Go you good thing!
This recipe has been stolen from Matt Frazier at nomeatathlete.com but I justify my theft by pointing out that it is so good, so versatile and so easy that it deserves to be seen as far and wide as possible. It's not even a recipe really, it's more like a formula that you can adapt to suit whatever ingredients you have in the cupboard and the fridge.
Go you good thing!
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We're not really into fancy desserts but sometimes you've just got to celebrate by binge eating sugary food. This pie is the perfect birthday treat for your favourite vegan. Or the perfect Sunday afternoon snack for your favourite non-vegan. Or the perfect Easter treat for your favourite coeliac... basically if someone wanted to make me this pie, I'd be happy. It uses aquafaba - which is just a fancy name for the water that you can pour off tinned chickpeas and beans. I was very skeptical about it at first but honestly, it's great. I find the water from lighter coloured beans the least "beanny" and if you can find unsalted or low salt beans, that's even better. This dessert pairs well with champagne, but then again, so does everything. As it appears here the recipe is gluten-free, though of course feel free to use wheat based flour and pastry if you're not a coeliac. Granddad loves to come and visit the kids and being the healthy man that he is he always brings a watermelon for us all to snack on (quite often along with a bottle of champagne but we'll pretend that's healthy too!). We love it, but every now and then the watermelon gets the better of us and we just can’t finish it despite our best efforts. That was when we discovered this beauty! It is the most simple and delicious snack you’ll ever make yourself – so simple, in fact, that you’re going to have finished reading this blog (and making yourself a watermelon smoothie, if you happen to have a water melon hanging around waiting to be eaten) before you’ve finished your cup of tea! Chop up the water melon, or break it up, or spoon it out, in to pieces small enough to fit in to the blender but big enough to still make the blender do some work – it’s more satisfying that way. I think this is what Jamie Oliver means when he says “clank it up [proceeds to cut said ingredient] clank, clank, clank”. I love it! This is the perfect salad for those days when you'd really like to sit on the lounge and stuff yourself with potato gems washed down with champagne... The days when you're starving and an ordinary green salad just won't do. This salad is filling and tasty and, if all else fails, serves as a great, healthy appetiser for a meal of potato gems and champagne. Turn your oven on to 180. Start with a cup of Puy lentils – the small dark coloured ones that don't cook to mush unless you forget you're cooking them. Pick them over to remove any rocks and wash in a strainer. Put them in a pan with a couple of bay leaves and three cups of water. Bring to the boil. You can start testing to see if they're ready after about 15 minutes. You might have to add more water as they cook, but you're going to strain them so it won't matter. Everyone loves a potato salad. It’s really just a whole load of carbs dressed up as a salad. We can say we’re being healthy and eating salad when really we’re eating a whole load of carby, bacony, eggy, creamy goodness. Gross. Enter the roast potato salad. It’s totally a winner. Yes, it still has the carby goodness of potatoes, but none of that other gross heart-attack-on-a-plate stuff. Roast a load of potatoes in the oven. They can be those fancy small ones that cooking shows always use, or just chop up the regular two-bucks-a-kilo kind. We leave the skins on, they are full of goodness and taste great plus it’s way easier. I mean, who has time to peel stuff? No one, which is why so many people don’t cook! We absolutely love this rice salad. It’s full of good things, and feels like a real treat, plus a big tub full lasts quite a few meals which saves work…I think that’s the real reason we like it! First, get your rice cooker out. If you don’t have one, go and buy one! It’s seriously the best thing since sliced gluten free bread. Of course you can always use a saucepan, water and the stove-top and it will work just as well, but then you have to have some knowledge of how to cook rice, and it really helps if you don’t forget about it and head off to the arena to ride a horse. Enter the rice cooker. Cook as much rice as you like. We’ve done this recipe with black rice, red rice and our very favourite basmati brown rice. We get our basmati brown rice from 2brothersfoods.com. It’s delicious, and way better for you than white rice. I’ve never understood the concept of the eggnog. I ate eggs as a child and well in to my early adulthood but I was always a little grossed out by them, I mean – it’s kinda like eating