Buckwheat with tkemali-honey dressing

We went to the Russian store yesterday and I got so engrossed in browsing all the different kinds of Tkemali (Georgian plum-herb sauce) that S gave up and left without me. Oops. Still, I left the shop with a bag of buckwheat and a bottle of "Tkemali Classical" and no idea what to do with them, isn't that the best?

This is my first experiment with buckwheat. It took me a little research to work out what kind of buckwheat I'd ended up with (the labels are in Russian, perhaps Ukrainian, illegible to me anyway, obvs). It is dark brown, so I think that means it is kasha / pre toasted buckwheat. So probably not much good for sprouting or other raw style activities, but I am sure there are plenty of things...

1 cup buckwheat groats
1 1/2 cups water
2 tsp honey
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2-3 tbsp tkemali
2 tsp white miso
1 tsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 spring onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh chopped coriander (or parsley)

Put the buckwheat and water in a small saucepan and cook for 10-15 minutes, until just tender (be careful not to cook for too long as it can turn mushy). Drain if necessary, then let cool. Meanwhile, mix the honey, balsamic, tkemali, ginger and miso in the bottom of a medium bowl. Add the buckwheat and toss. Add the spring onion and coriander and toss again. Like this, it is good as a grain / side type thing. I think the addition of chunks of roasted squash or sweet potato (or cooked beetroot) would turn it into a full on, super tasty salad.


The buckwheat is interesting: similar to bulghur wheat in texture, and very earthy in taste. I know it is used for porridge as well, perhaps I will try that next...

Kale-beetroot-brazil nut salad

From this recipe:

2 tsp wholegrain mustard
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
3-4 tbsp olive oil
salt+pepper
1 bunch kale, washed and finely chopped
2 large beetroot, boiled until tender, peeled and diced
1 spring onion, finely sliced
~10 brazil nuts, chopped

Mix the dressing (mustard, vinegar, oil and seasoning) in the bottom of a large bowl. Add the shredded kale, diced beetroot, spring onion and brazil nuts and toss until the kale is all coated with dressing. Best eaten after sitting for an hour or so - will keep in the fridge for a few days.


The best thing about this recipe is the discovery that beetroot and brazil nuts go really well together.

Triple ginger - (including ginger wine) - bread

Inherited a tub of crystallised ginger after our weekend in VT, and wanted to make something with it before it all disappeared straight out of the tub into my mouth. I wanted something as intensely dark and intensely gingery as I could make it. I saw recipes using stout, we had no stout but I browsed our alcohol collection and came across ginger wine - of course! What better way to maximise the gingeriness than with a little sweet, alcoholly goodness, in addition to plenty of ground ginger and the aforementioned crystallised ginger. I used date molasses because I had some (an equal quantity of light molasses would also be fine), same with the oat "yoghurt" (other non-dairy yoghurt or regular flax eggs would also be fine).

(makes 12 muffins or one loaf)

1/4 cup ginger wine
1/2 cup dark molasses (or black treacle)
1/4 cup date molasses
1/2 cup veg oil
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/3 cup light brown soft sugar
1 cup plain flour
1/3 cup wholemeal flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
3 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup oat "yoghurt"
1/3 cup crystallised ginger, finely chopped
finely grated zest of 1/2 a lemon (optional)

Heat oven to 350F. Put ginger wine, both kinds of molasses and oil in a saucepan and heat until just boiling. Remove from the heat and stir in the bicarbonate of soda until it fizzes. Add the sugar and mix well. Leave to cool. Mix the flours, baking powder, salt and spices in a bowl with a fork. Whisk the oat "yoghurt" into the oil-sugar mixture. Add the wet to the dry and mix until just combined. In the last few strokes, mix in the chopped crystallised ginger. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.


I fucked up and mixed the yoghurt into the dry stuff instead of the wet stuff, and so ended up with a rather lumpy batter I was sure I'd overbeaten (also forgot about lemon zest). However, it's come out beautifully risen, good and gingery, and with an amazingly moist, soft, fluffy texture, so maybe I got away with it... It's not quite as dark and sticky as I hoped, but perhaps it will get more that way as it cools?

Edit: Gosh, these are really good. Even better after 2-3 days, and perhaps would benefit from even more time left alone, as parkin does. Glad I persevered through my mistake! The texture and taste are lovely - wickedly gingery and rich. Could be a little darker: if dark brown soft sugar is available that might be better than light brown. I made these in muffin form, would be interesting to see how they rise in loaf form.

