Dirty Tuesdays: Fresh Herbs

Vegetable & Tofu Tart with a wholemeal crust

Individual Mediterranean Vegetable Pie

Manoushi Bread with Assorted Toppings

Work is picking up and so I've gotten behind with my vegan challenge and making frequent posts. Since yesterday was a public holiday -- no work, no school (yay!) -- I had so many hours to plan what I'd cook to post for Oh-Say Tuesday.

This Week's Menu: (*vegan):
Minced Soy Meat Tacos; as per Will's request
Individual Mediterranean Vegetable Pies (the ricotta could easily be substituted for crumbled tofu; tried it, loved it)
Manoushi Breads with assorted toppings (Syrian/Lebanese style pizza)*
Roast Pumpkin and Kipfler Potato Orzo Salad with Mint*
Carrot, Broccoli, Zucchini and Tofu Tart with a wholemeal crust*

Unfortunately working 38 hours a week plus school leaves me with little time to post recipes. However, if anyone who happens across this little blog is interested in the recipe I'll happily share.

Dirty Tuesdays: A Taste of Saffron

Mondays have officially become the days where I cook meals for the rest of the week; it's kind of like my chance at being a personal chef. We'll call Tuesdays, Dirty Tuesdays as it's a rather blah day of the week, my work weeks begins and I will be posting Monday's creations. This weeks menu was mainly devised from a stack of cookbooks I've hired from the library: Carrot & Saffron Soup, Sancocho Canario, Leek & Broccoli Tart and a Bulgarian Filo Coil. I also made some pesto to use in a fifth dish but I was really quite tired of cooking by that point. I'm currently learning about stocks, soups and sauces in school and took it upon myself to make my first batch of vegetable stock to use for cooking rather than using convenience stocks in the form of powder or cubes.

I took a trip to King & Godfords - a fine foods shop in the Lygon street district - and treated myself to a few products a good cook shouldn't be without: proper sea salt from the salt beds of Italy, smoked paprika and saffron threads; both from Spain. I almost splurged on some luxurious macadamia nut oil, but decided against it. Below you'll find photos of my two contributions to my vegan challenge: Sancocho Canario & Bulgarian Filo Coil

Sancocho Canario adapted from The Food of Spain & Portugal by Elizabeth Luard
(a sweet potato and chickpea stew from the Canary Islands)
1.5 cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 cloves garlic, bruised (smashed with the side of a knife)
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, lightly toasted in a dry pan without burning
1 kilo of tomatoes, scalded, skinned and chopped
1 medium sized sweet potato (250-350 g), peeled and cut into even sized chunks
1 thick slice of pumpkin, peeled and cut into even sized chunks
1 can of unsalted corn kernels, drained and rinsed
fresh coriander or mint leaves, to garnish

Bring the chickpeas to a boil with 2.25 litres of cold water and add the bruised garlic along with the chopped tomatoes. Allow the pot to come up to a boil again before adding the vegetable in the order given while allowing the pot to come back up to a boil between each addition. Bring the stew down to a simmer and allow the liquid to reduce down to the same level as the vegetables. Season with salt and pepper. Finish each serve with fresh coriander or mint leaves, or serve over rice if desired.

Bulgarian Filo Coil adapted from The Cranks Bible by Nadine Abensur (my vegetarian celebrity cook hero)
..recipe coming soon...

Pears in the Spotlight

Despite a few disapproving nibbles from Will pre-dinner party, the menu came out wonderfully. The handmade gnocchi (which really don't compare to those solid chewy nuggets available at Coles or Safeway), the kofta balls...but most of all the baked pear with pine nut streusel, which I'm most proud of because it was an invention of my own, vegan and utterly tasty.

For the sake of the vegan challenge I'll only post the recipes for the vegan items, sans photos due to a camera that is nowhere to be found. I must admit that my first week of the challenge didn't go well as I mustered up only 1 vegan meal and 1 vegan dessert. In addition to that, I've just planned and cooked meals for the rest of the week only to realise at the very last minute that the only vegan meals for this week are hardly anything exciting: Thai stir fry and lentil-stuffed eggplant. I simply just forgot! I've been vegetarian for so long that cooking with or without dairy and eggs is not a decision I make with any effort. I simply just cook without meat and without too much abuse of dairy and eggs.

