Ginger Ale

My husband had the desire to make his own ginger beer or ale and came across this recipe from Berlin's Whimsy for a raw food ginger ale. Sweetened with agave syrup and flavoured with a squeeze of lime, this ginger ale is fantastic! I think it might also be really beneficial to anyone suffering from nausea. Ginger soft drinks tend to be a bit to sugary, but the balance of flavours is devine.

Sourdough bread

My husband has had a huge desire for sourdough bread lately, and in true fashion, I had to research to see if making the starter was a possibility. And boy is it!

I followed the instructions from S. John Ross on how to do the whole process.

The starter takes up to a week to be ready for making a loaf of bread. To make the starter, you simply mix 1 cup of flour with 1 cup of warm water, mix well and leave out UNCOVERED. Leaving it uncovered allows the yeasts present in the air to inhabit the flour water mix and multiply. This gives the sour taste/smell and also gets your bread to rise.

Now my fridge has a lot of starter ready to go, but it needs to be cared for as it is a living thing. Very satisfying to create something all of your own.

Beigli Pastry Rolls with Walnut or Poppy Seed Stuffing

Thanks to one of my sisters the name for 'that poppyseed cake thing' was discovered. Beigli. My father is from Hungary and so recipes such as this were made often by our grandmother, but not recorded or passed down.
This recipe was from a Hungarian tourist site.
A few minor changes were made to change it to a vegan recipe.
Butter exchanged for vegan margarine, egg exchanged with egg replacer and some milk for extra liquid. Sour cream was exchanged with my cashew sour cream. Also instead of brushing with egg I just brushed with some olive oil.
Result? Very tasty!

CASHEW CREAM RECIPE

Soak 1 cup of raw cashews in water overnight. It is important they are raw as roasting enhances the nuts flavour. We do not want to have this strong flavour.
Rinse the soaked nuts thoroughly and put them in a blender just covering with fresh water. Blend until very smooth.
If you cannot get it super smooth, run it through a fine sieve.

To make it a sour cream add a tablespoon of vinegar.

Passionfruit Star Bisuits

I've been so slack lately, but very busy, I assure you, so here is a few posts to get going again.

I got a wonderful new vegan cookbook from a friend and was so excited by it's contents. It's called "Wild Vegan" by Angela Stafford. Inside was a simple recipe for passionfruit star biscuits.
They were delicious, a simple sugar cookie but adding passionfruit pulp makes them so much more interesting. Definitely will make again. (I cannot put the recipe here as it is copyrighted).

Pumpkins pumpkins pumpkins!

After a bountiful crop and the obligatory giving away of as much as you can, I made many things with pumpkins. Firstly pumpkin and sweetcorn soup. I found a whole 400g tin of corn, juice and all makes the best tasting soup.

Next pumpkin pie. This was simply putting pumpkin puree mixed with sauteed mushrooms, onion and asparagus a little rice milk, chopped almonds and nutritional yeast into a precooked shortcrust pastry case and put into a 190C oven until golden.

Also I made pumpkin muffins. Another of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's amazing recipes. These really are The Best Pumpkin Muffins.

Finally, today I am trying my hand at pumpkin bread. This is made with the no-knead recipe by substituting 1 cup of the water with pureed pumpkin. I also added some pumpkin seeds to the top.

My notes for no-knead bread.
To make it even easier, I do the dough before going to bed.
The next day I won't touch it until I am going to make dinner.
I omit all the tea towels and just put the dough in a greased bread tin, sprinkle seeds on top (or not. I like sesame as they toast wonderfully when the bread is baked) and leave it until later that evening (typically after children are in bed). This gives the bread almost 24hours to rise which is key in a bread with little yeast.
Bake at 190-200C for half an hour covered with foil, then another half hour with the foil removed.
So if you want fresh bread without the effort, this is perfect!

St Paddy's day creations

Well, feeling in the mood for baking I tried a two color biscuit from the Coles Easter magazine. The only change was to use non-dairy margarine. They were easy to make and look fantastic. I used a shamrock to cut out the centre.

Next up was a pasta lunch.
Sautee a few asparagus and mushrooms (I used oyster, they are awesome!) in some olive oil
Add some milk, and 1/2 cup of veg broth (I used veg-chicken) along with some chives, ground celery seeds, onion powder, pepper and nutrional yeast.
Simmer until reduced a little.
If you need to thicken add some cornflour mixed in a little cold water.
Don't thicken too much though. You want to add the pasta to the sauce so it is all coated, this also thickens the sauce.

Lastly, our 'green' item. This was simple. Choc cupcakes with peppermint frosting! These are the same ones I have made before from "Vegan Cupcakes take over the world". I love choc-mint and this is perfect. I added some edible green glitter, so they look great too.

Filled Omlete

Mmmmm, vegan omelet. My lovely husband has perfected another egg like, but egg free dish. I will post the recipe asap.