Free things!

Just a day left to enter to win free hemp seeds.  Freee!! 

Go here to enter.

Fairy Princess

An Australian thing that I love the idea of is fairy bread. It's a thing that is common, I understand, at children's birthday parties. It is, essentially, bread with (vegan) butter and rainbow sprinkles. How is this not part of American cultural practice?

For my friend's 30th birthday, Andy and I contributed fairy bread (along with some hemp seed cinnamon rolls - which reminds me, you should enter that competition). It is a seemingly simple thing to prepare, but there is actually a trick to getting the sprinkles to stick.

Butter bread, put sprinkles on a plate or shallow bowl.

Dip bread, butter side down, into sprinkles.

Slice bread into triangles, removing the crusts if your crowd is picky.Stack artfully onto a plate.

And the real trick - let them sit around (covered, of course) for an hour or two before you eat them. The sprinkles kind of melt into the butter and the whole thing is much greater than the sum of its parts.

This is a birthday tradition I would like to see incorporated into more grown-up parties.

Hempy Campers

Life has been a bit hectic lately, for various reasons, and on top of that our home internet has been a bit wonky - blogs are slow to load, and the comment pages almost always "Cannot Be Displayed", so my presence in the blog-o-sphere has been limited. But, I will hopefully make up for it with a giveaway post!

Hemp Foods Australia recently sent me a sample of their hulled hemp seeds, and have offered to give another pack to one of you, readers (if you live in Australia, that is. If you live elsewhere, stick around for a recipe).

Prior to this, we had only tried hemp as food once (though we both have a few items of hemp clothing) - as hemp milk, purchased in Toronto and consumed for breakfast in Upstate NY (which also reminds me that I still haven't posted about the last few weeks of our round the world trip...). For the last few weeks, though, we have tried hemp in various other forms.

For breakfast, I have added a spoonful of hemp seeds to smoothies, or to a bowl of granola.

I mixed some in to soy burgers, which we served with fried potatoes and sauteed pumpkin.

Hemp seeds are meant to be really good for you, and a good source of omega-3. I won't pretend to be a nutritionist here, because I am not one, but I was pretty happy with these hemp seeds. I felt healthy when I added them to food, and they add a nicely nutty flavour to things.

Toasted hemp seeds sprinkled on seitan & black bean stir fry.

My only complaint is that, although these were 'unhulled' seeds, there were a lot of hulls still in the mix. They were like tiny little egg shell pieces - you can eat them with no real trouble, but they aren't that nice.

When I was toasting seeds for baking which I would share with friends, I tried to get as many as I could out of the pan.

Hemp seeds, toasting.

 My favourite thing to do with them was, unsurprisingly, adding them to baked goods. Conveniently, a friend turned 30 and I offered to bring cake. Except, instead of cake, I made Maple-Banana Cinnamon Rolls with Hemp Seed filling.

These were sweet, and fruity, and soft, and chewy, and nutty, and delicious. They seemed to go down pretty well at the party, so I would call these a success. These are definitely dessert buns, and should probably not be considered breakfast by any but those with the sweetest of sweet teeth.

I will post the recipe below, but first, the rules of the giveaway:

• You have to live in Australia.
• Post a comment on this blog post for an entry.
• Only one entry per person, for ultimate fairness.
• Contest open until 10.00am on Friday, 23rd March (that's QLD time).
• I will choose one commenter at random after then and let you know the winner.
• Get commenting!

Maple-Banana Cinnamon Rolls with Hemp Seed filling
 
2 smallish (mediumish?) bananas
1/2 c. maple syrup
1/4 c. soy milk
1/2 c. hot water
2 T. vegan butter
2 T. dry yeast
3 1/4 c. plain flour
3 T. gluten flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt

Filling:
1/3 c. hulled hemp seeds, toasted
1 banana
3 T. maple syrup
1 T. vegan butter
4 tsp. cinnamon

Glaze: 1 c. icing sugar, 1 T. maple syrup, 1 tsp. soy milk

Blend 2 bananas, maple syrup and milk together until smooth. In a large mixing bowl, combine hot water and butter, stir until butter is melted. Add blended mixture and yeast, and set aside for 5 minutes. Mix in flour,gluten, cinnamon and salt and knead until well mixed, stretchy and smooth. Place in an oiled bowl, cover, and let rest until doubled in size, about 90 minutes. Punch down the dough, knead for a few minutes, the let the dough rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, generously oil a baking tray. Also, prepare the filling: blend together the banana, maple syrup, butter, and cinnamon and then stir in the hemp seeds.

