Homemade food
Food I made.
Contains 3621 photos, the last of which were added 1 month, 10 days, 2 hours, 31 minutes, and 10 seconds ago.
Oat chocolate made from coconut oil, coconut sugar, and cocoa
Quinoa granola (charred). Smoothie.
Breakfasts. Vegan not-omelette is gram flour (equal parts with water), nutritional yeast, ground flaxseed, herbs and spices, vegetables.
Zucchini courgette noodles with courgette fresh from Mum's garden (plus chilli, tomato, lemon juice, lime juice, soya sauce, sesame seeds).
Two curries and chapati. Lentil and potato; mushroom, kidney bean, tomato, peppers, onions.
'Mince' made with finely chopped cauliflower, chilli tofu, mushrooms, tomato, soy sauce.
Pizza with a base of chickpea flower and flaxseed (fried on the stovetop to solidify before baking to make it crispy) with Tesco jalapeno not-chedder cubed (super melty) and Violife not-parmesan grated (only the bits not directly exposed to the grill melted, the top went dry/crispy) on top.
Grilled not-cheese, with the Tesco jalapeno chedder. Did I mention this melts super well?
Food I made when I was home.
Mum sent me to Gram's with instructions to make lunch from whatever I could find. There wasn't a lot in the cupboards, but I managed to rustle up tomato and mixed peppers soup.
I made curry and chapati for Mum, Dave and J too. Also featured: blue not-cheese (coconut oil based) on toast.
Pasta with not-cheese.. and a chocolate coconut fudge cake.
Pasties stuffed with potatoes, herbs, spices, and not-cheese. Entirely spelt flour pastry, which is pretty dense, but works out.
During today's Social Web WG call I made the best pizza I've ever made. It was helped by four kinds of vegan cheese, three of which were part of the new (to me) Tesco range. I stuffed the crust with Violife, and on top put chunks of Tesco blue cheese and chedder, and covered it liberally with grated mozzarella. Somewhere underneath were red onions, yellow bell pepper and courgette. The base sauce was chilli paste and tomato. The dough is a mix of spelt and wheat flour, and water.
Last week I made a cake, and recalled that I'd put leftover frosting in the back of my fridge in a cup. This is an unknown ratio (because who measure things) of date paste, coconut oil and cocoa, and it is a perfect chocolate mousse!
What a glorious evening.
I coated soy chunks (twice) in a wet batter (soy sauce, sambal, flax egg, oat cream and various spices) and dry (wheat flour, corn flour, nutritional yeast, spices), then deep fried in coconut oil for a few seconds. I covered potato chunks in dry batter and fried those too. It was good with onion and mushroom gravy, and the next day cold with salad and sambal to dip.
Cookies! Wheat flour, spelt flour, baking soda, white sugar, coconut oil, dark chocolate chunks, 8 minutes low oven. Equal parts oil and sugar, 2x flour, take out of the oven whilst still soft. Good texture, but brown sugar will be better.
Chilli. Good with homemade chips, good in cevapi bread, good by the spoon. Mixed beans, leftover mushroom gravy, lentils, sweetcorn, soya mince, tomato puree, sambal, various spices.
Chocolate hazelnut cookies. Equal parts coconut oil and sugar; 2x that of flour (spelt and wheat); baking soda; cocoa; flaxseed; dark chocolate chunks and hazelnut halves. Smaller and flatter than the last batch, improved the texture, but I still need to ditch the white sugar. The coconut oil makes them so creamy. Best after refrigeration.
Omelette made from chickpea flour with a sprinkling of flaxseed, vegetable stock, turmeric, basil; topped with cherry tomatoes, lightly grilled mushrooms, and coconut oil not-cheese.
An approximation of quesadillas
Curry, salad, veggie burger and chips.
Pear and blackberry tart, made with gluten free flour and not quite enough coconut oil. The pastry was not flaky, but the fruit carried it. I ate one slice, and OCCRP wiped out the rest.
I made spicy battered tofu for Elizabeth. Inspired by kung-pao style. The batter was equal parts gluten free flour, cornflour, and water; coated the tofu then deep fried in coconut oil for less than a minute. Turned out fantastic. The sauce is chillis, leek, garlic, ginger, carrots, peppers, peanuts and soya sauce. Spicy. Served with brown rice noodles, and blackberry lemonade.
Avocado mess on toast.
Pasta with vegetables, cabbage, tomato, soya mince.
Cheezey quinoa.
Not-omelette with not-cheese.
Cakes, mushroom pie, etc..
Elizabeth and I made stir fry, bbq cauliflower, roasted marrow, and zucchini noodles. We ate most of it.
Barley with vegetables and tomatoes.
Celebrating Canadian thanksgiving with pancakes and chocolate banana bread.
Burgers and krompirusa
A chocolate pear cake, anticipating Mum and Julian's 2am arrival in Sarajevo. This was the correct thing to do.
Contributions to the Prana Yoga potluck. Aubergines stuffed with veggies and bulgar wheat, sprinkled with vegan cheese that my mum brought me from the UK. A sugar free beetroot cake with lemon cream cheese icing. The cake turned out a bit weird, but was enjoyed by people who already had weird diets.
Various comfort foods... chips, chilli, stews, mac 'n' not-cheese.
Sugar free chocolate beet cakes.
Excessive pizza with vegan cheese from Mum. I used yeast in the dough and let it rise once, and I am never going back.
Grah.
Fried tofu with quinoa.
Today's Bosnian word of the day is hljeb. With a side of leek and potato soup.
Waaay too sweet cookies. Just brown sugar, flour, raisins, and coconut oil.
Emergency cakes chez Mum. Self-raising flour, bicarb, baking soda, 3 bananas, Vitalite, almond essence, dessicated coconut, and coconut milk until it was the right consistency. Dark chocolate chunks. Shockingly good.
Some chips, some pizza, some pasta, some pancakes, some tacos, some beans, some coffee muffins, some curry, and a particularly good fried tofu and mushroom sandwich.
Home comfort food, largely junk.
Various delicious things I made with chanterelle mushrooms, and some dumplings with soya and berries.
Creative hostel breakfasting.
The great Latvian mushroom adventure.
I bought a bunch of different types of mushrooms from the giant market, all new to me, in various states of decay. Some were bizarrely cheap, some were shockingly expensive. Obviously I had no idea what to expect, so maybe this was all perfectly normal.
When I got home I discovered one batch had some teeny tiny larvae crawling around on them. I rehomed them in the plumbing system, where I am sure they will thrive, and threw out any mushrooms they had thoroughly moved inside of, which was fortunately few.
The giant one is a bolete, and I think the smaller ones that look the same must be as well. I sorted out all of the small probably-boletes and halved them. I threw them in a pan and added naught but heat, and they soon turned into soup all by themselves. I'd rinsed them to try to get rid of some slime, and they just sucked the water right up. It was impossible to remove. See also: photo of me trying to try the big one out with a hair dryer (not successful).
I let them simmer for an hour or more, until they were thoroughly mush, then stuck them in the fridge when they were cool cos I had plans to eat out that night.
When I finally got around to consuming them as soup, they had reduced and gelled up a bit. I reheated them, and added a drizzle of soya sauce, almond milk and a handful of nutritional yeast. The soup was delicious. When I'd been preparing them, the texture and sounds started to really weird me out - I'm not usually squeamish. Fortunately they were just soft and melty in the soup and not weird at all.
The giant bolete, I sliced and fast-fried in vegetable oil. The internet advised me to cook it quick so the outside would go crispy but retain the moisture on the inside. It wasn't really like this; the result was preeetty slimy. It definitely resembled some kind of seafood, not that I know much about that. I could see it as a substitute though.
The more solid mushrooms, a mix of yellow, grey (beautiful grey) and a lonely red one, I lightly sauteed in oil with some salt and pepper. I wanted to keep them pretty unadorned, to taste the mushrooms properly. They made a delicious rich side to seitan sausages and potatoes.
Pancakes with pomegranate and fig syrup; rice pudding with pomegranate and fig syrup. And comfort food.
Greek pastries and coffee. Then I couldn't decide whether I wanted mashed potatoes and gravy or pizza. So I made both. And feasted for the next two days.
Rice cooked with red cabbage makes it purple :D
Bean chilli. Chips and chips and chips.
Cooking for Elizabeth & co in Harare, Zimbabwe. Much room for mushrooms.
Various comfort food for myself and others over the course of the summer, in several different kitchens.
Healthyish vegan junk and hearty dishes in my Mum's kitchen.
'Nut luncheon' is made entirely of peanuts, how bad could it possibly be? Sure it comes in the form of can-shaped pale mush. It surely can't taste as unappetising as it looks? The instructions say grill or fry. I fried it with coriander, cayenne pepper, black pepper and salt. The smell of it frying haunted me all day after. It got a pleasant crispy texture on the outside but the taste still left an awful lot to be desired.
The next time I cubed it and tried thyme, soysauce and Vegeta (MSG), and fried them with mushrooms. That was a bit better, but the bar wasn't high. I was impressed that even Vegeta didn't help.
Maybe it needs marinating in something..?
Delicious homemade things. Banana pancakes, curry, buddha bowl, grah.
