Best grated carrot salad

I've tried a few grated carrot salads in the past but never got it quite right. This attempt turned out exactly as I wanted; even better... The toasted coriander is key, and came from a Delia recipe (that I then decided not to stick to...).

1 tbsp coriander seeds
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp sesame seed oil
2 tsp white/red miso
1 tsp honey
salt+pepper
1 tiny clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp finely chopped onion
c 10 medium carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
1 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp chopped chives
1/4 cup raisins
2 tsp black onion seeds

Toast the coriander seeds and then crush them in a pestle and mortar. Put in a medium bowl with the vinegar, oils, miso, honey, salt and pepper (not much salt, miso is salty), crushed garlic and chopped onion. Whisk together with a fork. Add the grated carrots, lemon zest, chives, raisins and black onion seeds and mix to combine. Keeps well in the fridge (the raisins will plump up) for a few days.

Bean, tomato and olive oil galette

I keep forgetting about galettes. They are the answer to pie-making urges when one does not own a pie dish - ie perfect for the onset of cold weather in this house.

When I last made a galette it was delicious and I wanted to make more, then forgot. I wanted to try a different, simpler-looking pastry, with ingredients we're more likely to have in stock, ie this olive oil dough. So that's what I did. For filling, I decided to go with a bean base, since I had just cooked a load of white-borlotti bean mix - figured anything could work as a filling, so long as not wet.

(makes 2 medium pies)

For the pastry:
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup fridge cold water
1 beaten egg, for egg wash

For the filling:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
c 1 cup small tomatoes, chopped
c 2 cups cooked white/borlotti beans

1/2 cup parsley, chopped
salt+pepper
1/2 cup cubed gorgonzola (optional)

Mix salt and flour in a medium bowl with a fork, then mix in the olive oil and rub in until like breadcrumbs. Sprinkle in the cold water gradually (you probably don't need to use all of it) and knead until the pastry comes together - don't over work. Bring together into a ball, wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for at least 30-40 min (or, I suspect, up to a few days).

While chilling, make the filling: heat olive oil in a large pan, then soften onions and garlic. Add tomatoes, beans and parsley and saute until well mingled and any extra moisture from the tomatoes has been absorbed. Season to taste and let cool.

When ready to assemble and bake, first heat the oven to 200C. Divide the dough into two and roll out the first half on a well-floured surface until approximately circular. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Repeat with the other half of the dough. Spoon the filling onto the rolled-out dough circles, spreading it evenly from the centre until 1.5-2 inches from the edge. Fold in the borders, overlapping the edges and pressing together the folds. Brush the pastry edges with beaten egg. Sprinkle the gorgonzola (if using) over the exposed pie filling in the middle. Turn down the oven to 190C and put the pies in. Bake for 35-40 min, until the crust is golden brown. Remove from the oven, check the bottom is crisp, and let cool on the baking sheet.

These can be stored in the fridge for a few days, travel well wrapped in paper or in a box, and reheat well in the oven (maybe underbake just slightly if planning to reheat in the oven) or microwave.


I am totally enthused by the galette! Thinking this dough could be made ahead and kept in the fridge, then rolled out and filled whenever we want dinner - similar to our go-to pizza dough. Note, I did think this might be a little bit too much salt - the dough perhaps tasted a little salty - would prob be fine with a half tsp. The other filling I almost went with was butternut squash, walnuts and gorgonzola - so many possibilities though... I want to try sweet fillings too!

Roasted artichokes

We had quite a lot of artichokes from our veg share this summer - think they are one of the crops associated with sunnier climes that did unusually well with this crazy weather - in my garden tomatoes and peruvian physalis did fantastically. Anyway, after a few sessions of the usual approaches to artichokes (boiling and peeling off leaves to dip, then eating the heart), decided to try something a bit different. Wanted to roast, thought this sounded fun.

6 smallish artichokes
lemon
garlic
parsley
olive oil
salt+pepper

Heat oven to 220C. Trim artichokes (remove stem, outer leaves, 1/3 off the tip) and cut in half. Rub the cut edges with lemon. Cut out the choke (thistly fluff) and squeeze in a little more lemon juice. Chop enough garlic and parsley to fill all the choke-holes, and mix the chopped garlic and parsley with olive oil, salt and pepper. Stuff the holes with the garlic-parsley mixture, and place each half cut side down in a baking dish rubbed with olive oil. Bake approx 45 min (time depends on size of artichokes), covering with foil after c 20 min.