Amazing miso: oat "yoghurt"

The South River Miso chickpea-miso dip seemed like a surefire hit, on the other hand the idea of making a pseudo yoghurt using miso and oats seemed like a pretty wacky one. Yoghurt is the only dairy product I really miss, and a lot of that is to do with the texture - something slightly sweet / slightly sour that is smooth and gloopy and you can eat out of the fridge with a spoon or mix with fruit or jam to make dessert or breakfast. I had come across the idea of oat "yoghurt" once before, but never got around to trying it - partly because I forgot, partly because that recipe required several days before you got anything yoghurt-like. I think I will try it soon though, to see how it compares with this one.

So, pseudo yoghurt from oats and miso, here we go...

1 cup rolled oats
2 cups water (or up to 3)
2 tsp light unpasteurised miso (used chickpea miso)

In the evening, make porridge by mixing oats and water and boiling for 5-10 min, or until water is absorbed (do not use salt). Let the porridge cool to body temperature then stir the miso thoroughly into the warm porridge (it's OK if it's a bit cooler but not hotter). Cover and let sit overnight at room temperature. In the morning, transfer the mixture to a blender and blend until smooth.


This is brilliant. The miso almost immediately changed the texture of the porridge - from the familiar thick, starchy mass to something much more liquidy. When I tasted right after blending it was kind of sweet and fairly thick and gloopy in texture, but still tasted a bit like miso. I figured I could deal with that, and transferred it to a tub to chill in the fridge. After an hour or so, when it was chilled, I tasted again and it just tasted like oats and yoghurt - the miso taste was gone! My blender isn't good enough to make it completely smooth so it isn't perfectly yoghurt-like (still some tiny oat bits), but I really like it.

More experiments with the miso-free version and using regular miso to follow...

With regular white miso, it kind of worked: it definitely became liquidy immediately, and in the morning. However, I think the miso taste has hung around more, making it less yoghurty in flavour and not as versatile.

Amazing miso: chickpea-miso dip

I bought the most amazing miso yesterday. It is chickpea miso, from a company called South River Miso in Western Mass. It is intense, sweet, salty, umami, full of beautiful chunks of chickpea and rice, and one year old. Seriously: I liked miso before, but this stuff has blown my mind. I liked it so much I looked up their website. Now I am coveting their other kinds of miso - their dandelion and leek sounds incredible. I also found their wealth of recipe ideas, and tried a couple of simple / intriguing ones. This one is basically hummus, but with miso and without oil.

1 cup cooked chickpeas
4 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp chickpea miso
1 clove garlic
Juice of one lemon (used lime)

Drain chickpeas and reserve cooking liquid. Put all the ingredients in a blender cup and blend until smooth, adding cooking liquid as needed to reach desired consistency.


The miso taste really comes through, this stuff is smooth and creamy and delicious.

Hedgehog cake (orange, carrot and pistachio cake with mocha-sunflower icing)

This is S's birthday cake. He mentioned carrot cake at some point, also mentioned cake in the shape of a hedgehog at some point, he likes nuts and coffee, and I'm still trying to find the perfect carrot-coffee-nut combination after he requested it a few years ago.

Cake recipe adapted from this one (my quantities are weird because I scaled it down to make two layers instead of three).

For the cake:
50g tahini
83ml sunflower oil
2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
zest of 2 oranges, and 67ml juice (juice of approx 1 orange)
150g soft light brown sugar
2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 5 tbsp boiling water
133g carrot, grated finely
67g chopped pistachios
117g plain flour
1 2/3 tsp baking powder
1 1/3 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/3 tsp grated nutmeg

For the icing:
(this made too much - half or two thirds this quantity would have been sufficient)
16 oz firm silken tofu, drained
1 tbsp veg oil
1 tbsp very strong coffee
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup smooth sunflower seed butter

To finish:
~1 cup slivered toasted almonds
3 raisins (1 big one for the nose and two smaller, equal-sized ones for the eyes)

Heat the oven to 360F / 180C. Grease two 8 inch round cake tins and line the bases. In a large bowl, whisk together tahini, pomegranate molasses, orange zest and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in linseed mixture, then stir in the grated carrot, pistachios and orange juice. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and spices with a fork. Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and fold together until just combined. Divide the mixture between the prepared tins and bake for 25-30 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in tins.