Using some of my precious vegan cheese supplies on delicious lasagne (with garlic bread and salad) and pizza (with homemade sweet potato and potato chips).
Last night I made falafel, based on a recipe by Jack Monroe. I approximately doubled the recipe, and didn't measure or weigh any of the ingredients; subbed the fresh herbs with carrot tops, and threw a clove of garlic in. Delicate application of water and flour to the final mix and it was pretty easy to get them to hold together. Delicious!
Isolation Kitchen begins in earnest! I bought a loaf tin along with masses of baking supplies I haven't really bought since I started travelling, so I could fully commit.
Featured here:
- Ad-hoc buddha bowl
- Turmeric spicy breakfast rice
- Khinkali (Georgian dumplings, filled with mushroom or potato)
- Chocolate coconut cake (sugar free) for the Co-op's 5th birthday
- The last of my vegan cheese on another lentil lasgane
- Lemon and poppyseed drizzle cake (sugar-filled)
- Bean-burgers, made from mashed white beans, carrot, carrottops, and red onion; coated with dry mix of semolina, paprika, turmeric and salt before frying.
Food is so good.
Another week of cooking and baking delicious things.
- Bean chilli with roasted chard;
- Oat and flax cookies;
- Vegetable lasagne (with mushrooms, chard, tomatoes, aubergine and carrot);
- Classic comfort food, tinned tomatoes on toast;
- Cornish pasties... shortcrust pastry is an ordeal, ain't it?
- Purple (beet) risotto;
- Coffee and hazelnut cake.. WIRED
- Curried cabbage and dahl, Malaysian street food style;
- Sprouts! Flaxseeds and chickpeas making progress.
Another week of increasingly experimental cooking and baking.
- Pizza!
- Many times fried potatoes in various shapes
- Peanut butter cookies
- Fried rice
- Curry potato pastries with greens and mushroom gravy
- Weird semolina orange cake with yeast that fermented overnight and tastes a bit beer-y
- Spectacular homemade bean burgers with homemade bread
- Sprouts! Chickpeas and flaxseeds successful, sunflower seeds doing their best
There's a distinct lack of any vegan specialty stuff in Sarande, including just plain tofu. I can get sugar free soy milk though, if I trek across town to the big supermarket, which I did. Then it's a case of curdling it with lemon, and pressing it with a cheesecloth (or... a pillowcase). It was very soft and a bit crumbly. I might think of it as cream cheese rather than tofu next time, and be happier. I immediately mushed it up with turmeric and spices to make scramble.
I found this recipe for 'bacon' made from banana peel and just had to know. I made marinade from soy sauce, red pepper paste and paprika. The first time - alongside tofu scramble and mushrooms - was a hit, although a bit on the salty side. I reused the marinade, diluting it a bit with water and orange juice, and adding paprika. It went great in BLTs, and on top of tomato rice too. Since I get through plenty of bananas, and it's no trouble to make, this is going to become a staple! It works best when the banana peel is pretty brown, and the oil is already hot so it fries fast and bubbles a bit. It spits a lot when first dropped in the pan though.
Having procured a giant bottle of soy sauce, it was an exciting week in isolation kitchen.
- Various soy sauce-y stir fries, including with peanut sauce and sesame seeds.
- Various cookies
- Bananabread with coconut and dark chocolate chunks
- Tacos with homemade corn tortillas and bean chilli.
- Shredded cabbage and carrot salad with soy sauce and sesame.
- Various hearty soups and pastas.
And bananapeel bacon of course.
This week's food adventures; I found myself with an abundance of spinach, most of which got eaten with pasta and was not interesting enough to photograph.
- Spur of the moment microwave chocolate pudding and chocolate custard, just like Mum used to make.
- Banana peanutbutter cake with caramel and coconut.
- Pizza (with spinach).
- Saag aloo (and dahl).
- Amazing lemon pie with a shortbread crust. The filling was just lemon zest, soy milk and cornflour (turmeric for colour).
- Cauliflower 'wings'. Maybe not as crispy as they should have been, but still tasted good. With cabbage salad and quinoa.
- Bean burgers, not as good as last time. I used courgette instead of carrot and they were too wet so I had to add lots of flour.
- Banana pancakes with leftover homemade caramel. Light and fluffy.
- Fancy savoury oats with turmeric and salad.
I discovered the Greek margarine in the supermarket is secretly vegan, which opens up a whole new world of baking possibilities.
- Two kinds of bread, one with a seedy packet mix and one with two kinds of cornflour. Both good.
- Flapjack!
- Curries, chilli, the usual.
- Sprouts! Green lentils sprout great too.
- Fruity salad with wheat berries.
- Pasta with avocado sauce.
This week's cooking a mixed bag..
- A disappointingly dense orange, almond, ginger and cardamom cake.. I call it pudding cake I guess and pretend it was supposed to be like that.
- Passable falafel, after a shaky start.
- A good pile of gooey choc chip biscuits.
- Curries and fried potatoes..
- Lots of things with somun (simite).
- Penne dishes.. an attempt at 'cheesey' sauce with carrots and potatoes; expensive truffle mushroom sauce from a jar.
- A small batch of homemade seedy bread.
- An extravagent lemon pie with blueberries (expensive) and dark chocolate.
- An excellent pizza with fluffy dough that rose all day (and sweet potato fries).
Some burgers failed to hold together so I called it sloppy joe and proceeded (with homemade bread). After the mix had chilled the next day, with a bit more flour, I turned it into burgers.
A highlight was french toast with batter made from semolina, cinnamon and rice milk. With homemade syrup.
Made a really good chocolate cake. I wanted peanut butter frosting, but ran out of vegan butter. It goes really well with fresh cherries though.
After a week off, I missed my oven. Well, maybe I missed the cake it produces.
- I immediately made a peanut-butter-and-jam cake with cherries from the mountain roads near Gjirokaster, and local jam from Permet.
- An experimental spinach and mushroom quiche with semolina batter worked really well. Vegan quiches are always with tofu, which I can't get here so this is a good alternative.
- Banana cream pie, which didn't set at all, hence only photos of it in the dish.
- Really good sag aloo.. and usual comfort foods.. fried potatoes, mashed potatoes, bananapeel bacon sandwiches..
- Peanut butter cookies with cherry jam in the middle.
A great carrot cake with lemon cream frosting started the week, and lasted all week!
A good pizza. I tried to make 'omelette' type things with semolina, but they turned pink (no idea why) and were more like burgers instead, so I made bread rolls and rolllllled with it.
Flatbread and beans for burritos.
- Fruit loaf without a recipe (just generic no-measure bread with some raisins and nuts); turned out pretty well, if a bit crumbly
- Some British things... dumplings with a bean and mushroom stew; homemade baked beans (pretty close!); chip shop style curry sauce
- Fancy pasta with cream sweet potato tahini sauce
- Sesame cookies
Ran out of sugar so I made sugar free banana chocolate cake, just like the old days. And at the end of the week, a courgette choc chip cake, which did have brown sugar in.
Other highlights.. a shepherd's pie, mushroom risotto with hazelnuts, stuffed aubergine Albanian style, and vegetable tempura.
Did you know you can just make doughnuts?! I mean, I knew it, and I can't believe I never actually did before. Just... 2 cups of flour, a couple of tablespoons of sugar, half a cup of plant milk and some yeast; knead, and rise for 2 hours, then shape and fry in an inch of oil for a minute or two on each side. Actually incredible. I coated the first batch with brown sugar (although it doesn't stick well, even when fresh out of the oil), and the second batch with cinnamon and brown sugar. One I ate smeared with cherry jam, and another with melted dark chocolate on top. Holy cow.
Also had a good pizza and chips, and some great curries.
Gradually improving my burgers. Red beans make everything better. I think I stop them falling apart when they cook by chilling the mixture, coating in cornflour before cooking, and frying as hot as possible in not too much oil. But it's still a bit hit and miss. The contents are mashed beans, plus whatever diced sauteed vegetables I have to hand, typically.
This week's special treat was nachos with a great bean chilli.
Also I made bananapeel bacon a few times, more doughnuts, pancakes and an excellent lemon poppyseed drizzle.
Having acquired agar agar, I now have a mission to jellify all things. So far:
- Sour cherry juice
- Coldbrew coffee; cubed, dropped into almond milk.
I also added it to bread pudding, but ate it too fast to wait for it to set.
Also fancied up some doughnuts with cherry and lemon frosting. Dumped silken tofu on top of tomato rice under some roasted veggies. A good pizza, and nice simple chilli tomato spaghetti.
Lots of baking and dough of various kinds this week.
- Fresh doughnut holes shaken with cinnamon and sugar in a brown paper bag to take on an evening picnic.
- Rich chocolate hazelnut cake with fudgy frosting.
- Herby pastry filled with mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes and silken tofu (with chips).
- Standard banana pancakes.
- Vegan biscuits and gravy. They were light and fluffy and buttery and so fast to make, definitely a good quick bread roll alternative.
As promised, I jellified various things using agar agar.
I mixed it with almond milk to make delicious creamy puddings. They are topped with watered down apricot jam, also mixed with agar to make jelly.
I made a three layer loaf-jelly with cherry, lemon and apple juice, and suspended apple pieces. It tasted good, but the layers didn't stick together well, and the cherry and lemon layers merged a bit.
