Chia, it's what's for breakfast.

2 tbsp chia seeds, 1 cup non-dairy milk, 1 heaped tsp cocoa powder unsweetened, vanilla essense, banana, coconut and molasses. Mix together and leave overnight in the fridge or just until all the liquid is absorbed.

After one gets used to the texture this stuff is pretty good :) Slimy tapioca.

2 tablespoons of chia seed has 8g protein, about 9000mg of omega-3, 3500mg omega-6, 20g fiber, and almost 40% of your daily calcium. Sounds good.

Gluten, gluten, oh how I love thee...

Hey y'all! I haven't really been up to date in blog land for a while. There's been a lack of motivation and busy-ness and all that jazz :)

Brain food: Laksa stir fry with lots of colours.

This is what my life tends to look like evenings after work. I've enrolled in college! Yay! Back to school again for Emma. I'm doing an Advanced Diploma of Nutrtional Medicine and so far it's pretty interesting. I'm doing 3 classes at the moment because I still need to work full time to pay rent and feed the cats and all. I haven't actually got up to the nutrition part yet. So far I've started Anatomy and Physiology 1 and Chemistry...I thought chemistry would be a lot more daunting but as it turns out the elements are the same in the garden as they are in our bodies so I already recognise a lot of the themes. I'm also doing a communication class to get it over and done with...already had a panic attack and burst into tears at the thought of doing roleplays so we'll see how it goes! I do that class in the evenings on Tuesdays on campus. The others I'm doing online which is nice...free textbooks and I can take a long as I need to.

Well that's that, other news is that I am (oh joy) gluten intolerant! Fun times lay ahead. It's not too bad. I am currently trial-and-erroring what gluten I can and can't handle...unfortunately oats, as in porridge, make me feel and look pregnant. I eat ate oats pretty much every day!! Oh well.

I decided I'd try some quinoa flakes instead of oats to make a porridge like meal for breakfast.

Following the directions on the packet, however, turns it into a textureless watery mess (though tasty). So I experimented a little bit and found that if I mixed equal parts of liquid and the flakes in a bowl and zapped it in the microwave for one minute it made an almost porridge texture (I eat mine really thick). So quinoa will do as a substitute - it's a bit expensive though. I might try rice flakes and see if they do the same thing. I'm also going to try rolled spelt and see if it upsets my stomach (I may also try rolled rye).

Apparently the gluten in each grain is slightly different and it all depends on your body as to whether you can handle it or not. Some things are easier to substitute than others (I've found a good bread mix to make in my breadmaker, and I've been eating gluten free pasta for ages).

Pastry was a hard thing...but I found a good recipe online that I liked the results of. You can find it here.



It rolled out nicely like a regular gluteny crust and baked up nice and soft like a proper shortcrust. (Rice flour based pastry goes rock solid). The strips I used in the lattice were a bit fragile but they did the job! It tasted good and texture was delicious, though a teensy bit dry. I didn't measure my margarine so that may have been the reason. I reccommend this recipe if you want to try your hand at a gluten free crust :)

When we cut the pie it fell apart a little...cutting it straight out of the fridge the next day had far better results :P oh well, was still delicious. It's just a raspberry and apple pie by the way, with a bit of homemde vanilla ice cream from the Veganomicon cookbook. I like that ice cream better than store bought soy stuff but it tastes  little tofu-y to someone not used to the taste. I'm wondering if steaming the tofu before making the ice cream would do anything?

It's good to be back in blog land. Unfortunately my unmotivation stretched into my half marathon training so I definately won't be running the whole thing in two weeks time. I'll run as far as I can though! I'll pick it up again for the Bridge to Brisbane methinks.

Breakfast of Champions

Lately we have been enjoying a basic bowl of cooked whole grains for breakfast. Once a week I'll cook up a cup each of whole oats and brown rice, mix them together and it lasts us a few days. I'll generally use 2/3-1 cup of the cooked grain as a serving. In this bowl I;ve got oats and rice, raw almond milk, tahini, banana, chopped dried apricots, chia seeds and molasses. I usually heat up the grains and then pour cold milk on top.