Roll the dough into a long, thin rectangle. Try to make it even, and as thin as you can get it. Mine was about 20cm wide by maybe 40cm long.  Spread filling over the dough, leaving 5cm along the long edge filling-free. Roll the dough into a pinwheel, along its long edge (starting with the side where the filling comes right up to the edge).  Squeeze it to seal the end and make it cylindrical, then slice into 3cm pieces and place onto the oiled baking tray. They should be near each other, but not too close, since they rise. Cover, and let rise for another 30 minutes. In the meantime, heat your oven to 190 (375F). Bake the rolls for 25 minutes until they are golden and sound hollow when tapped.

As soon as you take the rolls out of the oven, mix together the glaze ingredients and pour over the rolls. Let them cool for 15 minutes and then remove from the pan. Cool completely, then store in an airtight container.

 Enjoy...

Blenderiffic

Having a blender/mixer thingie has revolutionised the way we cook.

Okay, I may be exaggerating a leetle bit. Or perhaps I'm exaggerating a whole awful lot. But a blender is better than a stick blender for things aside from smoothies.  Things like...

Tofu mayo. Caper and garlic chive flavoured. Which made a totally beautiful potato salad dressing.

And pesto. Yeah yeah, pesto is totally make-able, and arguably better, when done by hand in a mortar and pestle, but let's be honest. I haven't made pesto by hand in years, so a blender is pretty awesome. Plus, Andy went on a field trip which was wayyyy over-catered, and brought home some pinenuts. So we stuck those into our little "Magic Bullet-ish" attachment with some basil, garlic, salt and olive oil, tossed it onto gnocchi, and dinner took less than 10 minutes total.

Chocolate mousse! Though, this version probably doesn't deserve an exclamation mark. It should have been good - 1 block of silken tofu; 100gms of dark chocolate, melted; a big scoop of peanut butter; a shake of cinnamon. Blended. But it was just missing some essential sweetness. The bitterness of the chocolate overpowered everything else, so that you couldn't even taste peanut butter or cinnamon. So, no win there, but lots of ideas for future mousse experiments. And, smooth & fluffy-riffic, thanks to the blender.

Despite being disappointing, it was still good to eat with some Soyatoo whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles. Because really, what isn't?

And I will leave you with this photo of Andy draining the final dregs of the Soyatoo, which were no longer aerated and tasted overwhelmingly sweet and vanilla-y. 

You'll have to ask him if this was a good life choice or not.

Winners!

Of the 20 discrete commenters on my giveaway post, I could only choose 5 winners. The following random numbers were generated, meaning the winners are....


#18 Unknown
#8 Lisa
#17 Shawna
#14 Mel
#10 Rebecca

I'll try to email you each, but if you don't hear from me soon it's because I can't find your email address. So, get in touch with me! tropicalvegantheresa (at) gmail (dot) com. Let me know whether you want the PDF, Kindle, or ePub format.

To those of you who didn't win, better luck next time (and there will be another giveaway soon-ish on this blog, so stay tuned). Also, you can buy a copy for $3, which is really not very expensive, and I would say is worthwhile.

Green Smoothies - A Giveaway

As you know, I recently became enamored with smoothies for breakfast as an easy, tasty way to start my day with loads of fresh produce. Although I haven't eaten a smoothie a day since Andy has come home, I have still had a few each week. Andy doesn't love them as much as me - he eats too fast and suffers brain freezes, and also he likes to eat cereal in the mornings.

Frozen pineapple, a banana, a Ya pear, an orange, and spinach, blended with water. This made about a litre of smoothie, and I drank the whole thing for breakfast by myself. That was a bad idea - I was so full.

Green smoothies are especially good, since they mix some veggies in with the fruit. Hilary Greenleaf has released a book on the topic - The Green Smoothie Diet: Going Green Never Tasted So Good   and she's given me five e-copies to give away to you, readers. The book has info on trying green smoothies for the first time, using green smoothies to detox, and has recipes throughout, including some that are good for skin & hair, and some that are full of energy.  The book is all about green smoothies in their purest form - fruit, veggies, and a bit of water, and that's it. And "green" really doesn't just mean the colour - it refers to the addition of veggies to a smoothie in a more general sense.