But the most exciting thing was attempting to make blue dye from red cabbage. The first stage is to boil the cabbage to make a purple syrup. Adding bicarbonate of soda - just a tiny pinch - makes it fizz up and change colour to blue. But too much, and it goes green. I added too much because the potion like fizzing was so exciting. A drip of lemon juice takes it back in the other direction, with just as much exciting fizzing. Eventually I got the balance more or less right to create this teal-blue which lightened as it set (no photos). It's not the vivid blue you'd get with artificial dyes, but it definitely looks unnatural which is what I was going for.. I added the dye and agar to sugar water to make a pretty boring-tasting jelly.
Homemade chips and curry sauce with not-homemade not-sausages and mushy peas. Lemon pie. Doughnuts (not pictured).
I made Chocolate Covered Katie's zucchini muffins with courgette from Mum's garden, replacing her apple sauce with almond milk, using normal white flour, and caster sugar. Mine look completely different. They could have done with 5 more minutes in the oven. Delicious and gooey though.
Found a packet of ramen at the back of a cupboard and enjoyed my first ramen in months (with Fry's polonly not-sausage (!! <3), tomatoes from H's garden, peppers, edamame, garlic and chillis from Mum's garden, peanut sauce.
And tried to bring a bit of Albania home with stuffed aubergine and pepper...
Homemade lasagne sheets with beetroot from the garden (made by Mum, not me) and compiled into a delicious vegan lasagne with beans and salad also from the garden, and homemade foccacia too.
It has been amazing to have J cooking for us for a couple of weeks. We were treated to vegan Japanese feasts, night after night. Aubergine with miso sauce, inari, fried tofu in shiitake sauce, mapo tofu, Japanese curry, okonomiyaki, nikoman, yaki udon, and more.
I chipped in a few times with doughnuts, apple cake, lemon drizzle cake, hummus, lasagne, pasta, curry.
Made seitan from vital wheat gluten and gram flour. Krispie cakes with stale cocopops (these are vegan now apparently), choc chip muffins (not pictured), miso soup, inari, maki..
Misc homemade food from the last month. Bosnian grah and somun (not quite right but pretty close); Japanese curries; slowcooker stew; comfort foods... pizza, seitan doner kebab, mac 'n' cheese, chips, pancakes; chickpea flour omelette; bean burgers and homemade bread..
Between us, Dave and I have made various tasty pasta, noodle and rice dishes over the past few weeks. Dave is also getting into making 'omelettes' with chickpea flour.
I made a keto-friendly cauliflower rice dish with tofu and almond sauce.
We both made bread, and Dave's was way better than mine even though it was the first time he ever made it and had to sub in some wholemeal flour cos we ran out of white. We used the bread for burgers, sandwiches, and with soup.
I made a chocolate cake with blackberry coconut frosting.
Just enough rice leftover for a sushi roll yesterday lunchtime (and a Gregg's not-sausage roll, the two best rolls).
Homemade gyoza (mushroom and tvp filling). Homemade seitan. Coconut, white chocolate and raspberry cake with matcha coconut cream frosting.
Dave and I collaborated on bread this week: he did the kneading, I did the rest. Turned out well. Also made burgers from my homemade seitan, and fried it for spicy tacos. Also pictured: roasted veggies with peanut sauce and rice; tantan pho (no questions please, I didn't have ramen) with miso soup and spring rolls.
Dave requested a pie this evening so I made one with a cat on it. Look I never claimed to be a pastry artist.
It has red onions, garlic, mushrooms, enoki, brown lentils and tvp inside. We ate it with chips and gravy. Pie prep time vs pie eating time is grossly out of balance.
Stuffed portobello mushrooms with mac'n'not-cheese, then later with Japanese rice, topped with smoked tofu and stir fry veggies. A hearty barley, lentil and vegetable stew. Chocolate fudge cake with cherries.
Homemade crumpets! Finally. Flour, water, salt, yeast, bicarbonate of soda; a strong beating of the batter, and 15 minute rise. They tasted great, but aren't as bubbly as I'd like. I might try skipping the yeast and adding a little vinegar to react with the bicarb - because my banana pancakes have bicarb and lemon juice in and they always bubble a lot. I was surprised at how easily they came out of the ring once cooked mostly through.
Portabello pies, taco bar, udon, homemade bean and seitan burgers, broccoli and snap pea soup, mince pies (Mum's homemade mincemeat, my homemade pastry; an approximation of custard without any of the right ingredients), a roast with gravy and bbl not-meats, a fryup also with bbl not-meats, dahl, Earthy baked camembert..
I seem to mosty have taken pictures of the more junky things I made this month. I ate veg-packed things too, I swear. Here are:
- Chickpea and sweet potato curry (by Dave)
- Pizza (half vegan, half not)
- BBL burgers in homemade biscuit(USA)-style buns with homemade chips
- Fruit cake, using mincemeat Mum sent, with lemon icing and pistachios
- Mac n not-cheese (with tomatoes, carrot, mushrooms, chilli, garlic, not-sausage)
Leftover mac n not-cheese in delicious juicy grilled portobello mushrooms. A shepherd's pie just like we used to make in Wholey Wonder (more or less). Chickpea omelette with the usual tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach, and for the first time not-cheese, which was a good addition.
Chocolate peanutbutter pie, of my own design, because I couldn't find any recipes that seemed quite what I wanted.
- I pulsed what nuts I had - a handful each of hazelnuts, cashews and almonds - in the food processor until they were meal. Then added flaxseed and a small handful of chopped dried dates that I soaked in hot water, and the water (they had turned into mush at that point).
- I pressed this into a tray to make the crust, smoothing it out by hand/spoon, and left it to set in the fridge.
- A little bit left over - added a squirt of agave and rolled it in coconut to make an energy ball.
- The filling was a cup of soy milk, warmed with about half a cup of crunchy peanutbutter (100% peanuts), half a cup of cocoa powder, two tablespoons of coconut oil, and squirts of agave syrup to taste. I added about a teaspoon of cornflour mixed with soy milk at the end, to make sure it would set, though the cocoa thickened it faster than I expected.
- Spooned this int the crust, sprinkled chopped pistachios and coconut on top, and left it to set.
- I had filling left over too - I rolled these in cocoa and coconut to make more energy balls.
It turned out of the tray easily, and held its shape perfectly! It's chocolatey, but still with a strong peanut taste, and good crunchy bits. Success!
Pink beetroot rice with aduki beans. Coffee and hazelnut cake. Veggie udon. Burn's Supper, provided by BBL, including deep fried vegan black pudding balls.
Some things with tofu. A lentil loaf which was a good experiment. A good week for slow cooker stews (blizzard, and busy). Almond milk panna cotta with aduki bean topping and nuts.
"No food in the house" this week until the BBL order arrived later than expected.. so I made "no-food" lasagne (soy mince, red lentils, tomato sauce; cream not-cheese in the white sauce), seitan chicken, "no-food" pizza (with seitan chicken, sweetcorn, pickles, tomatoes, and the last two mushrooms) and "no-food" curry (with chickpeas and seitan chicken; we ran out of white rice but I scraped together a mix of brown sushi rice and barley).
Friday brought the veg topup and BBL order (see: burger) to end "no food" week.
I made a chocolate and raspberry cake to round the week off.
The vegan chocolate berry meringue nests are from Roots & Seeds cafe, a delightful surprise find when I was walking into town one day (I knew about the cafe, didn't know they had vegan cake, let alone meringue).
A couple of things with tempeh; spaghetti bolognese; several curries.
I normally bake the lemon pie for 15 mins (and use a baked crust) but my oven was out so I improv'd an unbaked version. It worked well. The raw nut crust (almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, flaxseed, dates) is better than the shortbread one in my opinion. And the filling (coconut milk, soy milk, lemon zest and juice, cornflour, turmeric) didn't need anything other than time in the fridge to set.
Got fresh turmeric, peeled and grated it, made many things yellow in the process. Tested my newly fixed oven by making bread rolls, which worked. And a cherry chocolate cake with blackberry and apple compote inside. Also pictured: mac n not-cheese; stuffed aubergine with barley and lorne not-sausage; burger patty by BBL.
Golden bread (with fresh turmeric and rosemary). Pizza, stews, creamy mushroom pasta, peanut stirfry, home-sprouted chickpeas and homegrown salad leaves.
Inspired by a picture on twitter, I made artistic focaccia. It was very oily, but otherwise good, with big bubbles inside from rising overnight.
Also featured: doughnuts; lasagne; lentil loaf with fried potatoes and mushroom gravy; mushrooms and homegrown beet greens and cashews spaghetti; courgette brownie.
Fried not-chicken. Two hours to make, two minutes to eat. It's seitan made with vital wheat gluten, veg stock, various spices, and coated with a flour-spice mix, chickpea flour liquid mix, and flour-spice again, and deep fried. We ate it with homegrown beet greens, garlic mushrooms and rice, and then I had some the next day on a salad.
After one false start I finally got a good sourdough starter, and used it to make Ninni's rye bread which is packed full of grains, lentils and seeds, super hearty and delicious. The recipe makes a lot and the overnight rise was so lively it almost escaped, so I ended up with two loaves. This will be great hiking food!