While the cake is baking, make the icing. Crumble the drained tofu into a blender jug, add the oil and coffee and blend until smooth. Add the icing sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, salt and vanilla and blend until smooth. Add the sunflower seed butter and blend until consistent. Transfer the icing into a bowl, cover and refrigerate for an hour, until thickened.

When the cakes are cool and the icing chilled, you can assemble the cake. For a normal cake, just layer it up and stop here.

I wanted to make a curved, bilaterally symmetrical hedgehog shape. I made 4 layers (plus a little bit more on top, using almost all of the two circular cakes. I took one of the circular base papers (cleaned of cake bits) and cut out a template for the bottom layer (approx egg shaped; long side length equal to diameter of circle), then cut this shape out of one of the cakes with a sharp knife (save the offcuts for the upper layers), cutting at an angle of ~45 degrees. I then trimmed about 1 cm around all the edges of the template and cut this shape out of the other cake (working at the edge). Stack them so you can see how it is looking. Trim another centimetre off the template and cut the shape out of a combination of offcuts. Repeat. Use remaining offcuts to create a rounded top. Hopefully the stacked shape will look OK, if not you can do some rearrangement / trimming.

Next, put the bottom layer on a plate. Cover it with icing then add the next layer, Repeat until all the layers are done, also using the icing to stick the pieces together where the layers comprise more than one piece. Once the pieces are all layered up, cover the outside with icing. Make sure to fill in all the cracks and to go right down to the plate; you can use the icing to correct minor irregularities in shape. Smooth it out when done. Starting about 1/4 of the way back from the pointed end, stick slivered almonds into the icing to make spines. Cover the entire back part of the cake with these. On the part without almonds, make striations with a fork to look a bit like fur. Finally, choose your raisins, squish them into shape, and press into position on the cake.


This looks really fun - the almonds and raisins are quite effective, as good as I might have hoped. The cake is delicious - bit of a faff with all the chopping and grating and zesting and juicing and so forth, but tasty enough to warrant it on a special occasion. They didn't rise much but they did hold together very well as I cut and layered them. Carrot cake should be dense anyway, so I don't think the lack of eggs mattered much.

The icing is very soft but does stay in position. I wondered if the seed (or nut) butter was a necessary addition or if it would have been just as good without. Same with the cocoa - I added it mainly for colour but it might have been brown enough without. It definitely doesn't taste of tofu at all. Does taste of sunflower butter though, and with that plus the cocoa once again I have managed to drown out the coffee flavour. Tastes fine in combination with the cake though: the flavours work together well. (note: I may have been eating the leftover icing out of the tub with a spoon like pudding, this was kind of good - it's fairly light)

Tamale pie

It's S's birthday tomorrow and I've been devoting a lot of my daydream time to thinking up ideas for what to do to make it special. He is playing football in the evening, which he likes, so that's good. I'm going to make a cake. But then also thought it might be fun to go for lunch somewhere. El Pelon (little Mexican place near work) sprang to mind: I heard good things about it but didn't get around to going there for a long time; when I did get there I discovered joyously tasty, filling vegan tamales. So the taste of tamales was drifting temptingly around my brain when I came across the concept of tamale pie: it's sort of like shepherd's pie with Mexican influences. S had accidentally bought masa harina (corn flour made from hominy) a while ago. It's what you need to make corn tortillas or tamales or pupusas. All those things are delicious, but somewhat fiddly - tamale pie is a super simple way of getting that tamale fix. Note: this is my reinterpretation / amalgamation of a bunch of recipes.

(this took me about an hour to make from start to finish - it's a good idea to prep the veg sequentially as you cook to minimise the total time)

For the topping:
1 cup masa harina
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 cups boiling water
2 tbsp fake butter
1/2 tsp baking powder

For the filling:
1 tbsp veg or light olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 green chilli, finely chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and grated
1 400g tin tomatoes
2 cups pinto, kidney or black-eyed beans, pre-cooked
1 cup frozen sweetcorn
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp mushroom powder
1 1/2 tsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp red wine
3 tbsp chopped coriander
salt+red chilli flakes

To finish:
1 tbsp chopped coriander
1 tsp paprika
few squeezes of lime

Heat oven to 400F. Mix masa harina, salt and paprika for the topping in a bowl with a fork. Add boiling water gradually, mixing to form a soft dough. Cover and set aside.

