pina colada iceblocks

The long heatwave has not been conducive to cooking or writing. Though it did appear to be the perfect time to moan about the weather.

But long hot spells are an appropriate time to do a bit of a pantry cleaning and make ice blocks.

Not just any kind of iceblock (icy pole, Popsicle – call it what you will) but pina colada ice blocks. 

Inspired by this recipe (which was altogether too fiddly, boozy and you know what I think about agave), the pantry haul included a can of coconut water (that had added sugar so never drunk), a tin of pineapple in juice bought for my father’s recent visit (his habitual morning repast of tinned fruit and cornflakes) and a dash of Malibu from a long, long time ago in lieu of coconut essence. I would have added the cornflakes if I could.

Combined in a large jug, whirled together with the stick blender, this made more liquid than could fill the 10 moulds I own. The leftover large glassful was equally delightful and the dash of grog had little or no effect but added perfectly to the flavour.

Frozen, these beauties have been a dream on these 30c nights. Providing the perfect after work reviver or post salad treat. And while I feel dirty even mentioning the word 'kilojoule' on this blog, they would have to be significantly less calorific than the original recipe. 

So you can have two!

Glad I’ve got a few left, as despite the wintry change there’s promise of almost hitting 30c again this week.

Heide’s carnival cookies

Did you notice I don’t have a single biscuit recipe on this blog? There’s a slice, lots of muffins, a handful of desserts and far too many drinks in the sweet treats section. Well today I’m going to remedy that omission and guess what, it’s vegan!

Vegan Schmegan! How can a biscuit without sugar, butter or flour taste any good? 

Oh my goodness, domestic goddess supreme Heidi Swanson’s done it. A dairy-free, gluten-free (it your oats are untainted), egg-free and even (added) sugar-free sweet treat that has people coming back for more. Even the chocolate-vanilla-y aroma of these “cookies” has me salivating.

But first a little nomenclature: Being an Anglo-file, at least where language is concerned, makes me baulk at calling these cookies. Beyond semantics, I tend to pigeonhole a biscuit/cookie as a disc of something sweet and crispy. The carnival cookies (suitably Americanised due to their country of origin) certainly evoke the spirit of a biscuit but are also reminiscent of an unleavened version of my muffins. The banana makes them soft and a little doughy.

Whatever. They passed muster and weren’t ruined by my habitual tweaking. A tad more chocolate on hand than recipe called for, no problem, you can never have too much chocolate in a sweet morsel. Not a huge fan of peanuts? The walnuts substituted nicely. I also ground my own almonds, gave the rolled oats a quick whiz (rather leaving them whole as indicated in the original recipe), popped the corn, passed a cinnamon stick over a fine grater and was a little heavy handed with the remains of my homemade vanilla extract.

The might look a little well done but it's just the chocolate the chocolate that includes chunks and powdery goodness

Carnival cookies

(adapted from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day: Well Loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen)

4 small or 3 medium bananas, mashed

1.5 teaspoons natural vanilla essence/extract

60g coconut oil, melted

120 g rolled oats, blitzed for a couple of seconds in a food processor

60 g almonds, blitzed to make almond meal

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 tsp good quality ground cinnamon, or half a cinnamon quill finely grated

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

100 g walnuts, lightly crushed but still chunky

180 g chopped dark chocolate (70% plus) or good quality chocolate chips

1 heaped tablespoon popping corn, popped with a little coconut oil (about 20 g of popped corn)

Preheat oven to 180c

To make the popcorn: Heat a large pot with a tight fitting lid. Add a scant teaspoon of coconut oil, throw in the corn kernels and put on the lid. Shake pot every minute or so and let the kernels do their thing. Once the popping has subsided remove from the heat and carefully take off the lid. Allow the popcorn to cool, discarding any unpopped kernels.

In a large bowl combine mashed banana, vanilla and coconut oil. In another bowl assemble the dry ingredients: the oats, almond meal, baking powder cinnamon and salt. I ground everything myself in my powerful mini food-processor, one by one blitzing the oats, almonds and chocolate.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and stir til combined. Gently fold through the chocolate, then the walnuts and lastly the popcorn. The mixture is quite wet but have faith because it will hold together ok.

