Playing with toys again…had to wait weeks before the Todo pizza makers showed up again at NZSale…only a third of the price they go for at Mighty Ape…Yes, I know I can make pizzas in the oven but I was interested in something that might offer a more portable pizza-ing experience and a new toy (plus it IS in Deadpool colours)
I made a few conventional dough-based pizzas but I’d been hearing for a while about vegetable bases for pizzas. Being gifted a full head of broccoli seemed like a perfect opportunity to try this (plus a head of broccoli goes a loooong way in conventional meals).
I found this recipe at Gothamist. It was easy, easy, easy…I put some baking paper down case it stuck but I need not have worried: the base pan is super-non-stick.
The topping was just whatever was in the fridge: tomato, pineapple, yellow capsicum and some mozzarella…
Forgot to add the tomato sauce base (store-bought pasta sauce) so applied over the top of the other toppings…
Came out OK…cooked for about 20 minutes…even though the base is a full head of broccoli, the taste is quite subtle and not as overpowering as you might expect – probably a good way to sneak some veges into unwilling younger diets…
I use the pizza maker quite often with a variety of bases, including store-bought ones which are good to rush meals and also wraps, although these need some care so that the more liquid toppings don’t flow off the edge…
If I stopped looking at Facebook, I’d stop getting these inspirations…I thought I was done with the ‘ no cheese’ cheesecake thing (#1, #2, #3) but this one just looked too good not to try…It’s another Nadia Lim creation, a bit pricier than the others only because avos area little pricey at the moment: not a problem in season or if you are lucky enough to have your own tree…
I need some more practice building a level base as it always seems to build up unevenly around the edges, giving this untidy appearance of more base than filling: it is actually, more filling than base, just doesn’t look it…
My base was simply the meal left over from a batch of almond/coconut milk (a litre of milk gives up exactly the right amount of meal for the base). The avocado gives the filling a silky smooth texture and the lime zest and juice adds a real zing to the flavour – or it would if the only limes at New World that week weren’t nasty little dried up things with nary a drop of juice….and if my back bottle of lime juice had more than half the required cup of lime juice.
I’m tempted to try this again this week with the full charge of lime to see how much zingier it is…it was OK this time but I felt the lost zing potential…
I did make the berry coulis recommended in the recipe but tossed in the last of the coconut milk just to expend it…tasted OK but the milk neutered the sharp crisp berry taste…should have just used water like last time…
Still…it went very nicely with ice cream down at the station…
I volunteered part of the dessert for the National Park Village Fire Brigade Christmas dinner – we opted to eat in over going out as we’re a pretty foodie brigade and there’s none of the logistic hassles…
In our family, Christmas dessert can be many things but it’s not what it is unless there’s pavlova and trifle on the table – and the trifle should be strong enough to strip paint or sedate small children at ten paces…I wanted to keep it fairly green so this is a combination of a number of recipes that kept it as natural and as free of dairy and processed ingredients as possible.
The sponge
This was nice and simple: I just used my coconut flour pumpkin muffin recipe and baked it as a sponge instead of as individual muffins. I did cheat a little and bought a back-up sponge from New World just in case that mix didn’t work or if I needed more sponge than the original mix provided.
The jelly
I’ve always found packet jellies to to be rather weak and unnatural flavour-wise and one of the themes of my Green Journey has been to reduce the amount of processed food in my diet, or at least, reduce the number of processing steps between me and the raw material.A bit of Googling found me a good recipe for real fruit jelly [PDF: 3 ingredient real fruit jelly – Kidspot ]. I opted for orange juice instead of the apple in the recipe and also used fresh-squeezed juice not stuff from a bottle.
Let me tell, you, a litre of fresh-squeezed orange juice takes a lot of squeezing!! I don’t think I have squeezed that many oranges since winning a bottle of vanilla Galliano and kicking of the great Harvey Wallbanger craze of 2012…the pithy problem with oranges and such is that you can’t just drop them in the juicer…still a good arm workout!
I don’t think that I mixed the gelatin in properly as the jelly never ‘jelled’ even after a full overnight in the fridge. It tasted awesome and very fruity though and the sponge soaked up enough of it that the trifle didn’t turn into a big slush bowl.
