Pad Thai

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YOU NEED

1 tablespoon peanut oil

1 teaspoon sesame oil

½ tablespoon fresh minced ginger

1 small red chilli, finely sliced

2 large cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

¼ cup soy sauce (or Tamari if you want this to be gluten free)

¼ cup soft brown sugar (or you could use agave instead if you prefer)

¼ cup freshly squeezed lime juice

 2 tablespoons peanut butter (I only had smooth but crunchy would be brilliant in this)

200 grams rice noodles

2 cups Chinese cabbage, finely shredded

1 cup spring onion, washed and finely sliced

1 large bunch coriander, washed well, roots finely sliced and leaves roughly chopped

#optional 200 grams tofu (I use Blue Lotus Organic), cut into cubes

½ cup peanuts

handful dried shallots

 

YOU DO

Heat the oils in a wok and sauté the ginger, chilli and garlic on a low heat. Turn the heat off.

Whisk the soy sauce, sugar, lime juice and peanut butter together in a bowl, add to the wok and stir to combine.

Cook or soak the noodles as per the packet instruction and drain. Be careful to not overcook them.

Bring the sauce in the wok to the boil and add the noodles, cabbage, spring onion, coriander and tofu, is you are using it. Mix everything well.

Serve immediately and garnish with the peanuts and dried shallots.

 

Yields: 2 serves.

Time: Takes about 25 minutes.

Freezing: Not suitable.

Sesame Toffee Fruits

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I have been playing around with this concept all day.  Toffee apples remind me of my childhood. My favourite part was always the toffee though and I could never get through a whole apple after tackling all that toffee. So I have done bite sized toffee fruits.

I tried melon this morning which was an epic fail. I also tried using brown sugar for the toffee….another epic fail. When I was a professional chef I made loads of toffee but it’s been a while and this is my 1st attempt in years.

Well another trip to the supermarket to get different fruits, 4 wasted cups of organic brown sugar and a lot of pot watching later, I have cracked the jackpot.

They look so beautiful on the platter. It was hard to really capture just how beautiful. They would be a great “petit four” at a dinner party.

 

YOU NEED

a collection of Medjool dates, giant red grapes, green grapes and strawberries.

4 cups of white castor sugar

1 cup of water

1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar

1/3-1/4 cup of sesame seeds

 

YOU DO

Pop the sesame seeds into a small deep dish and place next to your stove top.

Lay out a sheet of baking paper on your bench next to the stove top and the dish of sesame seeds.

Spike all your fruits all with a small bamboo skewer. Be careful now because the more you move them now, the more likely you are to make the whole for the skewer to big and the fruit will drop off.

Bring the sugar and water to the boil in a small pot, until all the sugar has dissolved. Using a wet pastry brush gently brush the sides of the pot.Try not to touch the sugar and water mix with the brush.

Once the sugar mix comes to the boil add the cream of tartar and turn heat down to a low simmer.

Simmer till the toffee becomes “hard crack”. This feels like a millennium. As the toffee gets closer DONT walk away from it. You can tell if its hard crack when you dip a teaspoon into the toffee and then let toffee from the spoon drip into a cup of ice water and when you pull the toffee out of the water it cracks and doesn’t bend. (If you don’t push the toffee to this point it will be extremely chewy and difficult to eat. If you push the toffee too hard though it will start to get too brown and from there will rapidly turn black.) Just keep an eye on it when it starts to colour and turn the heat off as soon as it gets to a “hard crack”. If you think you are close, carefully dip one of your fruits, let it cool and see if the toffee cracks when you bite it.

Once the toffee is ready, dip the fruit into it, one at a time until all of the fruit is covered in toffee. Scrape the excess toffee off from the fruit on the edge of the pot and sip into the sesame seeds. Set aside on the baking paper and repeat process until all your sesame toffee fruits are done and serve.

This is a cheap recipe with only a few ingredients. Just don’t be afraid to tackle toffee. It’s a rewarding outcome. A plateful of glossy, sweet, sesame fruit 🙂

Servings: Varies depending on what fruit you use, what size it is and how much toffee you use before it gets too hard to work with. I ended up with a decent size platter of toffee fruit bites though.

 

Time: Have not yet timed

Freezing: Not suitable for freezing.

Notes: Caution this is NOT a dish to do with the kids. Toffee is extremely dangerous. At no point dip your finger into the toffee. If a piece of fruit falls in, use a spoon to get it out and discard it.