There is enough mixture to fill two baking sheets. I only have one so cooked them in two batches. The first following Heidi’s instructions to use a heaped tablespoon of dough, shaped into a ball by hand, came out quite large and round, needing about 18 minutes of cooking.

The second tray I used less, barely a level tablespoon of mixture per cookie, rounded to a ball by hand then flattened slightly on the tray. This batch took about 14 minutes to cook in my oven. The smaller size is perfect for a mouthful of something sweet with coffee or a treat. The small mouthfuls have also been a hit impromptu festive gift.

Update January 2013:
I've made a second batch, no measuring this time and all came out fine. Yippee, I so love baking intuitively rather than with the accoutrements of a pseudoscientist (like something out of the Ponds Institute).

Variation: This batch was made with cornflakes leftover from my dad's visit, I subbed them for popcorn. The combo of chocolate, cornflakes and walnuts was reminiscent of Afghan biscuits from my childhood. That's a good thing.

Further variations I'd consider in the future include desicated coconut and dried cherries. Possibly together. With chocolate of course.

This is a wonderfully adaptive recipe and non-vegans love the biscuits equally as much as those eschewing dairy and eggs. A perfect replacement for my (non-vegan) banana-based muffins.

Hate banana? Try some applesauce or a chunky, cooked apple puree. I reckon that would work just as well.

dessert gyoza

This post has been in the pipeline for the past year. Blame the delay on gluttony. This is a morsel best eaten hot, so the restraint required to delay gratification and take a photo is quite large.

For those pedants loving precise measurements, the joy of this recipe is that you can make a small batch of three or four (if you can restrain yourself) for some late night solo pleasure, or dozens for a large crowd. As only a teaspoon of filling per gyoza is needed, a little goes a very long way. You can whiz up a batch in a mini food processor (for this job a regular sized processor is way too large, unless you like A LOT of dessert) and store the leftovers in a jar in the fridge for later use.

While flour isn't exactly a health food, this recipe does incorporate wonderful antioxidant rich dark chocolate with the calcium (and other nutrient) abundance of figs and nuts. It's also vegan/dairy-free.

Chocolate gyoza

2 parts dark chocolate, at least 70% (For two people 40 grams of chocolate is enough)

1 part dried figs

1 part walnuts

Gyoza wrappers*

Coconut oil

Icing sugar (optional)

To the make the filling either finely chop the chocolate, fried figs and walnuts, or blitz in a mini food processor.

Take a gyoza wrapper; place a heaped teaspoon of filling mixture in the centre, run a little water around the outer few centimetres of the wrapper, fold and gently press together. You can crimp by hand or use one of those nifty cheap plastic gyoza presses from an Asian grocery store. Repeat until you have the desired number of gyoza.

Heat a frying pan on medium. Add a teaspoon of coconut oil (really this is the best oil for the job) and place as many gyoza as you can in the pan. It’s ok for them to snuggle up next to each other. Cook for about 3 minutes on the first side, flip over, then another 2 minutes on the other. Or til just golden.

Plate up. Dust with icing sugar if desired and eat while hot.

Variations

What do you like with your chocolate? I settled on figs and nuts to slightly mitigate the sweetness and bring a little more healthy goodness to the dessert.

But if you’re not a health freak you can spike pure chocolate with a little orange zest, a splash of liqueur, a smidgeon of sea salt or even black pepper.

* you can find gyoza wrappers in the fridge at most Asian grocery stores.

quick update from the trenches

There’s been some cooking

Accidental sorrel soup.

How to turn an average end-of-the-week-leftover-veggie soup into a stellar meal? Just add a handful of sorrel and blend. The base combo of alliums/cauliflower/zucchini/potato simmered in stock got the zing it needed when blended with the lemony green herb. A little goes a long way.

Oranges are not the only fruit.

But certainly the most abundant one in our house at the moment due to the arrival of two boxes of home-grown citrus. A batch of orange and spice vegan truffles were scoffed with alarming speed and with zest added to every conceivable dish, the fridge is full of lemons and oranges devested of their skin. As always, there’s large batch of preserved lemons on the go.

Quinoa for breakfast and dinner.

Cooked in orange and ginger juice. A superb breakfast that can be dolled up with a drizzle of maple syrup and some toasted almonds for a deceptively healthy dessert.

Speaking of dessert.

