Monthly Archives: October 2013

Travel Food

I don’t know how I have managed to blog this far without saying it but….

I AM GOING TO INDIA.

Caps-lock totally intended. Am I excited? Oh, just a little.

That I shall be absent from the blog space for a couple of weeks won’t be that much of an irregularity given my recent neglect in this area however I’m sure I’ll be back with pictures and food ideas. In fact, if that’s the only thing I’m back with it’ll be a worthwhile trip.

Delicious travel recipe (for which I must thank Sara at Sprouted Kitchen). I apologise for the brevity of the recipe instructions as I am a mass of last minute packing, malaria pills, and spare batteries for my flash gun…..

Rice Paper Rolls

(recipe adapted from Sprouted Kitchen)

6 rice paper wraps
Handful of coriander
3 carrots, grated
2 beets, grated
1 cucumber, grated
1 large avocado, sliced
1 cup lentils, cooked
1 tbsp. toasted sesame oil
dressing (2 tbsp sesame oil, 2 tbsp maple syrup, 2 tsp tamari)

Set up:

A large bowl of warm water and a clean dish cloth to roll your rice paper on.

Set out your ingredients: coriander, carrots, beetroot, cucumber and avocado, combine the cooked lentils with the ingredients of the dressing. Taste and adjust as desired.

One at a time, put a rice paper wrap flat into the large bowl of warm water, for approx. 20 seconds til soft. Carefully lay the wrap down on the dish cloth. Down the centre, layer small amounts of coriander, carrots and beetroot, a few slices of avocado and some lentils. Fold over the sides of the wrap, then the top and bottom of the wrap, tucking in at the ends (more skillfully and neatly than I managed to, hopefully). Repeat with remaining wraps. Yum.

I will try to add some more healthy travel ideas for future posts (I have packed some raw food energy balls, sesame and goji berry squares, hummus and salad). Let’s cause some in-flight envy!

Breakfast: Bacon Granola and Butternut Pancakes

Yes I know. This is a ‘weekend breakfast’ kind of post. These days I am both leaving the house and returning to it with the moon and stars, the weekends and the weekdays are becoming indistinguishable; as my propensity to combine hours of work-time and play-time is becoming ever more distinguishable.

Hold up. Play-time? Amidst the hectic schedule of my daily life the extent of my play-time resides in the pleasure of messing around in the kitchen with ingredients: dustings of flour, spices and sugar, smears of butter and oil, shards of grated cocoa and nuts. This isn’t a bad way to spend play-time and admittedly it’s become something of a sacred space; my kitchen, the place to which I retreat when I’m not at the gym (my other sacred space).

This week I found myself experimenting with a recipe for pumpkin pancakes at 6am on Saturday when it was so dark outdoors that it felt more like a midnight snack than a pre-work breakfast. Admittedly the bacon granola was made on a Sunday, not least because Nigel Slater wrote that it’s a Sunday kind of breakfast. It really is.

I decided to post both of these recipes not because they were life-changingly amazing nor because I’ve added either of them to my regular repertoire of weekend breakfasts but because they were unusual and because they characterise the joy of playing with ingredients. Oh, and because I promised my fabulous foodie-friend Paraskevi that I would. I can’t wait to hear how your own version goes Skevi!

And with these good morning recipes, I bid you goodnight. Happy playing.

BACON GRANOLA

Recipe from Nigel Slater

6 rashers of smoked streaky bacon
40g butter
100g rolled oats
50g whole or flaked almonds
50 pumpkin seeds
2 tbsp hemp seeds
handful of dried cranberries
4 tbsp crème fraiche

Cut the bacon into small chunks and fry. Add butter to a shallow pan and tip in all ingredients except crème fraiche and bacon. Leave to warm over a moderate heat, stirring occasionally. When the oats are golden and smell warm and sweet, add in the bacon. Tip the whole lot into a bowl and stir the crème fraiche lightly through.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH BREAKFAST PANCAKES W PECANS

135g butternut squash puree*
2 eggs
½ tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tbsp ground ginger
3 tbsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ cup wholewheat flour
coconut oil for frying

Greek yogurt, maple syrup and pecan nuts to serve

Stir all the pancake ingredients together. Heat a tbsp of coconut oil in a pan and add a heaped tbsp. of batter. I found that in order to cook through I spread the mix out thinly. Once golden brown underneath, flip and cook the other side.

