VeganMoFo Day 5 ~ Les Vacances de Mme Gnoe (#1)

Although many people seem to think so, it’s really not that hard being vegan. But travelling can be a bit daunting, especially going to places famous for their cheese, fish and meat-worshipping cuisine.

This summer Mr Gnoe and I had our first ‘big’ vacation abroad since I went ExtraVeganza. We’d decided to go to the Hautes-Alpes in France. When visiting the Auvergne some years ago, it was often difficult to find anything vegetarian on the menu — aside from omelet, “sans jambon, s’il vout plaît“. So I admit I was a bit worried there’d be nothing to eat…!

In a series of posts called Les Vacances de Mme Gnoe, I’d like to ramble about how I fared on this trip. Obviously I survived. ;) It may help other newbie vegans going on a journey — or those worrying about going to the land of bouillabaisse, fromage and cassoulet.

Today’s post is about our two day car trip to Oze, via Dijon. What provisions kept us on the road?

Bought or bRought?
I already wrote about the Bento En Route we had for lunch. It consisted of Indonesian leftovers accompanied by cold Thai carrot soup. For snacks there was some healthy fruit, a small bag of potato chips, liquorice and Napoleon candy as treats.

All these refreshments we brought from home. At the gas station I bought a bottle of Orangina with pulp to get into a French mood, and a bowl of fruit salad at the next pit stop. Can’t find the picture of that so I think I accidentally deleted it. O_o

The second day we only had a three hour trip left, so we just bought a drink, in my case Pago citrus fruit juice, and I ate the Utrecht opal plums I’d brought from home.

So the first part of our holiday I mostly relied on our own provisions. But I haven’t told you yet what we did on dinner time in Dijon. I’ll do that later in a restaurant ‘reviewing’ post!

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Changing Seasons (CSA week 38, 2012)

These are the veggies we got for the last week of summertime.

• Savoy cabbage
• Lettuce
• Escarole (2 bunches)
• Carrots
• Red paprika
• Corn cob

As we’re changing seasons today, these vegetables will be used in summer and fall menus.

Menu plan 21 – 27 September

While planning our meals I got distracted by all the yummy recipes and forgot to include the escarole, even though I had marked it urgent on my list. :\ So I’m somehow trying to squeeze it in at the last minute.

• Freezer stash Friday: courgette soup, Fry’s chicken style burger on bread with vegetable toppings.
  `
• Saturday ~ from summer to fall: fresh tomato soup, seitan piccata with longbeans (p.174 V’con = Veganomicon) and oven-roasted sweetly spiced carrots with maple syrup (p.34 V’con).
  
  
  Postscript: I used all ingredients but pretty much messed about with the proportions of beans and seitan – still it turned out awesome!
• Sunday: red lentil – cauliflower curry with leftover roasted carrots for lack of parsnip (p.186 V’con), cumin spiced quick bread (p.267 La Dolce Vegan) for the Dutch vegan society forums cookalong and some extra simple veggies on the side, like braised escarole/cabbage, corn on the cob and/or escarole salad.
  
• Mediterranean Monday: Briami (p.56 A Vegan Taste of Greece), Turkish bulgar with chickpeas (freezer stash) and lemony cucumber salad.
  
• Asian Tuesday: cabbage ramen/noodles (double recipe) and teriyaki tofu with leek or (vegan) egg roll. Maybe sautéed escarole with leftover smoky tempeh marinade.
  
• Wednesday: vegetable roti with tofu and chickpea salad (p.82 Vegan Taste of Greece) with raw escarole.
  
  
• Thursday: pesto pasta with Savoy cabbage (with pesto from a jar), Puy lentil salad with beet (and pine nuts, leftover smoky tempeh or bread garlic croutons instead of goat’s cheese).
  
  

I also hope to bake some lemon cupcakes, based on the recipe for  coconut-lemon Bundt cake in Veganomicon (p.256). I really don’t have a reason, except that it’ll be Nina’s first anniversary of being out of the shelter and living with us. She’s starting to believe she actually has a home! :)

Lemon cupcakes were a favourite when I still ate dairy & eggs and I haven’t dared trying a vegan recipe yet… But this cake by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero comes highly recommended! So will I find the time and courage this week?!

