Straight Talking Vegetables

May 7, 2013 · 1:20 pm

Teriyaki Mushrooms

Oh, man, it’s been forever, right? I’ve been super dooper busy, what with the PhD I’m doing (maybe you didn’t know) and family staying and just this week an old uni friend came up from Melbourne. Yay: friends! The other thing that’s been taking up my time is crochet! Sarah taught me a couple of weeks ago and I am hooked (LOL – good one). So, I’ve been eating pretty simply when at home and not really photographing anything.

But! I do have these mushrooms up my sleeve… Which is an interesting tactile sensation for all involved.

This is another simple one. But, I’ve realised that’s probably OK. In fact it’s great. I’m still regularly making the pumpkin porridge I posted over a month ago, because it’s simple and nutritious, which I daresay predisposes it to actually being made by you guys too. So, here we are: teriyaki mushrooms. Something to pile on a good steak or maybe sauté with other veggies, tofu and some rice for a vegetarian dinner. Personally though, it doesn’t get any better than mushrooms on toast. And these ones go down a treat on a hardy dark rye with a generous smear of avocado.

I got these swiss brown mushrooms at the Eveleigh Farmers Market one Saturday with Sarah and Mum. The ‘shroom salesman was very chatty, showing us pictures of the mushrooms being grown and also one of his wife, “The Mushroom Queen of Woy Woy”. We also picked up some goat’s curd, a few phenomenal Billy Kwong pork buns, bunches of kale, purple carrots and beetroot and a huge slab of beef rump (which served as the innuendo portion of the trip). We hung out and ate amazing market purchases all weekend, but when my family finally cleared out, the fridge was still chock full of food. I didn’t want to waste these mushrooms on something where they would only be an accompaniment, so mushrooms on toast it was!

Taking garlic mushrooms and giving them a Japanese twist is probably the least stupid idea I’ve ever had concerning mushrooms. Garlic and ginger are pretty sensible additions during these cooler seasons (good for colds ‘n’ shit) and, quite frankly, are too delicious not to put all over your mushrooms. Which you would then be an idiot not to put all over your ~~everything~~, er, toast. Hop to it.

Ingredients:
2-3 large swiss brown mushrooms
two cloves of garlic
tsp of grated ginger
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sushi seasoning (or 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar and a pinch of sugar)

Directions:
Saute mushrooms, garlic and ginger for ten minutes on medium heat until softened on the outside. Add liquid ingredients and let reduce for five minutes. Serve on some really freaking rustic toast.

Ginger Wieners

Believe it or not, I have only used this dachshund cookie cutter once since buying it about a year and a half ago. Luckily, not only is my sister’s enthusiasm for sausage dogs equal to my own, but her enthusiasm for gingery baked goods is unsurpassed. So, when she was visiting last week we set out to bake some ginger wieners and stegosaurus.

Setting out to create a dairy free gingerbread, I googled a few recipes. But in the end we turned to my old favourite, substituting a few of the ingredients for dairy free/heathier options. We went for coconut oil instead of butter, which tasted weird in the batter (some of which we may have eaten raw, with icing), but which when baked blended in perfectly. For the flour we used a combination of almond meal, wholemeal flour and plain.

Actually I had to make this recipe twice, since the first time I only photographed the finished product. The second time I had no eggs in the house so used chia as an egg replacer, making them vegan, which turned out great.

Miraculously this recipe results in some of the best gingerbread I’ve ever made. The combination of ingredients makes the dough easier to handle, which means less extra flour for rolling, resulting in a softer biscuit. Plus, the almond meal and wholemeal give the gingerbread an appealing speckled appearance, and a chewier more robust texture, which holds the oodles of spice I like to put in my cookies just perfectly.

Because when it says 1 tbsp of any spice you always put in, like, twice that, right? I know I do. This recipe uses the real amount of spice you should put in. Dial it back a notch if you’re not into the potent tasting things. Anyway, Sarah and I ended up only wanting to eat one each, but didn’t want to miss out on trying them both. So we broke them down the middle and made little mutant gingerbread things!

The second batch were just boring old teapots. But they were just as delicious and appropriate as study fuel.