It tastes good, has a good texture and is very filling without being too heavy. I like that in a breakfast.

Random eats :)

The pecan crusted french toast from Skinny Bitch in the Kitch. Delicious. Don't think I'll bother with the whole sticking the chopped nuts to the bread next time - too fiddly and they burnt before the bread cooked properly - but wow. I've never had french toast before this and we both reckon it may turn into a weekend breakfast staple. I'd reccomend going for two pieces of bread for each person (if using heavy wholegrain bread like I did) because we couldn't quite finish it.

Barley and Cashew nut casserole from Easy Vegan Cooking. The only thing I don't like about this book is the apparent lack of flavour - so I just add some to the recipes when I make them. This one I cooked the barley with some beef style stock and a bay leaf, and added garlic. This is one that's better the next day (though still quite delicious the first day!) Meals like this are so easy to make and eat and are also filling and healthy. Good good.

A lunch the other weekend. Went perfectly with a bit of light reading and whipper snippering (lol.)

Fresh rice paper rolls with cos lettuce, grated carrot and some mashed chickpeas mixed with vegan mayo. Dipping sauce was sweet chilli and soy sauce. Sounds a little odd but totally worked :)

Fruit of the Month: Cherries!

Who doesn't love cherries?? (My sister, apparently. Crazy!) I have been eating cherries like they were air this season. I have been buying cherries for $7.99/kg at my fruit shop for a couple of weeks now - they are the reject cherries marked down because no one would buy them at the normal price (15 or so dollars/kg) but I think they are still good, especially used in what I've been using them in!

Cherries are apparently an aid to sufferes of gout (and arthritis) - the flavonoids in the cherry juice help reduce uric acid levels in the blood stream. Doesn't work for everyone, but it does for many! They also taste good. For only 87 calories per 1 cup serve, they make an excellent snack choice for anyone. (Not that I care about the caloric content - I'd eat the whole kilo if I wouldn't feel sick!) That same one cup serving also has 3% of your daily iron needs, 16% of your vitamin C and 2% of your calcium. [Source: nutritiondata.com]

Now for some uses:

Freeze them for the long cold winter ahead of us. I've found this to come in handy. I've hardly bought any frozen berries lately (because my freezer is full of containers of cherries) and pitting all the cherries is quite relaxing. I just cut them in half, twist it apart and then pry out the pit with a knife. Don't cut yourself. Apparently if you freeze them whole they'll take on an almond flavour from the pit. I just put it all into plastic takeaway containers (or whatever container you want) and freeze. When I need to use them it only takes a second to pry them apart (once you get one the whole lot usually falls apart).

Use them in a tart or pie. (Top right obviously). This was our Christmas dessert table! I contributed the Pear Frangipane Tart from the Post Punk Kitchen. Everyone loved it. I've made it twice now. I'm sure the pear version is lovely, but I don't think pears are in season here right now. But when they are I'm totally making it. Again.

Put them in your breakfast smoothie. I have smoothies for breakfast quite often. Since my old food processor finally carked it (JUST when I was about to start making my christmas tart) and I bought myself a fancy pants new one with a blender attachment, smoothies will be much more regular. Here's one I had this morning:

Cherry-Almond Smoothie

I small frozen banana

1 cup frozen cherries

30g (1/3 cup) almond meal

30g (1/3 cup) rolled oats

1 tbsp chia seeds

1 1/2 cups slmond milk

Blend. Makes about 2 cups.

This smoothie provides:  17g protein, 28% daily calcium, 10% daily iron, 23g fat (only 2 of which are saturated). Not bad huh? I was pretty impressed. It also lasted me for like, 3 hours.

