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.

Roasted pumpkin soup

Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Serves 7 as a starter

Ingredients:

650g butternut pumpkin (weighed without skin)

350g kent pumpkin (weighed without skin)

1 whole head of garlic

2 small onions

2 cups chicken style stock (or veg stock)

coconut cream and reserved pumpkin seeds for garnish

Method:

 Preheat oven to 220 degrees C.

Chop pumpkin into 2 inch chunks. Cut onions into quarters. Put into a bowl with the pumpkin and mix in a bit of sea salt and cracked pepper, and two teaspoons of any neutral cooking oil (I use rice bran). Spread in a single layer on a baking tray. Cut the top off the garlic and peel off the papery part of the skin. Wrap it up in tin foil and stick on the tray with pumpkin. Bake for about 40 minutes or until pumpkin and garlic are soft.

Once cooled a little, put into a food processor (if yours is gigantic you could do it all at once but I had to do mine in batches) with the stock and blend until smooth. Pour into a saucepan.

For the pumpkin seeds you could leave raw or wash all the pumpkin pulp off them and dry fry them in a pan until toasted and then chop into pieces.

Heat soup just before serving. If you want it thinner add more water or stock. Garnish with pumpkin seed pieces and a tablespoon of coconut cream :)

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 We had this as an entree last night at dinner. My garlic wasn't quite roasted enough so it was very garlicky. Perhaps put the garlic in the oven for 5-10 minutes before the pumpkin. Also my coconut cream was pretty much milk by the time I spooned it on. I'd suggest putting a can of coconut cream in the fridge overnight and using just the thick cream from the top of the can :)

The beauty of pumpkin soup is that it can be a started to pretty much anything and you can add any other seasonings you want (curry powder, italian herbs, etc). I find it quite filling so I try to make sure my main course (especially if dessert is a third course!) a fair bit smaller than usual so as my stomach doesn't explode.

I did have a dessert third course: Chocolate and vanilla ice cream sandwiches! Best idea ever by the way. I made the homemade vanilla ice cream from Veganomicon, and baked the Mocha Mama cookies from Vegan Cookies etc.

I bought the wrong kind of tofu for the ice cream but I just blended it a bit longer and it worked perfectly fine. I am so glad I only made enough ice cream sandwiches for everyone because I'd have eaten any leftovers all at once =D

One tip...make sure your cookies are pretty cold before putting the ice cream on them. Refrigerating would have been a good idea! As you can see it melted a bit. Still good though.

You can't go wrong with pie

I came home from work on Thursday to find that Nadine had baked me a pie.

The Banana Toffee Pudding Pie (otherwise known as Banoffee) from Vegan Pie in the Sky as a matter of fact.

Could anything be more delicious?

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.

Perhaps a tad too soon...

...but here is a delicious recipe in celebration of bananas being almost cheap enough to buy again. It was inspired from my copy of 'The 21st birthday Cookery Book of the Country Women's Association in Tasmania'. Most of the recipes for meals hold pretty much no interest for me (laden with various animal parts and by-products) but the desserts and confections can mostly be made suitable for us!

Baked Banana Pudding
Serves 4-6

Ingredients

115g margarine (I use nuttlex lite)
2 med-large bananas
2 tbsp chia seeds
1/2 cup cold water
zest and juice of one lemon
1 cup raw caster sugar (or regular sugar)
1 cup of wholemeal self raising flour


Make sure you use McAlpin's!

Method

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees Celcius.

Mix chia seeds into water and set aside to thicken. Mash bananas in a small bowl and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar. Add lemon juice and zest and beat to combine. Beat in chia seed goo and bananas until well combined. Sift in flour (don't forget to re add in the bran) and beat again until combined. You may need to add a little bit of milk...the batter should be thick but not dry at all.

Pour batter into a greased or lined baking tin (I used a small brownie pan). Bake for about 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.

After baking

Serve with ice cream!
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I served ours with half arsed frozen vanilla hazelnut iced milk cream mixture. Haha it was ok.

The pudding however was delicous! I'm kind of surprised it worked, but there isn't any reason it wouldn't have is there. It's soft and moist without being gooey and gross, it's not TOO sweet, though maybe next time I'll experiment with less sugar. It leaves room for any add ins - nuts, raisins, chocolate...And it''s really simple with few ingredients! If you don't want to see your chia seeds, try using a flax egg replacement for two eggs or you can buy white chia seeds. I don't care...they aren't noticeably crunchy in this either. If you don't like a lemony flavour, omit it and use vanilla essense. You'll probably need the milk at the end if you do that though.

