Sansblogue

In a comment Larry pointed to the site with Paul McCartney’s impassioned video advocating a Vegan lifestyle to avoid cruelty to animals. While I respect the desires of Larry and Paul to avoid hurting fellow creatures, and to some extent share it, I am speciesist. I can see no reason to accord the same protection and care to other species that we do to our own. “Don’t eat a fish, fish have (some small measure of) personality” does not work for me, sorry! And showing selected clips of the worst atrocities of the US meat industry did not convince me either.

So I then flipped to the recipes, that’s surely where I can use some help. And got a shock, under the heading Breakfast the top recipes offered a collection of dodgy meat substitutes making wannabe carnivore dishes like ‘Eggs’ Benedict; ‘Bacon,’ Potato, and Green Onion Frittata; ‘Chicken’ With Artichokes and Olives; ‘Eggnog’ Pancakes. The first is described as:

Baked tofu, eggless hollandaise sauce, veggie bacon, and fresh tomatoes top a toasted English muffin for a delicious vegan version of a French classic.

The only thing that’s real here are the tomatoes and the muffin. The rest is faux meat. The thought that the best “Vegetarian” can offer is a collection of wannabe carnivore dishes is a real turn off. I want real, tasty, nourishing food, food to nourish the soul as well as feast the belly! And “tofu, eggless hollandaise sauce, veggie bacon” ain’t it :(

Maybe if you are a vegan, or the friend of a vegan, who has a recipe that fits the requirements below you would like to enter it in my vegan recipe competition and help me out?

Sage is a great flavour for winter, last week I cooked a chicken for visitors down in Tauranga, and despite using a nice barn raised chook all the comments were on the stuffing. If you suffered from packeted dried “Sage and Onion Stuffing” as a child, forget it. Packet stuffing is like dried parsley, or instant coffee, not worth the time they save!

Stuffing is easy:

• some bread cut into small chunks (or wapped briefly in a processor, but don’t make it breadcrumbs, they’re too fine)
• zest of a lemon or two (add the juice later if it seems dry)
• an egg
• a handful of fresh sage leaves chopped into peices
• a handful of bacon also chopped
• salt and pepper

Mix together, if the egg is not quite enough to bind it all together then add lemon juice or another egg. Stuff the bird and roast.

That meant I had sage left over, and those little pots never really grow for me, and the NZ Herald had a delicious looking recipe for Pumpkin, Sage and Blue Cheese Fritters. We also had an unused butternut, and I love blue cheese :) So since I have sent “‘Exile away from his land’: Is landlessness the ultimate punishment in Amos?” off for what I hope is the final time, “The book of Amos and the Day of YHWH” to a colleague for criticism, and am getting on well with “Degrees of Presence” I celebrated by trying the recipe.

It too is simple:

• grated butternut (I used a cup or so)
• small red onion (also grated – yes, I grate them together in the food processor, do you think I like skinned knuckles?)
• blue cheese crumbled – not much (unless like me you are a fiend for blue cheese ;)
• a few Tbsp Rice Flour
• a little baking powder (I used 1/2 tsp)
• handful of chopped sage leaves
• egg white (the yolk will make mayo or something later)

Mix them all up and fry :)

Easy as, and delicious.

No pictures because the kitchen gremlin seems to have put soya flour (or something) into the jar marked Rice Flour, and the recipe really needs the rice flour to make it crisp! So mine was a delicious fried mash instead of fritters, so no photo this time :(

It’s autumn :) I got some lovely big juicy and cheap organic fennel bulbs the other day at Green Rebel (now Fresh) on Dominion Rd. They are big and juicy, but perhaps have been left to get a bit overgrown, so may be tough. This recipe is ideal, the stock provides steam to soften them a little, while getting the potatoes beautifully crisp.

• Potatoes (I used about 8 small ones for a two person portion) cut and boiled for 6-10 mins
• Onions (I used six small red ones) peeled and cut in half or quarters
• Fennel Bulb (I used one huge organic one, I guess two or three supermarket midgets) cut
• Stock half a cup (for this 2 portion size) with saffron soaking in it while the veges are getting cut, 1 Tbsp balsamic and a tsp or two of sugar
• garlic 1/2 a head chopped
• teaspoon each fennel seeds crushed and paprika
• bay leaves, several, and thyme several sprigs (if you MUST you can probably used dried but surely you have a few thyme plants in a pot somewhere, no one but you will see they look straggly at this season because they’ll char away, just leaving that lovely aroma, the burnt bay leaves should be removed by hand before serving ;)
• Olive oil 2-3 Tbsp

Spread the autumnal bounty (dry ingredients) around a baking tray, pour on the stock and oil, place in oven at 190C (about 375F for Americans and anyone stuck in a time warp). Turn over with a slice every ten minutes or so till beautifully golden and burnt. Eat straight from the oven, with seasoning. Forget you intended to keep half for this evening and wish you’d done double quantity :)

PS: if you follow the chef’s advice (my son Nathan) and keep your vege peelings to make stock this recipe is even Vegan as well as delicious :) I confess to having used some bones from a dead chicken to make my stock – I must get better organised ;)