 

 

 

 

Caramel and Coconut Banana Bites

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If you haven’t noticed yet, I LOVE coconut. I also LOVE caramel and see no reason why people use butter to create it. I also like a treat. I hope you love this dish as much as I do 🙂

 

YOU NEED 

2 bananas

150 grams of self raising flour

¼ teaspoon bi carb

1 cup of soda water

½ – 1 cup of desiccated coconut

½ cup of coconut milk

½ cup of soft brown sugar

icing sugar to garnish

oil for frying (I use rice bran oil)

 

 YOU DO

Get a small pot of oil on and heat it until it is hot enough to make a tiny piece of bread sizzle once it hits the oil. # Note the optimum temperature for frying is 180 c. Investing in a temperature gauge, even if you fry very occasionally is really helpful.

Place the desiccated coconut on a plate and set aside.

Put the coconut milk and the brown sugar into a small pan, bring to the boil and simmer on a medium heat until it thickens.

While your caramel is on the go, sift the flour and bi carb into a bowl and whisk in the soda water until you have a smooth batter.

Peel each banana and cut them into 3 or 4.

With one hand, dunk a banana piece into the batter (shake off any extra…this is messy). Then with your other hand gently roll the battered banana through the coconut until it is covered.

Carefully pop in the oil and cook till golden, then gently pull out with tongs. Set aside on draining paper. Repeat till all pieces of banana are battered and cooked. Serve with the caramel, dust with icing sugar and serve straight away with coconut ice cream.

 

 Servings: Serves 2 fabulous portions or 4 polite serves 🙂

Time: Took about 30 minutes

Freezing: Not suitable

 

Cheesy Olive Scrolls

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I LOVE these if I say so myself.

 

YOU NEED

You simply make my Olive Tapenade recipe then pop it in a sieve, over a bowl for a few hours to drain the extra juices.

While the tapenade is draining make my Basic Pizza Dough recipe. #Both recipes can be found using the “Search” button on the top right hand corner of my “Home” page.

You also need  nutritional yeast (which you get at your local health food stores.) This is what makes your scrolls “cheesy”. I used 1-2 cups.

oil to brush over the scrolls

salt

 

YOU DO (to assemble)

Using a butter knife, evenly spread the olive tapenade onto your dough rectangle, being sure not to cut the dough and spread right to the edges of your rectangle.

Sprinkle a cup of nutritional yeast evenly over the rectangle.

Gently roll the dough from the longest side of the rectangle onto itself until it is completely rolled.

Evenly slice roll and place onto a large (baking paper lined) tray…..cut side up. Brush generously with oil and sprinkle more nutritional yeast over the top of the scrolls. I also then seasoned with some salt.

Allow the scrolls to proof. You want them double in size.

Place into a  preheated oven at 200c for approx 20 minutes. Cooking time will depend on the strength of your oven and size of your scrolls. Once cooked, remove and cool on cooling rack.

 

Yields: This made 18 scrolls. Alternatively, you could obviously cut much larger scrolls or much smaller scrolls.

Freeze: I prefer to eat recipes like this fresh so I haven’t tried freezing this one. You can certainly freeze the pizza dough though and just let it that which makes for a much quicker cheesy olive scroll recipe.

Notes: #Try not to get intimidated by what seems to be a long recipe. In essence you are simply making some bread dough and a tapenade..both of which are EASYYYYY.

Don’t stress if you don’t have nutritional yeast. You can still make olive scrolls 🙂

 

Olive Tapenade

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I use to hate olives but they have been growing on me over the last couple of years. The catalyst for this revolution was trying *good quality* marinated olives one day. Like so many food items, you get what you pay for and I tell you..olives aint olives. So if you make this, do yourself a favour and buy good olives, from a good deli and/or marinate some and then and only then…. make a tapenade.

 

YOU NEED

2 cups of pitted olives, drained (I used Kalamata olives)

4 tablespoons of capers, *well* drained

6 tablespoons of olive oil (I use cold pressed olive oil)

2 large cloves garlic, peeled and minced

3- 4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 bunch of fresh basil leaves, washed well and drained

 

YOU DO

Roughly chop the basil leaves.

Blend all the ingredients except the basil. Blend it to me as chunky or smooth as you like it.

Stir the basil through.

Serve as a dip, spread on your favourite bread, use in sandwiches or toss through pasta.