BTW did I tell you I’m going to be present at Terry Hope Romero’s World Vegan Eats cookbook presentation and cooking demo in Amsterdam at the end of October? Looking forward to it!

I updated last week’s menu with pictures from my meals, so have a look if you’re curious!

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Ever tried lettuce soup?

As I told you last time, we get loads of salad greens among our organic CSA. We love that, but notwithstanding the Salad Sac it’s sometimes still hard to keep up… Causing the veg drawer in the fridge to overflow. A perfect moment to put lettuce soup on the menu!

I’m sure some of you can relate to this, so today I’ll share the recipe with you after my menu plan at the end of this post. There will also be a translation available for Dutch readers.

But first: this week’s veggies!

Amelishof organic CSA vegetables week 24, 2012

• strawberries again!
• pak choi
• parsley
• Romaine lettuce
• vine tomatoes
• garlic scapes (flower stems)
• Batavian endive (escarole)

Another sunny bouquet of vegetables and fruit. :)

Menuplan 6-12 June

• Mihun with bok choi, broccoli stems, chestnut mushrooms and ginger stir-fried in light soy sauce, ‘apple juice tempeh‘ and salad with miso dressing (miso, ume vinegar, sake, agave syrup, cumin, sage). Cantaloupe and strawberries for dessert. [Wednesday]
  
  
• Leftover pumpkin curry with cashews, pimped up with peas, baked garlic scapes, Thai noodle salad with leftover rice noodles (La Dolce Vegan! p.80), cantaloupe and the first 2 strawberries harvested from the balcony for dessert. [Thursday]
  
  
  
• Snow pea salad with Japanese dressing, (VEGAgerechten p.191), garlic-sunchoke soup (freezer stash) and bake-off mini baguette. [Friday]
  
  
• Potato mash with endive, faux ‘chicken’ from the Vegetarian Butcher and tomato salad with homemade basil dressing (La Dolce Vegan! p.91).
• Saffron couscous with vegetable goulash (La DolceVegan! p.140; challenged by Dani on NVV forums).
  
• Courgette & fresh peas in persillade, lentil loaf, escarole salad with mustard vinaigrette (Eethuis Iris’ Verrukkelijk vegetarisch p.41) Fry’s schnitzel and baked potato.

Lettuce soup

Ingredients
Serves 3-4

• 1 tbsp neutrally flavoured cooking oil
• 1 potato
• 1 shallot
• white of 1 leek (sliced)
• 1 bundle garlic (sliced) or garlic clove
• about 3/4 litre vegetable stock (fresh or instant)
• 1 head of ordinary lettuce
• 1 dl soy millk
• 1 tsp tarragon
• black pepper
• optional: a dash of white wine
• optional: chives to garnish

Preparation

1. Clean the vegetables
2. Cube the peeled potato.
3. Tear the lettuce into pieces.
4. Shred the shallot.
5. Heat the oil and gently sauté the onion, leek and (bundle-)garlic until the shallot is transparent.
6. Add stock and potato and bring to a boil.
7. After about 10 minutes add lettuce and simmer for a few minutes more.
8. Add soy milk, wine, tarragon and more (hot) water if necessary.
9. Purée the soup.
10. Flavour with salt and pepper to taste and heat the soup before serving without letting it boil.
11. Serve in bowls and garnish with chives.

Enjoy!

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Web 3.0 Cooking: Vegan Crêpes!

Do you know the Evernote Food app? I’m creating a food photo diary with it — easy and fun! I only wish I could also edit entries in the equally handy all-round Evernote application, but maybe I’m missing something obvious?

On Saturday May 19th Evernote organized its first ever Evernote cook-along. ‘Chef’ Lauren Atkins provided us with the task to make crêpes.