I've bookmarked many many recipes in my book and I'm pretty excited about a few of them :)

Chocolate Chip Blondies

Yum. I wanted to bake something to take to dad's for dessert on Sunday so I flicked through Chocolate Covered Katie's recipe page and clicked on the chocolate chip blondies first and I had everything for them so they were the one! Ha.

These things are made from chickpeas! Yeah. Well I used 1 cup of chickpeas and half a cup of white beans since I didn't have enough :) I also didn't have chocolate chips so I just chopped up some Lindt 85% dark choclate bar. I usually do that when a recipe calls for chips, it's a bit cheaper I think. None of our supermarket or supermarket avaliable brands appear to be vegan.

Yeah make these. They also make a great high protein snack for morning tea at work! But it is also very easy to eat all of them straight from the oven...

Sometimes you just gotta make dessert

I love how this dessert makes it looks like I went all out and put in a heap of effort...but really it was a simple process of blending some stuff together and sticking it in the fridge.

I saw the recipe on Chococlate Covered Katie's blog and decided to make it then and there.

I made a basic sweet shortcrust pastry and blind baked it for about 20 minutes before pouring in the filling.

In the filling I used 2x100g blocks of Lindt 85% dark choclate, and 1 pkg and a bit of silken firm tofu. I also used about 1 tbsp maple syrup to sweeten just a tad as the choclate is quite bitter. Strawberries are still cheap (amazing this year!) so I cut a bunch in half and pressed them into the filling before I put it in the fridge. I left it the fridge all day and we ate it after dinner :) It was set perfectly - it still amazes me that I didn't have to bake it or use coconut oil or anything. I guess when the chocolate goes hard again...

This pie is so fine I have to force myself not to just go to the fridge and eat the lot. And it's good for you too! I think it'll be a great post-workout snack when you aren't quite ready for a meal yet. I might try that theory tomorrow ;)

Titles are hard to come by...

I got my race card in the mail, finally! Check out that number. Apparently there's about 50,000 people doing this thing. Dude. Are there that many people in Australia? Far out. I've been keeping up with my training quite well. I can now run jog 4.5km without stopping, for which I am quite proud.

Nadine baked me some cupcakes (woohoo!) today. She chose the Dulce sin Leche cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. But for the icing, instead of what it said she just made a basic chocolate icing which was delicious. I want another one but apparently I have to make them last til Saturday. Bah.

I had a beer the other night and a friend decided to join me :) I nearly had a heart attack, but it wasn't nearly as bad as when the cane toad came flying out of the potting machine at me! It was still alive so we let him go. Poor thing must've been terrified going around and around. I also nearly stood on a water dragon - the animals are coming out now! Just in time for spring :)

Peanut Butter Coconut Cream Pie

Otherwise known as a heart attack. And it was sooo worth it.

Peanut Butter Coconut Cream Pie

Serves 12

Ingredients:

1 pre baked chocolate tart case (I made an oatmeal-buckwheat flour base but didn't write down the ingredients...make your favourite, just add 1 tbsp cocoa powder.

Filling

1 cup peanut butter (I used homemade)

125g vegan cream cheese at room temperature

1/2 cup coconut cream (put a can of coconut cream in the fridge for a few hours. Take it out and open and carefully spoon the thick cream off the top)

Scant 1/2 cup dark brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

Ganache Topping

100g 85% dark chocolate broken up

2 tbsp rice syrup

1/4 cup almond milk

1/4 cup coconut cream

toasted chopped peanuts

Method:

Prepare your crust. I put mine in a springform cake pan.

Put all filling ingredients in a food processor and process until combined. This will get really thick! Though I forgot to bring the cream cheese to room temperature first so that may have had an impact.

Pour into crust and put in the fridge for a few hours or until set.

Meanwhile, make the ganache topping!

Heat the two milks on the stove until boiling. Take off heat and stir in the rice syrup and chocolate. Stir until chocllate is melted - it'll go quite thick. Pour on top of set pie and sprinkle toasted chopped peanuts on top. Put back in the fridge until set.

Serve and enjoy. Every. Bite.

Bring it on! I'm going to try and make this deliciousness last all week. It's very very rich (as you'd expect) and quite high in fat so go easy on it!

I love to use this coconut cream. I probaably shouldn't, but I eat it from the can. Don't let me make curry hahaha. It just tastes so damn good!