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan. Add the onion, cover and cook for a few minutes. Add garlic and chilli and cook a few more minutes. Add grated carrot and cook for a few more minutes. Add the tomatoes, beans, sweetcorn, cumin, paprika, oregano, soy sauce, mushroom powder, wine and coriander and simmer until it is thickened and all the veg are cooked. Taste for seasoning and add salt and chilli flakes to taste if required.

Mix the butter and baking powder into the masa mixture. Put the filling into a lidded oven dish. Squish the masa to cover over the top as if making a shepherd's pie. Put the lid on (or cover with foil if no lid) and put in the oven for 30 min. Uncover and cook about 10 min more, until it is lightly browned and crispy around the edges.

Let it sit for 5-10 min before serving. Sprinkle with chopped coriander, paprika and a squeeze or two of lime juice.


Notes: Could use squash, mushrooms, courgette, peppers instead of carrot. Tomatilloes might be good too. Could use polenta (or cornbread) as topping instead of masa.


This was filling and tasty - the topping definitely had that tamale taste and went really well with the inside layer.

Pancake Day Pudding: 'Nutella' pancakes

I consider it necessary, every Pancake Day, to eat an entire pancake-based meal: both savoury and sweet. This year I hit upon scallion pancakes for the savoury round, but still felt the need for a traditional / pudding pancake. I was considering Nutella, when it occurred to me that perhaps an even more delicious option would be to break Nutella apart and have pancakes with hazelnuts and chocolate sauce. So that's what we did.

Weirdly, I'd never really made chocolate sauce before. My initial thought was just to melt some chocolate mixed with a little almond milk and maybe a little sugar, but I found this recipe and was convinced enough by the description to give it a try.

For the pancakes:
-use this basic recipe - you will never miss the eggs and milk

For the chocolate sauce:
1/2 cup water
80g / 1/4 cup light corn syrup, agave or liquid glucose (used golden syrup)
50g / 1/4 cup sugar
38g / 3/8 cup cocoa powder (ideally Dutch Process)
1 oz / 30g dark (~60%) chocolate, chopped*

Additional:
~20 toasted hazelnuts, chopped
1/2 a banana, sliced (optional)

Make the chocolate sauce a little in advance as it will need time (1-2 hours at least) to cool. Mix the water, syrup, sugar and cocoa in a small pan and bring to the boil, whisking steadily. Once just boiling, remove from the heat and mix in the chopped chocolate. When the chocolate is melted, set the pan aside at room temperature and allow to cool and thicken.

While the sauce cools, you can make the pancake batter and cook up the pancakes (keep them warm on a plate covered with a folded teatowel, or in the oven on a covered plate if you need to wait longer), and chop the hazelnuts.

When you're ready to eat them, drizzle a pancake with chocolate sauce, sprinkle with hazelnuts (and chopped banana if you fancy that), roll up and eat as delicately or as uncouthly as you wish.


This combination was great, and worked really well with banana too. The sauce kind of separated as it cooled - tasted great but the texture wasn't right. Perhaps I cooled it too quickly (I put it next to an open window)? Or perhaps the golden syrup was not an appropriate substitution? It is worth another attempt! As well as these I of course had to have a classic one with lemon and sugar.

*I made this recipe again, being very careful to stick to the recipe, not cool the sauce too fast etc, and still found that it separated. A review of the comments on the original site indicated that the chocolate may be the issue - although 70% is nowhere near 100%, perhaps it is still too intense and acidic and caused the separation. I rarely have anything less than 70% in the house, so to continue with this recipe may need to work out a way of neutralising it?

Chinese Spring Festival meets Pancake Day: Scallion Pancakes

With all the snow and the pre-Valentines baking I got distracted from the fact it was Chinese New Year at the weekend: happy new Year of the Snake!

And then Pancake Day was already upon us (yesterday), demanding a pancake feast... Scallion pancakes seemed to be the perfect way to celebrate both at once, in food form (of course... both celebrations seem to be mainly about food, perhaps that's why I like them so much...).

I mainly referred to this recipe, also this one.