 

Yields:  1.5 cups of dip

Time: Takes 5 minutes

Freeze: Not suitable

Chocolate Salty Balls

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YOU NEED

1.5 cups whipped peanut butter

2 cups of rice bubbles

4 tablespoons of icing sugar

1 x 200 gram block of Whittaker’s Dark Ghana or your favourite dairy free chocolate

salt for garnish

 

YOU DO

Combine all the ingredients (except the chocolate), in a large bowl. Scoop approx ½ tablespoon of the mixture and ball it in your hand. I find sometimes I am unable to ball the mixture and it falls apart, so I just wash my hands and continue. If this is the case just make a few balls and wash your hands…make a few balls and wash your hands etc. It’s worth the angst! Place in the freezer for 30 – 60 mins until the balls are firm and cold.

Lay some baking paper on a couple of plates. Melt the chocolate and using a fork, coat each ball with chocolate. Once each ball is covered in chocolate, scrape the excess chocolate off by scraping the bottom of the fork on the edge of the chocolate bowl.

Place each ball on the baking paper, sprinkling salt on them as you go. That way the salt will be trapped in the cooling chocolate. Repeat till all the balls are coated.

Place in the fridge to allow the chocolate to set. Then serve or store in an air tight container in room temperature.

 

Yields: Makes 30 pretty chunky balls.

Notes: You get whipped peanut butter in the supermarket. I normally buy organic peanut butter that has*just* peanuts, but I felt this recipe needed something lighter.

If you are having a lot of trouble balling the mix try adding a little pure maple syrup and if they are too wet to ball just add a little more rice bubbles or a little icing sugar. 

Cabbage Pakora

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YOU NEED

½ cup of green cabbage, finely shredded.

½ cup of  red cabbage, finely shredded

1 cup of chickpea flour (aka besan flour or garbanzo flour)

1 tablespoon of curry powder (I use Clive of India)

1 teaspoon of onion powder

1 -2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

½ teaspoon of fresh minced ginger

3/4 cup coriander, washed, drained and roughly chopped

1 red bullet chilli, deseeded and finely sliced

water

1/2 teaspoon of salt

 

YOU DO

Heat a medium pan of oil on the stove top until it is hot enough for deep frying.

Put the curry powder in a dry pan and dry roast it on a low to medium heat for a couple of minutes, then put it in a large bowl.

Sauté the ginger and garlic in the same pan in small amount of oil for a minute or 2 and put in the bowl with the ginger.

Add the chickpea flour, onion powder, chilli, coriander and salt into the bowl with the garlic and ginger mix. Add  the water and stir well to combine. Then keep adding water a little at a time until the batter is thick but you can still whisk it. You don’t want a runny batter.

Add the cabbage to the batter and mix them until they are well combined.

Using a tablespoon pick up blobs of the batter and place carefully in the oil until golden brown. Repeat until all the batter is gone. Place on draining paper and serve. I like to serve them straight away.

Serve as a starter or a snack or with steamed rice and loads of fresh raw salad and your favourite dipping sauce.

 

 Servings: Makes 10 plus pakoras.

Time: Takes about 2o minutes

Freezing: Not suitable.

Berry & Orange Infusion

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I have discovered that berries and oranges are a match made in heaven! So apologies in advance for all the orange and strawberry recipes that are to come. These Twining’s Infusion bags are really fragrant and with the juice this made a really lovely, iced tea, style treat. Perfect for a hot day and a really special non alcoholic drink.

 

YOU NEED

5 Twining’s “Infusions” bags, Raspberry, Strawberry and Loganberry flavour

4 cups boiled water

3-4 tablespoons of pure maple syrup

½ cup of orange juice (I used freshly squeezed)

½ cup of strawberry juice (I used freshly juiced)

1 orange, finely sliced for garnish

1 punnet of strawberries, finely sliced for garnish

Ice for serving

 

YOU DO

Place the Twining’s Infusion bags into the boiled water for 4 minutes. Remove and discard the bags and refrigerate the tea.

Once the tea is chilled, add the maple syrup and both the juices and whisk well to combine.

Pour the tea into a large jug, with loads of ice, orange slices and the strawberries and serve

 

Yields: Makes approx 1.5 litres

Time:  10 mins. Plus the cooling time.

Notes: If you don’t have maple syrup, you can substitute it with sugar.