You know I’m not the queen of cooked desserts, right? But my oh my, I had a brilliant idea and minutes later dessert gyozas were on the table. I’d call them a work in progress but really they’re so simple they don’t need work. Three batches down I can’t stop long enough to photograph them before they’re gone. Will share soon, blogging mojo willing.

What’s rocking your kitchen?

raw fruit pie

The vegan summer* continues. As it’s been an unusual month, throwing my blogging mojo way off centre, excuse me starting in the middle rather than the beginning of the journey.

As a student for four years in my 20’s, most of what I cooked was vegan by default. All the shared houses were nominally vegetarian (what we ate outside of home varied somewhat). There was the odd egg but the sparse kitty could rarely stretch to seafood.

Recently I unearthed my hand written recipe collection from that time and revisited what I used to eat. Beans, lentils, curries, pies, risotto, tofu balls and soups appeared to be on high rotation. But desserts, bar the odd cake, didn’t get a look in.

One exception being a raw fruit pie introduced to me by a flatmate who’d grown up in the 70s with an older, hippy sister who went on a raw food diet (somewhere between rebirthing and following some guru or another). It’s more than 20 years since I made the “pie” and the recipe is a tad vague but strangely legible. I remember there being oats in the base, yet they’re only mentioned as an after thought and I don’t recall ever cooking with fresh coconut. The size of pie dish, consistency of filling and other details remain absent.

I tweaked the original recipe a bit but stayed true to the memory of the dish. It must have been good because we had seconds, barely leaving any for breakfast.

The original recipe is at the end of this post, for what it’s worth.

Raw fruit pie

Base

3/4 c rolled oats, ground

1/2 c raw pistachios, ground

1/2 c raw almonds, ground

(other nuts or seeds can be substituted)

1/2 c dates, pitted and chopped

(other dried fruit can be substituted)

3/4 c desiccated coconut

1 tsp cinnamon, ground

1/4 cup coconut milk

Water, if needed

1/4 c honey

Soak oats and dried fruit in coconut milk and a little water, for about half an hour until softened. Combine with remaining ingredients and blend in a food processor.

Grease a pie dish (I used a 25 cm flan dish) with coconut oil. Push the rather sticky base into the bottom of the pan. It seems too little but will make it to the outer reaches with gentle coaxing. Rest it in freezer for 15 minutes.

Filling

3 medium sized apples, grated

2 tabs lemon juice

3 bananas, mashed

1 tsp coconut cream (the solids in the canned coconut milk)

1/2 cup desiccated coconut

Blend ingredients in food processor and spoon onto the base. Refrigerate til ready to serve.

Before serving decorate with fresh fruit. I used slices of kiwi and banana but any fruit will do such as fresh berries or orange segments.

A quick outdoor shot at 7.30 pm, excuse the dullness of the photo

The original recipe (somewhere between rebirthing and guru worship)

Base

1/2 c dates

1/2 c sultanas

1 cup sunflower seeds

1/4 c almonds’

1/4c fresh coconut (its not clear if this was the juice or flesh)

1/4 c desiccated coconut

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup honey

Soak fruit 1 hour. Grind nuts and seeds. Combine ingredients til smooth in food processor. Press into pie dish to form a crust. Put in freezer ~ 15 minutes.

*Oats ok with fruit and substitute to substitute (note the ingredients list has no asterisks to indicate what can be substituted)

Filling

2 grated apples

2 tab lemon juice

1/4 cup fresh coconut

2 mashed bananas

Blend

Stir in 2 sliced bananas and add to crust.

Decorate with 1 kiwi fruit, sliced and 1 – 2 mandarins

* The Significant Eater (SE) is currently vegan. This summer all home cooking has been animal product-free.

scented vegan truffles: a sensory experience

Scent: orange, vanilla, coconut, chocolate.

Texture: silky, melt in your mouth.

Flavour: see scent…all that and more.

Sound: can you hear the groans of pleasure, followed by, “holly f*ck give me more”?

For those who thought vegan food was all mung beans and healthy goodness, I give you the most luscious morsel to have graced my senses in living memory.