(makes 4 fairly large pancakes)

For pancakes:
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup scallions (aka spring onions aka green onions - about 4), sliced
1/2 cup veg oil mixed with 1 tbsp sesame oil
salt+white pepper

For dipping sauce:
1/4 cup light soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup sliced scallions (about 2)
1 tsp red chilli flakes
1 tsp chopped root ginger
1 tsp sugar

Mix flour and baking powder together in a bowl with a fork. Dribble in the boiling water gradually and steadily, mixing with a wooden spoon the whole time. Bring together into a ball of dough and then let rest (covered with a damp cloth) for 30 min or so.

While the dough rests, chop the scallions and prepare the dipping sauce by mixing all the ingredients together in a small bowl.

To make the pancakes, roll the dough out on a floured surface into a large rectangle about 8 mm thick. Brush the rectangle with the oil mixture, sprinkle the chopped scallions all over, then season with salt and ground white pepper. Next, carefully roll the rectangle up as if rolling up a swiss roll, going from a long side, so you end up with a long sausage shape. Cut the sausage into four. Take one piece, pull it out and squish it a little, twist it three times, then wrap it round into a flattened spiral. Roll it out into a thick (~8 mm thick), round pancake, about 5-6 inches diameter. Repeat with the other three pieces.

Heat any remaining oil mixture (or additional veg oil) in a frying pan. When hot, place a pancake in it and cook on one side until browned, then flip and brown the other side. Eat hot, cut into wedges and dipped in the dipping sauce.


Wow. These were quite delicious. I probably won't get around to making them again til some Pancake Day in the distant future, but damn they were good. The dipping sauce was a great idea: its spicy / salty / sour / sweet ness really cut through the greasy, stodgy (in a good way) pancake beautifully. Despite the large quantity of scallions used, there was no lingering onion taste.

Valentines Biscuits III: Cardamom and rose hearts

I made these once before, before I started this. They are, to my mind, the quintessential kitschy Valentines baked goods: cute, tiny, tasty, flowery, and very, very pink (it takes very little beetroot juice to make a really pink icing: you don't taste the beetroot at all but oh my word you can see it). I think cardamom and rose go great together, and a box of tiny biscuits makes a great friend-Valentine.

Biscuits:
4 oz plain flour
small pinch salt
1/2 tsp powdered cardamom
2 1/2 oz margarine
1 oz sugar
1/4 tbsp rose water
1/4 tbsp water

Icing:
1 tsp finely grated raw beetroot
1/2 tsp water
1/2 tsp rose water
4 tbsp icing sugar

Finishing:
petals from 1 dried rosebud
seeds from 2 green cardamom pods

Heat oven to 350F / 180C. Mix flour, salt and cardamom in a bowl with a fork. Rub in butter until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir in sugar, then add rose water and water and knead to a smooth dough.

Roll out thinly on a floured surface, cut into hearts (I happen to have three different sizes of heart cutters nowadays, but previously I have freehanded heart shapes with a knife) and place on greased baking sheets. Bake for 15-20 min and cool on a wire rack.

For the icing, mix the beetroot and water, leave for a minute or two, then squeeze all the liquid out of the beetroot and transfer to a fresh bowl. Add rose water and icing sugar to the beetroot water, check it is a good spreading consistency, then use to ice the cooled biscuits. Finally, grind the rose petals and cardamom seeds together and sprinkle a little on top of each biscuit.


Notes: this basic recipe (based on one from the WI Book of Biscuits - same source as this recipe) is the best I've tried so far for cutting shapes, and it has plenty of scope for varying the spices, shapes and flavourings. It rolls thin so you get a lot of biscuits out of this amount - I must have got about 30 tiny hearts and about 10 bigger ones out of this quantity.

Valentines Biscuits II: Mahlab, almond and orange blossom hearts+rhinos

I saw something labelled 'mahlab' in the Armenian stores the other week, and had no idea what it was. I looked it up when I got home and discovered that it is powdered cherry kernel. Which sounded wonderful: I love the taste of apricot or plum kernels in jam, and sour cherry is delicious - that sour-sweet thing is really excellent. So when I saw a small packet in the Turkish store in Allston I couldn't resist trying it. It tastes just as good as I had hoped: it really is reminiscent of both bitter almond (also apricot kernel, also cyanide, I assume it's fine) and sour cherry.