Ingredients:
½ cup coconut oil
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup molasses
1 egg yolk or chia egg replacer
1 cup almond meal
1 cup wholemeal flour
½ cup plain flour
1.5 tbsp ground ginger
1.5 tbsp mixed spice
1 tsp bicarb soda
plain flour to dust
vegetable oil for greasing or baking paper

Royal icing:
1 cup icing sugar
1 egg white
food colouring
decorations (like sprinkles or smarties!)

Directions:

Preheat oven to about 160 fan forced. Combine coconut oil, sugar and molasses. Add egg yolk. Gradually add in dry ingredients until mixture forms a firm dough. Refrigerate dough for at least half an hour, until firm. Roll out dough with a rolling pin, or a big cylindrical jar or glass. Cut and lay out on baking trays. Cook for 10 minutes and lay out to cool. Keep the oven on.

While the cookies are cooling beat egg white until it forms soft peaks. Sift in icing sugar. At this point you can set aside a spoonful if you want to give your critters eyes. Add food colouring of your choice to the rest of the icing. At this point Sarah made a second batch of icing with cocoa replacing some of the icing sugar and we used that to ice the dogs. Just have fun with it. To make the eyes we used toothpicks, which we first dipped in the white to put a blob where we wanted an eye and then dipped in the brown to make a second smaller blob in top of that. When your cookies are iced whack them back in the over for a minute to set the icing. Let the cookeis cool a little: and you’re done! Go make a cup of tea.

3 Comments

Filed under cookies and biscuits

Tagged as baked goods, biscuits, cookie cutters, cookies, dairy free, dinosaur, gingerbread, sausage dog, vegan

March 27, 2013 · 2:29 pm

Pumpkin Pie Porridge

I’m sorry. This isn’t really even a recipe. Just a suggestion, I guess, of how to make porridge even more delicious. And I’m sure there are plenty of other examples out there on the internet of similarly pumkiny oaty goodness. But this is the only thing I’ve been eating lately that isn’t some all-in soup concoction designed to ward off a virus that in the last two weeks has transformed my house into a den of dirty tissues.

It was the autumn last week, and so the celebrate – and also to use up the last bit of pumpkin in the fridge – I whipped up this for breakfast. It turned out great! Warm, spicy and utterly satisfying.

Aside from using a fancy kind of “cereal” to make this, I think the pumpkin, maple syrup and spices really balance this meal. About once a year I get waaaay excited about cooking up a pot of oats every morning for breakfast, before realizing (on roughly the third morning) that it kinda just tastes like a big bowl of glue.

But not these: no, Sir. The sweetness of the syrup is just delicate and complex enough for morning time and the pumpkin itself, though again not particularly strong, blends in perfectly to give the cereal extra dimension. I’ve enjoyed other fruits in porridge before, but it’s always been in contrast to the oats, never working together like this.

Anyway, one reason I decided to share this one, aside from how much I enjoyed both making it and eating it, was that despite the plethora of sweet pumpkin recipes all over the blogosphere most of these recipes are American/Canadian. This means that (a) they get posted at the wrong time of year for Australian consumption; and (b) they often use canned pumpkin, which isn’t widely available here and, to be honest, doesn’t seem like my kind of thing. Fresh pumpkin all the way, baby!

So, here’s to embracing all things Aussie autumn: cardigans, the only-occasional deciduous tree, and seasonal breakfast treats sans canned goods. Oh, and apparently none of these things. Apparently 30 degree days. Maybe wait it out til it actually is cardigan weather, but definitely, definitely try this.

Ingredients:
1 cup oats/”cereal mix”
3 cups boiling water
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
200g roast pumkin
¼ tsp nutmeg
3-4 tbsp maple syrup
¼ cup sultanas

Directions:
The night before, or whenever you have time, roast 200g of pumpkin in the oven until soft. In saucepan combine salt, cereal, and boiling water. Heat on medium for ten minutes or until thickened. While cereal is cooking puree roast pumpkin (or mash as well as you can) and add to mixture. When mixture has thickened add spices and sultanas. Serve warm with extra syrup, sultanas or some nuts.