Bake them into a cake or muffins. I made Lemon cherry muffins by Vegan in Bellingham. I chose this recipe while searching 'vegan cherry muffins' on the net because I already had all the ingredients. And they are so good. I made them yesterday afternoon and there's only 3 left. Good thing they are relatively good for you :)

And last, but not least, ice cream! I was gifted with an ice cream maker for Christmas from my mum and HOOFUCKINGRAY! I tested the wodnerful machine out today with a basic vanilla ice cream with what was supposed to be blasamic cherry swirl, but it turned out a little more like cherry ice cream. I used the lazy vanilla ice cream from A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise blog, except instead of creamer I used a can and abit of coconut cream. Unfortunately the shop only had light in the cheap brand, but full fat would definately have been better. This ice cream still rocks my world though!

I cooked 2 cups of pitted cherries down with 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar. This would be good on top of plain vanilla ice cream too, but I wanted something fancy for my first time use of the Wonder Machine! I'd chop the cherries up into little bits next time because I had to mash them this time and one squirted me in the eye. I thought I'd go blind. I didn't, obviously. So anyway, I let the ice cream maker do it's job for 20 minutes, and then I blobbed in this sauce (and 1/4 cup cacao nibs) and let it swirl around for a few minutes. Oooh it's good. The balsamic adds just a touch of a different flavour as an aftertaste. yum. I've had to stop myself from eating the whole lot. it's not even frozen yet!

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Happy cherry eating! I hope they stay cheap for just a little while longer...I want to freeze more for when I hibernate.

Some Food We Ate This Week

I love food. I love thinking about food making food and eating food. I love having enough of a variety of stuff in my 'pantry' that I can come home and just throw some ingredients in a pot and call it a nutritional meal:

This is a pantry curry-like meal, it was so quick to make, neither of us knew what we felt like and this sort of thing is usually what I make in that sort of situation. Bonus points for having tins of tomatoes in the pantry and not having to go to the shops! I don't measure anything for this type of throw together but here are the ingredients: about 1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas, 1 400g tin crushed or chopped tomatoes, most of a medium sized cauliflower, onion, carrot, the end of a bag of mung bean sprouts, spring onions, about half a block of soft tofu I found lurking in the fridge (it disintegrated), and a fair chunk of garam masala powder and some dried chilli flakes. I think I served it on brown rice. No garlic left, decided I didn't care. Oh, I also grated some fresh ginger in the last few minutes of cooking because ginger makes everything better.

Terrible photo, I was in a rush to eat it.

This meal I planned! All day at work I'd been thinking about how I haven't had eggplant for a while, so by the end of the day I wanted it pretty bad. I also felt like lentils for the same reason - they are so quick to cook and are delicious, why then don't I use them more often? So I picked up my copy of Appetite for Reduction and found Lentil & Eggplant Chilli Mole on page 242. Mmm cocoa powder in a non-sweet dish. It always freakes me out a little, I mean, it sounds gross. It really does. But I have made a mole before (I'm sure I would have posted about it, it being so weird to me and all but I can't find it), decided I like chocolate spicy things and this one had both eggplant AND lentils in it so it was a winner. I served it with the suggested Corn and Scallion Corn Bread from page 244 of the same book and it was delicious. I love corn bread. I should also make THAT more often! 

The supermarket didn't have any of the big eggplants left so I had to buy a kilo of the little lebanese ones. I swear there was like a hundred of them. Cutting up one big one is sooo much easier than slicing a million little ones. They were the same price though, so it was okay. I thought it wasn't all going to fit but it cooks down quite nicely. One thing I find confusing about US recipes - the amount of chilli powder called for. Often it'll say a few tbsp of the stuff! (I just read this recipe again and it specifies mild, there's my answer.) Australian chilli powder (I just buy the stuff from the fruit shop) must be like a bazillion times hotter than American, a tsp or two is usually plenty, and I like spicy heat.

Onto a breakfast! I can't remember when exactly I made this, probably Sunday. For a plethora of deliciously interesting pancake recipes, go to Chocolate Covered Katie's blog. These are the Apple Pie pancakes, but Nadine had stolen my apple I had my sights on so I used a grated pear instead. Just as delicious I am sure! I made the Vanilla Ice Milk too, sort of - I should have frozen it the night before but I didn't, so I was lazy and had semi frozen blended almond milk on top of my pancakes. The semi frozen almond milk was freakin delicious by the way - almond milk is probably going to be my ice cream milk of choice when I finally buy my ice cream maker. I have no patience for the freezing and stirring business.