You all know how I love challenges — and food! So I decided to take this up, even though I hadn’t baked any crêpes since going ExtraVeganza over a year ago… Pancakes? Yes. Crêpes? No. And I really even don’t like pancakes that much, but I just LUUUURV crêpes!

So the first question to tackle was: sweet or savoury?

As we had no dinner plans yet (and would be hiking during lunchtime), I chose the latter and picked Asian style rice crêpes with a mushroom-tofu filling.

It actually proved to be quite the dare! I had to adapt a basic vegan sweet crêpe recipe and combine it with the savoury dairy mushroom-tofu one from my vegetarian cookbook Het Grote Vegetarische Kookboek (p.138). Not a smart project to take on for a first attempt… So how did it turn out???

Rice Crêpes with Tofu-Mushroom Filling

Serves 2 (4 pieces).

I started out with this vegan crêpe recipe in my Vegweb iPhone app (substituting vanilla for a pinch of salt): whisking 1 cup of all-purpose flour (about 150 grams) with 1 1/2 cup rice milk (350 ml) and 2 heaped teaspoons of No-egg with 4 tablespoons of water mixed beforehand (note that the ratio for 2 ‘eggs’ is different from Ener-G egg-replacer). Adding 2 tbsp of sunflower oil and a pinch of salt.

I then continued putting additional ingredients in the batter that the non-vegan recipe in my cookbook called for: 1 tbsp kecap manis, 1 tbsp chopped cilantro, 50 grams of cooked rice (a combination of red, black and unpolished) and a mix of chopped and stir-fried fresh ginger (2 cm), 1 chilli pepper and 1 green onion.

Cooking rice in the morning

You’ll have to cook the rice in advance or -preferably- use leftovers!

Each pancake was baked for about 3 minutes on one side and 1 more after having flipped them over.

The filling consisted of 100 grams of tofu sautéed for about 5 minutes in a combination of sunflower & sesame oil, then adding 150 grams mixed mushrooms, a clove of garlic (crushed), 1 tsp of white miso, 1 tbsp kecap manis and 1/2 tbsp lime juice, stirring for about 1 more minute.

Result

We had a great dinner! Two crêpes each plus a large portion of salad.

I’ll admit the recipe needs a little tweaking because the pancakes were difficult to flip over — and stay in one piece at the same time. ;) My batter was probably a bit too thin from adding the extra ingredients. Next time I’ll adjust the amount of ‘milk’ accordingly and/or add some cornstarch.

Or maybe… I should just make sure to have a foolproof vegan crêpe recipe first?! Off to make some crêpes for lunch!!!

Here’s how the meal looks in Evernote…

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Quinoa Quartet: Quick Quinoa and Vegetable Laksa

Not sure how to pronounce “quinoa”? Learn on YouTube!

Whaddayaknow: it’s is already the fourth time four Dutch foodie bloggers are getting together for a weekend cooking blog hop! This time we’re focussing on quinoa. Have you ever had quinoa for dinner? Or breakfast for that matter — I’ve seen several recipes but haven’t dared trying yet for myself. Just like I’m reluctant to eat rice in the morning… But what am I saying? Contrary to how it’s used in Western cuisine, quinoa is not a grain but a vegetable related to leafy greens like spinach and Swiss chard! Well, the seeds of it anyway.

The first time I tried quinoa was during my 10-day ExtraVeganza project. I made a stir-fry from The Guardian. Since then I’ve used it a few times in bento’s (#131, #161, #176, #177), but as I’m only halfway my second package… I guess it has not been used not that often! Rather surprisingly. O_o Because I like the taste, it’s quick & easy to make and belongs to the category of ‘super foods’ — meaning that it’s ultra healthy. ;) Quinoa is gluten-free, high on so-called complete proteins, vitamins B1&2, E, iron, copper and magnesium. Reading that you already feel better, right? ;)

The quinoa dish I’m sharing today is Quinoa & Vegetable Laksa. Laksa is an Asian chowder-like thick soup. Mr Gnoe and I had two helpings each so that our bellies were filled but not the I-need-to-lie-on-the-couch kind of full. Very satisfying but low-fat! This is a perfect weekday meal for when you’re tired and the fridge is empty.