The custard
I wasn’t sure if a non-dairy custard would behave the same as a traditional milk-based one so I bought a litre of cows milk, just in case. I needn’t have worried as Cast Iron Cookie’s recipe for dairy-free custard How to – Dairy-Free Custard performed as advertised. When you get down to step 10, don’t wait start pouring…I hesitated and the custard almost set in the pot. Knowing this, next time, I’ll pour as soon as the first bubble appears AND have the final fruit topping layer ready to place on/in it as soon as the custard is poured.
I used a layer of whipped cream – lightened with Greek yoghurt (100 ml cream to 200 grams of yoghurt)- just to hold the Kiwifruit topping in place.
The other
As I mentioned above, trifle in my family should be able to strip paint or sedate small children at ten paces. To achieve this result, you need to add some quantity of alcohol. The recipe I consulted recommended a half-cup 50/50 mix of brandy and sherry: NOT nearly enough: this provided scarcely a hint of the desired effect and would probably need to be be doubled at least…
Pretty stink photo, sorry, snapped it just coming out of the fridge for seconds…
While not in the market for another burger mix, the bright colours that accompanied the recipe on Sugar Soil hooked me: any healthy benefits aside, most beetroot recipes have striking colours and this one was no exception…
I made the mix in accordance with the recipe on line but next time I think l’ll aim for a mix with more even proportions of the beans, beetroot and prunes: I found the sweetness of the prunes rather underwhelming even though I did add more than the recipe quantities.
On a whim, I also decided to have a play with breadless burgers…Empowered Sustenace had some good ideas...it wasn’t difficult and I’m keen to try some of the other ideas as well. The most successful in this go-round was the mushroom evolution: fried just enough to bring out the flavour, and then stacked with the usual fillings burger-style…
Mushroom ‘buns’
Open burger on an eggplant ‘bun’
Open burgers on pepper ring bases
Mushroom and eggplant ‘buns’
Very tasty, with crisp clear flavours and surprisingly filling…no dairy, no nuts, no meat, no bread, no sugars, no hassle…
Continuing my cheeseless cheesecake theme from before Christmas – yes, it has been a while since I did some writing! – this was the third (#1, #2)recipe that I wanted to try: not only cheeseless but also raw…it is from The Awesome Green and, apart from increasing the mix for a bigger dish, it is pretty much out of the box…
The base is the simplest of the three: all you need is:
2 cups of dry pitted dates, soaked overnight
1 cup of raw almonds
Placed them in a food processor and blend them until you get a sticky mix: spread this evenly across the base of your pan – I used a 9″ spring form, lined with baking paper just in case the base needed some support when lifted out of the pan – needn’t have worried: it was sturdy as and easily popped out and on to a plate.
For the filling you need:
4 cups raw cashews, soaked overnight
2 lemons, juice only
1 cup of coconut milk*
4 tablespoons of honey
1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen
Drain the cashews and place them in the food processor with the lemon juice,
coconut milk and raw honey.Process into a smooth cream.
Pour the cashew mixture in the pan on top of the crust, and spread evenly.
Because I doubled the mix for a larger pan, I made the filling in two batches. My plan was to add some blueberries to the second batch for a layered result but I my haste to get it done, I forgot to check whether the first batch had set before pouring in the second, hence the inner/outer effect you can see below…
Done properly, it would have looked quite good but adding blueberries to both batches would have been even better.
To top off the topping – as a last minute addition to the plan – I tossed some semi-frozen strawberries, raspberries and blackberries into the blender for a berry coulis to pour over the top.
Happy with the final product but next time, I think I’ll add some vanilla ice cream…
* The recipe said “...use homemade for the raw version or full fat for the vegan one...” I used homemade coconut milk (well, 3:1 coconut/almond) and I don’t see how this could upset any vegan sensibilities as all it is is coconut, almond and water…
I had a pumpkin that was rapidly approaching its ‘best by’ date so I pureed it through the food mill and then looked for recipes to consume the product (being – allegedly – summer, I wasn’t leaning towards soups) I also had a bag of coconut that was had yet to contribute meaningfully to my Green Journey. This recipe from Small Footprint Family helped solve part of my problem…
The Makin’s
6 eggs, room temperature
4 tablespoons of coconut oil or butter, melted
1/2 cup of pumpkin puree
1 cup of honey
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of ground mace or pumpkin spice
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/2 cup of sifted coconut flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
The Making
Blend together the eggs, coconut oil, pumpkin puree, sweetener, cinnamon, mace, salt and vanilla.
