Cauliflower with breadcrumbs

S made this - he said it was something his Dad used to make.  And that he thinks it was a classic German post-war dish.  There is something very German about it, I'm not quite sure what - pale, unadorned veggies, with toasty crunch, as a dearth of strong flavours lets subtle tastes shine on.  S loves fried garlic, I suspect that was an inauthentic 21st-century-german-whose-name-begins-with-S addition.

1 cauliflower head
1 cup breadcrumbs
2 cloves garlic, chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper

Clean the cauliflower, remove the outer leaves and divide into floret chunks about 2 in across.  Put in a steamer and steam for 10-15 min, until tender.

Meanwhile, prepare the garlic.  Heat ~1 tbsp olive oil in a pan and lightly fry the garlic.  Add the breadcrumbs and toast for 2-3 min til browned (but not burnt) and smelling good.

To serve, put some freshly steamed cauliflower in a bowl, add breadcrumbs and eat straight away (it all was gone before I could take a photo).


Simple and tasty - good mixture of subtle flavours and textures.  One of the most exciting things S has cooked for me in a while.

Porridge, two ways

It has started to feel a little chilled some mornings*.  The heat in our apartment came on for the first time this morning (it is somewhat out of our control).  On those cold mornings, the ones where you stand shivering waiting for the shower to run hot, muesli doesn't cut it and it has to be porridge for breakfast.  Porridge is warming, inside and out.  It makes me remember eating it as a child - my sisters didn't like it so I was the baby bear, eating with my parents and golden syrup instead of Goldilocks.  It's best with golden syrup, but I can't find that here so have been making a cinnamon maple syrup version most recently.
There seems to be an incredible diversity of loves and hates when it comes to porridge - something so simple, or perhaps not: milk, water, cream, salt, time, oatmeal, oats...  This is my standard version.

(for one)
1/3 cup porridge oats
3/4 cup water
pinch salt

cinnamon, maple syrup, raisins, banana to add

Put water, oats and salt in a small pan and bubble (watch it doesn't boil over) until it is thickened - usually 10-15 min is enough, I think.

Eat with golden syrup.  Or, if that's not possible, add cinnamon, maple syrup, raisins and banana and mix up to taste.


I just read about baked porridge, and I like the idea of it.  It might be more of a weekend breakfast, so I haven't got around to it yet.  Perhaps it'll be good cold too like rice pudding.  My first iteration will be something like this:

(for 4)
1 cup oats
1 2/3 cups water / fake milk
2 tbsp sugar or maple syrup
cinnamon / nutmeg
raisins / dried apricots

Heat the oven to 350F.  Mix the ingredients and put in a heatproof oven dish.  Bake for 25-30 min.

Edit - I made the baked porridge at the weekend.  It was indeed simple and warming and great for a snowy October weekend.  Texture is slightly different from pan-cooked - more fluffy and less smooth?  Felt like eating oat crumble; everyone knows that crumble for breakfast is the best.

*subsequently shown to be a major understatement - it's snowing and there's an inch of slushy snow, in October.

Mixed grains, cooked together

 A lady comes and sits in the canteen at work about once a month, with little pots of samples of (usually) salads, and recipes to go with them - I think to encourage healthy eating.  Of all the things she has brought, a 'multi-grain pilaf' has been my favourite so far, and I've tweaked around with it at home - it's a good, warm, wintry, texturally interesting pot of food, and the key is the sequential addition of different grains.

1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 cups water
2 cups veg stock
1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup pearl barley
1/2 cup brown rice mix (or just brown rice)
1/4 cup bulghur wheat
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley OR 1 tsp dried thyme and 1 tsp dried basil
olive oil
salt+pepper

Heat 2 tsp oil in a large saucepan.  Add the sunflower seeds and a good pinch of salt and cook until the seeds are golden.  Transfer seeds to a small bowl.

Heat another 2 tsp oil in the pan.  Add the onion and fry until softened (~4 min).  Add the water, stock, soy, balsamic, barley and rice (and dried herbs if using).  Bring to the boil, cover and simmer ~35 min.

Add bulghur, cover and simmer for 10-30 more min until the grains are all cooked and the liquid gone.

Remove from the heat, add sunflower seeds, salt and pepper, and parsley if using.


I like the mixture in this, and it's alright cold the next day too, unlike risotto.

Apple cake

My mother used to make an apple cake that we loved - it was a fairly thin, spiced cake base with a layer of cooked apples arranged prettily on top.  It wasn't a tarte tatin - something much more rustic and less sweet.  I remembered it the other day, and remembered trying to make it as a teenager and making a bit of a hash of it.  I think my baking skills have improved now, but I don't have the recipe any more.  I asked Grandma about it - she didn't know the cake but sent me another recipe (with grated apple, definitely different).  So, I set out to recreate Mum's apple cake (with some of the mass of apples we picked last week).  I made it for a friend's birthday and she keeps bees, so I also felt like the cake needed to have a bit of honey in it somewhere...