I veganised the original recipe from BBC’s Good Food and made some adaptations dictated by the (barren) contents of my cupboards.

Quinoa and Vegetable Laksa

Ingredients – serves 2

• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 tbsp Patak’s mild curry paste
• about 50 ml water
• 500 ml oat milk
• 400 g frozen mixed vegetables, or any veggies at hand which were in my case: frozen peas and green beans, corn kernels from a can, a large spring onion/small leek (sliced), an old turnip (nuked), some red and green bell pepper in small pieces
• 85 g quinoa, rinsed (!)
• 2 ts vegan broth powder
• salt & pepper

Preparation

1. Simmer the onion, curry paste and water for 5 minutes in a large saucepan, stirring from time to time. Begin with a splash of water and add some when the mixture gets too dry.
2. Heat the oat milk in a jug in the microwave.
3. Add the vegetables, quinoa, broth powder and stir in the milk.
4. Bring to the boil, simmer gently for 10 mins until the quinoa is cooked.
5. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Let it sit for a short while longer if the directions of the quinoa call for that.

Serve with salad and bread – naan would be awesome!

Suggestions

Next time I would like to try this recipe with almond milk instead of oat. Mr Gnoe thinks that will be too overwhelming but I think it may be good. Or maybe half of each. Of course you can use any plant-based milk but some will be better than others.

Also, the original recipe was titled “Spicy vegetable and quinoa laksa” but my tastebuds failed to notice any heat. Of course that depends on the the type of curry paste: I may use a stronger one next time, or just add a red chilli.

Always remember to rinse your quinoa seeds before cooking. They have a bitter-tasting coating (called saponins), which is mildly toxic and meant to make the kernels less-palatable to birds and other seed-eaters. These days quinoa has already been cleaned by the manufacturer but it’s good to get rid of possible remnants. Just follow the instructions on the package.

<whisper mode> Of course I shouldn’t say so in a post dedicated to quinoa, but you can also use 150 grams of basmati rice instead — just cook until done. But you didn’t hear that from me, okay?! ;) <whisper mode off>

And now that you’ve opened a package of quinoa: hop over to my fellow foodies for their awesome recipes!

Chinoiseries goes south with her North African Quinoa Stew ~ vegan
JannyAn serves a Quinoa Salad with Cranberries and Apricot ~ vegan
Uniflame baked some Black Bean & Quinoa Burgers ~ vegetarian

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A Taste of Tahini: Moroccan Soup

I often come across people with an ooooold jar of tahini in their cupboards. Do you know tahini? It’s a paste of ground sesame seeds, used in Mediterranean, North African and Middle Eastern cooking. It is most widely known as a component of hummus. You’re familiar with hummus, right? A versatile chickpea spread that’s great on bread or as a dip? Now that’s how most of these nearly full containers of tahini end up in many Western kitchens: there are only one or two tablespoons needed for a batch of homemade spread — and what to do with the rest???

Well, the Dutch foodie blogging quartet is here to help!

Uniflame is sharing a recipe of tahini-yoghurt sauce (vegetarian)
Chinoiseries treats us to summer rolls with a tahini dip (vegetarian)
JannyAn fried up some falafel (vegan; in Dutch)

And on Graasland we’re having roasted eggplant & tahini soup.

The taste of this soup transported my globetrotter friend Loes right back to Morocco!

Roasted eggplant and tahini soup

Serves 5-6.

Ingredients

• 3 medium tomatoes, halved
• 2 medium eggplants (about 550 grams together), halved lengthwise
• 2 medium onions (I used a red and white one), halved
• half a head of garlic
• olive oil
• 1 litre of vegetable broth (4 cups)
• 2-3 teaspoons ras al hanout spice blend (store-bought or mixed yourself)
• 4 tbsp = 60 ml tahini (1/4 cup)
• juice from half a lemon (2-3 tbsp or more to taste)
• chopped fresh cilantro for garnish

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F). Place tomatoes, eggplants and onions on a baking sheet.
2. Sprinkle or brush with a little oil (we don’t have cooking spray over here), and season with salt and pepper.
3. Slice a small part of the bottom of the garlic and fold it in a piece of aluminium foil. Wrap up tightly and put it on the baking sheet with the vegetables.
4. Roast the veggies for 30-45 minutes, until they are tender and brown in some places.
   
