Vegan Onion and Carrot Soda Bread with Rosemary

Following my last post, I still had lots of peeled carrots leftover. Lots. I could've made one of the other million recipes that called for carrots, but I'm enjoying this vegan/dairy free baking lark. And actually I find that (although this may have lots to do with my rubbish oven) using leftover white/rose wine actually gives me bread with a better texture than the thinned yoghurt I've had to use in the absence of buttermilk in London. Strangely, I bought it in Belgium often by mistake- it's easy to get buttermilk there- fresh milk, less so. Still struggling to understand that... But back to the subject at hand. This bread is definitely savoury but not pungent in flavour. It would be brilliant, thinly sliced, with cheese.  

You need:
Two cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup ground flax
Half cup white/ rose wine (great way to use up leftovers a little past their prime). 
1/2 cup hulled sunflower seeds, soaked in water
Baking soda (I teaspoon)
Salt (I teaspoon)
2 inch sprig of rosemary, chopped finely (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
One cup finely grated carrot, loosely packed (approx three small carrots)
One onion, finely grated.

1. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl, making sure you add in the bits too big to go through the sieve.
2. Add the carrot and onion and stir through well
3. Make a well in the middle and add the wine (this will evaporate off and I used up some old wine here). If you need more than the half cup and water until you have a dough where all flour is absorbed but not any stickier.
4. Place in a tray or bowl in the bottom of the oven on greaseproof paper and let it bake until when a life goes in and comes out clean.

In light of the uselessness of my oven, I cooked this at the bottom, in a tray sitting in a tray of water, so that it wouldn't just dry out and burn. I also had to cover the top. I just want a new oven! It would take about 40 mins at 220 in a normal oven. Shove in a spike or sharp knife and if it comes out clean the bread is done :)

Makes one small but action-packed loaf which feeds many more than you'd expect!

Carrot and Orange Nutty Soda Bread

Vegan wholewheat carrot and orange soda bread with sunflower seeds and cinnamon. Like a cake but not. Simpler than a cake, less fatty and jam-packed with stuff that's good for you! A hint of sweetness, but not sugary. I've been experimenting with soda bread for a couple of months and this one is a winner! It's easy, it doesn't need time to rise (great when you are living in shared accommodation and cannot just leave things around for hours!). Vegan because it uses wine instead of buttermilk. No alcohol (and surprisingly no wine flavour) is there at the end...

You need:
Two cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup ground flax (v healthy)
Half cup white/ rose wine (great way to use up leftovers a little past their prime). 
1/2 cup hulled sunflower seeds, soaked in water
Baking soda (I teaspoon)
Salt (I teaspoon)
Zest of two oranges
Level teaspoon cinnamon
One cup finely grated carrot, loosely packed (approx three small carrots)

1. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl, making sure you add in the bits too big to go through the sieve.
2. Add the carrot and orange zest and stir through well
3. Make a well in the middle and add the wine (this will evaporate off and I used up some old wine here). If you need more than the half cup and water until you have a dough where all flour is absorbed but not any stickier.
4. Place in a tray or bowl in the bottom of the oven on greaseproof paper and let it bake until when a life goes in and comes out clean.

In my rubbish, one temperature, oven that was about 2 hours, covered - in a normal oven on 220 it should be about 40 mins.

Makes one small loaf- delicious with honey, butter or marmalade or as an accompaniment to a bowl of carrot soup :)

Polka-dot beetroot and chickpea soup

Not really a soup, not really a stew, this gorgeous red bowlful of pinkish-orange chickpeas is sweet yet savoury and full of earthy, autumnal flavours.

This was a last minute lunchbox filler, and I think the girl did good! I ran out of the delicious kedgeree I made last weekend on Thursday, so Friday needed a no-effort lunch.

Cue: Beetroot and carrot soup in the fridge. Delicious, but not really filling enough. Aah! But I cooked up and batch- froze a huge quantity of chickpeas with garlic, diced carrot and celery (just enough to flavour). 30 seconds of running the chickpeas under the cold tap and they mixed nicely with my soup (which is almost a puree).