Vegan truffle redux
(Quantities for an experimental batch of about 20 truffles)

300 gm organic coconut oil
The rind of one organic orange
1 –2 vanilla pods
600 gm good quality dark chocolate (I used an organic 70% block of couverture)

Add coconut oil to a small pot. In this part of the world, it’ll be solid rather than free flowing. Wash and dry your orange. I used a Valencia as it was the freshest around at this end of the citrus season. As you’re using the skin of a highly sprayed crop, it’s worth buying organic. Carefully peel or zest the orange, avoiding the pith. Split your vanilla pod(s) open. Add the peel and vanilla to the coconut oil and melt over a low heat. Once melted cover with a lid, turn off the heat and leave to infuse in a warm place for about 24 hours. You should have a heavenly scented oil that after some time solidifies again.

The next day, or whenever the mood takes you (you can store the infused oil in the fridge for a couple of weeks if need be), chop your chocolate finely then whiz in the food processor. After a few blitzes if should be the consistency of breadcrumbs. Now heat the oil til it melts, strain through a sieve and pour onto the chocolate in the food processor bowl. A couple more whizzes and you’ll have a divine smelling, melted chocolate mixture. Poor into a tub, cover and refrigerate for 2-3 hours, til solid.

Now comes the fun part. The melon-baller method is a lot less messy than rolling with your hands (read my previous effort if you’d prefer the rustic version). Set out some good quality cocoa powder in a bowl, grab the melon-baller and a couple of teaspoons and get ready to go. On a warm day you may need to do this in batches if the mixture starts sticking to the baller. Just pop the truffle mix back in the fridge for 15 minutes.



Scoop some truffle mix, dunk it in the cocoa and toss it around with a couple of teaspoons, til coated. Repeat…again and again and again…

Sight:


a real food photographer would dust them with more cocoa to cover the teaspoon marks and arrange them on a pretty plate…but hell, life is too short to play with chocolate on such a hot day

Cook's notes

While my previous vegan truffles were moreish, the infused coconut oil version took them to a whole new level.

Obviously you can have fun infusing the coconut oil with your favourite flavour combinations. I’d originally chosen cardamom instead of vanilla but they were old and had lost too much of their essential oils.

Go easy. These are so rich. Savour the flavour, aroma and texture. More than one or two in a sitting could leave you feeling a little queasy.

speedy raspberry "ice cream"

From my last post you may have been misled that kitchen-wise there was a hive of activity here at chez-food nazi. To continue this misconception, I whizzed up a batch of I-can’t-believe-its-not-ice-cream for my sister when she stayed recently.

Fortunately there were three frozen banana’s waiting in the freezer. I grabbed a punnet of (expensive, organic) late season raspberries from the market and, after rinsing, through them in the blender with the frozen bananas.

Preparation time – less than a minute.


Sure it needs to go back into the freezer for another couple of hours but how simple is that? My guest was suitably impressed and has returned to New Zealand to continue the tradition.

Tip 1: Raspberry “ice cream”, sorbet and the like, tastes great served with a dash of Grand Marnier liqueur.

Tip 2: Always replace the bananas with some more peeled, ripe ones in a bag in the freezer.

family favourites

Handwritten recipes in an old book, the pages a little tattered and remnants of the actual dish speckling the paper – these are all sure signs of a family favourite.



As the daughter of a baker, my mum was a dab hand at biscuits and slices, she could ice a cake with a steady hand but took little pleasure from actually eating such things. Her tastes ran to savoury flavours – preferring a bowl of freshly roasted peanuts, tossed with butter and salt, to any dessert. Week night desserts usually revolved around a scoop or two of ice cream topped with homemade chocolate sauce, some canned fruit or if we were very luck it ran to the exotic addition of tinned berries, heated in a pan and thickened with arrowroot.

But the ‘60’s and 70’s were the era of the dinner party and every good wife needed a party piece. My mother’s was chocolate mousse, from an unrecorded source, set in individual parfait dishes and topped with freshly whipped cream and nuts. For a family birthday it would be set in a crystal bowl and sometimes frozen.

On my recent trip home my sister’s wish was to revive the recipe and make it with something better than the cooking chocolate we grew up with. To have a dairy free, rich and luscious dessert is now a rare treat for both of us – so how could I resist the request?

I did my best to follow the recipe to the letter but as our tastes aren’t as sweet as they were in childhood we did tweak it a little. It’s up to you whether you want to stick to the original or try this slight variation.