5. Remove from the oven and wait until the vegetables are cooled enough to handle.
6. Scoop the eggplant out of its skin and into a large saucepan.
7. Squeeze the cloves of roasted garlic out of their skin and add to the eggplant.
8. Remove the skin and green centre from the tomatoes and add to the pan as well, along with the onions.
9. Add the broth and ras al hanout. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the onions are very tender.
10. Puree the soup with an immersion blender or in a food processor.
11. Add the tahini and simmer for about 5 more minutes.
12. Finish the soup by adding lemon juice and season to taste with salt and pepper.
13. Garnish each bowl of soup with a generous sprinkle of cilantro.

Notes

For this soup I heavily relied on the recipe from Cara’s cravings; there are also instructions for homemade ras el hanout on her page. I already had a mix that I made a long time ago and desperately need to finish…

The spices determine the flavour of the soup, so keep that in mind when you decide to substitute. If you’d like an even creamier soup you could also add a dash of soy cream to the bowls. But whatever you do, do not skip the lemon juice, nor cilantro. They’re absolutely essential!

Okay, you all need to confess now… Have you got a pot of tahini stashed away somewhere? It’s time to get it out and start cooking!

Also check out our previous blog hops:

TTHop (tofu & tempeh)
New Years Quartet: Dips & Spreads

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Cranberry Muffins!!!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has some kind of food-related post to share: book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. It is hosted by Beth Fish Reads.
Why don’t you join us?

I’m writing this post in whisper-mode. That has nothing to do with Mr Gnoe sleeping late this Saturday morning. I’m just embarrassed to confess that with the dawn of February, I still had some ‘fresh’ cranberries left over from… Christmas. Oops!

So I felt a jolt when I stumbled upon the cranberry muffins Uniflame had baked. Just perfect! Except.. they weren’t vegan. But now that I’ve been ExtraVeganza for more than a year, it’s about time I took on a challenging recipe to veganize. So I went back to the original Dutch recipe on Yummy in my Tummy and got to work.

What do you know? I was done in a jiffy! :) [drumroll..] Here’s the result!

These muffins are awesome! Light, sweet -but not too much- and with a sour ‘pang’ each time you bite a cranberry. So I’m MEGA proud of myself — and future veganizing projects seem less daunting! #happy :)

Now I’m rather eager to share the recipe with you all!

Vegan cranberry muffins

Makes about 16 cakes.

Ingredients

• 150 gr fresh cranberries (washed)
• 265 gr all purpose flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 160 gr demerara sugar (cane) sugar
• 240 ml (1 cup) vanilla soy milk
• 60 ml (1/4 cup) soy yoghurt
• 85 gr vegan butter or margarine (I use Provamel Bio Soya Cook & Spread)*
• zest of 1 organic orange
• pinch of salt
• optional: powdered (confectioners) sugar

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 200 °C ().
2. Grease a muffin tin or fill either silicon or disposable cupcake liners.
3. In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and cinnamon. Whisk well.
4. Add orange zest.
5. Melt the butter.
6. Combine the soy milk and yoghurt in another bowl or measuring cup, add the melted butter and stir well.
7. Add the wet to the dry mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until batter is just mixed.
8. Spoon batter in muffin pan/cupcake liners. (You can also use a piping bag or sturdy plastic bag with a corner cut of but I find this too much trouble.)
9. Bake the muffins about 20 minutes in the oven; they should be golden and when you pierce them with a skewer it should come out dry.
   Mine took 23 minutes but it depends on your oven.
10. Let the cakes cool down in the tin for 5 minutes, then take them out and let cool further on a rack.
11. If you wish you can sprinkle the muffins with powdered sugar after they have cooled down completely. I didn’t find this necessary taste wise.

