April 1, 2009: Carrot cake-in-a-biscuit

My quest for low-guilt high-anticipation afternoon snacks is still trundling on and Heidi of 101 Cookbooks has come up trumps yet again. She's pulled together a soft, gently sweet biscuit that combines a gorgeous, natural set of ingredients (oats, walnuts, carrots, ginger, maple syrup, coconut oil!) without the aid of an electric mixer. And it's effortlessly vegan - no weird egg replacers here.

I've not seen wholewheat pastry flour - which Heidi seems to use constantly - 'round these parts, so I replaced it with equal parts plain and wholemeal flours. (As an aside, let me know if you've spotted wholemeal pastry flour in Melbourne!) I've been keen to try coconut oil for some time, but my local supplier was out and I had some copha to use up. It was fine as a replacement but I wouldn't recommend that you go and buy it especially. It may have caused my mixture to be unusually runny, and I added some extra rolled oats to achieve a drier texture. If your taste is anything like mine, don't skimp on the fresh ginger and walnuts - the complexity of flavour they add is just delightful.


Carrot cake-in-a-biscuit
(based on Heidi Swanson's carrot oatmeal cookies)

1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup rolled oats (I added about 1/4 cup more, later)
2/3 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup grated carrot
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup coconut oil, warmed until just melted (I used copha out of desperation)
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

Preheat the oven to 190°C. Line a baking tray with paper.

Combine the flours, baking powder, salt and oats in a large bowl; stir through the walnuts and carrot. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, coconut oil and ginger. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. (At this point I decided that my mixture looked too wet and I added more oats.)

Use a dessert spoon to drop the dough onto the baking tray. Bake the biscuits for 10-12 minutes, until golden. (I baked them until they had just developed a crust, and they were very soft and moist.)

April 1, 2009: Eggplant lasagne rolls

When it comes to food, Cindy and I are hopeless pre-planners. So most work-days at around midday we'll start an email exchange about 1) what's for dinner and 2) who's going to buy which ingredients on their way home. On Wednesday I started things off with a vague suggestion that we try some sort of lasagne. In about fifteen minutes Cindy had fired back an email with links to no less than seven lasagne options. After much pondering, I settled on this one from VeganYumYum, at least in part due to Pip's ringing endorsement.

It's hard to overstate how great this meal is - the pine nut paste that coats each lasagne sheet is stunning - its rich flavours really permeate each little roll. We opted for the standard eggplant filling, but there are countless ways you could tweak the basic idea (I'm keen to up the vegie quotient with some mushies and maybe pumpkin next time). There's a fair bit of work in the recipe, but none of it is very difficult and if you're vaguely organised you won't panic and end up with pasta sheets sticking irrevocably together. Still, minor mishaps aside, this was our second outstanding home-cooked meal for the week. After a few weeks of laziness I'm feeling really reenthused about this cooking lark now.

Normally I'd just link to Lolo's recipe and trust that it will be there forever, but with something this good I'm taking no chances:


Eggplant lasagne rolls

6 sheets of lasagne
1 large eggplant
olive oil
salt
pepper
2 cups tomatoey sauce (we used this one)
1 cup breadcrumbs

1 cup pine nuts
1 tbs water
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp dried Italian herbs
1/2 tsp salt

Peel the eggplant and slice it into long skinny strips and then sprinkle the slices generously with salt and pepper.

Heat 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan and fry the eggplant strips until well-browned. You'll need to do this in a few batches, and the eggplant will soak up the oil each time, so you end up using a fairly substantial amount of oil. Trust me, it's worth it - you get deliciously tender eggplant strips at the end of it all. Besides, olive oil is good for you, right?

In the same pan, toast the pine-nuts until they brown (but be careful - they go from nicely toasted to burned in no time).

Stick the pine nuts in a food processor and grind them up. Throw in the water, lemon juice, dried Italian herbs and salt into the food processor and process them into a delicious paste.

Now you've got your key ingredients together, quickly cook the lasagne sheets in boiling water until al dente and then lay the strips out on a baking tray or chopping board.

Now it's assembly time: smear each lasagne sheet with a teaspoon or so of the pine nut paste, pile on a few of the eggplant strips and then loosely roll the sheets up.

Place the rolled sheets in a baking dish, pour the tomato sauce over, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and then bake for around twenty minutes - until the breadcrumbs look like lightly browned parmesan.

April 1, 2009: Caramelised onion dip

I've had this recipe poised for use for a few weeks. I originally intended to make it for a beach party but drizzle kept us away from the coast and I repurposed it for a seminar afternoon at work. It's onion dip, but not as I'd seen it before - without the crunchy onion chunks and weird additives of the supermarket stuff, but neither relying on the powdered soup mix of other home recipes. Instead it uses onion powder and features glistening caramelised onions! It does take some patience to slow cook those onions down to sweet golden perfection, but it's a doddle from there.

Heidi (of 101 Cookbooks) has got my snacking predilections down perfectly with this one. The yoghurt-sour cream base is creamy with a little tang while the onions are sweet and savoury. It's actually difficult for me to maintain any sense of decorum when a bowl of this dip and a few crackers are within reach.

Caramelised onion dip
(originally posted by Heidi Swanson at 101 Cookbooks)

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onions, finely chopped
3/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup Greek yoghurt
3 teaspoons onion powder, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

In a large frypan, gently heat the oil and cook the onions over low heat with a pinch of salt. Stir them occasionally, cooking until the onions are a deep golden brown - this will take at least 40 minutes. Stir them more often as they darken to prevent burning. Take the onions off the heat and allow them to cool (I refrigerated them until the next morning.)