Mexican, Rice and Bean Soup

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YOU NEED

250 grams of long grain brown rice

1 brown onion, peeled and finely diced

2 large cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

2 teaspoons of smoked paprika

1 ½ litres of vegan chicken stock

1 ½ teaspoons of tabasco sauce

2 small red capsicums (also known as bell peppers, cored and diced)

2 x 400 gram cans of red kidney beans, rinsed *well* and drained

1.5 cups of corn kernels

1 bunch of coriander, washed, roots finely sliced and leaves roughly chopped.

a double batch of my guacamole recipe

 

YOU DO

Put the rice into a pot of boiling water and boil until cooked.

While the rice is cooking, place a large pot on a low to medium heat. Place a small amount of water in the pot, add the onions and cook them for a few minutes until they have softened. Add the garlic and paprika and cook another or minute or 2.

Add the, stock, tabasco, capsicum, beans and corn and bring it all to the boil. Then turn it down to a gentle simmer, for 5 minutes to allow the flavours to blend. Turn the heat off and make the guacamole.

Once the rice is cooked, add it to the pot, and bring everything to the boil once more.

Throw the coriander in at the last minute. Top with a generous blob of the guacamole and serve.

I serve it with spicy corn chips and use the corn chips like a spoon. So easy. So tasty. For a SUPER quick dinner have your rice cooked and in the fridge ready to go. Great for lunch the next day at work on a cold day.

 

Servings: Serves 4.

Time: Takes about 30 – 40 minutes to make unless you have the rice cooked ready the night before. If you do that dinner will be on the table in 20 minutes.

Freezing: Not suitable.

Notes: #Note if you have left overs, you will need to add some more stock, as the rice and/or beans soak up loads of the liquid when it’s stored in the fridge.

You can replace half a litre of the stock for a can of chopped tomatoes for a richer flavour but I like the fact that this is like a broth. With the guacamole, coriander and the crunch of corn chips there is plenty going in with this dish.

Orange, Ginger & Coconut Ripple Cakes

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These have been such a hit with everyone. It is my version of ripple cake that I use to enjoy in childhood. So many of you have made these and enjoyed them. Many of you have made them again and again and posted pictures of your efforts on my Facebook page. It’s quite the thrill for me that you all love this recipe so much and one of the reasons I love it.

 

YOU NEED

1 packet of Macro Gingernut biscuits (I get these from the health food section of the supermarket)

1/2 can of Ayam Coconut Cream (It’s the only coconut cream that I have found that is thick enough for this kind of dish. I like to pop this in the fridge the night before)

1 tablespoon of agave syrup (I get my agave syrup from health food shops. If you don’t have agave syrup, use the equivalent measurement of icing sugar or pure maple syrup)

3 oranges

#optional some dairy free chocolate for garnish

 

YOU DO

Open the can of coconut cream and scoop out all the thick stuff (which is most of the can). Put the watery stuff that is left in the can in a container and back in to the fridge to pop through a smoothie or curry another day.

Grate the zest of 2 of the oranges and add that to the coconut cream and the agave syrup to the coconut cream and mix to combine.

Place 1 biscuit on the bench and spread some of the coconut cream mix onto it. Place another biscuit on top. Repeat this until you have 4 biscuits in a stack.

Pick the stack up and hold it between your pointer finger and thumb. Now using a butter knife, spread more coconut cream around all the edges of the stack until it is covered. Put the stack back down and spread some coconut cream mix on the top and set aside. Repeat until you have 4 stacks.

Pop the 4 stacks on a plate and on the fridge for a couple of hours. When you are ready to serve them grate the zest from the 3rd orange and garnish the top of each stack with the zest and also grate some dairy free chocolate over the top.

Don’t worry if they don’t look perfect. They taste amazing.

 

Servings: Serves 4.

Time: This all takes me less than 30 mins.

Freezing: Not suitable.

Notes: You can refrigerate the stacks for a lot less or a lot more time. The longer they are in the fridge, the softer the biscuits get. They are lovely either way.

If you make these in hot weather refrigerate the coconut cream for a few hours or overnight before you prepare the stacks.

Don’t worry if you can’t get them looking super neat. The taste is all worth it. Alternatively you can break your biscuits up, mix the cream and all the other ingredients together with the biscuits and place them in 4 small glasses for serving. When I do this I tend to use more biscuits per serve though. Don’t forget to still garnish them generously with grated chocolate and/or orange zest.

# I can NOT recommend a citrus zester enough for recipes like this.