We’ve been eating less meat, since the kids are leaving home (they are all confirmed and voracious carnivores ;-) among the recipes I’ve found useful is this warm Noodle Salad from Burma. We watched it being prepared at Borderline in Mae Sot when we did a cookery course there. I wish I had taken a photo of the meal since their version looked a lot more appetising than the one I prepared over the weekend – in a hurry as we were reorganising the kitchen all afternoon :(

Ingredients:

• wheat noodles (ideally from your local Asian store, not rice noodles, but almost Tagliatelle – which you could probably use if stuck, though it is not the same) enough for the number you are feeding I’ll give quantities for 4 as a main.
• vegetables (ideally gourd, but corgettes work quite well and carrot is OK…)
• cabbage 1-2 handsfull
• spring onions a few
• beansprouts 1.5 cups
• hard tofu one block (depending on size)
• corriander 4-5 plants
• red onions 2 small
• yellow bean powder 0.5-1 teacup (a mix of 50/50 soya powder and ground up peanuts works fine)
• rice flour 5 tsp
• chilli powder 1-2tsp
• turmeric 1tsp
• garlic 4-5 cloves (or if you can find it packeted crispy fried garlic)
• oil for deep frying (in a wok is traditional) use 1/2 teacup of this later for the spices

Mix rice flour with water to make a creamy paste (if you use courgettes you should add extra rice flour to make the cream thick as courgettes are watery and risk going soggy not crisp in the salad).

Slice the cabbage, spring onions thinly, slice the onions and garlic even thinner (keep the garlic separate), and chop the coriander (roughly as you want some whole or nearly whole leaves as well as some cut finer.

Cut the vegetable into small (finger size) pieces. Cut the tofu similarly. Coat in the rice flour cream and fry till crisp and golden.

Mix the chilli, garlic and turmeric and pour over 1/2 cup of hot oil (the mixture will fizz up and the spices will cook to perfection) to make a dressing.

Dry fry the bean powder till it darkens, do not burn it!

Cook the noodles and drain, washing in cold water so they stick less.

Assemble by mixing the noodles, dressing, bean powder and salad, use the gourd (carrot or courgette) and tofu to decorate. Eat ideally while still warm.

Another recipe from the past I do not want to lose.

When we got back from the weekend (seminars and preaching) in New Plymouth, I found an interesting recipe in the NZ Herald‘s Saturday colour supplement. It does not appear to be online, so I can’t link to it, so I’ll give you my variant (as tested last night and tonight – it was so good, all those intense flavours!) here.

This recipe is easy, quick, tasty and unusual. As Donna Hay says it captures “those strong flavours synonymous with roasts… in half the time”.

Heat the oven I suggest about 170^oC fanbake, or a bit more conventional – Donna recommended 200^oC but I think that starts the tomatoes too fast – cut about three or four tomatoes per person in half, put them on a baking tray with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and a small handful of herbs (Donna says thyme, but it is not the thyme season round here – so how come a recipe for thyme was in last week’s Herald? Go figure! I used marjoram and it tasted good last night, today I found thyme in the vegie shop, so maybe our thyme dying is just bad herbiculture). When the oven is hot put them in for 12-15 minutes – they should be starting to loose shape and concentrate the flavour as the water evaporates.

Turn the oven up to 225^oC (perhaps more if conventional). Prepare the couscous equal parts hot chicken stock and couscous, enough for the number of people for a meal one cup does two, for one course one cup might serve 3-4 people. and pour over the tomatoes. Back in the oven for 10 mins. Donna says cover, I preferred to soak the couscous first and then half cover so the higher heat could begin to make nice dark baked bits.

Meanwhile whizz some more oil, lemon juice to taste, salt and pepper and mix in pinenuts (if you have no pinenuts cashews work well, but put them in to whizz and get partly chopped – I’ve tried both, pinenuts are best but cashews are good too). Mix this dressing with a handfull or two of baby spinach leaves per person and plenty of grated parmesan. (Yes, this time you need the fresh stuff the tubes of dry grains will NOT do!) Pour this over the hot tomato couscous mix in the oven tray to wilt the spinach before serving. It goes down a treat on its own, or with chicken. To save bother if you are using chicken I suggest cutting small and putting into the oven about half way through cooking the tomatoes the first time.

Ingredients (per person as a main):

• Tomatoes: Roma or other acid free – 3-4
• Pinenuts – 1/3-1/2 cup for 2-4 people
• Baby spinach leaves – 1-2 handfulls
• Couscous – 1/2 a cup
• Chicken stock – 1/2 cup
• Lemon juice – tablespoon
• Parmesan cheese grated – 1/3 cup or so
• Olive oil, salt and pepper

For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, suffering summer, you need not wait till winter to try this – though it is worth waiting for, I promise – Donna says it can be eaten cold as a salad. Tonight I deliberately made enough, so tomorrow I’ll let you know if she is right. Or I will if the sun shines brightly again like today ;-)

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I didn’t wait for the sun to shine, I stoked up the fire, and imagined it. There is no one else at home they are at conferences or skiing or soaking in the hot pools at Rotorua, so my consolation prize was starting the day my way: salmon and the Baked Couscous and Tomato as a salad. It was delicious, so you deprived summery types need not wait, add a delicious unusual new salad to your repertoire!