So, to enter! In the comments, tell me the weirdest ingredient you've ever included in a smoothie. Or, if you're not a big smoothie person, what is one often-ignored smoothie ingredient you think might be good? Anyone can enter, until Monday, the 5th of March at 11.59pm, QLD time. I'll pick the five winners randomly. So, get commenting!

Chappatis

There is something about flat bread that, to me, makes a curry meal feel complete. Maybe it is because it feels more authentic, or because I like eating with my hands, or just because I really love bread. But, on an average weeknight, we have neither the time nor the motivation to bother making bread. So, on the weekends, we sometimes make a big batch to stash in the freezer.

Butternut pumpkin & jackfruit curry with mango chutney and chappati.

The recipe for these chappatis originally came from How it all Vegan, which I borrowed from the library. It was the version that was translated to British measurements, and I know that in other cookbooks this has led to errors and mistakes. So that may be an explanation for how unimpressed I was. But, the recipe wasn't very good. So I've changed it, quite a lot. I'm not sure about the distinctions between Indian flatbreads, so maybe these need a name other than chappatis - maybe Andy's constant mispronunciation (chiapattis) is a more apt name for them.  Anyways, they're the best flat breads I've been able to make. They're soft and chewy, rather than dry and cardboardy. The recipe is easily cut in half, or doubled. And they're perfect for scooping up a curry.

Black-eyed pea dhal, eggplant bharta, rice and chappatis.

350 grams plain flour (or a mix of plain & whole meal)
1 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. oil
90 - 175 mL water (this will depend on humidity, your flour, etc. Start with a little - you can always add more later.)

In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt.

Drizzle over the oil and mix with a fork until the oil is well incorporated.

Slowly drizzle in the water, a little at a time. Mix with a fork until it starts to form a dough, then take over with your hands. Mix it until you have a soft, but not sticky, dough. If it feels just a little too tough, a good way to incorporate a tiny amount more liquid is to knead with wet hands. Knead the dough for 5 minutes, until it is smooth and stretchy.

Divide into balls - about 8 is the size we like from this amount of dough.

Roll each ball thinly. I find the oil in the dough is enough to keep them from sticking without dusting any flour - just keep flipping the bread over as you roll, to make sure one side doesn't hold fast to the counter top.

Hint: don't roll too many at once. If they sit on the counter for too long, they stick and make a mess. I learned this the hard way while making a double batch by myself. It really works best if you have two people, one rolling and one cooking.

Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat. Let it get nice and hot before you start cooking the breads. Then cook one bread at a time, for about 1 to 2 minutes on each side, until they are lightly browned and bubbly. If the pan is hot enough, they should look like this for about 20 seconds:

Then they will get small bubbles:

Which then turn into big bubbles:

These big bubbles collapse when they cool, leaving light, chewy breads.

Let the breads cool a bit on a plate, and then either (1) eat straightaway, (2) wrap up so they don't go stale while your curry cooks, or (3) put them in a ziploc bag and freeze for later. Half an hour at room temperature and they'll be thawed and fresh as new.

Polly want a Pie

Andy and I had dinner with friends on the weekend, and we were asked to bring dessert. My problem is that I don't want to be a one-trick pony, constantly making the same things to share. But at the same time, I obviously want to use recipes that I know work, especially when sharing. So I spent some time trawling through all the "dessert" tagged posts on this blog, looked through my cookbooks, thought about the weather, and settled on pie.

I have made this pie, once before, a long time ago. The recipe is from the Food Network, and it's called "Polly's Perfect Blueberry Pie". (Hence Andy's suggested title for this blog post.) It may be more of a tart than a pie, but regardless of semantics, it is a really great recipe. It is easy to do, and quick. And the best part is that the press-in pie crust doesn't require ice cold ingredients, it isn't aided by a food processor, and there is no rolling out. Perfect for a pastry-phobe in the tropical summer. And since it's not at all about developing glutens, I suspect that gluten-free flour would be just fine (but this is an un-tested hypothesis).

Here's how it goes.