*cut in half and roast a whole butternut squash. Once cooked through til soft, wait for the squash to cool and peel off the skin. Scrape the flesh into a food processor and add 2 tbsp maple syrup, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tbsp lemon, 2 tbsp brown sugar. Blend. Add contents to a pan and simmer gently for 20mins until the sauce thickens. Cool and store in a jar (for pancakes, or spreading on toast, or simply spooning straight into one’s mouth)!

3 ways with apples

Lets continue with the three-ways theme shall we?

This week I have been harvesting (and by harvesting I mean picking up the fallen apples from the tree as I come home from work) all the apples from the tree in my garden (yes I’m lucky enough to have a garden, for now). So many apples and only so many apple pies one can eat (ahem).

Since Christmas is just around the corner (don’t worry you too can bury your sweet ostrich head back in the sand as soon as you’ve read this post), I figured some apple chutney stored in jars and ready to give away as gifts wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Next I made a paleo vegan gluten free sugar free apple pie, and then some sugary buttery apple cookies. My diet, as my life, may be full of apparent conflicts and contradictions but in the end it always boils down to the maximisation of pleasure…

Roasted garlic and apple chutney

(recipe adaptation from Abel and Cole)

1.5kg apples, peeled cored and roughly chopped
1 whole bulb garlic
3 large onions, peeled, chopped into chunks
2 handfuls raisins
1 mug organic apple cider vinegar
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp salt
1/2 mug brown sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Slice the top off the garlic bulb so that you can just see the flesh of the garlic cloves through the skin. Put into the oven and leave to roast for 40mins.

In the meantime put all of the remaining ingredients into a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Stir and bring down to a simmer.

Once the garlic is roasted, squeeze the bulbs out of the skin and into the saucepan. Continue to let the chutney simmer for about 1.5 hours until it reaches a thick porridge-like consistency.

Cool and spoon into sterilised jars, saving for Christmas!

Apple pie (paleo-vegan)

For the crust:
300g raw cashews
200g pitted dates
140g brown rice flour
40g gluten free oats
2-8 tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of malden salt

For the filling
4 apples
200g pitted dates
juice from ½ lemon
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp cardamom
1 tsp cloves
Pre-heat oven to 200C.

Make crust: place all the dry ingredients into a food processor and pulse until you have a fine flour. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and set aside. Place the dates, vanilla nd 2 tbsp of water in the processor and run until you have a complete smooth a creamy mixture. Scrape down the sides and add more water if necessary. Scoop this into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mx together using your hands. The dough should eventually be firm enough to form into a ball.

Split the dough ball into two. Roll one half out and press it down into a pie pan lined with parchment paper. Prick the crust and place in the oven to pre-bake for ten minutes.

Make filling: slice apples into wedges. Blend dates, lemon, vanilla and spices in the processor. Mix in with the apples. Press the mixture into the pre-baked crust.

Roll out the other half of the dough and place over the pie dish. Press the edges down and cut four slits in the centre of the pie.

Bake for 30-40mins until the crust has browned a deep golden.

Apple Cookies

40g softened butter
130g light brown sugar
3 medium apples, peeled, cored and grated
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
125g wholewheat organic flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
handful of nuts (walnuts or pecans)
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Yields 10 cookies, if you don’t eat the mixture.

Set the oven to 350F.

Cream the sugar and butter. Next mix in the egg and then the grated apple and the vanilla. Don’t eat the raw mixture.

In a separate bowl mix together the flour, cinnamon, salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and mix together. Fold in the nuts. Don’t eat the raw mixture.

Dollop about a tablespoon of cookie batter onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper leaving at least an inch of space in between the cookies. Cook for 15-20 mins until the cookies are golden across the top.

As soon as they emerge from the oven, sprinkle some more brown sugar and cinnamon mix across the top.