Another reposted recipe

One recipe that has been a favourite in our family for ages is Gravlax. I know the name (unless you are in the know) sounds disgusting – which is why I put “home cured salmon” in the title ;-) But gravlax is delicious, a Scandinavian treat. And easy as.

Just take a piece of fresh salmon (or – if you are worried about parasites in uncooked fish – of commercially frozen salmon, the details of why are explained in the Cooking for Engineers article on Gravlax) make sure you remove ALL the little bones.

Mix sugar, salt and dill (to taste, but about equal quantities sugar and salt, loads of dill if it is fresh or smaller quantity if dried – dried works surprisingly well).

Place the fish on a sheet of cooking paper, coat with plenty of the mix. Wrap, and refrigerate for 12 hours (24 is too long and 6 leaves you with almost sashimi).

Slice diagonally with a very sharp knife. Eat as you would cold smoked salmon – but much more as it is so cheap!

Another repost original Sept 2009 (to make sure all the preserved lemon material stays together)

After work today (all that marking ;) I needed some “making something” therapy. Dough for flat bread to eat with the beans in the slow cooker is rising quietly in the kitchen, and there is the joyful sight of a new jar of preserved lemons sitting quietly waiting.

Preserving lemons is real slow food. Alchemy at work as physical and chemical processes, that scientists may understand, but that most cooks seek simply to profit from, work at the lemons (and a few limes for extra zing). The process of sitting quietly in a dark place, marinating in salt and spices softening the nasty bitterness of the white pith extracting the unwanted tastes into the liquid, whilst, paradoxically at the same time transferring the intense zing of the zest to the whole. (I told you it is pure alchemy :)

In a few months time these citrus fruits will be ready for their turn in the slow cooker with chicken and olives…

If you have never preserved lemons, start tomorrow. Beg, borrow or buy some lemons (and ideally a few limes, 1 to 4 is fine). Cut them in quarters, press them down into a jar, witgh plenty of salt. Plenty might be a tablespoon depending on the size of your lemons. This is slow food, do not ask for exact recipes ;) In the jar you have probably put a cinnamon stick, some corriander seeds, a bay leaf or three, and if you must some chilli (other spices too are optional). Over the next few days (slow food remember) as the lemons sink gracefully into the brine, add more. When this process slows top up with oil, and seal the jar.

Wait a few months, hiding the jar in a dark corner so that you can be patient. In a few months, remember this is slow food ;) you can at last unite the lenons with the chicken and the olives in a dish that even lemonophobes and olive haters will enjoy and demand more of.

I’ll give you the recipe soon, as even slow foodies are somewhat impatient, and waiting is half the savour ;)

[If, when you return in a few months, you find black mold on the surface it just means that the oil did not completely cover the mix, scoop it off and pretend it never happened.]

HT: This post was inspired by thre realisation that we only have 1.5 jars left from the Christmas stock, and by Rachel Barenblat the Velveteen Rabbi.

Lunch on sabbatical is a great treat! Just taking a 45 min lunch break I can cook and eat delicious snacks like this :)

Thanks to the Aussie Butcher in Mt Roskill (who I am finding despite a supermarket -style shop is a good replacement for Better Butchers in Mt Eden Road, though I am still not enough of a “regular” to ask for special things yet, nor to discuss how I might cook my purchases like I did there) I have some frozen sardines :)

So I grilled them. (Yes, I probably should have brushed them with some very garlicky oil, but this is a quick lunch snack for one, and I had no garlicky oil handy – note to self: get some soaking quick :)

To eat with them I did a warm potato salad:

• boiled potatoes (still hot)
• mesclun
• thin sliced red onion
• pine nuts (toasted in a dry  frypan while the potatoes boiled)

Dressed with plenty of salt and peper and some olive oil and a few spoonsful of the juice from a jar of preserved lemons and limes.

Delicious!

We got some frozen blueberries the other day, so I decided to make muffins.

We bought them for making our breakfast porridge (they make a nice change from dried apricots with the nuts) and the frozen ones are cheaper than even the high season price though in porridge not quite as good.  They are brilliant in muffins :)

INGREDIENTS

Muffins
1½ cups flour
¾ cup sugar
½ tsp salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
¹/₃ cup vegetable oil
1 egg (beaten)
¹/₃ cup non-fat yogurt
1 cup frozen blueberries
¼ tsp each of cinnamon and nutmeg

Crust
4 Tbsp brown sugar
3 Tbsp flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 175°C (our oven) or 200°C /400°F (the original recipe since 400F > 200C our oven must run VERY hot). Grease muffin tray or use paper cups.  Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Combine wet ingredients (egg, yogurt, oil).  Mix this with flour mixture. Gently fold in blueberries. Fill cups to the top.

Stir crust ingredients together and sprinkle over.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven till done.

If anyone has experience of substituting ground oats for some of the flour in muffin mixes I think that would make them nuttier and healthier, so can you suggest quantities. Otherwise I plan to experiment ;)