Gluten free vegan chocolate cake :)

I was asked to make a chocolatey cake for a baby shower/restaurant dinner that we went to last night. I decided I'd better make it gluten free as the friend of ours who organised may be gluten intolerant (and it's fun to make non-traditional things even more non-traditional!). I ended up make it twice - the dinner was supposed to be on the weekend but said friend got food poisoning so it was postponed. So I took the first cake (pictured above) to dads place for dessert and it was happily gobbled up.

I followed this recipe (Mexican chocolate Cake by Gluten-free goddess) almost exactly for the first cake, with a few minor edits: I used 100% buckwheat flour, dark brown sugar, No-egg instead of Ener-G, guar gum instead of xanthan [couldn't find it, guar worked fine], allspice instead of cinnamon, orange sweet potato, molasses and rice syrup instead of honey, coconut oil instead of shortening, apple cider vinegar instead of lemon juice, and only two tsp of vanilla extract. It also took quite a bit longer to bake than said - I'm pretty sure it's my unreliable oven.

For the icing I made a basic vegan buttercream from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and used coconut oil instead of shortening, which worked but there were a few lumps of solid coconut oil in it once set.

This cake was friggin delicious! Buckwheat flour is very fine so it was really nice and soft, rather than clumpy. Best chocolate cake I've made, and I'm not really a fan of chocolate cake at all. I want to make gluten free brownies out of the batter, which I think would work really well, since it's that sort of dense texture, but a bit cakey. I shall experiment.

When I made it again for the baby celebrations, I decided to do a two level cake, so I baked two! I put a layer of choko jam on first as per Nadine's request (it worked really well!), smothered that in the same icing as I used before (except I didn't make enough so I had to make another batch).

Plonked the other cake on top and then more icing. As you can see I didn't put enough icing in the middle - I'd put it over the edge next time or level out the cake around the outside to make it a bit more presentable.

Since it was all about babies I drew this on top with black writing icing I got from Woolworths - vegan as far as we could tell (labelled gluten free as well). Tastes like poison but none of the ingredients were in our little vegan shoppers guide. Isn't it cute?

The retsuarant staff thought it was for a birthday so they put a candle in it and sang happy birthday! It was mortifying. But that's ok because the cake was fabulous!

With the second cake I didn't have enough buckwheat to make two cakes, so I mixed together 1:1 buckwheat and rice flour like suggested in the recipe. It worked, but 100% buckwheat was a fair bit nicer :) I also didn't have enough sweet potato puree so I put 1/4 cup in each cake and it didn't seem to affect the texture too much.

So hooray! Gluten free vegan chocolate cake success! Everyone at least seemed to enjoy it :)

I wonder what muffins made with buckwheat flour would be like?

Sometimes simple is best



Dipped in lindt 85%

Nothing like a simple dessert and two cuddly kitties at the end of the day :)



They are touching without squabbling!





My take/attempt on a steamed pudding

After reading my post where I mentioned the CWA of Tasmania's 21st birthday cookbook, my dad surprised me by buying me a copy of my own! Plus another one 'The Country Women's Association Cook Book - seventy years in the kitchen' which is the newer (newest? Published in 2009) by the NSW branch. Needless to say I was pretty excited. I could now bone and truss and de feather a fowl if I needed to. (Seriously. Everything is in here.)

So what to make? Steamed pudding sounded good - and there's almost a whole chapter dedicated to them. Some specifically without eggs, and when I actually read through them most of them didn't have eggs anyway, so I chose the Treacle Steamed Pudding to have a go at. I've added/substituted things so I'm going to post my version up here.

Ginger Molasses vegan Steamed Pudding

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 cup wholemeal plain flour (white is ok)

1 tsp bicarb soda

1 tsp salt

1 heaping tsp ground ginger

2 tbsp raw sugar (white ok - any granulated kind)

2 tbsp vegan margarine

1 tbsp blackstrap molasses

1 cup non dairy milk of choice (I used homemade soy)

1/2 cup currants

First, sift your flour, bicarb, salt and ginger into a mixing bowl. Don't forget to add back in the germ/bran if using wholemeal! Stir in the sugar and rub in the margarine until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add the molasses and stir until well combined. Pour in non dairy milk and stir gently, then fold in the currants.

Pour into a pudding basin with lid, or use a bowl and cover it with greaseproof paper tied with string like I did (which is where the trouble began!*)

Find a saucepan that fits your bowl and put it in. Fill with water til about halfway up the covered bowl, put the saucepan lid on and bring to the boil. Steam/boil for two hours.

When ready (I stuck a skewer in and it came out semi-clean) turn out onto a plate and serve with custard or ice cream!

