Wholefood inspiration!

Aubergine with buttermilk sauce from Ottolenghi's Plenty

In the last couple of weeks I have been cooking my way through two amazing vegetarian books! I am in no way a food critic, I just wanted to share these beautiful books with you and hope you find them as lovable as I did.

The first, Super Natural Everyday by Heidi Swanson is such a wonderful book. 


I think I have literally cooked everything in it, except the sweet section which I will embark on soon... Notable favourites are Broccoli Gribiche, Little Quinoa Patties, Black Pepper Tempeh, Green Lentil Soup and Black Sesame Otsu.
The book is full of beautiful photography to illustrate each creation which the author has taken herself, and you can treat yourself  each week by following Heidi's blog if you are not already!
I wish I had taken a photo of everything, but here is the farro soup and rye soda bread which were delicious! Everything recipe in her book (that I have tried) works first time, and is wholesome, sustaining and beautiful. What more could you ask for?!

 

Pumpkin before

The second book, Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi is fabulous! The author runs four London based 'take-away' restaurants, making beautiful, unique dishes that are all made from fresh seasonal foods as close to their natural state as possible, and all made with love. The book has a mediterranean flavour, and is vegetarian with some suggestions of how you could include some meat if desired.

Pumpkin after

I made the Aubergine with buttermilk sauce as pictured above which is visually and taste bud-ly amazing! I also made these Crusted Pumpkin Wedges, little pac-man delights dressed in a mix of parmesan, fresh herbs, garlic and lemon. Yum! Others on my to do list are the Caramelised garlic tart, Stuffed portobello with melting taleggio and Halloween souffles - a pumpkin, nut and goat's cheese creation!

This week I was also lucky enough to attend a cooking class with Jude Blereau at the Green Grocer in Melbourne. What a fabulous injection of inspiration and motivation it was!! Thanks Jude! We covered an amazing range of topics and foods, and I have some fabulous new recipes that I will share soon - including an excellent tempeh one! 
But for today, as the food matters project's recipe of the week was 'Vegetables au Vin with Coq', (original recipe here) I decided to use a bit of Jude inspiration to blend this with a version of her red wine braised lentils roast vegetables from her magnificent book Coming Home to Eat. 
You will need:
1 tablespoon olive oil/coconut oil
1 tablespoon of butter or ghee
2 rosemary sprigs
4-5 small bay leaves
3-4 thyme sprigs
10-12 French shallots, peeled and left whole, or 2 onions peeled and quartered
5 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
250ml red wine
1 tablespoon tomato paste
150g blue-green lentils, rinsed and picked over for any stones
1 litre vegetable stock
1 tablespoon mirin


12 very small beetroot
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 large/8 small parsnips
8 small carrots, washed and left whole
2 tablespoons roughly chopped parsley


Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius/400 degrees F. 
Lentils
Heat oil and butter in a large heavy based saucepan. Add rosemary sprigs, bay leaves, thyme, shallots, whole garlic and cook on med-high for about 10 minutes, just stirring every now and then.
While the shallots are caramelising, cut up the vegetables. Wash the beets, peel parsnips, trim the skinny tips and cut in half. Then cut the thick section into quarters, removing the woody core, and cut the thinner section in half or leave whole depending on the size of your parsnips.
Add the wine, tomato paste, lentils, stock, sea salt and a good pinch of freshly ground black pepper to the shallot mix and simmer for one hour. 

Get the root veg on to roast - beets in a baking dish with a drizzle of oil and about 125ml water, cover with foil and roast for 45min to one hour. Pop the parsnips and carrots on a baking tray and drizzle with oil, sea salt and black pepper, mix through and roast for 30-45 minutes. 
Stir the lentil deliciousness every now and then until the liquid becomes more of a sauce and the lentils are nice and tender. Add the mirin to taste.

Once the beetroot is cooked, let it cool a little and peel off the skins. 
Arrange the veg on a plate, top with the lentils and garnish with parsley and/or some wilted beetroot leaves and ENJOY!!

This was SO delicious! It has been a little wintery in Melbourne the last few days, so it was a perfect warming and nourishing and yummy meal. Check out the other food matters project members take on the dish too!