Lunchtime at work- chickpeas are defrosted, add a splash of hot water and microwave for three minutes. Not bad!

How to make the chickpeas.
I don't like the thought of tinned chickpeas-  I am sure cooking them from dry is much healthier as there are no preservatives to worry about.
I used 500g dried chickpeas (garbanzo beans) which I then soak with two cloves of crushed garlic for eight hours or overnight to plump back up.
Drain them and wash.
I cooked these with a diced carrot, and one diced stick of celery, 2 large bay leaves and some more crushed garlic, so that they would take on good flavours, and not just taste earthy and boring- something which is often labelled at these useful pulses.
I froze these in small batches.
Perfect to add to soups, stews, curries etc- food for thought!

Beetroot and Carrot energy boost soup

I was reading about the energy boosting properties of beetroot and though 'I could do with a bit of that!'.

I'd never cooked raw beetroot before but this soup was a doddle- and so good, hearty and warming. What you will get is more of a puree than a soup- dilute with hot water, chicken or vegetable soup, and to curries etc if you feel daring!

Beetroot and Carrot Soup- makes enough to eat for a week and freeze for another two! 
Two medium sized onions- chopped
Knob of butter/ olive oil
Two kg carrots, peeled and chopped into rounds
5 small beetroot (about  750 g) peeled and diced small (they will take longer to cook than the carrots)
Thumb sized piece of ginger (diced)
Two cloves of garlice
Pinch of salt
Black peppercorns
Bay leaves (two)

Put the oil or butter into your largest pan, on a low/medium heat and saute the onion under transparent. Add the other ingredients and braise, making sure that it doesn't burn- you may wish to add an inch of water to make sure.

Put the lid on and leave to cook for about an hour- 1 1/2 hours- until all of the vegetables are delicious and tender. Blitz the soup and you will have the most beautiful, ruby-red puree!

Rhubarb Recovery

In renouncing the twin pleasures and pains of refined sugar, I thought that I may never eat rhubarb again. It is bitter.

Well, I have managed so far with another compote recipe to add to the one I have already shared.

In fact, I may go as far as to say that I was a chicken and will bump up the rhubarb quantity next time- the less you have sugar, the sweeter things become. I have found the same with salt- my friends often find my food not salty enough, but I now find theirs, often, too salty.

When I made this, I used 28 small pears, peeled and quartered -I imagine that would be about 4kg- and 5 stalks of rhubarb. I think that I could easily have bumped this up to twice the amount of rhubarb, getting more of the rhubarb flavour without making the compote too bitter.

I shoved the rhubarb in a large pot with a thumb-sized piece of diced ginger, a heaped teaspoonful of cinnanom  (should have been more, but I finished the pot), the pears (I could have used apples) and an inch of water at the bottom.

After two or three hours of slow cooking the rhubarb had broken down, mixing completely into the pear juice around the larger pieces of pear. Verdict in my flat from everyone who had been queueing for it to become cool enough to eat (including from the one who didn't wait that long and burnt her tongue in the process)- delicious.

Happy :)

My miracle breakfast

Where do I start on my battle over breakfast? Breakfast eaten before I had been up for two or three hours always used to make me feel ill. FINALLY, I have discovered a breakfast that works for me. It is also delicious and nutrition packed, as well as full of insoluable fibre so that it keeps me feeling full for hours.

I have decided to try to give up refined sugar. Not in a religious way, but I am avoiding it and the sugar-low it produces for me 20 minutes later. So my new breakfast consists of oatmeal (porridge oats) left to stand overnight with a good splodge of homemade fruit compote and either orange juice (a good splash) or natural, low-fat yoghurt. Left overnight it becomes soft and delicious (you will need to give it a good stir), easy to eat and easy on the stomach.