Crust
2 c. sifted plain flour
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1/2 to 2/3 c. sunflower oil
3 to 4 Tbsp. non-dairy milk

Filling
500grams (1 quart) frozen blueberries, thawed
3-4 Tbsp. corn flour
3/4 c. sugar
a dash of cinnamon
a dash of nutmeg
1 tsp. lime juice
4 tsp. margarine (optional, but my mum always did this, so I do too)

The crust can be mixed in the pie plate, and this is what I did, but I think it would be easier to do well in a bowl. In a 9 inch pie pan, mix together the flour, sugar, and salt. In a jug, mix the oil and milk. Drizzle over the dry ingredients and mix with a fork until everything is dampened, but try to avoid over mixing.

Use your hands to press the dough into the bottom and sides of the pan. About 1/3 should fall over the edge of the pan, keep this until later.

If you've mixed the dough in a bowl, just keep some of the mixture separate from the start.

Tidy up the edge of the crust, and then prepare the filling. In a bowl, mix the berries, corn flour, sugar, and spices. Pour them into the crust. Sprinkle the lime juice over the berries, then dot with margarine and sprinkle the reserved crust crumbles over the top.

Bake the pie in a 180(350F) oven for 45 to 50 minutes (if the berries are still frozen, the pie will take a while). If the crust is browning but the filling isn't setting up, cover the pie with aluminium foil.

Our was a little juicy, but when it cooled fully, it was fine. I was pretty nervous before cutting that the crust would crumble and we'd be eating a sloppy mess, but it worked perfectly.

This was really good. I wish we had more right now.

Healthy vs. Junky

When Andy was away for two weeks, in addition to a smoothie a day, I ate some other things, too. The last few times I've been home alone I have experienced severe lack of motivation to cook much more than noodles or toast. But not this time! This time I did cook some stuff, but it wavered between being mega-healthy, and mega-junky. All delicious, though.

I started by making a raw cabbage salad, with grated carrot, nigella seeds, and a little bit of olive oil and vinegar.

I often came home from work and snacked on such healthy delights as cucumber (or carrot) and cannellini bean dip.

I made a bowl o' potatoes + beans + carrot + spinach + garlic, which was a pretty healthy dinner.

But then I ate an entire dinner of nachos - not the loaded kind of nachos that Andy and I usually have, which match the junkiness of chips with healthy beans & veggies. These nachos were reminiscent of the sort of snack you can get at takeaway shops (at least, where I grew up). The snack which consists of a container of tortilla chips, smothered in melty-processed "cheese" from a tub. I say "cheese" in quotes, because I suspect it was more chemical than anything else. But, for some reason, I wanted to eat that, so I made a vegan version, using the recipe for Nacho Cheeze from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook.

It was good, but I actually kind of liked the veggie- and bean-centric meals better. I dare not tell teenage-Theresa that this was the case, though.

Polystyrene Slice

Last week I went in to the city, which is only 5 or 6kms from our house but which we very rarely visit. I was there to record an interview with my friend James on ABC Local Radio about veganism, food, and blogging. While I was there, I dropped in to Plant Essentials to replenish my stocks of makeup and lotion. And when I saw a pack of puffed quinoa on a reduced to clear table, I grabbed that as well - good for granola, I thought.

But then, before I could even think about granola, Hannah posted a recipe for peanut butter bubble slice (or, peanut butter rice krispy treats). It looked really good, and I thought, I could make this with things I have on hand - that is, subbing golden syrup for the brown rice syrup, and using these quinoa puffs instead of rice bubbles.

So I tried it out. First, I measured my puffed quinoa into a bowl. Nacho was interested, so to avoid her putting her paw in the bowl, I put a few puffs onto the counter for her. That was my first indication that puffed quinoa has a lot in common with polystyrene balls (you know, the kind you fill a bean bag with). They flew across the counter on the power of the fan breeze, ending up all over the kitchen.

I forged ahead, using crunchy peanut butter, of course, because why not? I also threw a bit of LSA into the mix, so I could pretend this slice is healthy. And, since we don't have a microwave, I did it all on the stove.

These are not as good as I expect an actual rice bubble slice is - too much puff, not enough krispy. But, it's really not bad. It's salty-sweet-nutty, and the crunchy peanut butter helps the polystyrene-ish quinoa slice to have a bit of texture. It is a good mid-morning uni snack, with enough protein and carbs to get me through till lunch. So while it's not a total, utter win, it's certainly not a fail, either.