I'm so glad I love to cook. I have no idea what else I'd be doing with my spare time!

Smoothie!

It's what's for breakfast.

I find smoothie recipes to be a bit redundant, I mean, don't you just chuck in whatever you've got in the fruit bowl and hope for the best? This is essentially me doing just that but the result was so pleasent I wanted to share.

This is a good way to get some healthy avocado into your crazy avocado hating friends and family!

Ingredients (makes about 2 cups worth):

1 tiny banana (for real - mine was probably barely 100g, I buy teeny ones at the farmer's market for $8kg)

1/2 a ripe avocado (if you can't afford bananas yet, use the whole avocado)

1 cup frozen raspberries (or other frozen fruit)

1 tbsp chia seeds

1/2 tbsp pea protein isolate powder

1 cup non dairy milk (I used soy)

Put all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend. (See? Redundant.)

The result is a smooth creamy smoothie that I very much enjoyed for my breakfast and am going to have again tomorrow it was so nice. If it's not sweet enough for you, add a tbsp or so of maple syrup, agave, or molasses or whatever liquid sweetener you like. I love the tartness of raspberries so for me it was perfect.

The chia seeds are crunchy in it - if you don't like that then I reccomend making a chia gel/pudding type thing before adding them into your smoothie. Apparently this goo lasts in the fridge for ages. I couldn't be arsed.

Also, to give it more staying power, I'd add some raw oats or wheat germ or something in it, otherwise it's really just a drink!

I've always been curious about trying a protein powder. Not for any particular reason - I doubt I actually NEED any more protein, but it's always fun to try new things. Whey protein is obviously out, soy protein (which you can get at Mrs Flannery's in bulk) sounds revolting and I really don't need any more soy in my life, the other main option seems to be this pea protein, which I've only seen in huge big buckets, but while at Mrs Flannery's the other week I saw it in little packets! Hooray!

It basically smells like guinea pig food, but once you get over that it's fine. I've been mixing it into my overnight oats that I have for breakfast before work. It has no noticeable taste (though I put lots of things into my oats so that could be covering it) but I've only been using quite a scant amount because as you can see, there is no serving size on the bag I got! And I don't really want/need that much. So a half tbsp is usually what I use.

Peanut Butter Pancakes

I am completely obsessed with peanut butter this week. I have made 3 batches since last Saturday, so that's pretty much 6 cups of peanuts gone in a week! (Between us both of course!) I thought it was about time for some more pancakes today and naturally peanut butter pancakes sounded the best. I based it on this recipe for snickerdoodle pancakes by Chocolate Covered Katie (I clicked on that one because I thought snickerdoodles had something to do with peanuts - they don't, and I still don't know what a snickerdoodle is! and the pancakes from Chocolate Covered Katie are always a winner.)

Peanut Butter Pancakes

Makes 4 small but fat pancakes (1 serve)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup wholemeal flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp soy milk (or other non dairy milk)

1 tsp vanilla essence

Heaping tbsp smooth or crunchy peanut butter

Maple syrup, crushed peanuts and non-dairy butter as toppings

Method:

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. In a measuring jug measure out the milk, then add the peanut butter and vanilla. Whisk until peanut butter is evenly distributed (mine sort of went to the bottom, but it wasn't in one big lump - this is ok).

Mix together wet and dry but don't overmix.

Cook pancakes as you normally would (I obviously don't know how since I always, ALWAYS burn them and end up using tons of oil) and serve hot/warm with the peanuts, syrup and non dairy butter.

These pretty much tasted just like really soft peanut butter cookies. If you added a little brown sugar into the batter they would taste even more like peanut butter cookies!

In mine I actually had a large tbsp of dessicated coconut, and was going to call them Peanut Butter Coconut Pancakes, but you could hardly taste it, if at all. Next time I might put way more in, and maybe use coconut milk as the liquid :) 

A nice start to the weekend

I made the desicion to get up this morning and do some exercise before breakfast rather than late afternoon when I normally do it, and I did! Hooray!