The orange juice incarnation is a newer addition. Yoghurt is full of marvellous properties (and delicious, and a staple of mine- perfect for stirring into a soup, dolloping next to curry etc) but I am finally taking a stand against my lactose intollerance. I LOVE milk, cheese, yoghurt, CHEESE, cream, butter etc. I love them all. And yet, I know that I am intolerant, although more at some times than others. Giving up, or severely reducing, has actually been much easier than I thought. A former tea addict, I haven't had a cup for days. The orange juice replacing my yoghurt was actually really good this morning. I am still happy and alive.

The final straw in dairy's coffin was a link I came across that suggested that sinus problems can be related to lactose intollerance. This year has been one of discovering my sinuses. I now know EXACTLY where they are after an immensely painful showdown with them as I descended into St Lucia on the way to a friend's wedding that I could ill-afford to attend. After that I could draw a map of where they were, and ended up in A&E that night. Fun times. It is also meant that what I always thought were migraines are actually sinus headaches. It is miserable, and if this lactose stuff helps, we will see...

Anyway, enough about pain and misery, more about (refined) sugar-free compote. People use bramley apples for the best flavour and texture. But with bramleys you need to add lots of sugar. As my pallet becomes less accustomed to the sweet stuff, I might add in a couple, but for now I am sticking to eating apples, which are naturally sweet. I add lots of finely chopped ginger and cinnamon (both delicious and antioxidant etc etc).

Apple Compote (Or Apple & Pear) This probably makes enough for 20-25 breakfasts and is perfect to freeze in small batches.

4kg apples and/or pears, peeled and quartered (core if you like, but not essential)
Cinnamon (2 heaped teaspoons for an intense flavour)
Fresh ginger- thumb sized piece once peeled, finely chopped.

Put it all into a pot with about 1/2 inch of water at the bottom, with a good lid, and cook gently for 2-3 hours. You may want to remove the lid towards the end so that the excess water can evaporate (means that it takes up less freezer space). I often turn off the heat and leave it with the lid off overnight to cool.

I made this same mxiture but had a box of knock-down priced plums- thirty of them- to use up. It was delicious and I put the plums in whole- you just need to be careful to fish out the stones.

September Garden Party: Salmon Pâté and 2 Coronation Chickens

My sister lives in Australia and just came back after a long hiatus. My mother decided that we should have an enormous garden party and consequently I have spent the half of the week that I haven't spent hoisting bunting, erecting tents and up-cycling glass jars to make tree lanterns in the kitchen.

The menu: smoked salmon pate and caprese skewers followed by coronation chicken, salad and Eton mess.

I am amazed by how long garden party prep takes. Between sourcing chairs and tidying the garden, counting cutlery and washing glasses, hours have been spent.

I have previously shared my mother's excellent coronation chicken recipe. This time I had to make an alternative version for guests unable to eat garlic, onions and spicy food. There is a brilliant recipe that I will share for chicken and butternut squash salad that is much of a muchness with coronation chicken, but too much effort for so few people (and contains onions). So, I tried simple alternatives. Fresh basil and mayo- I was surprised by how subdued the basil became- almost unnoticeable. Perhaps with pesto it would work better, but I am not sure. What did work well was the orange and Mexican tarragon.

Makes one portion: take enough roast chicken for one person, chop into bite sized pieces. Zest a quarter of an orange into a bowl. Add a level tablespoon finely chopped fresh tarragon. Grind in LOTS of black pepper. Add in a couple of dollops of good mayonnaise and stir. Add in the chicken and coat. Try for balance- you may want to add more orange or pepper, or mayonnaise depending upon how much chicken you are using. Even better if you leave overnight so the flavours can intensify :)

The salmon pate is the simplest thing. Just take 200g of smoked salmon and finely chop. Take three tubs of cream cheese and a handful of chives. With scissors snip the chives into small pieces. Zest a lemon. Mix these ingredients together and add LOTS of freshly ground black pepper. This makes about a pint- that will top a lot of crackers!!!