Add the coconut flour and baking powder and blend into a batter until there are no lumps.
Pour the batter into greased muffin cups.
Decorate the muffin tops with a pecan or shredded coconut. I skipped this because I was in a hurry.
Bake at 400 degrees F for 18 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
Insights
Tasted OK.
Would have tasted better with a topping.
A bit heavy for my liking but my last exploration with coconut flour had a similar effect – I’m not sure if that is inherent in that sort of flour of if it’s just me..
My original intention for the ‘welcome back, firefighter‘ dessert had been to create two different ones but the logistics of that just didn’t pan out that Tuesday bake night…The filling had left me with quite an amount of greek yogurt and condensed milk _ which I don’t normally use that often – still to consume…
Grease a 20 cm x 30 cm slice tin and line with non-stick baking paper.I couldn’t find a slice tin and hand to make do with this:
I worried all day that the base would disintegrate into a crumbly disaster when we served it up but it set hard and strong.
Place the cashews in a food processor and pulse in bursts until they turn into a fine, sandy, flour-like consistency, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl often.
When ready, add the ground almonds and pulse to combine. Add the raisins and pulse until lightly blended. Add the desiccated coconut and pulse again. In the future, I’ll just sub in the meal leftover from nut milks for the almond and coconut.
Lastly, add the coconut oil, blending until well combined.
Press the mixture into the prepared tin in an even layer.
Place in the refrigerator for 10 minutes to firm up.
The filling
¼ cup (35 g) raw cashews
6 tbsp (90 ml) lemon juice
2 tbsp almond butter
2 tbsp coconut cream
½ cup maple syrup
½ cup (70 g) frozen blueberries, defrosted
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ cup coconut oil, melted
Place the cashews in the food processor. Pulse in bursts until the nuts turn into a fine, sandy, flour-like consistency.
Add all the remaining ingredients except the coconut oil, and pulse again until combined.
Add the coconut oil and blend until well combined. Pour the mixture over the base.
The topping
2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin
1/2 cups hot water
300mls of greek yoghurt
100 grams condensed milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Puree the yogurt, condensed milk, and vanilla extract in a blender until smooth. I reduced the quantities of these items proportion to the amount of yogurt that was leftover.
Dissolve the gelatin in the hot water. I forgot to reduce these ingredients as I did the others so the amount of gelatin was about four times what it should have been. The topping was thus a tab rubbery but still tasted alright.
Add this to the blender and puree again.
Place in the refrigerator overnight to set. Once set, it will keep for 4–5 days in the refrigerator in an airtight container. Cut into slices when ready to serve.
The topping not used
The mousse recipe included a berry topping to be poured over the top but I was a bit rushed on Wednesday afternoon before fire training and didn’t get it done…next time…
300 grams mixed berries
3 teaspoons sugar
water (as needed)
Puree the berries, sugar, and water in the blender until smooth.
Our brigade is a foodie brigade. A couple of weeks ago one of our firefighters returned from her (successful) recruit firefighter course. Dessert was my contribution to her welcome back .
I’m more savoury that sweet and while I like traditional cheesecake, only in small amounts: the overall cream cheese effect is too heavy and cloying for my taste…I also like the idea of a base that is a little closer to the raw materials than ground up biscuits…that’s just like a bit of a Green Journey principle…
Googling provide a range of opportunities for a less cheesy cheesecake but nothing quite what I was after in a single recipe so this is a combination from two sources: the base is the coconut macaroon crust from Two Peas and Their Pod, and the filling is from A Baking Girl.
The base
2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 large egg white
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 cups sweetened coconut
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.
Spray a 10 inch springform pan with non-stick cooking spray. I heavily greased the tray, especially the base and still the base stuck quite a bit. Next I will line it with oven paper.
Stir together the sweetened condensed milk, egg white, vanilla extract, and salt until combined.
Add in the coconut and mix well. I bought a single bag of desiccated coconut – don’t normally have this in the pantry as I tend towards threaded and chunked coconut – but didn’t quite get the maths right and had to top this up with the meal leftover from my almond coconut milk.
Press coconut mixture into prepared pie pan. I was aiming for about a 5mm thickness and this left about a cup of base mix leftover – I knocked this into the sink and that was the end of that but next time I would press any leftover base into cookies and bake alongside the cheesecake.