Wasn't sure what to do with it, but it seemed like a natural fit with almonds and orange blossom, and spiced, flowery biscuits seemed like a good idea for some pre-Valentines baking. Cinnamon, ginger, almond essence or vanilla essence would also work well if the weird ingredients are not available. This recipe is based on one in my WI Book of Biscuits.

Biscuits:
3 1/2 oz plain flour
3 oz margarine
1 oz sugar
1 1/2 oz ground almonds
1 tsp ground mahlab
few drops orange blossom water

Icing:
1 tsp orange blossom water
4 tbsp icing sugar
a few toasted flaked almonds

Heat oven to 300F / 150C. Mix flour in a bowl with a fork. Add marg and rub until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add sugar, almonds, mahlab and orange blossom water and knead to a stiff paste.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface to a thickness of 1 cm. Cut into rhinos (or whatever other shape you want) and place on greased baking trays. Bake for 30 min, then cool on a wire rack.

When the biscuits are completely cool, mix icing sugar and orange blossom water in a small bowl to a good consistency, then ice the rhinos little hearts and finish with toasted flaked almonds.

Valentines Biscuits I: Lemon, lavender and semolina

I love this flavour combination, and these tasted great, but the texture is off: perhaps needed a bit more fat or a bit of lemon juice. This recipe needs some work - these ones were similar but better, although I do like the idea of including semolina.

3 oz plain flour
1 oz semolina
1 tsp lavender flowers, coarsely ground
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 oz sugar
small pinch salt
4 tbsp olive oil

Heat oven to 350F. Mix semolina, flour, lavender, lemon zest, salt and sugar in a bowl with a fork. Add olive oil and rub / mix until it comes together to make a dough. Shape into small, flattened discs and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake for ~20 min.

Snow

Two feet of snow fell last night. TWO FEET! So exciting. Of course, I ate some. Slushies from the sky = the best.

A few scoops of fresh, fluffy snow + squirting of grape molasses or similar -> eat as fast as you can with a teaspoon.

Beetroot soup

We had a lot of beetroot, thanks to A. They were a different variety than the last lot: the shape was longer and the colour lighter. After the watermelon radish I half expected to cut into them to find something surprising (Chioggia?), but they were just plain old beets. Not that I am complaining, I love the good old deep pink ones the best. I have been reminding myself to save some for something Valentines pink, and made some into dip at the weekend, but most of the rest became soup last night, in a flurry of slow-cooked comfort food making that also featured mixed grains and sweet and sour red lentils. It's not incredibly cold any more (back up to -3C), but the constant chilliness is starting to drag a little, despite it no longer being January and it almost being still light at 5pm...

S suggested Borscht at the weekend, so I wanted to do something a bit like a borscht. I knew most were with meat, didn't know that most also contain cabbage, carrots etc. Fancied something a little simpler and totally beetroot-focused, and came across this recipe - based it on that.

2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp caraway seeds
3/4 tsp brown mustard seeds
3/4 tsp cumin seeds
2 small onions, peeled and chopped
1 lb fresh beetroot, peeled and grated
1-2 bay leaves
4 cups veg stock
1 1/2 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp dark soy sauce
salt+pepper

horseradish to serve - or horseradish yoghurt (recommended! 4 tsp grated fresh horseradish mixed with 1/2 cup plain yoghurt)

Heat oil in a large saucepan with a lid. Add seeds and fry until fragrant and starting to pop (about a minute). Add onion, cover and cook til softened. Add beetroot, bay leaves and stock. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Add vinegar, soy sauce and salt and pepper, taste and add a little more if needed. Serve hot, with a tsp or so of prepared horseradish from a jar swirled into the middle.


Something simple and earthy becomes something vibrant and wonderful with the addition of vinegar, caraway and horseradish - I can see why borscht is so popular and so divisive. Now I am daydreaming about more of this for dinner, this time with gnocchi cooked in it and chopped fresh coriander on top... And I did that, and it felt like the best idea for a quick, warming, light Winter supper. I should really make soup more often.

Beetroot, horseradish and pumpkin seed dip

We bought some bread and a spicy red (unlabelled) dip from the Turkish store and I promised S I'd make more dips when we got home.

I did a muhammara and a version of baba ghanoush. I also made a beetroot dip. I've made beetroot dip before and it great, but that was ages ago - thought it was time for a revisit...

