Caprese bites/appetisers

Very simple: a thin sliver of Teese Mozzarella (I buy mine at the Green Edge, when I buy it. It costs about $11 for 10 ounces, which is very expensive. But sometimes I want it.) , a slice of fresh tomato (mine are tiny), a sprinkle of black pepper and a fresh basil leaf. Eat!

So simple and so yummy. It needs a rice craker or piece of toaste underneath it, but I was lazy and just wanted a little snack.

Todays harvest: teeny yellow capsicum, even teenier tomato (supposed to be a regular sized one not cherry!) and a tiny strawberry.

The capsicum had gotten eaten a little bit. The tomato was divine (and the last one off all my tomato plants - I only ended up with about 6 tomatoes from 5 plants haha), and the strawberry was so sweet and delicious. I wish my plant would grow more than 1 every so often!

Minestrone with pesto

Minestrone :)

Minestrone
Serves at least 6

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of brown/green lentils, soaked for an hour or so in hot water
2.5 cups 'chicken' stock
1 cup red wine
oil for frying (Can use water)
1 large onion, chopped
1 med eggplant, cubed (I don't peel mine but you can if you want)
1 med carrot, chopped
1 big stalk of celery sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
800mL cooked tomatoes (about 2x400g cans or 1x800g can)
3 med potatoes, skin on, cubed smallish
1 med zucchini, chopped
handful fresh green beans, sliced
1/2 cup sprial pasta, or other small shape
Basil pesto for garnish

Method:

Fry onion, eggplant, carrot and celery in oil until starting to soften. Add garlic and stir. Add stock, wine, tomatoes, lentils (without soaking water - you can use this to make the stock) and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Put in potatoes, zucchini, pasta and green beans. (I added an extra cup of water here because the liquid had simmered down a bit). Turn heat back up and gently boil for about 15 minutes, or until potatoes, pasta and lentils are cooked. They should be by now!

Serve in bowls with a spoonful of pesto on top to stir in. Add as much as you like - we had quite large dollops. It was delicious!

The wine seems like a bit much at first, but by the end of the cooking time it had mellowed out quite a bit.

This would be good for omnivourous friends/family :) If I were giving it to my family I'd probably replace the eggplant with extra pasta or lentils, or just leave it out, and chop the celery up really tiny. But everybody has different tastes!

Eggplant Cacciatore

I decided to get up at the crack of dawn (actually it was still dark) to ride my bicycle to the local organic farmer's market which I only just found out about...yesterday. It was a lovely bike ride (I left once the sun had come up) I saw 2 ducks and their ducklings (no picture cuz I didn't take a camera...next Sunday I definately am) it was FREEZING and riding through the slight breeze made my ears ache - next time I'm wrapping a scarf around my head. But it certainly woke me up!

Anyway, I got this nice little eggplant and some other goodies (including dandelion greens - not much of an idea of what to do with them other than salad!) and so decided to make Eggplant Cacciatore tonight for tea.

This is adapted from a recipe in Vegan Italiano by Donna Klein.

Eggplant Cacciatore

1 med eggplant diced (you can peel if you want, I don't)

1 large onion diced

3 or more cloves garlic, chopped

1 green capsicum, chopped (or red, or yellow)

1/2 recipe of this marinara sauce from OrganicallyMe*

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried thyme

Handful of kalamata olives

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cooked pasta of choice (I used spaghetti)

Make the marinara sauce (or you could use pre made - I hate when recipe books call for pre packaged ingredients!)

In another pot (large stockpot) lightly fry onion, garlic and capsicum on med-low heat. Add the eggplant and herbs and cook for a few minutes until eggplant starts to soften a little. Stir in sauce and let simmer until eggplant is tender.

Serve over pasta!

It's quite tasty and pretty easy to make. You don't really have to pay much attention to it while it's cooking, unless the water boils out and it burns!

We had ours with Oxford Landing Shiraz - a nice, easy to drink vegan wine that is very, very cheap at $6 a bottle! The company who makes/owns this is in the process of changing most, if not all, their wines to vegan friendly. Very excited :)

 *With the marinara sauce, I used tomatoes that I had cooked a while ago and froze. I just eyeballed the amount - I figured it to look like one can of tomatoes would look like! I also left out the onion because there was already one in the other part of the recipe.

Pumpkin Gnocchi with Tomato Sauce

Tonight I decided to make pumpkin gnocchi with the pumpkin I still haven't used yet :)

Making gnocchi is always relaxing (except for that one time I was in a rush and I didn't mash the potato enogh and it ruined an entire batch) and the end results tasty tasty!

First, steam enough pumpkin to make one cup of mashed pumpkin. Mix 1 cup of wholemeal flour (Italians will traditionally use type 00 white flour but wholemeal works perfectly for me) with 1 tablespoon of powdered sage and two crushed garlic cloves. Or a teaspoon of dried garlic flakes. Mix this together then add the pumpkin and stir until lumps form. If the mixture is too wet or sticky, add more flour. When it starts clumping together take it out of the bowl and knead a few times until it's a smooth dough.

Let it sit for about 1/2 an hour.

Once it's been sitting for a while, take chunks of it and roll out into a snake about 2cm thick. Cut bits off about a cm wide. They'll look like little pillows.

Set out the gnocchi onto a floured tray (using baking paper will prevent sticking as I discovered the hard way today, but I was trying to save paper haha), and put it into the freezer to freeze uncovered, until solid.

Gnocchi can be frozen for up to 3 months.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce. This is my take on a traditional Napoli sauce. There is probabaly another sauce that uses olives in a basic Napoli base but I can't be bothered looking for it :).

Chop about 5-6 cloves of garlic roughly. Slice up some chillies (as much as you like).

I also sliced up a handful of the black olives we had on our picnic (see last post) but kalamata is preferred.

Fry the garlic, chilli, and olives in a little bit of oil on low heat until garlic is soft.

Add in two 800g cans of crushed or chopped tomatoes and stir well. Leave to simmer for about half an hour. Longer is ideal, but if like me you get impatient, it's still good if left for not as long :)

When the sauce is just about ready, add in 1-2 tablespoons of mixed herbs, fresh basil, whatever you have on hand and bring some water to boil in a large pot.

Once boiling put in the gnocchi. I measured one cup of frozen gnocchi per person, and it was the perfect amount. They are ready when floating, don't overcook!

They'll be mushy and horrible.

At the last minute add about a tablespoon of vegan butter to the sauce. You don't have to, but it makes it slightly creamier. Stir until melted.

Serve on top of gnocchi!

Sauce recipe serves about 6, gnocchi recipe serves about 3. I usually make a double amount of gnocchi, but I didn't quite cook enough pumpkin today :)