Shirley’s Chocolate Mousse

5 eggs – separated
180 gm dark chocolate (70% Lindt)
1/3 – 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup warm water
1 tsp vanilla extract (the best quality you can afford)
1 tablespoon brandy

Break the chocolate into pieces and melt in a double boiler, making sure that the bowl doesn’t touch the hot water. Dissolve the sugar in the warm water and add to the chocolate as it melts. 

[update: the actual recipe says to melt the choc, sugar and water together. Could adding it to the melted choc be the reason it initially seized? We know that water and choc don't mix. Read this brilliant post on how to remedy the problem - add MORE water and whisk like hell!}

Stir occasionally. Take the melted chocolate off the heat too cool a little then add the egg yolks one at a time, stirring well between each one. If the chocolate is too hot it may cook the eggs.

Beat eggwhites until stiff (so they are fluffy and can hold a peak).


action shot - it's at least 10 years since the old Kenwood was called upon to do it's thing. It's a huge beast but built to last.

Transfer the chocolate mixture to a large bowl and stir in the vanilla and brandy. Fold the beaten egg whites gently into the mixture. You don’t want blobs of egg white but if you over beat it you loose the lightness. Family lore is that if you put in too much alcohol the mousse won’t set.

Pour into a medium sized bowl or individual glasses (or tea cups). Chill for at least 12 hours – it’s a challenging thing to do but try to resist!

Verdict: Sorry Mum, but even without the cream and nuts, the Lindt made it better than you used to make!

another one for the owl and the pussycat

“They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon”


There were a number of times during the day that I thought that making quince paste was Not A Good Idea.

The first was even before I had begun. Just looking at the recipe which used terms like – ‘wrap your arm in a dishcloth to prevent burning from the molten like splashes of the bubbling puree’. This was the same puree that needed to be stirred “every few minutes for 3-4 hours”.

So I ditched Stephanie Alexander and I went on the web and found a Women’s Weekly recipe that mentioned nothing about 1st degree burns and estimated the lava would only need to bubble for 1.5 hours and the stirring would only be demanded every 5-10 minutes.

Next was tackling the actual fruit. A have never cooked quinces before and about half way through hacking apart the first one I considered giving up. I valiantly made it through peeling, coring and chopping 4 of the little rocks before I retired due to the rapidly increasing blister on my knife hand.

The WW recipe niftily suggested getting the needed pectin boost from the seeds and cores by putting them in a muslin bag and hanging it in the pot for the first round of cooking. I knew I had a roll of the cloth hiding somewhere and half an hour later I found it and carried on with the process.

Strangely I wasn’t deterred.

After simmering the roughly chopped fruit for about half an hour (siphoning off some of the excess juice and giving it to the sick one in the house to drink) I made the executive decision to puree the fruit by pushing it through a sieve. Stephanie had muttered something about a food processor but had used terms that I had never associated with my machine – something about certain types of blades, that I dared not do it the modern way. First sieveful into the chore, I had another serious NAGI moment. This process was almost as labour intensive as the peeling, coring, dicing ritual. Just when I had almost finished this seemingly endless job, I had another epiphany that this was a really dumb idea when I inadvertently dumped half the sifted out bits of core into my beautiful bowl of puree. I looked at the food processor but even then didn’t trust it. So instead I spent more time plucking out bits of not smooth quince with my (clean) bare hands.

By now I was really having a NAGI moment.

But I carried on.

Having weighed the pulp I consulted the 2 recipes as to how much sugar to add. WW said weight for weight, while Stephanie suggested the sugar could be only 3/4 of the weight of the puree. But when I found that what remained of the 4 quinces weighed in at well over 2 kg I stumbled. There was only 1 kg of sugar in the cupboard. How vital was the sugar to set the paste I wondered? I really can’t tolerate sweet food much any more, so I blundered on pouring in the packet of raw sugar that seemed enormous.

Now the stirring would begin.

I added my own twist, the heat diffuser mat and stoically set the timer for 5 minute intervals. The puree really did have a lot of lumps still in it. Could I just give up at this point and dump the lot? No, while the mixture grew in heat, I fished out a fair few of the now sugar coated lumps and absentmindedly sucked on them. Ten minutes later the sweetness was making me nauseous and a very serious NAGI moment ensued.