- Burgers made from beans, beetroot and seitan.
- Carrot cake with lemon beet frosting (a bit too sweet).
- Mixed bean chilli with guacamole.
- Various pies from youngvegans.
- Sweet potato and aubergine battered with sourdough discard.
My first ever sourdough! What labour. Started Sunday night, finished Tuesday morning. Had to plan my whole day around it. But it was good.
- I have a surplus of homemade jams, so made some tarts and expect a lot more of this in the future.
- Roasted five kinds of broccoli, three grown down the road.
- More youngvegans pies.
- Chocolate, coconut, hazelnut cake.
- Stirfries, Dave's bolognese, "open face" Eastern Europe style stuffed cabbage leaves with wheat groats.
- Last youngvegans pie.
- Homemade veggie pizza; long rise, good fluffy crust.
- Falafel and flatbread from scratch. Not 'real' falafel: few fresh herbs, cooked chickpeas, carrot.
- Lemon poppyseed drizzle cakes.
- Haggis with mash and a heap of homegrown greens.
I made sourdough again Sunday night - Tuesday morning, and sourdough lentil/seedy rye Wednesday night - Friday morning. It turned out basically the same as the last one, which is good, because I didn't change anything. Good with leek and potato soup.
Oyster mushrooms! Elm, and blue/grey. First pins appeared on the 18th, and they matured and started dropping spores on the 25th. A fast turnaround! Every time I went in the kitchen they had grown some more. I felt like I could see them growing before my eyes.
They are the most beautiful things I have ever had a hand in creating.
I used kits from urban-farm-it.
Last of the first flush of mushrooms, on homemade sourdough with homegrown salad.
I made wholewheat bread using lovingitvegan's deeply suspicious recipe. 100% wholewheat? 20 minute rise? Surely not. That'll be like cake bread. I subbed in 1/3 strong white flour and let it rise for an hour (but that was because of a meeting). It overflowed and stuck to the tea towel. I managed to salvage the top, and the texture and taste were great! Perfect crumb for sandwiches. I also added flaxseed for cronch.
I made a raw cashew cheesecake, which was a bit too sweet for my taste (too much agave) but other people enjoyed it. Swirled through with homemade berry compote, and the crust is my patented whatever-nuts-i-have-lying-around with dates and flaxseed; added some coconut flour to this one.
Also a great many jam tarts, and lentil moussaka.
Not every sourdough story is a success story. I used a different recipe, with more starter, to try to get a more sour loaf. Several things went wrong:
- I fed my starter for two nights and it should have been ready, but it wasn't. I proceeded anyway, knowingly, but impatient.
- I subbed in a bunch of dark rye flour because I had it left, but didn't amend anything else. Rookie error.
- The dough was clearly too wet throughout. I couldn't handle it. Sticky and annoying.
- Didn't line the tins. I was baking late, and tired! Fool.
- Overcooked them slightly. This and the last point meant.. it took me half an hour to chip them out of the tins (which I did the next morning).
- Didn't steam the oven, so the crust is soft not crunchy.
Despite all that, they looked pretty (before I dismantled them to get them out of the tins) and taste okay and have big bubbles, but in between the bubbles is dense and gooey. Still okay with soup or stew. Better luck next time.
I also made sugar-free banana peanut cakes, put compote and coconut yoghurt or coconut cream on lots of things, ate shittons of homegrown broccoli and salad leaves, made shepherd's pie.
Apple crumble cake; paltry second flush of mushrooms; rhubarb crumble; omelette;
Many many flapjack experiments. Dave made some excellent meals including top notch burger and mapo tofu. Made seven rhubarb crumbles. All at once. There is too much rhubarb, send help. Dad came for one night and we had haggis, and crumble and custard.
A peanut mushroom dish with oyster mushrooms I grew in my kitchen, jelly ear mushrooms from the woods in St Andrews, and white mushrooms from the market. Survived. Also peanut and berry compote tarts with a pretty spectacular coconut flour pastry.
Ginger cake that's "just like mcvities". I followed a recipe to achieve this, which involved a lot of sugar (caster, golden syrup, molasses). But it went down well with the family.
A full size quiche for the first time using chickpea flour batter. It was quite soft inside, but tasted great, and my pastry was fab (as usual).
Also featured: a rhubarb and blueberry cake with coconut cream and rhubarb banana jam in the middle; a standard shepherd's pie, the dish I make when I need to feed a crowd but have no energy left.
Cooking for four, stretching me to my limits, but a vegan fryup for three with limited stove space is the kind of logistical challenge I love to solve.
Also made a fancy pasta with spelt shells, sweet potato coconut sauce, roasted nuts and green veg. Multiple crumbles, and rhubarb jelly.
At the Community Kitchen: many flatbreads, plus vegan cheddar (that had not set when I left; not sure how it turned out).
Lots of extra people in the flat, so lots of extra food. Lemon pie, apricot cake, pancakes, haggis/neeps/tatties and other meals for the family. Lasagne at Community Kitchen. DIY birthday cake in a jar for K. Sourdough with H's Greenland starter.
Many calzones in Community Kitchen. Teriyaki dryad's saddle steak (with sticky rice, asparagus, tomatoes) was a big hit. Plus made (some to freeze) several other dryad's saddle dishes: with noodles, broccoli and peanut sauce; with coconutty curry; with tomato and Italian spices; with Chinese spices and jelly ear; simple stir fry. Also made chocolate brownies, rice pudding, lasagne.
Not long before mushroom porridge made an appearance. Made huge amounts of mushroom soup, too, and bottled a lot of it. Mushroom stir fries, mushroom pasta. Mushrooms in sandwiches and mushrooms in pies. Eventually gave up and just boiled and bottled the rest.
Chocolate cakes for Community Kitchen. Berry compote swirl cake for me (and friends).
Several varieties of mushroom pate, with sunflower seeds as the base/binder.
Attempted sticky bbq mushrooms andn a mushroom pizza of course. Mushroom burgers with homemade bread and homegrown salad. More mushroom porridge and pastas.
Compote muffins; cake for Community Kitchen.
Mixed mushroom stirfry, mushroom tempura, mushroom scramble, mushroom chilli in wraps, mushroom bolognese with penne. A courgette choc chip cake, plus lemon drizzle for Community Kitchen.
Homemade sushi. Courgette choc chip cake for Community Kitchen and blackcurrent cake and muffins for home. Mushroom stew. Spanish omelettes (with mushrooms), Foragers' pie (Shepherd's pie but with mushrooms), mushrooms on toast...
Espresso machine started working!
Mushrooms, fried, grilled, gooped. Mushroom and spinach muffins (not a hit).
Berry cakes and apple crumble muffins.
Carrot muffins in Community Kitchen. Soft chocolate cookies and berry pies and crumbles at home.
More mushroom pies and mushroom burgers.
Not-sausage (and mushroom) caserole. Soups, burgers. Waffle's with R's waffle press. Wild berries for berry and applie pies. Chocolate coconut cake with ganache.
Chanterelles and boletes! On toast, in pasta, on pizza, in chilli.
Breaded chicken of the woods is the absolute best!
Battered puffballs are a juicy explosion.
Grilled hen of the woods goes black and blue with a rich taste.
Made some things with boletes and chanterelles and oysters too. Froze mushroom lasagnes and chicken-of-the-woods and sweetcorn soup. And bottled more when making actually dishes got too much.
Chocolate cake at Community Kitchen. Courgette choc chip cake at home.
Fried chicken of the woods, and chicken of the woods parmigiana. Also scones.
Scones at the Community Kitchen. More chicken of the woods meals. Muffins and sourdough rye for hiking.
Trying to do something with all of this beefsteak fungus. It's not my favourite when cooked. Not much taste, and not very pleasant texture. WIP.
More scones and lemon drizzle cake at the community kitchen.
Comfort food (with mushrooms) at the weekend.
More scones, cake and muffins at the Community Kitchen. Wild mushroom pasta bake. Coconut and jam cake at home.
More scones. Courgette pakora to accompany curry and homemade flatbreads.
Cookin' all the mushrooms...
Pies, passata, and apple puree. A lot of food to process. And more mushrooms, of course.
A beautiful lemon fruit tart, peanut butter stuffed cookies, and many crumbles. Mushroom tempura.
Multiple batches of berry compote. Mushroom noodles. Lemon tarts at the Community Kitchen.
Chocolate coconut cake at home; sachertorte at the Community Kitchen.
Making as many things as possible with foraged apples and mushrooms.
Giant field mushrooms as pizza base... as pie topper...
Many delicious chocolatey things. And more meals with field mushrooms.
Pressing apples and making compote.
Reminiscing about Malaysia, I made nasi lemak. It was so good! The vegan boiled eggs - made from potato, soy milk and agar, primarily, with kala namak - were weird but, you know, filled a need.
Peanut butter cups and muffins in the Community Kitchen. Haggis, neeps and tatties (and chard) at home. Wagamama's at Kit's.
Apple cake in the Community Kitchen. Bread, ginger cake, battered puffball mushrooms at home.
Chocolate biscuit cake and mini caramel cheesecakes at the Community Kitchen.
Baking at home and in Community Kitchen.