In my first group pilates class we used a stretchy band thing that I loved, so I went to a sports shop and got myself one! With it came a 40 min workout DVD utilising the band so I did that one this morning. It was pretty good, except I felt there weren't enough repetitions! You'd do three or four of each move instead of 8-10, but I can just learn the movements and do them myself as many times as I like (I hate listening to the instructors on DVD's yack anyway!). This isn't a paid product review by the way, it's just what I use at home and like.

Anyway, my band is gaiam brand, I got it at AMart Allsports, but gaiam also has a website. Unfortunately I couldn't find the band on it, but I can find the mat I use! When I bought the band I noticed Amart also had a million different kinds of yoga and pilates mats, so after I finished the half marathon I got myself a little present! This pilates mat by gaiam. It says it's thicker than most gym mats and has extra cushioning, both of which I reckon are untrue! It's as hard as a rock! I have to assume it softens up with more use. Other than that it's fine to use, and even with the lack of apparent cushioning it doesn't hurt. One thing it IS though, is sticky! Which is excellent because I often slide all over the place on our yoga mat we got from Target.

And also what I can't find on the site (I'm probably blind!) is that the mats are also free of the bad stuff in plastics (pthalates? I don't know how to spell it) I chucked out the (plastic! hahaha) wrapper on mine and I can't recall the exact kinds.

After my little bit of exercise I made some apple and cinnamon porridge for breakfast:

1/2 cup rolled oats, 1 cup soy milk, half a large apple grated and the other half cubed, and 1/2 tsp cinnamon. If you want the apple to be more cooked and mushy, precook it a little first. I didn't so I did it all at once.

Sprinkle some extra cinnamon on top (in this case I used allspice because I couldn't bothered opening the cinnamon packet again!) and enjoy. I discovered that if I set my camera to 'shoot waterside scene with rich blue colour' it picks up real colours in my food, instead of the usual greyish tone it all gets. Strange that the 'food' setting doesn't do it!

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Yesterday I also recieved some good news from the bank which means I can now go and buy my new (used) car! I am very, very excited =D

A new kind of breakfast :)



I'm quite a terrible photographer!

Raw buckwheat porridge!

I made half the recipe (in case I didn't like it) as per this blog entry by Oh She Glows. My choice of toppings were unsweetened apple sauce (not raw but who cares), currants and raw sunflower seeds. Peanut butter would have been good! Or you know, pretty colourful fruits like the photo in the original entry ;)

I made this up the night before and heated it up in the morning (I think it's better cold/room temp) before adding the applesauce, seeds and currants.

It didn't solidify in the fridge overnight like I thought it would (because of the chia seeds) which was good because I didn't need to add more milk to it.

And the best part is I already have tomorrow's breakfast ready! That's an extra five minutes in bed for me :)

Saturday morning pancakes

I think Saturday is my favourite day of the week. I can sleep in and fart ass around all day if I feel like it - it doesn't matter since the next day is Sunday and I still don't have to go to work! I like to make a nice breakfast on Saturdays, because all week I've probabaly eaten the same thing, usually oats, and it's nice to have a fancy cooked brekkie when I'm not awake before sunrise. Sometimes it'll be scrambled tofu with baked beans, or I'll make my own hash browns (maybe I'll do that tomorrow! Nadine isn't working hooray!), a lot of the time it's pancakes, specifically, buckwheat because I've decided I love buckwheat flour, and besides, every time I've attempted vegan pancakes with regular flour it's failed miserably.

I know it's like the exact same picture as all my other pancakes I've posted on this here blog, but it's different because they are giant and have raspberries in them. I also used a different recipe since I don't have any bananas - at a million dollars a kilo, I'm sorry!