10 oz cooking apples (used Rome Beauty - pretty red skin)
juice of half a lemon
8oz plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
4 oz marg
4oz sugar
1 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 3 tbsp boiling water
fake milk (~3 tbsp)
~1 tbsp honey (or 1 tbsp demerara sugar)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Heat oven to 350F/180C.  Line the base of a ~7in cake tin with baking paper.

Peel the apples (leaving little bits of peel if it is pretty), and core them. Chop 3/4 of the apple into small chunks.  Slice the remainder into pretty slices about 5mm thick at the peel side.  Mix the apples with lemon juice in a bowl to stop them going brown.

Put the flour and baking powder in a bowl and mix with a fork.  Add the marg and rub into the flour as if making crumble.  Mix in the sugar and cinnamon.  Add the linseed/water mix and the apple chunks and mix.  Add enough milk to make a good, stuck-together cake batter, then dollop it into the cake tin and smooth the top.

Arrange the apple slices on top.  Gently heat the honey and cinnamon in a small saucepan, then drizzle over the top (if using demerara just mix sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top).

Bake for ~50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean and the cake is nicely browned.  Allow to cool in the tin for 10-30 min before removing and cooling on a rack.


It came out quite nice - smelled wonderful, of cinnamon and apple and autumn, looked very pretty, and didn't last long (snapped one quick picture as we rushed out the door to the party at 2330).  The base was quite stodgy - I think the interspersed apples and honey/cinnamon-iness saved it from being too much stodge, but I might reduce the amount of cake mix and increase the amount of apples on top for the next iteration.

Apple picking

We completely failed to go apple picking last year - I don't know what happened.  I mean, for one thing it is a classic New England Fall activity, and for another I love apples.  Perhaps I was worried about the inferiority of American apples (I do worry about this, quite a lot - if there's one thing Britain does incomparably well it is apples)... who knows.  Anyway, I got really excited about apples this year, partly to do with the discovery of the Roxbury Russet - an old American variety... from Boston (I like russets).

Did a bit of research (thanks Greg) and found that they had russets at a few farms in the neighbourhood.  Rang them up and found none for picking but some for buying.  So on Sunday afternoon we took ourselves off to Dowse orchards in Sherborn (only half an hour out of Boston).  It was a buy a bag ($21 for medium size) and fill it job, we ended up with quite a well-packed bag.

We picked a mixture of Macoun, Idared (from Idaho), McIntosh, Empire (from New York), Cortland, Rome Beauty (a cooker), and a little green one that might have been a Rhode Island Greenling but I forget.  All slight variations on shiny and red except the green ones.  We met the farmer, who was really nice.  S has just got all excited about apples and so was asking about the root stock etc (S: 'are they on the M9 rootstock?', Farmer Dowse: 'No, M5 actually').  He told us how they used to have a whole orchard of the green ones but they were eaten by deer and now they have just one tree.  He also told us where all the apple varieties came from (all American) - the names seemed suddenly obviously connected e.g. Empire from NY, etc.  And he pointed us in the direction of the Rome Beauty, which weren't signposted, but are apparently a cooker.  Looking forward to those.  S was eating an apple while they were talking - he didn't seem to mind.  The McIntosh were a very pretty deep purplish red (and not too big - American apples are usually so massive), and the Idared have some pretty red flesh under the skin.

We bought some russets from the farm stand on the way out.  Now have masses of apples, woop.  On first taste the russets weren't as good as the ones we got in Canada (and seem to be a different variety?).  Think they need to sit for a week or so to ripen up - have laid them out at home, we'll see.

Warm fall food - mashed potato, roast fennel, aubergine with miso+sesame

We watched an episode of 'Celebrity Masterchef' the other night, and the man was doing a demo of making mashed potato without a masher - he mashed it a bit with a fork then beat it over a gentle heat until smooth.  Remembered we had some potatoes (forgot them for a while), decided they were still OK, and then to mash them.


Mashed potato with mustard and spring onions

4 medium potatoes, peeled
2 spring onions, chopped
1 tbsp marg
1/2 tbsp fancy mustard from Australia (+Tanya)
2-3 tbsp fake milk
salt+pepper

Cover potatoes with water and boil until soft when poked - 20-25min.  Drain, return to pan and mash with a fork until all large chunks are gone.  Add the marg, milk, mustard and seasoning and beat over a gentle heat with a wooden spoon until smooth, adding more milk if it is too thick.  Add the spring onions and mix well in.