Creamy wild mushroom pasta.
I'm getting so good at falafel.
Mince pies at the Community Kitchen. Chocolate nut cake at home.
Acquired some vegan marshmallows, so I can have indulgent too-sweet hot chocolates for a while, which I will enjoy until the novelty wears off and then I'll remember I don't like things this sweet.
Ben made mince pies, so for some variety at the Community Kitchen I made mince pie muffins. And choc chip cookies.
I don't do christmas, but I do do contextually appropriate food. Leaning tower of gingerbread, mince pies (Mum's homemade mincemeat) and not-cheese board (not-cheese courtesy of Grain & Sustain).
Made an bottled an absolute ton of oyster mushroom soup.. tom yum variety and green curry variety.
Foraged oyster mushroom and lentil pie (my first hot water crust pastry - fabulously cooperative!)
Made samosa pies with Mum.
Berry muffins at Community Kitchen. Homemade seedy bread at home.
Velvet shanks on homemade seedy bread. Blackcurrent pie with a nut/date crust and peanutbutter cup topping. Lemon pies and choc chip muffins in the Community Kitchen.
Almond chocolate brownies in the Community Kitchen. Super gooey. Even the gluten free batch (which were identical except for gluten free flour). Refined-sugar-free blackcurrent cakes at home (contains banana and coconut sugar); the batter was art. And a loaf of seedy bread.
I made krompiruša! My favourite Bosnian (or in fact Balkan) food. I never made it at home before because the pastry is complicated, but I was left some pre-made puff pastry which worked out perfectly. I rolled one a bit thin and it broke but had the best texture, and the other less thin so it held together but wasn't exactly right. But still delicious. Obviously I also got some Vegeta for the occasion.
I'm feeling very nostalgic for Sarajevo right now.
It's amazing what a bottle of raspberry coulis can do to make anything fancy. Today's michelin star quality Community Kitchen desserts, peach and coconut jelly set with agar, with a spring of mint from the garden. I also made lemon and coffee jelly this week, on my six-monthly agar kick.
Baked mac n not-cheese. Sweet potato coconut pie (refined sugar- and gluten-free, with a coconut/buckwheat crust). Overnight bread getting better and better.
Spotted dick and saffron custard at the Community Kitchen. Sprouted mung beans at home.
I've been failing to set lemon juice with agar for some weeks now, and it's just been sloshing around in the fridge. Every few days I'd reheat it, add more agar, try again. No dice. Finally this evening I thickened it with cornflower and oat milk and made it into lemon curd instead.
Homemade dal makhani, accompanied by mustard greens pakora.
More bubbly overnight bread than usual - I accidentally added way too much water, then evened it out with rye flour, to great effect.
Homemade sushi (avocado, courgette, pepper) with foraged wakame salad.
Curry-y bread; apple caramel pie and baked apples; gingerbread; buckwheat apple pancakes; urid dal with greens; sprouted chickpeas and brown lentils.
Made ugali / sima from maize flour, for something different. Ate it with a spicy root veg and bean stew.
This week's bread came out fluffier than usual. Possibly I put fewer seeds in.
Made some very tasty food this week, including:
- apricot and coconut scones;
- Burkinabe-style babenda;
- chu hou noodles with homemade seitan.
The babenda is peanuts, iru (fermented locust beans, very stinky), chilli and rice blitzed together, then simmered until thick, with bitter greens (I used chard and mustard greens) stirred through. As promised by various blogs, taste was funky and unusual - a combination I love.
Seitan was improv; veg stock, nut. yeast, soy sauce and spices with vital wheat gluten, boiled in miso, then sliced and fried with the veg. Chu hou sauce came in a jar.
Mauritania-style cherchem: millet with tomato, herbs and mint.
No-recipe sugar-free carob brownies. The secret ingredients are sweet potato, cooked and blended with a bit of coconut cream, as well as sunflower butter. Besides that, they have coconut sugar, carob, flour, apple cider vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. Chopped hazelnuts inside, and hemp and goji berries on top. They turned out well! Fudgy and chocolatey.
Back at the Community Kitchen after a month! I made experimental (no-recipe) cookies with gluten free flours.. A risk on several counts.. but it worked out well. They had lots of ground almonds in. I also made chocolate cake with secret cranberry sauce inside (not pictured). I started on some vegan haggis spring rolls, too, so I could nab some before I left.
Also pictured: soba in miso with tofu and foraged seaweed.
Made krompirusa again: premade puff pastry rolled thinner, potatoes, onions, vegeta. Mmmm.
Chia puddings with coconut milk, topped with fruit cocktail, for something different at the Community Kitchen.
Grilled peppers stuffed with delicious teriyaki-adjacent lentil mush (three kinds of lentils plus mung beans) and topped with tempeh, for K&M.
Quiche was on the menu at the Community Kitchen this week, so I swooped in to make a vegan one with gram flour as well. I also used aging mincemeat for tarts, plus jelly with the rest of the fruit cocktail.
At home I baked seedy bread, and a victoria sponge with homemade raspberry compote, and coconut cream. Dusted with coconut flour, instead of icing sugar, and only uses coconut sugar inside. It's a bit denser than ideal, though not solid. I might have a go with margarine (instead of oil) next time.
Khichdi (mung bean dal, rice, tomato, spices), an Indian dish I picked up from Vipassana kitchen.
Spaetzle (veganised with semolina and spelt flour instead of egg), baked with not-cheese and onion, served with breaded chicken-of-the-woods and greens, from Leichtenstein, Germany, Switzerland and thereabouts.
Kanom krok, sweet/savoury coconut mini pancakes from Laos or Thailand.
My upstairs neighbour left me a bag of massive cabbage leaves, so what else is there to do but make stuffed cabbage rolls? I've eaten the like in Czech Republic, Ukraine, Poland, and doubtless other places in Eastern Europe too. I didn't follow any particular recipe, but made the rice filling with brown and black lentils, onion and goji berries, and the sauce from onion, tomato and carrot. After blanching and stuffing the cabbage leaves, I simmered them in the sauce for about an hour. Delicioius!
In a further burst of inspiration, I made matcha and white chocolate cookies, and they came out perfect. I have been seeking this cookie texture my whole life. I hope I can replicate it with other flavours.
Also pictured: lunch with Kama vegan bakes pies and homemade pickled tomatoes.
Homemade ravioli stuffed with smoked cashew cheese (from Kama Vegan Bakes) were a success!
Tried to adapt my perfect stuffed matcha cookies to use peanut butter and be stuffed with compote, but they were way too soft, and should have baked longer.
Also bread.
Homemade onion- and garlic-free falafel for J.
Carob and hazelnut cake. Perfect texture! Used my usual coffee cake recipe but subbed in carob.
Matcha and chocolate cookies at the Community Kitchen. Only vegan margarine available was in 10g sachets.. we make do..
Marinaded thick wedges of dryad's saddle in homemade BBQ sauce, then stuck them in the oven for an hour. Result: tasty mushroom steaks! Served with sweet potato mash, and homegrown sprouting broccoli.
Coffee, almond and sour cherry cake at Community Kitchen. Carob nut muffins for hiking.
R and I had a mushroom pie competition, impartially adjudicated by Dave. We presented two entries each. Competition was fierce, but I won. My homemade pastry tipped it. R got more points for presentation; his fillings were basic dryad's saddle and onion, and dryad's saddle with split peas. My "forager's pie" (the winner) was a dryad's saddle and black lentils spiced mince (Cornish-pasty-esque); and my "winner winner chicken dinner" pie was chicken-of-the-woods chunks and sweetcorn in a creamy dryad's saddle gravy with thyme and rosemary.
Rhubarb crumble sponge at the Community Kitchen.
Mega mushroom feast after an evening of foraging. Breaded chicken of the woods and dryad's saddle worked great. Plus a teriyaki dryad stirfry, and veg from the garden.
A hasty tart that worked out really well. The base is dates and oats; the middle berry compote and dessicated coconut, and a bit of coconut oil; and the top is carob with creamed coconut. The top separated a bit, but you could pretend it's a feature. Tasted great.
Made a Jaffa Cake for Dave's birthday. The base was a thin lemony sponge, overcooked to be drier than cake but not quite biscuit. The orange jelly was made with agar and fresh oj, and was my second attempt - better with some lemon juice to bring out the orange flavour. The top is melted chocolate chips, tempered using a couple of squares of dark orange chocolate I happened to have. It went down well!
Fancy flapjack. The base is coconut (soaked in freshly squeezed orange juice) with orange rind, pistachios, and the usual oaty mixture. I was very short on golden syrup, so there's only a squeeze in there, but the result is that it isn't as horribly sweet as flapjack often is, and it has a good texture that is not too dry and not too dense. The middle layer is dates cooked to mush, topped with crumbled pistachio halva. Then another layer of coconut/orange/oat mix. The last of the halva went on top 5 minutes before the end of baking.
We've had this halva to use up for weeks, which is actually the reason this flapjack was born. Hm, what goes with pistachios? Orange, obviously. Originally I had thought to top it with crumbled halva, but fortunately it occurred to me to test how halva responds to being baked first. I took bets in the kitchen as to whether it would burn or melt. After 10 minutes in the oven - it did both. Not good. Though underneath the burnt part, it was deliciously gooey. So I topped it 5 minutes before the end of baking, and it melted into an absolutely delightful sesame mush.