The recipe I used is 'Grandma's Buckwheat Pancakes' onVegWeb.com. They are delicious. I also ate the entire lot, I wish I hadn't because now I feel sick! I put a blob of nuttlex and tofutti cream cheese and some lemon juice on mine. I also made them with almond milk, and cut the oil down to 2 tbsp and had no issues. These pancakes also commemorate the first time my smoke detector hasn't gone off while making pancakes! Amazing. Last time it didn't stop. As in, when I took the batteries out it was still beeping.

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In other news, I had my first pilates class on Thursday! It was great. My abs STILL hurt (which is kind of annoying but it shows that they did some work!) my legs hurt my arms hurt my butt hurts.

Thursday couldn't possibly have been a better day to do it, either! We had been weeding while standing and bening ALL DAY at work so my back and legs and feet were just killing me. Wedding like that is like a constant lunge, and because I'm uncoordinated on my left side I always use my right leg so that hamstring wants to kill me. Also my right knee always hurts, so I think this class is really going to be helpful. Also I reckon a couple more goes and I might be able to touch my toes without struggle. Ha.

Speaking of exercise, our half marathon walk is next Sunday! Nadine wasn't working at the start of the week so everyday as soon as I got home we went for a quick walk up the street and back, (about 2.5km) which has been good since it stretches out my legs from work and it makes us exercise and thus spend more time together. This weekend we'll have to bust out a much longer walk - at least 10km. Tomorrow we have to pick up our kit from the city so I think we should walk there and back.

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My plans for the day include doing the laundry (the homemade detergent really does make it softer!), baking some more bread (I'm seeing how long I can go without buying a loaf from the shop! So far I've made one loaf.) and making some vegan pepperoni from Vegan on the Cheap to put on a pizza for dinner. I should also probabaly practise some of the pilates stuff I learnt - I'll see how sore I am and if I can toughen up and handle it :)

Dangerous Nuts Part 1: Bunya Nut Pikelets

Could you get any more Australian?

So why do I call them dangerous? Well, there is a few reasons.

1.If you sit under a bunya pine while it's in season, you may die. The cones are as big as your head (or bigger!) and can weigh upwards of 10kg. Don't try it. I noticed a tree in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens when I was there last that had a makeshift fence around to stop people having their picnics under it.

2.They can explode. Wear eye protection and stand back if you cook them on a bbq.

3.While trying to pry open a shell on a raw one with a hammer I nearly bashed my finger off.

4.While trying to cut open the shell on a soaked one I nearly chopped off a nipple with the handles of my secateurs. I don't know how, all I know is that it hurt like a motherf*cker. I hope I didn't do any lasting damage!

Okay, so bunya nuts are about as much of a pain in the ass to peel as chestnuts, but not quite. At least these ones stay whole. I looked up all sorts of ways to do it online, but they all sounded hard. One guy said to go outside and hit them with a mallet to crack the shells. I don't have an outside and I don't have a mallet. I could have boiled them whole and then peeled off the shells (with difficulty) afterwards but all my pots and pans were dirty and I couldn't be bothered. I could have roasted them, but I was afraid they'd explode and catch fire because I couldn't split them a little first.

So in the end I decided to soak them overnight in a bowl of cold water, figuring the shells would soften:

And in the morning the shells were indeed soft, so I could hit them a little bit gentler with a hammer than if they were raw-raw:

You can see the cracks in it. A bunya nut has a pointed end and a round end. At the pointed end there are 3 'seams'. Hit the hammer on one of them. The seams will crack and you can peel it.

I decided the hammer freaked me out too much as it was getting too close to my thumbs, so I dug out my secateurs (yes they are rusty and old and under-used and covered in WD-40 and potting mix but did I ever say my kitchen was sanitary?) and decided to just slice off the skins. Use them like a nut cracker first to split the seams (this was way easier than it was with the hammer) and then slice down toward the round end until you can force off the shell.

At this stage the nut can sort of be popped out. You don't have to struggle with pulling off the rest of the skin.

It may come out with a layer of brown stuff on it, like a shelled peanut:

I took it off. Dunno if you have to, I just did.