These were v tasty but tricky to eat - as you pull off the outer leaves your fingers get covered in oil, and the garlic etc from the middle falls out.

Apple muffins

Our apple tree started dropping apples already, so I wanted to make a start on some apple recipes to use them up. I fancied making muffins, even though they are not the most efficient way to use up apples. I liked the sound of this recipe, with grated, diced and sauced apple in it, and decided to give it a go even before I realized it's also a great baking-with-honey recipe - I especially like that it takes into account honey's tendency to dry out / burn.

3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup oats
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup grated apple
1 cup diced (1 cm) apple
1/3 cup olive oil (or veg oil)
1/2 cup honey (or maple syrup)
2 eggs (ideally at room temp)
1/2 cup Greek yoghurt
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts)
1 tbsp demerara sugar to go on top

Heat the oven to 163C / 325F (218C / 425F for maple syrup). Prepare a 12-cup muffin tin.

In a large bowl, mix flours, oats, baking powder, cinnamon, bicarb and salt with a fork. Add grated and chopped apple and stir.

In a medium bowl, beat oil, honey (or maple syrup) together, then add eggs and beat, then add yoghurt and apple sauce and mix.

Add wet to dry and mix until just combined, adding raisins and pecans in the final few strokes. Spoon into muffin cups and sprinkle with demerara sugar. Bake for c 25 min (13-15 min for maple syrup), until skewer comes out clean.

Tamales

We'd agreed, before we left for California, that we should eat lots of Mexican food there. I'd also discovered that I had, totally by coincidence, booked a hotel for our first three nights in Monterey right opposite a Whole Foods in a little outdoor mall type thing (and, by the way, a farmer's market the day after we arrived in the parking lot - double stroke of luck!)... We have previous for doing most of our eating on road trippy type American adventures out of Whole Foods markets.

So when we arrived, having flown 11 hours with our 7 month old baby and driven for two straight off of the flight, getting in about 8pm, we made as fast a turnaround as we could and went straight over to the Whole Foods to see what we could scavenge for dinner... We got there about 10 minutes before closing so it was a bit of a supermarket sweep, but included guacamole, salsa, and microwavable vegan tamales... We'd made sure to book a motel with a microwave in the room (and a pool), to make life with baby easier. The tamales turned out to be delicious (and microwavable in 3 min!), so we ended up eating loads of them during our trip. We also made it to two awesome Mexican restaurants during our trip - (1) vegan Mexican El Cantaro in Monterey; and (2) veg-friendly Obelisco in Fruitvale, Oakland.

When we got home, S found this recipe and convinced me to try it while he took care of baby S. It was quite a project and took a while, but kind of fun... I made them with sweetcorn, monterey jack cheese, sweet potato and a bit of chili inside - our fave ones from Whole Foods were with butternut squash, corn, and a little chilli and cheese. Luckily our local Irma just started stocking various Mexican goodies including masa harina (I guess we have Hija de Sanchez to thank for that).

(makes 12-20 depending on size of corn ears/husks)

3 ears fresh sweetcorn in their husks
1 3/4 cups masa harina mixed with 1 cup plus 2 tbsp hot water, then allowed to cool
4 oz butter, cut into 1 cm dice and slightly softened
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 mild chili, finely chopped
1 small sweet potato, peeled and chopped into 1 cm dice (or use butternut squash)
monterey jack cheese, amount to taste, chopped into 1 cm dice

Corn and Husks:
Cut through the ears of corn just above where the cob joins the stalk. Carefully remove the husks without tearing, and put into warm water. Remove and discard the corn silk. Slice the kernels off the cobs and set aside 2 cobs' worth for dough and 1 cob's worth for filling.

Dough:
Put the kernels from two corn cobs into a blender and blend to a medium-coarse puree. Transfer to a large bowl, then add the masa, butter, sugar, salt and baking powder. Mix with wand blender and wooden spoon til well combined.