People who tried it were still talking about it next week, which doesn't often happen! Community kitchen food memory is short.
Big harvest of strawberries, so I made tarts. The crust was dates and nuts; the middle dessicated coconut with last year's strawberry compote, topped with a layer of fresh strawberries, coconut cream, and more strawberries. I made a version with grated chocolate instead of fresh strawberries for me, which was better, but strawberry ruins anything for me..
Three layer muffins - matcha, lemon, strawberry - went down a treat.
I made loads of stuff at Community Kitchen today, but was so focussed on making it that I forgot to take photos. Today's challenge was: use up as much as possible of the leftover christmas mincemeat. And we had lots of lemons. So I made a lemon tart, with mincemeat and oats as the crust. And a lemon fruit sponge, where the 'fruit' was, you guessed it, mincemeat. And then blended loads of mincemeat with various combinations of oats, cacoa, ground almonds, coconut, to make energy balls.
Pakora (carrot and red pepper) at Mum's. Rhubarb crumblejack at home. Particularly fluffy homemade bread this week.
After harvesting rose petals at dawn on the solstice, we made rosewater. Then proceeded to add it to everything. Rose lemonade, rose iced tea, rose hot chocolate, rose syrup. Fancy desserts with a layer of rose jelly (lemon juice and agar) and rose custard (almond milk and cornflour) topped with pistachios, almonds, pine nuts and pecans.
Rose, coconut and almond cake (with homemade rose water of course); raspberry ruffles (with homemade compote) and loads of chocolate muffins (with secret raspberry compote inside too) for the Community Kitchen.
Many things with foraged oyster mushrooms this week, including a stir fry and tempura.
Mostly ate out in Edinburgh this week, but did find time to use old veg and a foraged field mushroom for a stir fry, and to make a rose water cake for J&F.
Made an absolute village worth of food for the Howard Place Picnic, though most of it didn't get eaten. Waded through glorious salads for a week, and froze what leftovers I couldn't give away. The vegan quiches were a surprise hit though. The raspberry chocolate muffins were an un-surprising hit.
Tempura mushrooms. Excellent homemade pizza (with an overnight rise dough, super cooperative)!
Coronation chickpeas (something I've always wanted to make) for jacket potatoes at the community kitchen. Just nayo and curry spices, basically. Also made a chocolate biscuit fridge cake, because there was a bowl of broken digestives to use up. It hadn't set by the time I left, but apparently it all got eaten.
A gluten free, beetroot brownie, full of good stuff. And my perfected homemade falafel, because I have a craving. Also dyed macaroni pink by cooking it in beet water. And two courgette cakes for the freezer.
"What is... spotted dick?" asked one of my guests from Europe.
Coconut jam cake to use misc leftover jams and coulis; radically improv gluten free brownie, with cranberry sauce, teff flour, and all manner of other strange things.
Breaded chicken of the woods. One needs nothing else in life.
I made this crust for a tart, finally using the gluten free oat flour I've had for ages as well as hazelnuts, coconut oil and rose sugar syrup, but it a) only made half what I thought I'd need and b) completely fell apart so was no use. It tasted nice anyway though.
BBQ pulled jackfruit at the community kitchen - a first for me - to go inside tacos. The BBQ sauce was improv from what we had to use up, but I brought my own liquid smoke. The canned jackfruit has been kicking around for ages. I also made a coffee and walnut cake.
I've never tried butter chicken, but it always sounded so appealing. I followed a normal butter chicken recipe (subbing coconut cream, cashew cream, margarine, etc) to make butter chicken [of the woods] and it was fabulous!
Accompanied by courgette pakoras, naturally.
I marinaded chunks of chicken of the woods in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, sage, thyme and rosemary (herbs from the garden) for most of a day, then seared it in the pan. Served with spaghetti, chard and green beans (from the garden) and drizzled with the rest of the marinade. *chef kiss*
Courgette choc chip cake, beet brownie (roasting the beets instead of boiling does keep the pink colour!), seedy bread, more breaded chicken of the woods.
Apple crumble cake, and almond lime pie at Community Kitchen.
Thai green curry with chicken of the woods. Incredibly good.
Making pizza from scratch just for myself feels like such a treat. Not having to care about what anyone else wants on their pizza. Not having to stretch the dough or toppings as far as they'll go to make as much pizza as possible. Just one pizza, exactly how I like it, just for me.
This one has chicken of the woods, and all veg from the garden apart from the sweetcorn.
Spicy Mexican chicken (of the woods) with black beans, in fajitas.
Chicken (of the woods) karaage. Marinaded in soy sauce, mirin and cooking sake, then coated with cornflour and plain flour before deep fried.
Also a giant pot of soup made from excessive garden vegetables.
This is the best one yet. Sweet and sour chicken of the woods balls. I read a bunch of recipes, then improvised. Blitzed the chicken of the woods and stirred in Chinese 5 spice and vegeta. Bound it with soy sauce, cooking sake, cornflour, plain flour and chickpea flour. Mushed into balls, and deep fried. They held together perfectly. Then stir fried them along with veg from the garden, and sweet and sour sauce (ketchup, white/coconut sugar, rice/apple cider vinegar). Reviews included: "this tastes like KFC?!".
I also made matcha chop chip cookies, cos I had a craving, and courgette and rhubarb cake, cos I had a glut.
Apple and oat muffins, spiced fruit cookies, and not-meatballs, at the Community Kitchen.
Mushroom stroganoff from birch boletes, agricus and puffballs. Served with fancy spelt pasta.
Bottling abundance of things from the garden and the wild. Courgette/bean/tomato soup; mixed berries; pickled courgettes.
Delicious button porcini in a nomelette with veg from the garden; and as simple as they come, lightly fried on rice.
More culinary delights with the foraged porcini. All over a pizza. A lasagne that was just layers of mushrooms and oat cream sauce. Mmmmmm.
Churned out a lot at the Community Kitchen today. Many courgette choc chip cakes; apple and raisin swirls; not-meatballs.
Creamy lemon bars at the Community Kitchen. Used - finally - the last of the mincemeat to make the crust.
Various wild mushrooms on toast, pizza and omelette. Also many apple crumbles.
Donated bag of figs at the Community Kitchen of course meant... homemade fig rolls! But completely improv in the end as we had essentially none of the correct ingredients. Apparently they turned out fine, but I had to leave before they finished baking.
Inordinate quantities of rocket, and the tomatoes are still coming. So we cooked a whole load up with celery and onion and made it into a kind of vaguely unpleasant rocket passata. It's alright when mixed with other stuff though!
Hallowe'en themed baking at the Community Kitchen, so I made spooky ghost cupcakes (coconut and cranberry), oozing blood (raspberry) chocolate peanut butter cups, and a mutant spider army (fruit/nut/cocoa energy balls).
Wood blewit, agaricus and puffball stroganoff.
Matcha cookies with secret dark chocolate inside for Community Kitchen.
A delicious story in four parts.
Rose and pistachio cake with a lime drizzle at the Community Kitchen, as well as homemade baked falafels.
Nachoooos.
Orange coconut cake with apricots inside. Nice texture.
Matcha and mixed nuts cake with dark chocolate ganache. Mmmm.
Improv spiced pumpkin pies at the Community Kitchen.
Nachos with leftover bolognese-turned-chilli and 'cheese' made from carrots, potatoes and nutritional yeast. Surpisingly good!
Turned the massive tomato and chilli harvests into 15 jars of spicy tomato sauce and 5 jars of pickled whole chillis (in homemade apple cider vinegar).
At the Community Kitchen this week I was charged with making pfeffernusse - which I hadn't heard of until that moment - and also they had to be vegan and gluten free. I have no idea how authentic these are, but the main thing is they tasted nice.
I had the oven on for something else, so obviously threw in some muffins as well. These are carob and mixed nuts, low sugar, oaty, fluffy, and healthy tasting.
Brownies and gluten-free chocolate coconut cake at the Community Kitchen.
Ginger choc muffins with ganache.
Apple cake and gluten-free lemon coconut cake at the Community Kitchen. Also, not pictured, made three flavours of banana ice cream; vanilla, peanut butter, and raspberry.
Another (last??) harvest of tomatoes, and stripped the lemon pepper because the frost got it, and made 2L hot sauce.
My mince pie presentational skills are poor, but I made some anyway (Mum sent me homemade mincemeat).
I also made improv gluten- and sugar-free festive tarts for someone eating a mostly keto diet. They went down well. The crust is dates, cashews, hazelnuts, flaxseed, ground almonds, coconut flour and coconut oil, blitzed together and pressed into silicon cases. They set pretty well in the fridge so would have worked raw, but I baked them for a few minutes to ensure their structural integrity if they were left out just in case. They were filled with apple and sultanas that had been baked with cinnamon and ginger and the water from soaking the dates.
Stripped the rest of the tomatoes in the polytunnel, and turned most of the green tomatoes into chutney - with chilli, apple, apple cider vinegar, paprika, thyme, sugar (not too much).
Made a beautiful chocolate orange drizzle cake. It came to me in a dream. What if lemon drizzle... but chocolate orange?? Genius. With coconut ganache on top, as all good things should.