3 Comments

Filed under Breakfast

Tagged as Australia, autumn, cinnamon, fall, porridge, pumpkin

March 13, 2013 · 4:27 pm

(Incidentally vegan) cranberry hot cross buns with mandarin cardamon glaze

I actually wrote this post over a week ago, but my, oh my, have I been busy. Sorry ’bout that, but narrative theory is, like, intense sometimes, and I’m kinda a slow reader. As an apology, here’s a picture of a vintage duck-shaped measuring cup I bought recently. There’s supposed to be a whole set nestling together, but the op shop only had the 1 cup. Also pictured: some terrariums I made and a tile my friend, Sally, gave me aaaaages ago.

Anyway. First thing’s first: whenever I say buns in this post I want you to imagine me wiggling my eyebrows suggestively at you. OK, cool. Here we go.

Buns. Fresh buns.

No, but seriously, how good are they? Like, ten, right?

I’ve never made hot cross buns before. In fact, every year I find myself thinking that hot cross buns really aren’t worth buying, because when I was a student (last time) they seemed pretty expensive for what they are and quite frankly not that exciting. And again, like the fruit cake thing, I was turned off by the poorly executed citrus rind in so many commercial buns. But look, now I’m adult enough to have to pay for a parking permit to park on the street in front of the house I live in, so maybe I’m old enough to enjoy buns.

*eyebrows*

And I do, I totally do. This year I even found myself buying buns and they were good. 10 points to Hufflebuns! But, you know, I still thought I could do better.

So here we are: cranberries, mandarin, cardamon pods. Slightly hungover from the first proper sprawling house party I’ve been to in years. Slightly hungover from a night of primarily tequila-based drinks for the very first time and trying to figure out how to get the glaze on my buns without a pastry brush. Maybe I have time to shower and go buy one right now while the buggers are still rising.

Buns. Adulthood. New recipes and new hangovers. Time might be ticking away too quickly to settle for sub-par buns. But also: you’re never too old to get drunk on something new. You’re never too old or too young to appreciate a pair of hot little buns like these.

*eyebrows*

BUNS

Ingredients:
2 cups water
1/2 cup sunflower oil
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
4 cups plain flour
1/2 cup SR flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp allspice
1 cup dried cranberries

Directions:

Boil water, and combine with sunflower oil and sugar. Allow to sit for a few minutes to cool off. While still warm, but not scadling to the touch, add yeast and plain flour. Stir and allow to sit for one hour. When the hour is up and the dough has risen, add SR flour, salt, spices and cranberries. Knead until dough is elastic, and spices and cranberries are well distributed. Break off golf-ball sized pieces and roll into, well, a ball. Arrange on oiled tray. Leave to sit, covered with clean teatowel, in a warm place for an hour.

CROSS

Ingredients:
1/2 cup of plain flour
4 1/2 tbsp of water

Directions:

Combine flour and water to form thick paste. Spoon into ziplock bag/piping bag and use to draw crosses on your buns.

GLAZE

Ingredients:
1/3 cup mandarin juice (about 1 mandarin worth)
3 tbsp water
12 cardamon pods

Directions:

In small saucepan bring water, juice and cardamon to simmer for fifteen minutes. When cool and buns are ready for oven, brush over buns.

Cooks buns in medium over for 20-30 minutes, brushing occasionally with any leftover glaze.

Makes about 28.

4 Comments

Filed under bread and other yeasty treats

Tagged as baking, bread, easter, hot cross buns

February 27, 2013 · 9:26 am

Red radish and apple salad with smoked salmon flowers

This recipe has been languishing around un-posted since last year. I know, I know it’s only February, but that’s still about two months of me not telling you about this. Two months, you guise! OK, so it may not seem like that much of a loss, because smoked salmon isn’t everyone’s favourite, because it sounds weird and because quite frankly it is a little weird. But in a good way. I promise.

The reason we’re in this mess in the first place is simple: radishes. To be honest I just didn’t know what you were supposed to do with them. And then I decided, well, I’m an adult, I should be able to deal with some radishes. So I bought some.

Speaking of buying things, I’ve also acquired a few new gadgets since starting this blog. Things I thought it was worth investing in if I was going to actually start *measuring things* like some kind of *fancy* gentleman of the kitchen. Guys, meet my measuring scales.

I’m not sure what to call them. What’s a good name for a set of dapper red scales like these?

Anyway, I’ve gone off topic – we’re here for the funky salad. So, off we go! Fishy floral arrangements!