*Onto the trouble! I stupidly forgot to keep an eye on the boiling water level in the saucepan and of course it boiled dry. I decided to boil the kettle and re fill it. Yeah don't do that - I heard a CRACK and thought oh no it's smashed! My bowl is about as big as the saucepan so I couldn't see - I just ran a spoon around the outside of the bowl and encountered no cracks (apparently) so I left it.

When it was ready I took off the paper and saw this lovely great big hole! Luckily it was a nice clean break and there was no glass in my pudding. I did burn it though. Observe:

I wouldn't call it a 'failure' as such, since it was still edible, but it's a warning for next time!

Is a glass bowl on a gas stove a bad idea? Would it even make a difference if the stove was electric? Do pudding basins even exist anymore? What about silicon? Any suggestions? Hahaha.

All the bowl smashing and burning aside, it's pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Which I do.

A little bit of a foodie update...

So I was craving dessert this week. I even bought ice cream.

I made an apple and pear tart/pie. I cooked up two medium apple and one medium pear (it was a different pear - got it from the farmer's market. Can't remember what it was called but it looked like an apple but pear shaped. It's skin was thick but cooked well) with some cinnamon, and put in my tart pan with a basic wholemeal pastry base. As you can see I went all out and made a proper lattice top! Pretty sure I did it the hard way. Is there an easy way?

It went perfectly with vanilla So Good ice cream and a bit of lindt 85% dark chocolate. I ate most of the rest cold for morning tea at work during the rest of the week.

Nadine hasn't been working much so she's been queen of the kitchen lately! This is a spinach and potato curry from appetite for reduction. Delicious. It is so fun to eat quinoa!

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Nadine has cooked a delicious looking dinner for me tonight! We are celebrating our third anniversary with Dvd's, a yummy dinner, and tomorrow we will spend the day bush walking and...car shopping. Guh!

Tom Yum Soup, Fresh Rice Paper Rolls, and Vegan Panna Cotta!

I was home alone today since Nadine had to work (sadface) but it gave me the opportunity to spend all day pottering about in the kitchen!

I found a stalk of lemongrass in the fridge that I harvested last week sometime and I can't remember why, so I decided another Tom Yum Soup would be on the menu. This time I used some of that Vegetarian Oyster Sauce instead of soy sauce, to give it a 'fishy' taste. I couldn't taste any notable difference! (That oyster sauce, by the way, has over 1000mg of sodium per 15mL serve. I don't think I'll rush to buy it again!What it lacks in sugar it makes up with salt.)

In the morning I made up a couple of fresh rice paper rolls to go with it. Inside are: bean thread noodles, fried tofu, shredded purple cabbage and finely sliced carrot. Served with a mix of peanut butter and soy suace. I meant to put sesame oil in the sauce but I forgot about it :(

I was flicking through the Concious Cook to find something for dessert and the Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta with Orange Sauce jumped out at me and screamed 'MAKE ME MAKE ME'. So I did.

Before the sauce. Do you like my pretty plate? It's part of a vintage tea set from Czechoslovakia. I rescued it from Nadine's mum's giant chest of antiques she was getting rid of. I was going to sell it to the Antique center because I really don't have room...but it's so pretty I'm going to keep it.

Oh man. So delicious. The recipe made 6 serves so there's more for the next couple of days! The sauce is amazing - a plain caramel would be better with the vanilla, but I just made what was in the book. It's orange juice and zest, brown sugar and a bit of whiskey. Yum. I was supposed to strain it but I like chunky sauces (and soups, and gravies). The panna cotta itself is basically a cashew cream set with agar agar. It's a little tiem consuming to make (like most of the recipes I've tried in this book) but is completely worth it.

This is how we celebrated the Royal Wedding (which I totally watched. Shame!) Classy, no? Hello Kitty jammies, a hideous Marilyn Manson shirt and two bottles of red wine. I actually enjoyed the wedding very much, I thought it was lovely and romantic. Hahaha. I couldn't make it to the famous balcony pash because before that the stupid announcers started doing the 'fashion judging' which I can't freakin stand. And I thought they were very mean to Beatrice and Eugenie Ferguson.

We ended up taking poor Bob to the vet :( She had a very high temperature and hadn't eaten anything for days. The vet said she probably got into a fight with another cat (no surprise there!) and had an infection, so she gave her an antibiotic shot. We opted for the shot even though it cost more, because we value our arms and faces, and it lasts for two weeks and is less painful for everybody involved! Anyway, she perked right up within hours and has been running around and chowing down on her food and even went visiting with the neighbours! Hooray :)