Also approximately eleven billion gingerbread folk at the Community Kitchen.
A not-cheese board and a chocolate hazelnut cake for Mum. Peanut butter cookies for ice cream sandwiches at the Community Kitchen.
Flu-recovery comfort mac n not-cheese, with two kinds of Honesty Tasty soft cheeses for the sauce.
Perfect gooey matcha cookies with hazelnut white chocolate pieces wrapped into the centers. Baking at 9pm just because.
Healthy omega muffins full of nuts and yoghurt and topped with raspberry frosting at the Community Kitchen. Coffee, hazelnut and pecan cake at home, made for the first time with gluten free flour. It was slightly denser and drier than usual, but nonetheless was well received by various test subjects. The frosting was coconut oil, strong brewed coffee and icing sugar, and that was pretty great.
Made some vegan and gluten-free treats for a small gathering. Peanut butter cups with secret blackberry jam in the middle. Lemon and coconut drizzle cake.
Gluten-free vegan coffee cake at the Community Kitchen. Carrot and avocado sushi rolls at home.
Peach cobbler and fancy truffles at the Community Kitchen. I had to hand chop the almonds because the blender is broken. And this evening: a burger with mac n not-cheese on top.
A coconut and almond cake with a layer of blackcurrant compote in the middle and a blackcurrant glaze on top. Dense but good.
H's train was delayed by 77 minutes, and she told me she wanted a brownie when she arrived (around midnight). So I thought I'd better get on and make some brownies... I usually mess with brownie recipes and put at least one vegetable inside, but for an emergency it's a straight butter/sugar/cocoa deal and it turned out so well. Will make again.
Peanut butter choc chip cookies at the Community Kitchen. Turned out preettttyyy good.
Namibian-style mealie pap (maize) with lentil stew also pictured.
Marmalade / damson jam / mincemeat tarts.
Rocky road at the Community Kitchen.
Lime pie with limes rescued from a bin, condensed coconut milk that was out of date, and a nut and date crust. Very moussey and good.
Jammy sponge in the Community Kitchen.
More rescued-lime-based things at home: lime and coconut jelly with lime mousse on top; lime chocolate pudding with lime mousse on top.
Mum taught me how to do the fancy icing on a bakewell tart (using a cocktail stick). Then we ate the bakewell tart.
Community Kitchen this week: coconut and rose panna cotta with mango and strawberry puree on top. Cardamom cookies.
Bakewell tart at the Community Kitchen. Mum taught me how to do the fancy squiggles. It took three goes to get them half-decent.
Oat and marmalade muffins for the Greener Kirkcaldy open day. Many jars of rhubarb from the garden. Ginger set in chocolate for a friend.
Rhubarb muffins from explosion of garden rhubarb. Carrot cake with tangy frosting in the community kitchen.
Panna cotta with rhubarb topping at the Community Kitchen. Burritos and popcorn at home.
Loads of chicken of the woods, so nothing to do but make KFC... Kirkcaldy Fried Chicken. And chunked a load for a future curry.
Polenta, almond and lime cake too, inspired by one I had at Culross Palace yesterday. Mine also has stewed rhubarb in, as a yoghurt substitute. Obviously.
Summer fruit jellies at the Community Kitchen.
Excellent slow cooker thai green curry with chicken of the woods, oyster mushrooms and courgettes and onions from the garden. And a creamy oyster mushroom and courgette pasta sauce.
Miraculously planned ahead on thursday, and made a pizza dough to rise overnight. I only had wholewheat strong flour, and plain flour, so used a combination of the two and it was great. Topped with a tomato sauce made from homegrown tomato/rocket passata, sambal, and tomato puree; chicken of the woods chunks, oyster mushrooms, and courgette from the garden of course, home-pickled gherkins and jalapenos as well; and grated and cream Sheese.
Did a rather inordinate amount of baking for K's birthday. Started as soon as I finished work at about 1730 on Friday evening until I ran out of steam, then resumed at 5am on Saturday. It was a blast. I made matcha cookies, chocolate hazelnut brownies, a lime polenta cake with lime curd in the middle and rhubarb frosting, mini vegan quiches with oyster mushrooms and courgette inside, and a buckwheat, lentil and edamame salad with roasted courgettes. The pastry went wrong the first time so I had to do emergency hot water crust at short notice, and that was actually way better. The quiches were excellent (if I do say so myself).
Many hours spent rescuing spiders, wee flies, aphids, earwigs, tiny snails and weird squiggly guys from the rose petals, before processing. Unlike last year, I managed not to bring any bees home with me.
Then I made loads of rose water and rose syrup, at home and at the Community Kitchen.
Polenta almond lime cake, drizzled with rose syrup, at the Community Kitchen. Vegan and gluten-free.
Rhubarb mousse topped with rose jelly tart, with a date and oat crust, and decorated with a variety of scavenged, donated or homegrown fruit.
Cardamom rose shortbread topped with pistachios.
Made rose panna cotta at the Community Kitchen.
And oyster mushroom lasagne and oyster mushroom tempura at home.
Courgette and rose cake at the Community Kitchen. Courgette choc chip, and rhubarb flapjack, at home.
Homemade gluten-free, vegan dog treats for Maximus. Containing peanut butter, gram flour, rice flour, coconut flour, coconut oil, cinnamon. Chomp chomp.
Forager's pie (wild mushrooms and lentils) and rhubarb and custard to share with L upstairs.
Courgette cupcakes with rose glaze, at the Community Kitchen.
Courgette cupcakes with chocolate fudge piped frosting for little E's birthday party.
Jammy double biscuits with rose frosting at the Community Kitchen.
Chanterelle pizza, courgette pakora, chanterelle and courgette stew..
Beetroot brownies and apple crumbles at the Community Kitchen
Trying to deal with the massive harvest. Gooseberry ketchup, courgette pakoras, courgette cake, pickled gherkins with seaweed and chinese spices.
Made some dead good food this week. Curry night: aloo chard, tomato dahl, courgette pakoras. Peanut stirfry. And to conquer the harvest: many fruit crumbles, gooseberry pies, salads, fermented cucumbers/courgettes, bottled tomato and veg.
Preserved more of the tomato and runner bean harvest by bottling a tamarind bean curry.
Made proper risotto for perhaps the first time ever, using chanterelle and bean stock. Crunchy french beans inside, and sauteed chanterelles on top. Super good.
Apple crumble. A phonecall from a local business asking if we'd take 12kg of defrosting raspberries. I said I'd stay late to process them into compote, how could we say no?!?
Too many cucumbers, beans and tomatoes to deal with.. Ran out of vinegar... It's fermenting time.
Chocolate chip raspberry muffins at the Community Kitchen.
Seitan pepperoni for pizza. Acquired some vegan cheese, so had some exciting toasted wraps on my new grill pan.
Had a handful of raspberries and blueberries from the garden, so I put them in scones.
Processed a load of other berries into mixed fruit compote.
Bread and butter pudding at the Community Kitchen. Summer fruit jelly at home, with the leftovers from bottling.
Bottled the absurd amount of produce from the garden. Tomatoes, courgette. The blackcurrants have been waiting in the freezer for the apples - made gallons of compote.
Took the compote that wouldn't fit in the jars, spread it out on sheets in the dryer. It dried out perfectly into a sticky-but-not-too-sticky fruit leather, as hoped, which we can roll up and store indefinitely!
Apple cake at the Community Kitchen, and apple and pear upside down cake at home.
Turned a haul of cemetery agricus into mushroom rice.
Made a good lasagne using veg from the garden, and fermented more tomatoes and beans.
Tried my hand at chocolate mole because I had this garlic/chilli chocolate cs had sent me from Tallinn ages ago which is basically too foul to just eat. I grilled bread, chillis, tomatoes, garlic and onion, then blended them together and strained them into a saucepan. I melted the awful chocolate in and it made a nice thick glossy sauce.
Served with chicken of the woods from the freezer and mixed beans. It was delicious, but not spicy in the end despite the amount of chilli. Bottled the left for future use, it should keep for a while in the fridge.
Made peach cobbler at the Community Kitchen (and hear later it was a big hit!).
An excellent lasagne at home with tomato/lentil/chanterelle sauce, and entire layers of ceps because we finally found enough to be extravagant.
Plus a rather fantastic apple pie with a super simple shortbread crust (was craving shortbread, and had so many apples to use up... and it was way faster than pastry. Will make again!).
Made many mushroom pies with ceps and cloud agarics and chestnuts, most went in the freezer.
Used my new silicon bundt tray to make a very fancy cake. I started with an orange polenta cake recipe, and substituted almost every ingredient (including orange - with lemon and lime, and polenta - with maize). It was still gluten free and vegan and delicious, and looked pretty too.
Fancy pear and almond tart, and beet brownie at the Community Kitchen.
Chanterelles in dahl (criminal right, but I've had so many chanterelles..), with inkcaps on top.
Apple cake, and there was some leftover puff pastry so I made a strudel with apple and homemade (not by me) fig jam.
Cooking with agarics and blewits from the woods.
Fancy chocolate tart with ginger and rose for N's birthday.
Pulled all of the beets from the garden; they're not going to grow more, and they are getting eaten by slugs. Put them in brine to ferment.