2 large beetroot, scrubbed
3 tbsp fresh coriander, washed
3 tbsp prepared horseradish from a jar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
3-4 tbsp pumpkin seeds, toasted
1 small clove garlic, peeled
1 tbsp olive oil
juice of 1/2 a lime
salt+pepper

Submerge the whole beetroot in a pan of water and boil for 45 min - an hour, until a fork goes in easily. Drain and allow to cool. Peel and chop roughly. Put beetroot pieces in a blender cup with the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth. Taste and add more horseradish, lime or salt if needed.

Note: could also be good with toasted walnuts instead of pumpkin seeds.

Baba ghanoush (smoky aubergine dip)

I love this stuff. And it is super easy to make. The tricky part is getting the right amount of smokiness in the taste, along with a perfectly smooth and silky texture. I tried out different methods for preparing the aubergine. Each has different pros and cons, but all will ultimately give you decent baba. See below.

2 aubergines
1 1/2 cloves garlic, peeled
3-4 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp tahini
3 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper*

First, char the aubergines:

Stovetop (Gas Burner) Method
Plonk the aubergine over the naked gas flame, turning all around until it is charred and softened.

Stovetop (Cast-Iron) Method
Put a cast-iron, ovenproof pan, lightly oiled and heated, on the stove, plonk the whole aubergines on top, turning them until they are charred on all sides and soft.

Oven Method
Heat oven to 400F. Cut aubergines in half and place cut side down on a lightly (olive) oiled baking tray. Bake for 30-40 min til charred and completely soft (poke to test softness).

Of the three methods, the oven method is easiest and gives a lovely, silky consistency, but not much smoky taste. The gas burner method is the best for smokiness, but it's hard to cook the aubergines right to the middle before the outside starts to collapse and make a mess (and less-cooked parts means less smooth final texture). The cast-iron pan method is perhaps a compromise in terms of texture and smokiness, but did tend to fill the kitchen with smoke...

My Final Method Solution
I have settled upon charring the aubergines on the gas burner fairly quickly, before cutting them in half and finishing them following the oven method. This gives some smoky flavour and a good, silky texture.

Allow charred aubergines to cool, then scrape soft parts into blender cup (removing most of the charred skin / leaving in a few bits for flavour). Add rest of ingredients and liquidise. Can be eaten straight away but improves after a day or so in the fridge.

*For a tasty variation, add 1-2 tsp white miso instead of the salt+pepper.

Basic Vegan Muffin Recipe / Pineapple, Coconut and Pumpkin Seed Muffins

I've made all sorts of vegan muffins, but just realised I didn't have a basic recipe - for non-vegan muffins I always had a basic recipe, which I modified according to what I fancied / had in the cupboards. So I went through the vegan recipes I've tried, and this is the basic recipe I came up with.

I wouldn't bother making it as is, it needs stuff added to it before it would taste good, but all sorts of simple additions are possible - a tsp of vanilla essence and some frozen blueberries for blueberry muffins, for example, or a few tbsp of cocoa powder, a tsp of vanilla and some chopped chocolate for choc-choc chip ones... Loads of variations possible!

One example is below - I rescued a couple of huge, almost-out-of-date tins of pineapple juice from work so wanted to experiment with pineapple juice in baking.


Basic Vegan Muffin Recipe

(for 12)

2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup soy milk mixed with 1 tbsp cider vinegar
1/2 cup veg oil
1 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 2 1/2 tbsp boiling water*

Heat oven to 400F. Prepare a 12 cup muffin tin. Mix dry ingredients in a mixing bowl with a fork. Mix wet ingredients. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. Dollop into prepared tin. Bake for 20-25 min, until lightly browned and a skewer comes out clean.

*may not be necessary


Pineapple, Coconut and Pumpkin Seed Muffins

(makes 12)

2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 tbsp pumpkin seeds
4 tbsp golden raisins
1/2 cup shredded (unsweetened) coconut
1 cup pineapple juice
1 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 2 1/2 tbsp boiling water
1/2 cup veg oil
1 tsp vanilla essence

Heat oven to 400F. Mix dry ingredients in a mixing bowl with a fork. Add raisins and pumpkin seeds and stir. Mix wet ingredients. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. Put into prepared muffin tin and bake for ~25 min, until lightly browned and a skewer comes out clean.


The pineapple taste is subtle, but they are nice muffins - good mix of colours, flavours and textures. Not too sweet - I used less sugar because of the pineapple juice sweetness.