Now for the cooking. Once you have your desired amount of bunya nuts peeled, give them a bit of a rinse, especially if you used disgusting dirty tools like I did. Mmm WD-40, my favourite!

Then put them into a dry frying pan and cook, as if you were pan roasting cashews to make cashew butter:

Bits will go black and brown and they will smell nice. I had a lid over them for most of it because I didn't have a clean stirring spoon either (I know, I'm a slob) so I could just shake them around. I was also still scared of them exploding in my face (this is unlikely to happen!).

Once they are all browned like in the above picture, put them on a chopping board and use a sharp knife to finely chop like so:

You could just eat them whole too if you like, but this time I decided I wanted to put them in pikelets! Hence the chopping.

I ran a search on google for vegan pikelets as I have never made them before, and found this recipe on The Year of the Vegan which sounded perfect as I had some soft tofu in the fridge I needed to use before it turned yellow.

So I made the recipe exactly as it says except I used wholemeal flour, and didn't have any maple syrup so I used 1 tbsp of rice syrup instead. And at the end of all the whisking, I folded in half a cup of the chopped bunya nuts, and cooked as normal.

I spread vegan marg on them, sprinkled a few extra chopped nuts on top and drizzled them with a good amount of rice syrup. Yum.

(It took me so long to make them all they were cold by the time I got to eat them. But that's ok, they taste better cold and I'm pretty sure pikelets are meant to be eaten cold).

So to wrap up this god awful long entry, what do they taste like??

Well, like nuts, I guess. I want to say they taste like pine nuts (hur, hur!) but I'm not sure what they are like. They have also been compared to chestnuts, and I have to say that's probably the closest thing I can think of too. They have a different texture, quite soft (though that's probably because I soaked them) and were a nice addition to the humble pikelet. Now I have to think of what to do with the rest!! I bought a ½ kilo. Stay tuned for Dangerous Nuts Part 2 :)

Hot Cross Buns recipe and a little catchup on some mending

So I took another sick day at work. Hopefully I have enough hours to get paid for it! Anyway, I ended up making a lovely spicy chickpea dish from Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion called 'Chickpea and Tomato Curry' for dinner last night. I won't post the recipe because I followed it pretty much exactly, but it was basically chickpeas, tomato, onion, garlic, ginger and a delicious spice mix made from whole peppercorns, cardamom, garam masala, cinnamon, chilli powder and tumeric. So good, yet simple and fairly quick to make (if you don't count the hours it takes to cook dried chickpeas!)

I had just a small bit which took me ages to eat, with some brown rice. For some reason 2/3 cup uncooked rice made enough for 3! I usually do 1/2 cup each. Odd. We figured out I had a light fever so I opted then to stay home from work today whether I felt fine or not.

So in order not to waste my day, I randomly decided to start my mending! (I have a huge list). The first thing I picked up was my favourite winter hat (I don't know what it's made from; I got it years ago from a friend). As you can see it has a big...gap? tear? what would you call that? that needs fixing. It's been like that since I got it, pretty sure.

So I got out a crochet hook and fixed it! You can hardly tell, no? Since it's getting cooler now I should really start crocheting things again. I haven't done any for ages and I do enjoy it. I still have a half finished bolero I was making for Nadine about 3 years ago!

On to the Hot Cross Buns! As you can see, the crosses melted into the bread. Oh well. But anyway they turned out really soft! I was quite surprised.  I made a half batch so only 8, but I've been sitting around all day in my fat pants (so comfy) eating toast and these buns with heaps of margarine, so for next week I'll make at least double.

Hot Cross Buns

Makes 8

Ingredients

1 sachet of instant dried yeast

1/6 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup warm soy milk

1/2 cup warm water

2 cups plain wholemeal flour

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

heaping tbsp vegan margarine

1/2 cup currants

1 tbsp chia seeds mixed with 1/4 cup of water

1 tbsp caster sugar and 1/4 cup water for the glaze

Method

Mix together all dry ingredients. Add margarine and rub in with fingers. Stir through chia goo and slowly add in warm milk/water until a soft dough is formed.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until dough comes back when pressed.