I looked optimistically at the clock – if the WW was right on the time estimate the paste would be in the oven drying by bedtime. If Stephanie’s longest estimate was correct – it was going to be a very long night.

After over 2 hours of stirring every 5 minutes, concerned that I was tempting fate cooking a pot of curry on the same stove (that’s all I needed, to stir the paste with the wrong spoon) I was finally convinced that the now ruby coloured concoction was pulling away from the sides of the pot on stirring.

As much as I suspected that Stephanie was right and another hour or two would produce a thicker, richer mass – quite frankly I’d had enough having already muttered “If I ever talk about making quince paste again – stop me!” to the Significant Eater, twice over the last handful of hours. So I went ahead and poured the couple of kilos of sugary fruit pulp into a pyrex loaf dish and some small silicon mini muffins moulds and put them in a very low oven til bedtime. Over night I turned the heat off but left the fan running and by morning the paste had dried (despite my fears that the lower sugar content would prevent them from setting).

So the proof is in the pudding, or the paste in this case. They are sweet and fruity set to a dry-ish jelly. Of course they would be perfect with sheep’s milk cheese – but for now I might just have it as an occasional sweet hit on crackers.

Morning after muffins

While the Significant Eater slept off a Significant Hangover, I got the early morning muffin making urge. I am forever on the hunt to find the perfect muffin base – one that’s fine for soy milk substitution. I still prefer the butter based ones over oil and an egg is a necessity. Of course finding a recipe using wholemeal flour would be ideal.

Once again I substituted this for that, something that baking is not designed for. I didn’t get the desired outcome, which was also due to still not being used to a fan forced oven which needs to be set a notch lower than I am used to.

The base recipe, before I stuffed it up was from the “Moosewood Café New Classics” – but use your favourite. What I did get right was the flavour combo – chunks of lush ripe cherries, 85% Lindt chocolate and a lot of mixed spice.



Remember to always toss the fruit in a little flour before you add them to the mix, so they don’t drop to the bottom when they are cooking.




cherry-choc wholemeal mini muffins with a great espresso (ok they look like rock cakes but tasted light and fine!)

Journeying around the web for breakfast

I am a great lover of breakfast. Weekdays require a certain amount of ballast to get me through 6 hours til the next meal. Oats are the queen of sustenance, if you treat them right. Weekends and days off mean fruit if I want to graze, eggs for slow leisurely breakfasting, miso if I need something light but healing.

For something different it may be savoury toppings on sourdough bread – tahini, avocado and lemon juice is nostalgic. For the hippy-deluxe version I add finely sliced radish, chunks of black olives and a sprinkling of alfalfa sprouts to crown the avocado. Sometimes when the sun has ripened them I like tomatoes, sliced and popped back under the griller with lashings of freshly ground black pepper or slowly stewed with garlic and onions. Mushrooms sautéed til the juices run, with a little pepper, parsley and lemon juice. Boiled eggs, chopped with sun dried tomato, spring onions and good quality mayonnaise. Life is too short for a dab of something out of a jar from the supermarket!

Today, being a leisurely holiday in these parts (in a nation obsessed with sport, a city is given a day off for a horse race), I am up for anything. Cruising by Morsels and Musings Anna has paid homage to the joys of breakfast. I am not a huge fan of sweetness for my first meal unless its luscious fruit, but a warm bowl of goodness catches my eye. At 28 cooks breakfast couscous seems just the treat for an inclement holiday.

Follow their recipe – or as I did use the template to create your own version.

Breakfast Couscous Basics
Ratio of grain to liquid =1 3/4 cups fluid: 1/2 cup couscous
handful of dried fruit(s)
sweetness
spices

Bring to a boil. Turn off heat. Sit for 10 minutes

Breakfast Couscous Food Nazi Style
1/2 soy milk:1/2 water
dried cranberries
cinnamon and nutmeg finely grated
rice malt syrup (just a little)

Bring the couscous to a boil in the above concoction.
Turn the heat off, place the lid and go and have a shower.
Top with slices of fresh mango.
Dress optional, but this is a dish that can be eaten easily in bed, the grains deliciously plumped, moist and clinging to the spoon!