Form and steam tamales:
Sort the husks: keep the best ones (large and whole) for the tamale outer layers; tear thin strips off any non-whole large ones for tying tamales; and use any remaining small/broken ones to line the base and top of the steamer. Set up the steamer and line it with husks. Then take one large husk (or two overlapping medium ones - but start with large ones), and spread about 1/4 cup of the batter into about a 4 in square, leaving at least a 1 1/2 in border on the side toward you and a 3/4 in border along the other sides (with large husks, the borders will be much bigger). Sprinkle about 1 1/2 tbsp of the filling down the center of the batter. Pick up the two long sides of the husk and bring them together (so the batter surrounds the filling). Bring the borders together and roll both sides in the same direction around the tamal. Finally, fold up the empty 1 1/2 in base of the husk (to form a tightly closed “bottom” leaving the top open), and secure it in place by loosely tying one of the strips of husk around the tamal. As they’re made, stand the tamales on their folded bottoms in the prepared steamer. Don’t tie the tamales too tightly or pack them too closely in the steamer - they need room to expand. If your husk-wrapped tamales don’t take up the entire steamer, fill in the open spaces with loosely wadded aluminum foil (to keep the tamales from falling over). Top with additional husks, cover and steam over a constant medium heat for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Watch carefully that all the water doesn’t boil away and, to keep the steam steady, pour boiling water into the pot when more is necessary. Tamales are done when the husk peels away from the masa easily. Let tamales stand in the steamer off the heat for a few minutes to firm up. For the best textured tamales, let them cool completely, then re-steam about 15 min to heat through.

Sunshine beet salad

We got golden beets in our veg bag 2 weeks ago. I wasn't very inspired at first - seemed like disappointing leftover winter veg. But we also got a recipe leaflet that my former teammate Ina started making with her students. One of the recipes was golden beets with lemon juice+zest = sunshine beets. I took the combination and made it into something more substantial... and it worked really well.


2-3 medium-large golden beets
salt+pepper
olive oil
1 cup pearled spelt
1-2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
juice and zest of 1/2 a large lemon
1 tsp white miso
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp apple cider vinegar reduction
1 tsp cider vinegar
salt+pepper
handful of chives, chopped

Wash the beets and then wrap them in foil with a little salt and pepper and olive oil. Put on a baking tray and roast at 200C for approx. 1 hour until soft. Let cool completely. Meanwhile cook the spelt in water until tender, drain and let cool.

When ready to assemble the salad, first make the dressing: chop the thyme and then mix with the lemon juice+zest, miso, 2 tbsp olive oil, vinegar reduction (use honey instead if you don't have it), vinegar, salt and pepper. Dice the beets into 1 cm dice and put in a serving bowl with the spelt and chives, then add the dressing and mix well. Eat straight away, or keeps well in the fridge for several days.


The beet-spelt-lemon-thyme combination works really well - and it does taste and look like sunshine... appropriately enough, given the insane sunny weather we've been having.

Rhubarb streusel muffins

At last, we have proper rhubarb harvest. Not epic, but enough, and thick enough. So I got excited and this was what I decided to make... It maybe wasn't the most important thing to do that day, but I felt like it was the thing to do... It's crazy how a little kid makes you prioritize... It's essentially an amalgamation of two recipes: here and here.

(makes 12)

For the muffins:
1 1/2 cups flour (approx 50:50 wholewheat or spelt and plain)
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup veg oil
1 egg
1/2 cup runny yoghurt (dilute a little with water if thick)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts
1 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb (approx 1 cm dice)

For the streusel topping:
1/2 cup flour (mix as above)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
3 tbsp melted butter

Heat oven to 165C and line a muffin tin. Mix flour, bicarb and salt with a fork in a large bowl. Beat sugar, oil, egg, yoghurt and vanilla together with a fork in another bowl. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined, adding the chopped walnuts and rhubarb with the last few strokes. Dollop into muffin liners, leaving a little space for topping. To make the streusel, mix the flour, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl with a fork, then add the melted butter and stir until lumpy, then add the walnuts. Distribute evenly over the muffins. Bake for approx. 30 min, until lightly browned on top and a skewer comes out clean.