Put into an oiled bowl in a warm place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.*

knoack back dough gently and divide into 8 even balls, and set out on a baking tray. (I used my pizza pan.) Let stand in a warm place until double again (doesn't matter if they touch). Turn oven to 200 degrees Celcius.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until buns sound hollow when tapped.

Make a glaze by boiling the sugar and water until sugar dissolves. Brush onto warm/hot buns.

Eat when cooled down a little!

I, of course, had a few when they were fresh from the oven, but today I toasted them under the grill.

They were sweet and a little sticky from the glaze, just like they should be. I didn't bother with buying any fruit peel because I never use it all. I only just through out the rest of the bag from last year! I won't bother with the crosses next time, maybe. They worked last year (I did it differently) but maybe I just can't be bothered. Ha.

*I turn on my oven for a few seconds then turn it off. Perfect breeding ground for yeast!

Crumpets!

I made crumpets from scratch today for our breakfast! I love Saturdays.

I used this recipe, shared by Mangocheeks at Allotment2Kitchen.

I made some substitutions,, as per always! I used homemade hazelnut milk in place of dairy and wholemeal plain flour in place of white. It took a few goes before I got the hang of making them. The first few I put too much batter in the egg-ring so it turned out doughy and not bubbly, but they started to work well after I realised that! My egg rings are quite small so I could make many more than 12.

I love the little holes. I cooked them up last night, put them in the fridge, and stuck them under the grill this morning to heat through.

Yuuummm. On ours we had lots of nuttelex margarine, jam, and a fruit syrup in place of honey. I ususally buy rice syrup but the shop ran out so I got this instead. It doesn't taste nearly as much like real honey as the rice syrup does, but it does the job. I also think a cream cheese (Tofutti or something similar) would be delicious! I'm going to make some more sometime soon and freeze them.

Homemade Kalamata Olive and Herb Bread

Nadine and I often buy fancy bread from the European bakery that's conviniently open across the road for weekend breakfasts, and our favourite is the kalamata olive loaf.

However, it costs $6, it's made from white flour and also has a million unescessary other ingredients in it's long (vegan, I checked, the poor guy at the counter was very flustered haha) list. Sugar, preservative numbers, this, that, the other. But damn it is a tasty bread.

But since I can't afford that sort of money for bread anymore (or their delicious traditional German pretzels homg) or ever really could, I decided one weekend to just make some.

*drool*

It turned out pretty awesome.

Kalamata Olive and Herb Bread
Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients

450g wholemeal flour
1 sachet of instant dried yeast (this is about 2.5 tsp)
1/2 tsp salt
50g gluten flour (vital wheat gluten)
2 tbsp (or more!) or mixed dried herbs or your favourite
100g chopped or sliced kalamata olives (make sure there are NO pits! it's not worth losing a tooth over)
Enough warm water to make a firm moist dough

Mix together flour, gluten flour, salt, olives, herbs, and yeast. Make a well in the center and pour in the warm water (start with one cup).

Mix the dough, adding more water until a firm elastic dough is achieved.

Turn onto a floured bench. Knead for 5 minutes or until smooth. Place in an oiled bowl and let rise* for about 1/2 an hour or until double in size.

Knead again lightly. Press out dough gently to about the length of your loaf tin and roll it up. Place the rolled up dough in the tin with the 'seam' side down. Let rise again until doubled.

Bake at 200 degrees C for 30-40 minutes or until brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

Try to let it cool down before you slice it or eat it!

*I have a gas oven at home so I light it for a few seconds then turn it off and leave the dough to rise inside. It works perfectly.

In this particular loaf I made I put in too much water, and it didn't rise as much as my regular whole grain bread. But next time I'll remember about the water! I also didn't bake it long enough, it was a little doughy in the middle. And I sliced it while hot. I got impatient. Don't get impatient, it's better when cooled down!!

But the overall result was awesome, and next time we want a fancy bread for breakfast I'll make it again!

The possibilities are endless. Maybe I'll add chilli, or caramelised onion next time.