Hope your horse is a winner. Even better, forget the flutter and donate to your favourite charity instead.

smooth operator

The cool change has come, but the house is still hot. Fitful sleep punctuated by a fan whirring and a cat skipping in and out of the bedroom window, I awoke groggy and dry. The fruit bowl had been picked over. The mangoes used up yesterday in a spectacular breakfast of wholemeal pancakes*, maple syrup and slices of juicy, ripe mango. The heat had begun to knock the expensive white peaches around (I was saving them for a work morning treat) and the lady finger bananas were ‘eat now’ ripe. It all spoke of the perfect, morning liquid meal.

Fruit smoothie

(per person)
1 lady finger banana
1 peeled peach (nectarines would taste almost as good), sliced
A splash (1-2 tsp) pomegranate molasses
Milk of choice (for me, malt free soy)
Ice if desired

Place ingredients in a beaker or jug and whiz with hand blender (I love my kitchen magic wand!). Sit in the garden under the grape vine and sip.

*Wholemeal pancakes
1 cup organic, wholemeal flour
2 organic eggs
Enough soymilk to make a pourable batter

Blend ingredients in food processor til smooth. Allow the batter to sit for 15 minutes. Heat a medium sized non-stick fry pan, add butter, turn heat down so it is hot but won’t burn. Ladle in some batter and swirl around pan. When the mixture bubbles on top, flip and you will find a browned under belly. Remove from pan when cooked, add a small knob of butter and a generous amount of good quality maple syrup. You may form a stack of them if desired. Top with slices of mango. Consume with the finest black coffee available.

The pancakes are more a flapjack than a crepe. The wholemeal flour is not too dense and the combination with the soy made it taste almost coconuty.

And yes, I use butter but don’t eat cow’s milk. Something about extracting the whey (protein?) makes butter digestible to me, but not other dairy foods.

sweet cheeks

Mangoes herald spring, the return of sunshine, lazy days, sweet times. They make me feel patriotically Australian, one of the finest fruit found in my adopted land. Growing up in New Zealand I never saw a mango. I was a teenager before the exotic avocado hit town (and how bland and strange we found it!). Stone fruits were the taste of summer and the only tropical fruits of note were the occasional pineapple and herbaceous banana.


There is no simpler breakfast than a mango cut into cheeks and consumed in exquisite bites.

They also go well with:
A squeeze of fresh lime juice
Blended in a smoothie
Organic strawberries (nothing lesser will do)
Strawberries and a splash of grand marnier, but perhaps not for breakfast
Daiquiris (ditto)

But ideally they are best consumed simple, nude, luscious, dripping…

Rhubarb

"A square egg in a dish of lentils won't make a marrow bend with the wind, nor will it make rhubarb grow up the milkmaid's leg." (Les Dawson)

A breakfast companion through last winter was a weekly batch of stewed rhubarb. In autumn my friend disappeared but this week was back bigger than ever, at my favourite organic stall at Vic Market. And when I say ‘bigger than ever’ I mean it – fine stalks over a metre long. “Bring me home,” they whispered. So I did.

I call it stewed rhubarb because that’s what it was at home. Even now my parent’s garden has been converted to lawn, the hardy rhubarb plants guard the perimeter of what once was lush with corn, strawberries, beans, parsley and other delights I can only just remember. Mum stews me up some everytime I visit. Without such a patch at my fingertips it is now a luxury, a dish so mighty we can elevate it to compote status.

Rhubarb compote with roses and other pleasures

Clean rhubarb, top, tail and pull off any outer stringy bits if they are tough.

Chop into 3-4 cm lengths (or whatever takes your fancy). Put in just enough water to cover the bottom of a heavy based pan.

If you have apples (I did, some pink lady’s) peel, chop and add. Pears are ok or sultanas are another favourite.

I threw in a few organic strawberries – just for the hell of it.

Add sweetener of choice. Today it was a generous dollop of rice syrup. I love it, it’s sweet without being overwhelming.




Cook on a very low heat, covered, stirring frequently.


Cooking time depends on the size and amount of your fruit. This lot took about 15-20 minutes.

When almost cooked, taste to see if it needs a bit of sugar to get the right balance of tart and sweet. I like to still taste a hint of acid but not enough to feel as if the enamel is being stripped from my teeth. Add a splash of rose water. Stir. Cover. Turn off the heat and let it stew, err compote, a while.




Warm, sweet, tart, rosey, delicious.