Roast fennel

Several leaves from a massive fennel bulb, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper

Heat oven to 375F.  Rub baking tin with olive oil.  Add veg and season.  Put in oven for ~30min, until done, removing and mixing once or twice along the way.


Aubergine with miso and sesame

Chinese aubergines (the long thin ones) - I only had 1 but 3-4 would have been better
sesame oil
sesame seeds (1/4-1/2 tbsp per aubergine)
yellow miso paste (~1/2 tbsp per aubergine)
lime juice

Heat oven to 375F.  Rub baking tin with sesame oil. Slice the aubergines on the diagonal into pieces about 1cm thick.  Arrange them on the baking tin and put in the oven for ~15 min.  Turn them and put back in for another 10 min or so.  For the last 5 min, add sesame seeds to the tin to roast - keep a careful eye they don't burn.  Remove from the oven and transfer aubergine+seeds to a bowl.  Add the miso paste and sufficient lime juice to thin the paste enough to mix it up.  Mix together and eat warm or cold.


I also stewed a little bit of rhubarb with a couple of apples (from apple picking @ Dowse Orchards in Sherborn), and ate it with Bird's custard made with almond milk.  Although the proportion of rhubarb was quite low its taste still came through - the apples weren't cookers so their taste was fairly mild, and they were sweet enough that I hardly needed to add any sugar.  I'm getting used to the taste of fake milk custard.  I do love a bit of custard on a dark evening...

The aubergine was well tasty - I'd read about the aubergine-miso combo a few times but hadn't got around to trying it.  It works well.  The fennel mix was simple but ended up going really well with the mash, which amazingly turned out good and smooth and pretty darn tasty with the fancy mustard etc. mmmmm Autumn.

Tamarind spice biscuits

Felt like making biscuits for some reason.  I love tamarind right now, and stumbled across this recipe - sounded quick enough and I had a couple hours before going apple picking.  Ate a few with some hot cinnamon apple cider - autumnal loveliness.

125g margarine
250g sugar
25g tamarind concentrate
1 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 3 tbsp hot water
3 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp garam masala or mixed spice (used lebanese 7-spice)
200g chopped glacé ginger (only had a little bit of crystallised, so used that instead)
250g plain flour
¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
Also added a handful of oats

Beat the marg, sugar, tamarind and linseed mix until smooth, then beat in the spices and glacé ginger. Stir in the flour and bicarb evenly, then scoop small unshelled walnut-sized balls from the mixture, roll each one between your hands to smooth, and place 5cm apart on a tray lined with nonstick baking paper. Bake in batches at 170C (150C fan-assisted)/335F/gas mark 3 for about 15 minutes.


A week later, and these have been in a airtight box and I swear they got better.  The spiciness seems to have matured / intensified and they are a great texture.  Thumbs up from our friend who is visiting from the UK - she's been waking up early with jetlag and eating tea and biscuits for breakfast until S+I get up.

Black bean patties

A quick weekday evening supper - wanted to do something with black beans.  Think their best feature is their colour, so made them into colourful, herby patties.

1 cup cooked black beans, defrosted
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp chia seed, ground
2 tsp flour
pinch cayenne
1 tbsp lemon + lime juice
1 very mild red chili, chopped
1/2 a clove garlic, chopped
3 spring onions, finely sliced
handful sweetcorn, defrosted
2 tbsp coriander, chopped
2 tbsp parsley, chopped
salt+pepper
water
veg oil for cooking

Pulverise the beans with a handheld blender (try and leave them with a bit of texture).  Add the remaining ingredients, except the sweetcorn, herbs and water, and mix til well combined and a good consistency.  Add the sweetcorn and herbs, mix in, check for seasoning and add water if too dry / falling apart.  Shape into patties (about six), and fry in a tiny bit of oil in a non stick pan til browned on the sides and heated through.  Eat with rice and chutney.

Veg food in Toronto

A quick Google of Toronto revealed plenty of veg food places, which boded well for it being a cool city.  It was, and we visited a good few of the veg places.  We stayed at a vegetarian b+b the first night - arrived late so went to Commensal for a quick dinner as it was 10 min walk away.  It was OK - a fill your plate with anything, cafeteria style place that hit the spot at the time.  Breakfast courtesy of Paul-Antoine the next morning was very nice, although not very vegan (I lapse into vegetarian when vegan is too awkward) - crepes prepared by a real Frenchman, plenty of fruit and bread+jam and cakes.  We also checked out Fressen one evening, which seemed to be the poshest veg*n option in town, and was nice in terms of atmosphere, although most of the food was not super exciting (pleasant enough).  A good find was a veg and non-veg desi soup place (Ravi Soups, on Queen St West), which we stumbled upon during Nuit Blanche and really hit the spot - I had a super tasty butternut squash soup with chopped asian pear and browned onion on top.