Enjoy! :)

Can you freeze these muffins?
Although these muffins are best eaten on the same or next day, they stay pretty good for a while longer. It’s just that the top gets a little sticky after two days, but you can hide fix this with a sprinkling of powdered sugar.
After freezing they still taste very good, but again the top gets sticky and the texture less fluffy: a little drier and more compact. So they’re fine, but not their original awesomeness. ;)

With all the exclamation marks in this post I guess I left the quiet-modus very quickly. :) Well, that just shows you my enthusiasm about these muffins! So I hope you’ll be trying them someday too. :)

Now Mr Gnoe has woken up and it’s time to get the day started — maybe do some more baking this weekend? ;)

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Part of the February Sweet Luv event on Zesty Palette

& Zesty Palette’s ongoing Bake Fest #4 hosted by Tomato Blues

* I’m not a shareholder of Provamel! ;) I’ve just had great experience with their products. You can use any plant-based butter but if it’s got vitamin D3 added (which it often does), it’s not vegan!

TTHop: Faux Feta

As a Dutch foodie blogger quartet we had so much fun with our previous ‘cool collective Weekend Cooking post’ (about dips & spreads), that we decided to do another blog hop this month. Tofu & Tempeh is today’s topic.

I chose a recipe that I had my doubts about but wanted to try anyway: tofu feta. I’ve heard plenty of positive stories but would not believe it could really taste like the real thing. And there was only one way to find out! As a newbie vegan I do sometimes miss the fresh, somewhat stingy taste of dairy, like in feta, yoghurt, sour cream and things like that.

But what am I saying… v-gan newbie??? This post marks my 1 year anniversary of going ExtraVeganza!

What started out as a 10-day pilot meant to help reduce my intake of animal products in January 2011, turned into Gnoe going totally herbivore. Although I know I’ve come quite far, it’s rather shocking to hear it’s already been a year. O_o

My biggest hurdle is still the feeling that I’m a pain in the *ss for other people, whether they are friends, family or restauranteurs. :\ But I’m healthy and it feels really good to live this way, so I’m mostly very HAPPY about the step I took! :)

As you probably know, soy products like tofu and tempeh are an important protein source for vegetarians and vegans. Except if you’re unlucky like our Weekend Cooking host Beth Fish, who is hyper-sensitive to it. I don’t know what I’d do without my daily soy cappuccino!

Faux feta

So today I’m sharing a tofu recipe: faux feta. There are many recipes around, but I used the one from Becky’s Tasty Planet. She served it to a Greek omni friend and it passed the test!

Most mock feta recipes are easy to whip up but they need a lot of waiting time. Marinating often takes a minimum of 24 hours. What actually happens during that time is that the fermenting process is (re)activated.

Ingredients

• 250 g tofu
• 2 tbsp lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp white miso
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 big or 2 small garlic cloves, smashed but left whole
• dried oregano (to taste)
• crushed red pepper (to taste)

Preparation

1. Drain tofu and wrap in a clean kitchen towel or paper.
2. Place a cutting board on top and weigh that down with something heavy like a cast iron or water-filled pan, books, cans of beans, etc. Leave for ca. 30 minutes to drain out excess liquid.
3. In the meantime whisk together the rest of the ingredients for the marinade.
4. Unwrap the tofu and cut into 1 cm thick slices.
5. Put the tofu in a container with a well-closing lid, pour over the marinade and refrigerate for at least 24 hours, preferably 2-3 days.
6. Flip the container every few hours to ensure even coverage.
7. Pat the tofu pieces dry before use and crumble or cut into desired shape.

Taste test

I was pleasantly surprised with the taste and texture of this faux feta. The bite actually resembles the real thing and its sour tang is good too. You could use a little more salt (real cheese is pretty salty most of the time), but that can be easily fixed with a salad dressing as well. Still, this is no feta cheese. I guess that’s why Becky called it “feta-style marinated tofu” in her post. :)

I will probably make it again and try other recipes as well, like this one on Vegweb. Have I made you curious enough to have a go at it?