a baby chicken, but not really. What’s to like about that? Ok, ok, I loved the salty goodness of an egg burger with tomato ketchup on a cold morning at the Melbourne three-day-event but if the egg was under- or over-cooked look out for me gagging in the corner! So I guess this ALWAYS meant that raw eggs were out of the question, even heavily disguised. Enter the Horchata. Not really an eggnog replacement at all, but a light milky coloured drink that’s yum and especially good on Christmas morning to enjoy during present opening! I’ve experimented a fair bit with the horchata recipe looking for the perfect mix of rice, cinnamon and almond. I’ve tried rice only, almond only (gross!), more sugar and less sugar, but the winner was rice, almonds, plenty of cinnamon and just the right amount of sugar (plus a few extra teaspoons for the kids!). You’ll want about a third of a cup of rice and a cup of almonds to 5 cups of water. Plus a couple of cinnamon sticks and as much fine sugar as you like for sweetness. One of the things that I thought I would miss went I became a vegan was pizza. I used to love cheese – blue, cheddar, Swiss, processed, melted... I wasn't fussy. But here's the thing, I hate vegan cheese. I've tried to like it, honestly I have, but it tastes like a combination of armpits and the tennis shoes of a teenage boy. And plus, I'm not big on food substitutes. Cheese and eggs are from a long-gone part of life's journey and I don't want to eat facsimiles that undoubtedly taste inferior. I'd rather just let them go and move on. This is why I like this vegan, pumpkin pizza. It's pizza but it's so different from the pizza of my past that I don't miss the cheese. You could put cheese on it, but it's probably redundant. We use gluten free, pre-made bases but you can use regular bases if you're not a celiac. You could also make your own dough which I have done lots in the past. I love bread dough, every single time it seems like a miracle. You make it and it rises, smells amazing and tastes even better. Every time I make it I show it to the kids and try to get them to join in my marveling. They humour me but I don't think they really get my excitement at the wonder and mystery of bread. Most people think that vegans eke out their miserable, sugarless existence foraging on a mixture of grass, leaves and salad. Hell no! These biscuits are really delicious and they're packed with sugar, fat and refined flour. They're almost definitely just as unhealthy as traditional short-bread biscuits. They also use gluten free flour which I don't think is any healthier than normal flour – unless you are a celiac. And coconut oil which gives them a bit of bite and a very mild coconut flavour but won't make you any healthier! They do, however, taste delicious and they would make a great treat for that special high maintenance vegan celiac in your life. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. When we were in Sumatra we stayed at a guest house called Kupu-Kupu Gardens. Right on the bank of the Bohorok River and a twenty minute walk out of town, it was peaceful and beautiful – the sort of place you day-dream about when you're stuck in traffic or braving the heaving mass of badly dressed flesh that is the pre Christmas shopping frenzy. Guest house owner Jeff was everything you could ask for in a host – smart, great company and a really good bloke. He arranged our tours, trekking and food. Gluten free vegan? Not a problem! Every morning and evening we ate at a big, communal table just a stone's throw from the river. We were able to watch the cook at work in the open kitchen and since we've been home we've had this meal on high rotation. Luckily the kids love it almost as much as we do and because, for us, this soup is so intrinsically linked to Bukit Lawang and the orangutans we have named it after them. Don't worry, despite the name it's gluten free, vegan and doesn't require the addition of any critically endangered primates. It's pretty flexible too - just add in anything that you've got in the fridge, it's the spices that make it work. Start off by frying an onion and some chopped carrots in a bit of oil. Throw in two dried chillies, two star anise, two cinnamon sticks, three or four cardamon pods and the same number of cloves. Let that cook for a bit until it smells really delicious. Add some water (about a cup) and chopped veggies in the order that they cook. In Sumatra we had this with potatoes, tomatoes, corn (sliced into rings) and beans. Usually we do broccoli, corn, beans and zucchini (in that order) – but it's up to you. Throw in about five cloves of garlic and a good sized chunk of ginger that you've smooshed with salt. The cooks at Kupu Kupu used a rock to crush their garlic and we liked the idea so much we brought one home from this gorgeous spot... |
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