Whisk together the sour cream and yoghurt. Add the onion powder and salt gradually, to taste. Stir through two thirds of the caramelised onions, then sprinkle the rest over the top to serve. Serve the dip at room temperature.

March 31, 2009: Norsiah's Kitchen

We've been visiting Norsiah's Kitchen occasionally on lazy weeknights to grab some cheap, tasty and fast dinners but the blogging gods have conspired against us - no camera, no peanut sauce available or just a lack of enthusiasm. This time we came prepared. The menu is reasonably veg-friendly, with rice and noodle dishes, gado gado and a range of Norsiah's specials.

The star of the menu is the sweet soy and peanut sauce, that gets slathered over our favourite dish - the Tahu Telur (deep fried tofu in eggs with vegetables with the soy and peanut sauce, $7.50).

This is a rich, peanutty sauce, with a hint of spice and sweetness. It's clearly not good for you, with shimmery bits of oil in the sauce and thick chunks of eggy batter around the tofu. The sprinkling of sprouts and cucumber on top help us pretend that it's not killing us, but it's probably best enjoyed periodically.

The sauce is best soaked up with some rice, and the nasi goreng sayur (fried rice with vegetables and tofu - $7) is just the ticket.

The rice and tofu have a light spiciness, which is milder than the more powerful peanut soy suace. The tofu is liberally sprinkled throughout the rice, making it a very satisfying meal on its own. Adding a few spoonfuls of the peanut sauce from the tahu telar takes it to a whole new delicious level.

Norsiah's is a pretty unassuming place - all plastic chairs and newspapers from January, but it's almost always full of students and locals - it's easy to see why, with massive and tasty meals for less than $8.

Address: 604 Swanston Street, Carlton
Ph: 9347 7079
Prices: $2-$7.50

March 30, 2009: Luscious Moroccan pumpkin

My collection of recipes to try from other blogs is creeping up towards the 500 mark! However I've done what I can to make use of them this week, and we have four delicious and diverse examples to show you as I tick them off. The first is this Moroccan-spiced pumpkin, served with couscous and shallot-prune confit, which Lucy published on Nourish Me more than a year ago. (Though I'll copy the recipe here, you should click on over to admire her photos of the process.) It takes a little more effort than you're likely to have spare on a weeknight but the meal is so satisfying and the leftovers so perfect for lunch - even at room temperature, after travelling roughly in a lunchbox - that we didn't regret it one bit.

The pumpkin itself is roasted to melting softness, but the sweet yielding flesh belies a fiery spice rub that includes chilli, cumin and coriander. Prunes don't have the most glamourous image but they are at their most luscious in this confit - they almost disintegrate into syrup around the shallots and garlic that are already braising in the same pan. The confit is finished with a handful or two of blanched almonds. If I'd carefully read ahead I probably would have purchased ready-blanched almonds but I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to separate them from their skins; I'll do it again with confidence when a recipe requests that its almonds be blanched.

It all rests on a bed of couscous, and is finally strewn with fresh herbs. What a way to welcome autumn!

Luscious Morrocan pumpkin, with prune-shallot confit and couscous
(following a recipe from Lucy of Nourish Me, who credits Nadine Abensur's Cranks Bible)

For the pumpkin:
1 small jap (kent) pumpkin, ~1.5kg
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons chilli flakes
1 heaped teaspoon ras el hanout
1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons tamari

For the confit:
500g shallots (these ones)
2 handfuls raw almonds
300g prunes
2 tablespoons olive oil
a pinch of sea salt
6 cloves garlic

For the rest:
1 1/2 cups couscous
1 generous pinch saffron threads
1 3/4 cups boiling water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 bunch mint (or coriander), washed and roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Cut the pumpkin into large wedges; scoop away any seeds and pulp, but keep the skin on.

Gently heat a frypan and toast the coriander, cumin and chilli for a couple of minutes, until fragrant. Give them a few minutes to cool, then grind them rounghly with a mortar and pestle. Transfer the spices to a large bowl, and stir through the ras el hanout, maple syrup, oil and tamari.

Toss the pumpkin pieces through the dressing, then place them in a baking dish (or two). Sprinkle over the remaining dressing (if you have any - we didn't!) and bake the pumpkin for 45-60 minutes, until tender. Check the pumpkin each 15 minutes and turn them over.

While the pumpkin is roasting, bring a medium-sized saucepan of water to the boil. Add the shallots, whole, and simmer them for just one minute. Scoop them out but keep the water. When they're cool enough to handle, peel the shallots and set them aside.

Reheat the water and add the almonds, blanching them for 2 minutes. Scoop them out onto a plate and again keep the water. When the almonds are cool enough to handle, you'll notice their skins are puffed and wrinkled! It doesn't take too much effort now to pop them from their skins. Lucy suggests toasting these in the oven for 8 minutes but we didn't have any room with all that pumpkin; instead I toasted them in the same frypan we used for the spices.

Remove pits from the prunes, if they have any. Use the same frypan again to heat the oil for the confit. Fry the shallots until they're deeply golden; be patient and don't skimp on this step. Add the salt, garlic and prunes. Give them a stir to coat everything in oil, then add a generous scoop of the blanching water. Cook the confit at a rapid pace for at least half an hour, adding more water as its absorbed. The shallots should hold their shape (treat them gently!) but encourage the prunes to break down a little into the sauce. Stir through the almonds during the last few minutes.

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the couscous and saffron. Pour over the boiling water, add the oil, and give it a very brief stir before covering the couscous and allowing it to rest for 5 minutes. Gently toss the couscous with a fork.

On each plate (or a single large platter), layer up the couscous, confit and pumpkin wedges. Sprinkle over the fresh mint and serve.