Please check out the yummy recipes my fellow blog hoppers shared!

• JannyAn’s Gado-gado (pescetarian; vegan optional) – I loooove Indonesian food!
• Chinoiseries’ Tempeh Burgers (vegan)
• Uniflame’s BBQ Tempeh Sandwich (vegetarian; vegan optional)

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New Year’s Dip Quartet: Carrot Spread

Four Dutch tweeps -slash- foodie bloggers have teamed up to share some dips & spreads with you for New Year’s Eve.

Chinoiseries is serving us Roasted Cauliflower Dip (vegetarian with vegan suggestion)
JannyAn shares some Nutty Blue Cheese Spread (vegetarian; post in Dutch)
Uniflame is spooning out Bean Paté (vegetarian with vegan suggestion)
And me?

The recipe that I’d like to share is a super easy, vegan dip that I’ve made several times now and is always a hit with vegetarians, flexitarians and omnivores alike: Mediterranean carrot spread.

I dedicate this post to Uniflame who seems to be at a loss with all the carrots among her CSA vegetables. ;)

Mediterranean Carrot Dip

Ingredients

• 250 grams carrots, cleaned and cut into small pieces
• 2 tbsp good quality olive oil (extra virgin)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice (or vinegar)
• 1 small garlic clove (or half a big one)
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• cayenne pepper / harissa / sambal
• salt & pepper
• optional: salty black olives

Also handy: a (hand) blender

Preparation

1. Thoroughly cook the carrots on either your stove (about 20 minutes) or in microwave (4 minutes on 700 Wt). Drain.
2. Blend (or mash) together carrots, olive oil, lemon juice (or vinegar), cumin and garlic.
3. Add harissa (cayenne/sambal) and salt ‘n peppa to taste.
4. Let it completely cool down.
5. Serve as a side dish or mezze, with Turkish pide bread, Italian ciappe, melba toast, veggies or whatever. It’s nice -but not necessary at all- to garnish this dip with salty black olives.

If you’ve got a few minutes left before you need to get ready for your s-mashing End of Year Party: grab some carrots and throw together this nice snack!

This spread can easily be made a day in advance but after 48 hours it gets too watery. Not that you’ll have any leftovers for that long! ;)

Now I highly recommend you hop over to the other participants’ recipes (links above)! :)

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!!

Check out other food-related posts at Beth Fish’s Weekend Cooking!

Also submitted to Kookgrrl’s December theme: Food to share,

& Zesty Palette’s New ‘U’ Event.

I Made This! What Vegans Eat: Chocolate-Beetroot Pie (MoFo #9)

So. I promised to show you my animal friendly chocolate-beetroot pie once it was finished. Drumroll please..! :)

The recipe for this delicious-looking cake came from the Ecofabulous cookbook I mentioned earlier in my Cookbook Sunday Salon. It’s one of the reasons I had to bail out of the 24 Hour Readathon today! But there are worse things. Like, if this pie doesn’t taste as good as it looks.. :(

I deviated from the recipe only in its final stage, applying a couverture instead of the chocolate topping described by Lisette Kreischer. Baking time also took a while longer. In the end I didn’t dare keep it in the oven for a minute more, as I feared it would burn. Now I hope it’s got no soggy bottom ’cause I couldn’t take British Bakeoff judge Mary Berry’s look of disapproval. ;P

This cake is part of a present for Mr Gnoe’s foodie cousin, celebrating her 40th birthday tonight. I hope she’ll like it! She’s baking a (non-vegan) lime pie, carrotcake muffins, brownies and cheesecake herself right this minute. With a little help from a friend, I believe. ;)

I better not forget to take a photo of a slice tonight! Please remind me? There’s twitter, whatsapp, 4square.. Whatever social medium you like. ;)

With the risk of overdoing it, here’s another pic of the pie ready to go. See you later!

This food-related post is part of Beth Fish’s Weekend Cooking!