It kinda looks cool, right? And yet there’s something off-putting about it. A retro-ish vibe that seems to highlight how quickly good taste can become suspect. Or maybe it’s just the thought of cured pink salmon flesh coiled into the shape of a flower that’s doing it. But something here works. Salmon, crunchy things, the addition of dill, which for some reason reminds me of holidays (perhaps because of all the potato salad and smoked salmon appetisers floating around at summer soirees). Paired with a weird-ass gris blanc from the Barossa it went down a treat (two months ago, when we were celebrating *Housemate Christmas*). Maybe it was all the wine that made it ok.

Maybe.

Ingredients:
5 red radishes
2 red delicious apples
2 chat potatoes
1 cucumber
1/2 cup walnuts
3 tbsp dill
2 tsp sugar
pinch salt
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 lemon juice
at least four slices of smoked salmon (120g)

Directions:
Cut potatoes into bite sized cubes. Submerge potatoes in water in pan and bring to boil. Turn down and gently boil for about 10 minutes until just tender. Set aside to cool. You’ll need a mandolin or a lot of time to cut all the apple, radish and cucumber into thin slices. Do this and toss together so they’re all mixed somewhat evenly. Serves four.

This week’s foodstagrams

Trying something new and posting all the pictures of food I’ve put on Instagram in the past seven days.

Billy Kwong Wallaby pancakes, made by Kylie Kwong and team at Rootstock last Sunday.

Giant avocado, green nails.

Cheese plate, mouse knife!

Hendricks gin, in hilarious round-bottomed tumbler.

Rainy day grilled cheese.

Lime, passionfruit and coconut celebration cake

Last Tuesday it was my friend East’s birthday. So Patrick decided to invite him over to our place for dinner. Which, obviously, I had to cook. But that’s OK, Patrick was in charge of wine and there was going to be plenty of it. Also, cheeese. With four Es. Courtesy of April.

I’d recently acquired a large amount of passionfruit from my mum’s vine, which I’d turned into passionfruit curd. In addition to this there was still a surplus of limes going on in my fruit bowl. Putting two and two together (or as the case may be, putting birthday and curd and limes together), I set out to create a cake that would utilise all these ingredients.

Starting with this recipe here I baked the actual cake part, substituting coconut cream for the buttermilk and adding the rind of some limes. When it was cooled I cut the cake in half horizontally and spread a layer of curd in there.

Then I iced the bastard. I even did a crumb layer, which is explained in the directions below if you don’t know what it is.

When dinner had been demolished, we turned down the lights, turned off the music and lit the candles. We sang a somewhat feeble three-voiced happy birthday and East blew out the candles.

Then he cut the cake into enormous slices that no-one could finish.

And, inevitably, there was this:

And then this:

Perhaps soon I will share the recipe for the dinner I made. For now, start thinking of a reason to make this cake!

Ingredients:
250g butter, softened
2 cups caster sugar
4 large (or in my case 5 small) eggs
1 1/2 cups self rising flour
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 cup coconut cream
rind of two limes

About 1/2 cup passionfruit curd (recipe here will make about twice as much as you need)

For icing:
250g spreadable cream cheese, left at room temperature for at least an hour
3tbsp lime juice
1 1/4 cups icing sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs. Next, gradually stir in flours. Add coconut cream and lime rind. Bake for 1 1/2-2 hours or until firm when jiggled. Take cake out of oven to cool. When cake is cool, take a knife and mark a ring around the cake horizontally. Slice gradually through cake, turning as you cut, so that you have two layers of cake. Spread cool passionfruit curd between layers. To make icing simply combine lime juice and icing sugar. Then stir in softened cream cheese. Ice cake with a thin layer of frosting and put whole cake in fridge for half an hour or in freezer for ten minutes. Then ice with a more generous coat. Decorate as desired.

1 Comment

Filed under cakes

Tagged as birthday, cake, celebration, coconut, curd, East, lime, mango, passionfruit, Patrick

Straight Talking Vegetables

Teriyaki Mushrooms

Pumpkin Pie Porridge

(Incidentally vegan) cranberry hot cross buns with mandarin cardamon glaze

Red radish and apple salad with smoked salmon flowers

This week’s foodstagrams

Lime, passionfruit and coconut celebration cake

Search this blog

Keep in touch

Follow “Straight Talking Vegetables”