some recipes at last

since i've been banging on about other stuff recently, i thought i'd better do what this blog is supposed to and put some cooking in it. i'll put some of the recipes from this menu and start with the carrot and sweet potato bhajis.

you need to grate a couple of carrots and a decent sized sweet potato. you can add a very finely sliced onion as well. season with salt, add some thai green curry paste, thai taste is best if you haven't made your own, and a good slosh of lime juice. you need to let this sit for a couple of hours to allow the salt and juice to start the cooking of the vegetables. this will draw out a little moisture and you know add gram flour to this mix and you should add enough to make a loose batter; too much and the bhajis will be too bready. the best way to do this is to test by deeo-frying a test one, if it breaks up, add a little more flour.

heat oil in a deep-fat fryer to 190 and fry until golden.

red pepper humous

one tin of chickpeas
one small shallot
one clove of garlic
a tablespoon of tahini
two roasted red peppers, or a small jar in oil and use the oil (aldi do some nice ones)
salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste

blend in a food processor until smooth

variations: add any veg that you want to your basic hummous mix, e.g. roasted pumpkin (see a forthcoming menu) or spice, e.g. black cumin.

vegan mousse cake

this is a very nice cake but as i called it white chocolate, everyone is expecting a milky bar moment. it isn't that chocolatey because we use vegan white chocolate, which isn't as rich as the dairy version because of the lack of cream etc. i'm pretty sure that i've put our white chocolate cheesecake on this blog somewhere, so this is the vegan version.

a biscuit base of blitzed non-dairy digestives mixed with some melted soy margarine. put into a springform pan and bake until golden in a 180 oven.

wet mix: 350g of white choc chips in a jug just covered by soy milk. microwave for 3 minutes then blend with a hand blender. add a packet of silken tofu and blend until smooth. in a separate jug mix two teaspoons of no egg (ener-g is best but orgran is ok) and 50 ml of soy milk. blend with the hand blender to bring together and add to the tofu-chocolate mix and blend. pour over the cooled base and bake at 130 until risen and set, about 30 minutes. it shouldn't wobble.

sauce:

pick fresh blackberries and elderberries.

elderberry syrup.

take elderberries of the stem with a fork. wash and put in a pan. cover with water and bring to the boil. allow to simmer for ten minutes then mash with a potato masher. separate the juice from the pulp and measure the juice. the recipe for jam/jelly is 1 pint of juice to one pound of sugar, so if you're doing this, and i shall be, add the correct amount of sugar, some lemon juice or ascorbic acid, and bring to a rolling boil. check the setting temp, 107C, with a sugar thermometer or just let it go for five minutes and pour a teaspoon onto a cold plate. if it jellies slightly, i'm happy. i like mine a bit more runny. for the syrup, halve the quantity of sugar.

to serve, poach some blackberries in some syrup.

elderberry syrup is amazing, the flavour complex and it's, sugar excepted, pretty much free.

take some scissors and cut some elderberries.

cheers

wayne