Vegetables of the Sea

Sea vegetables are such wonderful friends! For thousands of years they have been called upon for their healing, disease preventing, life prolonging properties, and they come in many colours and varieties, so there is bound to be one that suits you just perfectly!
Sea vegetables contain 10-20 times more minerals than land plants, and because these minerals have been integrated into a living plant/seaweed, they are beautifully absorbed and assimilated by our bodies.1
Each sea vegetable has a specific set of qualities, but generally speaking they all contain protein, vitamins A, B, C and E, super amounts of iron, calcium and iodine, are detoxifying, alkalising and anti-inflammatory.
To prepare sea vegetables they need to be rehydrated. Cover with water and soak for 5-15 minutes - they will expand to at least twice their original volume.

Cooked Arame

SEAWEED OF THE MONTH - ARAME
I will feature a little special each month on each sea vegetable in turn, giving them all a time to shine. This month is arame. Arame grows in fronds which is then cut into stringy 'noodles', partly cooked and dried. It is rich in iodine, high in iron and calcium, and is traditionally used for normalising high blood pressure, treating female reproductive conditions, mouth afflictions and encouraging growth of glossy hair.1 




This week on the food matters project the recipe was Seared Bean Sprouts with Beef and Sesame Orange Sauce (check out the original version here). I adapted this to a vegetarian meal using tempeh, and added the arame and served it with quinoa - delicious!
I also changed the marinade a little, making it a version of the one Jude Blereau uses with her pan-glazed orange tofu. Here's what I did.


Orange Pan-Glazed Tempeh with Bean Sprouts
225g/8oz tempeh
2 tablespoons coconut oil (or olive oil)
2 tablespoons sesame seeds (black or white)
400g/14oz bean sprouts (snow pea sprouts would also be delicious here)
1 small bunch of spring onions/scallions
250ml freshly squeezed orange juice 
1 tablespoon finely grated ginger
2 teaspoons tamari (or soy sauce)
3 teaspoons mirin*
2 teaspoons honey or maple syrup
1 clove of garlic chopped
1 big handful of fresh coriander/cilantro
1 handful of arame
Pickled ginger (optional)
*If you don't have any mirin you can just add some extra sweetness with the honey/maple syrup to taste

Combine the orange juice, ginger, garlic, tamari, mirin and honey/maple syrup in a small bowl and set aside. The smell is amazing, so fresh and fragrant!
Soak the arame (if using).
Place the sesame seeds in a dry skillet/frying pan over medium-low heat and heat until fragrant (about 3-5 minutes) then remove from pan.
Put the oil in the pan and when it's hot but not smoking add the tempeh.
Cook until browned and then turn over and cook on the other side until nice and golden (about 3-5 minutes each side).
Pour in the orange juice mixture and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the mixture reduces to a lovely glaze. About 2-3 minutes before the end, add the sprouts and white parts of the spring onions/scallions and stir through.
To serve, arrange on top of a bed of quinoa (or brown rice) and drizzle with any left over glaze. Top with a big pinch of arame, a sprinkle of sesame seeds and garnish with fresh coriander/cilantro and pickled ginger (optional). I completely forgot about the coriander until about halfway through the meal! 
This is such a versatile recipe. You can substitute tofu (or a meat protein) for the tempeh, and can add in some other fresh vegetables with the bean sprouts if you feel like it.
Yummo!


Here is what the other food matters project members came up with.

Happy Sustainable Seafood Day!!

Today, Friday 16th March is Sustainable Seafood Day and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is now in its 6th year of celebrating wild-caught, well managed and sustainable fisheries in Australia. So how do you celebrate such an event? Apart from the obvious balloons and pom-poms,  eat some MSC certified sustainable fish today!  Or tomorrow, or the next day, and each time that you buy seafood. The idea is to make every day sustainable seafood day, and therefore all our fish sustainable.
Check out their website for more information and for participating restaurants and cafes, and also for a fabulous list of sustainable fish for you to cook with. You can also support them on facebook.

Roasted Beetroot Hummus

Hummus is potentially one of my favourite foods. It wears many hats in my house: a dip, a spread, a topping, a sauce; my daughter eats it straight from the spoon. Made simply it is an amazing dish, but it also lends itself to great variation.
This weeks food matters project was hummus (see the original recipe here). I found some fabulous heirloom beetroot at the market today and so thought I would make it a beetroot hummus.
Check out the magnificent 'chioggia' beetroot which are paler skinned and have a beautiful circular pattern on the inside - so cute!
And as for nutritional content, beets are blessed with antioxidants, folate, vitamin C,  manganese, magnesium and iron. 
They also strengthen the heart, purify the blood and improve circulation.
So why wouldn't you want to add it to your hummus!