Without anymore delay due to rambling, here are the recipes for the kofta balls and the baked pears:

Vegetable & Tofu Kofta Balls adapted from The Soy Alternative
250 g firm tofu, crumbled in the blender
40 ml olive oil
185 g pumpkin, grated
100 g zucchini, grated
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 small shallots, finely chopped
7 g fresh parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon curry powder
150g wholemeal flower
2 tsp salt
vegetable oil, for deep frying

1. Cook the pumpkin, zucchini, onion and garlic over medium heat for about 10 minutes or until soft. Set aside to cool.
2. In a bowl combine the tofu, shallots, parsley, curry powder, 75 g of the flour and the salt. Mix well. Roll about a tablespoon of the mixture into a ball using your hands then coat in flour. Repeat until all the mixture has been used.
3. Fill a saucepan one third full of oil and heat until a cube of bread browns in 15 seconds. Cook the kofta balls in small batches until golden brown. Drain only for a moment on paper towels then transfer to a cooking rack to eat right away or to a tray placed in the oven at 100ºC.

Baked Pear with Pine Nut Streusel
2 Bosch Pears
1/2 of a lemon
1/3 cup pine nuts, roughly chopped
1/3 cup Nuttelex, or other vegan margarine
1/3 cup Castor sugar, plus 1 tsp
2/3 cup of wholemeal flour

1. Preheat oven to 200ºC. Leaving the stems attached, peel the pears, slice them in half and remove the seeds to create a small hollow to be used for filling with the strudel. Once peeled, lay on a greased loaf pan, squeeze the lemon juice over them and sprinkle with 1 tsp of the sugar.
2. To make the streusel combine the remaining ingredients to create a mixture resembling bread crumbs.
3. Divide the strudel into 4 equal portions and spoon into the hollows in each pear.
4. Bake uncovered for 15 minutes until the strudel has browned. Then cover with foil and bake for an additional 10 minutes or until a toothpick is easily inserted diagonally through the pear. This can be prepared ahead of time and simply reheated until the grill before serving.

4 Courses: The Final Menu

I did a bit of reading at Waitrose Food Illustrated on entertaining and read an interesting article, which is more or less summarised below:

Rule 1: Don't plan too ambitious a menu.
Rule 2: Have one dish or some nibbles ready for guests as soon as they arrive.
Rule 3: Plan dishes that complement each other, not only in terms of taste, colour and flavour, but also cooking technique.
Rule 4: Keep puddings simple - unless you are passionate about complicated confections.

Taking these rules into consideration, I've decided to make my menu a bit simpler and focus on a 4-course menu rather than the more traditional 3-course menu. I like my entrees!

Entree (aka nibbles): Tofu & Vegetable Koftas* with a yogurt dipping sauce
Salad: Feta & Lemon Field Salad with parsley and chive dressed cannellini beans
Main: Baked Ricotta & Spinach Gnocchi in a basic tomato sauce
Dessert: Baked Pears with a pine nut-steusel*
[*denotes dish is vegan]

The Joy of Dinner Parties

We went out to brunch at The Fitz in Fitzroy this past Thursday with some friends of ours. I ordered the Egg Florentine for the first time ever in my fabulous years of life. I was expecting the egg white to be bland and the egg yolk to explode all over my plate waiting for me to mop it up with a bit of bread. But there was no explosion of yellow, no white blandness. It was a good experience overall: A+ for spinach and eggs.

This Sunday we're having some friends over for dinner and it will be my vegan challenge. I've decided on the following menu (photos will soon follow, of course):

(*Denotes a vegan dish)
Entrees
Tofu and Vegetable Kofta Bals served with a spicy tomato sauce* (edit: tried the recipe, loved it)
Roast Pumpkin Crostini with Kalamata Tapenade*(edit: tastes good, but non enough "wow" factor)
Main
Canellini Salad with a Lemon and Fetta Dressing (edit: the dressing is very summery, yum)
Spinach Gnocchi with Confit of Tomato (edit: tried the recipe, not so good. Bake it in a seasoned tomato sauce topped with a bit of cheese. Yum!)
Dessert*
Pear Crumble

The Vegan Challenge: 30 Days of Environmental Compassion

Tomorrow will be the beginning of, yet another, vegan challenge. I always fail, but this time the mission is a bit different. It's not to see whether I can do it, it's to challenge my opinion that vegan food just doesn't look that good. I've learnt a thing for two about food presentation, sauces and cooking since I started my cookery course, so I challenge myself.

The main aims of this challenge are:

1. To bake at least 2 vegan desserts that don't contain chocolate, are moist, spongy and impressive.
2. To make at least 2 pasta dishes with a creamy-based sauce.
3. To create at least 2 dishes per week that look good, taste good and make one feel good.
4. To use ingredients that are readily available; that is, no trips to far away natural food stores to find exotic ingredients like Siberian pine nut oil or magic truffle paste.
5. To learn more about egg and dairy (cheese, namely) substitutes and be content with their results.