Picked jelly ear in the park on my way home one evening, and immediately made a stir fry. Picked blewits another day and made a fry up. What a life.
Pear and almond tart at the Community Kitchen.
Due to being behind on my NaNoWriMo wordcount I had a pressing need to find out if jelly made an acceptable sponge cake filling, and also to decorate a two layer cake in elaborate buttercream frosting.
My first mistake was not skimming the domed top from one of the layers. My second mistake was to use the layer that had already split as the top layer instead of the bottom. My third, was not mixing the buttercream thick enough. My fourth was not mixing the new buttercream thin enough. My fifth was not doing a crumb layer of buttercream before the top coat. And overall I should not be trying to frost cakes late at night.
It looked like it'd been dropped, but it tasted good. I can confirm, jelly is an acceptable sponge cake filling.
The buttercream lessons of last week paid off, and I successfully frosted the Community Kitchen rose and orange sponge. Also made rose and almond jelly/panna cotta puddings... The rose water from the summer really needed to be used up.
Harvested most of the rest of the green tomatoes from the polytunnel and made green tomato chutney. I have a suspicion it won't be as good as last years (which is amazing) but we'll see...
Turned yet more green tomatoes into ketchup, with some chillis. Also made a ginger loaf, but it sunk in the middle. Peach and raspberry cobbler at the Community Kitchen.
Many mince pies at the Community Kitchen.
Used some of my fermented beetroot to make falafel, which was very good.
I packed a tall jar with hot lemon chillis and yellow cherry tomatoes at the beginning of the month, and fermented them in brine along with coriander seeds and bay leaves. I tested a tomato every week until they were suitably fizzy, and today I blended them, and added a bit of lemon juice.
I decided not to pasteurise them, so the jars need to be stored in the fridge, but will keep all of the exciting bacteria from the fermentation. Hopefully the lemon juice and fridge will stop them from fermenting more.
I had to scoop kahm yeast off the top every few days after the first couple of weeks; I hope they don't go yeasty again in the jars.
Courgette choc chip cake in the Community Kitchen. I actually got to stay and eat it this time - they served portions double the size I would've, with cream! It was great.
Pumpkin gnocchi made by J and H on their visit. Also a pizza by me, because I was gifted some Violife (homemade seitan pepperoni, still fine in the freezer!).
Coconut raspberry tart with a shortbread crust at the Community Kitchen. Choc hazelnut coconut cupcakes at home, for sharing.
Remember the buttercream disaster of a few weeks ago? I've had tubs of too-runny orange buttercream sitting around in the fridge ever since. I don't have anything like enough of a sweet tooth to want to lather it onto everything. Finally I figured that since many cake recipes start with creaming butter and sugar, why not give the buttercream a whirl in its place?
I vaguely recalled that the ratio of flour to butter+sugar should be about 1:1, though obviously I didn't know what the sugar to butter ratio in the buttercream was. So I put together (everything approx):
- 350g plain flour + 1.5tsp baking powder + 0.5tps bicarb + cinnamon + nutmeg + ginger
- 250ml almond rooibos (I'd normally use oat milk here, but had none) + 1tbsp vinegar + vanilla extract
I mixed the wet and the dry into the buttercream bit by bit, until a cake batter of a sensible consistency formed. I stirred in raisins and mixed peel, then baked it for about 40 mins at 160c.
The result was amazing! The cake has a perfect crumb, the spices and orange flavour come through nicely, and it has an undertone of creaminess that really surprises me. It doesn't look like much, but it turned out so much better than expected.
The menu said lemon meringue, but we had no cream of tartar, so I settled for lemon tart with a biscuit crust. The non-vegans got regular meringue that had been donated crushed up on top of theirs.
Confronted with an enormous mound of frozen raspberries, and a desperate craving for chocolate cake, I made many raspberry chocolate cakes, and covered it in raspberry chocolate ganache.
Two raspberry themed treats at the Community Kitchen this week: peanut butter cups (with a secret raspberry center) and raspberry swirl cake. Unfortunately the pink part and the vanilla part came out the same colour once baked, so I had to do swirly icing at short notice instead.
Also made peanut butter blondies at home, with almonds and choc chips.
Potatoes and hot sauce on toast for breakfast most of this week. A lot of potatoes to get through before it's time to plant the next lot...
Raspberry jelly and banana (n)ice cream at the Community Kitchen.
Then a last minute birthday cake for a four year old who liked last week's pink icing.
Earl grey, orange and thyme cupcakes.
I flipped a nomelette without breaking it.
A whole lotta frozen raspberries and coconut cream for a whole lot of cranachan. To emulate whisky in the cream, I used vanilla essence and liquid smoke. Instead of honey, I used agave. There was a gluten free version as well (Community Kitchen).
A new burger recipe, involving pinto and kidney beans, cous cous, vital wheat gluten. Turned out well! Most of them went in the freezer.
Coffee and biscoff cake at the Community Kitchen. Lotus biscuits and coffee beans crumbled on top of a biscoff frosting.
I finally got the giant bucket of sheese cream cheese I'd been given by Louise from G&S out of the freezer and carved it up. Then I made a lot of cheesecake. I tried both baked and raw versions, expecting the latter to turn out best, but it didn't set. The baked on the other hand, was beyond my wildest dreams. The raw one went into the freezer, and is like a delicious ice cream cake. The raw crust was just nuts and dates; the baked crust was oats and dates. This was my first ever baked cheesecake, and I'm so happy with how it turned out.
I overachieved on F's birthday cakes - coffee cupcakes with cheesecake center, cream cheese frosting, and another mini cupcake on top... and I even got them to Glasgow on public transport in one piece! They didn't last long after that though. I also made my trusty matcha cookie recipe, which never fails.
At F's, I made us all an elaborate breakfast.
Delicious, if slightly charred, oreo muffins (the ganache and oreo may or may not have been to disguise the slight charredness - my timer didn't go off).
Tacos every day for a week after I got lots of tortillas from the Community Kitchen, with various different fillings.
Peanut butter and jam brownie with banana (n)ice cream (chocolate coconut, or sea salt caramel flavours). Suuuuper good, if I do say so.
My sister knows how to entertain me when I visit: she left me an undecorated cake to adorn. We also made several other tasty meals between us.
Elaborate rose, rhubarb and custard cupcakes for K's birthday. I finally got my doughnut filling nozzle out, and pumped them full of rhubarb curd.
Candied rhubarb ribbons at the Community Kitchen was a lot trickier than expected, but everyone loved them on top of rose and elderflower jelly with rhubarb cream and strawberries!
Also made pesto from garden greens and sunflower seeds, and a rhubarb curd cake.
Courgette chocolate muffins (gf) at the Community Kitchen. Dried rose petals and made rose flavoured things after the solstice harvest at home. Also a courgette cake, soda bread, mushroom tempura.
Courgette glut begins. Cake and pakoras.
Lemon tart and not-chicken pie at the Community Kitchen.
I made oreo rocky road, as requested, for R's 10th birthday party. I made honeycomb from scratch for it too. It contained more sugar than should be legal to feed to children. I also made a blackcurrant and rose cake for the grownups.
Parsnip apple cake at Community Kitchen. Chocolate bramble muffins at home.
Pear upside down cake and tropical fruit with chia pudding at the Community Kitchen. Fermenting various leaves at home. Creamy chanterelle pasta.
Strawberry and rhubarb crumble, and gf pear brownie, at the Community Kitchen. Bottled, dried, pesto'd the harvest. Sourdough bananabread with old bananas from GK worked out well.
Apple peanut butter cake at the Community Kitchen.
A food waste workshop at GK too, where we used leftovers from the day before to make all kinds of things.
I made a really good wild mushroom gravy, and ate it twice.
Battered puffballs and ate them with everything.
Forgot about the tomatoes in the dehydrator, and lost a few..
Breaded more pufflballs, and shaggy inkcaps too..
Courgette cake at GK. And fancy salads with courgette pakoras at the Plate Up For Fife workshop.
Made some pretty salads at home too.
Spiced pear cake with apple maple sauce at the Community Kitchen. Emergency pickled watermelon (because why not).
Bottled tomatoes at home. Started two different batches of kombucha.
Had carrot tops for pesto, but not enough, so supplemented it by [sending Mum outside in the rain to harvest] nasturtium leaves and wild sorrel.
Pickled aubergines according to L's Mum's Persian recipe. It has mint in.
Blended my yellow tomatoes - fermented for just under a month - into sauce. It's not as funky as the last batch, and works well as a sauce, a relish, whatever else I can think of...
Keep eating my sourkraut, but it could go for longer I think. It's about 2 weeks, but it's not really zingy and still very crunchy. It has been bubbling away happily.
Pickled aubergines are excellent. Made some exciting grated veg salads for colourful bowls.
Peanut stew, with masses of fresh tomatoes to make the sauce.
Used my fermented tomato sauce for extremely high effort beans on toast (haricot beans from dried, homemade bread). Dead good.
Made the rest of the beans into hummus, which is also delicious.
Used fermented tomato sauce on a pizza too, with some chanterelles that really needed eating, and an array of other garden veg.
Discovered I can cook barley in the rice cooker!