The other main ingredient in hummus is no wallflower either. Chickpeas are a wonderful source of protein, potassium, iron, calcium and B vitamins. The secret (if you are using dried beans and cooking them yourself) is to soak them overnight (or longer) covered generously in water with a tablespoon of yoghurt, whey, buttermilk or a squeeze of lemon juice stirred through. This will help to break down the enzymes and make them easier to digest (read no bloating and wind - hooray!). Once you have soaked the beans, rinse and add to a pot, cover with water and simmer for around 2 hours (it can take between 1 and four hours depending on your beans) until chickpeas are tender. Adding a small piece of kombu to the cooking water will help this process.

So here is a version of one of everyone's favourite dips.
Beetroot Hummus
200g / around 1 cup cooked chickpeas
200g / 1- 1 1/2 cups cooked beetroot (I roasted mine)
1 large garlic clove
1/4 cup tahini
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
A handful of fresh coriander/cilantro (or parsley), roughly chopped
sea salt and black pepper


Add all ingredients except the oil and coriander to a food processor or blender and blend. Drizzle in the oil and blend again. You may need to add a little water to the mix to loosen it up a bit until it becomes the consistency that you like. Adjust with salt and pepper. Stir through the coriander/cilantro or use as a garnish.

Delicious and nutritious!
Have a look what the other food matters project members created.

Home-made Goat's Milk Ricotta

So many discoveries this week!! 
Four dollars has changed my life in the form of a cook book stand! I can't believe I have lived without one for so long! No more precariously balanced books propped up on whatever was hanging around the bench with a lemon, banana or a phone sitting on top to keep the pages open. Fab! It is possibly the most kitsch looking stand in the world, but it was $4, so there you go. Now all I need is some sort of lap-top protector so I can have that on the bench too - I'm sure there is an app for that, ha!

Next, ricotta.
I first came across the idea of making my own ricotta after seeing Jennifer Perillo's recipe on  Food52's fabulous website. I wanted to make it with goat's milk though, so after a bit more investigating I found several websites and blogs with suggestions, and settled on an excellent recipe at Honest Cooking - perfect!


Goat's milk also has a wonderful amount of calcium, vitamin D, and a protein profile to make the cows jealous. It has traditionally been used as a remedy for weakened conditions, malnutrition, stomach ulcers, nervous exhaustion and loss of energy1.
Goat's milk is easier to digest than cow's milk as it has smaller fat globules, a softer curd, and because of the nature of its fat structure, is naturally non-homogenised. Homogenisation splits up the fat globules making them able to sneak into the blood stream along with particular enzymes (xanthine oxidase for the nerds like me) instead of being excreted. This process has now been linked with damaging cell membranes, creating scar tissue and fatty deposits in our arteries or atherosclerosis1. So maybe next time you are buying your dairy, check out the non-homogenised milks that are becoming more readily available and relish that layer of creamy fabulousness that settles on the top!
The story of dairy is a lot more involved than that, but I will leave more discussion for another time.


But I digress, ricotta. For one cup of deliciousness, you will need:


1 litre of fresh goat's milk
1 teaspoon sea salt
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice


First, pour the goat milk into a nonreactive (stainless steel, enamel - not aluminium) saucepan or pot and add the salt. Heat gently over low-medium heat, watching with love and stirring occasionally so the bottom doesn't burn.


When the milk is on the verge of boiling, remove from heat and add the lemon juice.
Stir once, gently, to encourage the curds to form and then let the pot sit undisturbed for five minutes (you should see the curds and whey split straight away). While you are waiting for the magic to happen, line a strainer with a double layer of muslin/cheesecloth and place it over a large bowl. Pour the milk mixture carefully and let the curds strain. I rigged up this amazingly high-tech elastic band jug scenario, but whatever works is fine.

The ricotta will be ready to eat after an hour of straining, but of you leave it for another hour you will be rewarded with a denser, richer texture. I have already used mine up in a spelt pasta bake and in a little pastry with a fig and drizzle of honey as pictured above....mmmm.

Delicious!

But what do you do with the left over whey? Here is a blog with 16 suggestions for you, and I have also used it to soak grains and legumes and in smoothies. It's such a shame to throw it out as whey has such an excellent protein profile. 
So why not be all artisan about it and make your own cheese - fun and delicious, you can't go wrong!


1 Pitchford, Paul (2002) 'Healing with Whole Foods', North Atlantic Books, California.