feed 8 people comfortably.

The sour, fermented injeera is always delicious and the whole process of ripping, dipping and mopping up is great fun, guaranteeing a good time regardless. Luckily, the food here matches the fun, with each of the stews providing a slightly different flavour - from the spicy lentils to the milder and slightly tangy vegie curry, it all hit the spot. Everything is soft and paste-like - perfect for scooping up in little parcels of bread - remarkably I only ended up with one stew-coloured stain down my front! Note of caution: don't turn to the salad as something to cool your mouth down - it's basically equal parts lettuce and green chilli. Throw in some crisp Ethiopian beer and lively conversation and you've got an excellent Saturday evening in the west.

Address: 91 Irving Street, Footscray
Ph: 9687 0300
Price: Vego meals - $12
Licensed

October 23, 2008: Trippy Taco III

So you know the story: Michael loves Trippy Taco, Cindy loves Trippy Taco. What's new? We've found two (and a half) more reasons to love the place. One: the Trippy Fries ($4). Just look at them! If your look is sufficiently longing, maybe Tracy and Lee, who actually bought this bowl of fries, will take pity on you and let you taste them. It worked for me and it paid off well - these seasoned fries are great! They've just a hint of heat about them, and you can always help yourself to Trippy Taco's range of hot sauce if you're after fire fries.

Number two: the spicy grilled tofu. You can't really see it, but there's a treasure trove of these smoky little cubes within these tacos (tofu asada tacos, $9). You can also enjoy them in a burrito ($9), which is what Michael did.

The extra half a reason is dessert, which you've only half a chance of finding room for. This nutella banana melt ($6) was a tasty as it is plain-looking, but before you commit to such a thing, ask one of the staff about their dessert specials. It turns out I could instead have had a sweet corn tamale with banana, icecream and maple syrup. Major, major regret. Don't let it happen to you!

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You can read about two of our previous visits to Trippy Taco here and here.

October 22, 2008: Baingan Bharta

Cindy and I have tried Baingan Bharta a few times around the place and, if you read back over our writeups, you'll see that we've been intending to make a version ourselves for some time. Well we've finally gotten around to it. The recipe comes from Mallika's blog, Quick Indian Cooking, and was simple-looking enough for us to have a shot at it. We threw together a quick stir-fry of capsicum, broccolini and beans (with panch phoran) to add a little colour to an otherwise beige dish.

The first step for the eggplant curry is just to load the eggplants into the oven and bake for thirty minutes - if anything, I left the eggplant in the oven longer than the suggested half an hour, but next time I think I'll give it even longer (maybe 45 minutes) to get things really silky and soft.

While the eggplants are roasting, you fry a few things together and then you throw everything in together (having peeled the eggplants) and simmer away. Simple. And very, very delicious.

The spices, especially the seeds, give the meal a tremendous flavour, while the yoghurt and chilli add a little tang to the proceedings. As I said - the texture wasn't quite what I wanted - the takeaway versions we've tried have been so smooth as to almost be a paste, and this had a little more chunkiness to it, but it was an excellent first start. Now that we know how easy it is to make, we're going to try to make a few different versions.