The real excitement was Jamaican - One Love Vegetarian.  We were lucky to get there during our stay, as it is closed Sundays and only open 11-6 on Saturdays.  So glad we made it though.  Was close to our second b+b - nr Koreatown (854 Bathurst St).  It seemed to be entirely vegan, even though the sign outside only said it was vegetarian.

We had a pumpkin roti, the soybean curd and lima bean curry (which came with rice+lentils, salad incl avocado and sunflower sprouts, and fried plantains), and a ginger beer each.  The ginger beer arrived first, and was the best I've ever had - soooo good (and pretty fiery).  Fiery hot sauce came on the side too.  It was all incredibly yummy.

And we only got to try a few things on a menu where we could have had anything!  We'd asked for the Callaloo first, they didn't have it that day - am interested in the green bananas.  The staff were really friendly (not OTT, just helpful and nice), and the whole place was just awesome.

ginger beer, pumpkin roti, soybean curd and lima bean curry with trimmings

Caponata

I made this for the first time years ago.  It's really good - kind of like ratatouille, but better.  I'd make it more often if it wasn't that we don't often have aubergines, celery and pine nuts all in the house at once.  I think this is a fairly simple version - stuff like cocoa and artichoke hearts can be added; the key ingredients remain aubergines, celery and capers.

600g aubergines, chopped into ~2cm chunks
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
~5 big stalks of celery, chopped (or substitute ~3/4 tsp crushed celery seed)
1 clove garlic, chopped (optional)
1 tbsp sultanas (or golden raisins)
~3 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tin chopped tomatoes
~2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp capers
2 tbsp olives, pitted and chopped
1 tbsp pine nuts (or substitute slivered toasted almonds)
1 tbsp chopped basil (optional)
salt and pepper

Salt aubergine and put under a heavy weight to drain (for approx half an hour).

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan, add onion and celery (and garlic if using), and cook for ~5 min until starting to soften. Rinse the aubergine and press it dry. Add the aubergine to the pan with the onion, and cook for ~10 min, until softened and starting to brown.

Add sultanas, vinegar, tomatoes, sugar, capers and olives (and celery seed if subbing for celery). Bring to a gentle boil and simmer until everything is soft and thick (at least 30 min). Finally, stir in pine nuts, and basil if using. Taste, and add more salt, sugar, pepper or vinegar if it needs it. Let cool. Ideally keep it for at least a day before eating - the taste and texture improves.


Check for seasoning, then eat - hot or cold, with pasta or with bread or on its own.

Flower flour - marigold and sunflower rolls

I was daydreaming about underground restaurants and found myself looking at MsMarmiteLover's blog and coveting her cookbook...  I found this page and loved the idea so much - I even have marigolds growing, nearing the end of their season and begging to be used.  My idea with planting them was that they would be pretty and edible - they grew well and were bright and fun all season, and now I've at last got around to eating some.

For eight:
7g dried yeast
160 ml lukewarm water
1/2 tsp honey
250 g strong white flour
10 g (~2 tbsp) semolina
1 tsp salt
25 ml olive oil
45 g sunflower seeds
1/2 handful marigold petals
1/2 tbsp olive oil for brushing

To make the dough; into your mixer add the flour, semolina, olive oil, sunflower seeds, marigold petals, honey and yeast. Then pour in the lukewarm water.

Let this mix on a low setting for at least 10 minutes, adding the salt at this point. If you don't have a mixer you can knead the dough by hand.  When well kneaded, cover the bowl and leave to rise for an hour or so in a warm place where it should double in size.

Tip the dough carefully onto a floured work surface and gently divide into balls of 40 - 50g in weight, using a digital scale to measure this quite accurately (if possible). Roll each ball in the palm of your hand and pull the sides down tucking the seam underneath.

Use a pair of scissors or a credit card to cut the balls of dough across the top. Make three crosses / six segments.  Pull each segment out from the middle to form a rough petal. Once finished, each ball should look like a little flower. Alternatively, you can leave as round rolls.

Put the dough flowers (or rolls) spaced apart on an oiled baking tray. Cover and leave for 30-40 minutes in a warm place. Preheat the oven to 220C (425F).

Bake the marigold bread rolls in the oven for 8-10 minutes or until lightly golden. Finish by brushing with olive oil and sprinkling on more marigold petals. The rolls are nice served warm or, once cooled, can be frozen until needed.


These are so much fun!  I wasn't able to weigh the ingredients very accurately (the original was for double), so wasn't sure if they would work.  But they look good to me!  And S said they were exciting....  Brilliant idea with the freezing, why didn't I think of that before?  The remainder are going in right now.  Also the bread machine seemed to work - I haven't used it like that before, but seemed to be a decent labour saver.