One of the recipes I looked at during my research phase recommended prebaking the base for 5 minutes before adding the filling so I did this.
The filling
2 cups fat free plain Greek yogurt
1/2 cup sugar (I used ‘bad’ white sugar to eat into the remaining stock in the pantry)
Combine the eggs, sugar, yogurt and vanilla in a food processor. I think that this is where the leftover yolk from the base went as well.
Blend until smooth, then add the cornstarch and salt and blend again.
Pour the filling over the base and bake for 35 minutes.
When the cheesecake is done, it will still be jiggly in the centre but will have a “done” look to it. The edges of the cake will start to pull away from the sides of the pan. Make sure you don’t over-bake.
Let it cool then chill for 2-3 hours in the fridge before releasing the springform.
The topping
1/2 cup of cream, beaten
1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar (this worked to edge the edge off the cream taste but next time I would probably double it and/or add half a vanilla bean to add more of a flavour counterpoint to the filling and the base.
The filling set to a degree that the sliced strawberry topping would not stick to it. The sole purpose of the cream was to provide a layer for the strawberries to sink into slightly.
I’m keen to try this again with non-dairy yogurt to further de-dairy-ise it; it is wheat-free for those who have a genuine gluten issue; and, of course, to use an alternate sugar source once the last of the white is gone…
Part of my Green Journey has been working to reduce the number of processing steps between me and the raw materials of my diet…In many on my experiments, I have been using alternatives to staples like butter but, sometimes, nothing butters like butter…
Growing up, strawberries and cream was a Sunday dinner treat but the risk always was that we would be a little too enthusiastic with the beating and the cream would become butter. This was the first time that I set out deliberately to take cream as far as it would go…like many such ventures, the doing was a lot easier than the thinking about the doing prior…
The recipe I used I found, like most, via Google, this one on Stuff, it is so simple. I bought a litre of cream because I thought that there would be more loss than there was – that litre made me a good 250 grams of butter and, if I hadn’t accidentally spilled it all, an easy 250mls of buttermilk (know you know where that comes from) .
As you can see from the Stuff article, the process is dead easy: beat the cream with an electric mixer – a hand one won’t cut it once it starts to thicken up – until it is thick and lumpy, then beat it some more. Drain off the buttermilk – without spilling it! – and, using your hands knead some fresh chilled water through the butter to rinse out the rest of the buttermilk. Strain the water out through some cheese cloth or voile et voila, your own homemade butter…
I actually made way too much for my needs, I just wanted to try it in my stock [insert your vege here] cake recipe but had made so much that I had to keep using it before it went off…next time I’ll probably only use a quarter litre of cream and just make enough for a the menu at hand…
Looks like butter, tastes butter, butters like butter, can’t beat it, it is butter…
I sincerely hope you enjoy my questions for this week and find the questions interesting enough to play along. You don’t think a lot about these questions, unless of course it is FUN for you. Simply dream and just let loose, or you let your alter ego answer if you want. Have a fabulous week everyone!! With your answers, please remember we are in the Share Your World world which may not always match our reality.
If you were given a boat or yacht today, what would you name it? (You can always sell the yacht later)
I’m sorry but I’d be boring…it would be simply The Boat, not even anything wannabe-ish cool like Das Boote…I thought about this when Lotteries NZ used have the Big Wednesday draw that included a boat, rather a flash one, as part of the prize package. It always turned me off more than tempted me to buy a ticket…I mean, some guy just drops a boat off in front of your garage and drives off…what? Gee, thanks, all right..maybe I could put the chickens in it…then it would be The Coop: would that be better…?
…but my parents used to have a yacht…
Which of Snow White’s 7 dwarfs describes you best? (Doc, Happy, Bashful, Sleepy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Dopey) Plus what would the 8th dwarf’s name be?
The analysis here pretty much mirrors my take on each of the dwarf’s personal attributes – I’ve included the link just for those readers who have not yet explored the deeper darker recesses of my mind – and I would have to opt for Grumpy, the protective one who tends to act when he senses a need for action…doesn’t mean for one second that he’s right, just that he sees a need for action when his protective gene goes off…
An 8th dwarf..? Do I sense the subtle stench of sequelitis…? The 8th dwarf already has a name and it’s Snow White…clearly she’s assimilated into the dwarf hive and sees herself as part of it…blonde or otherwise, if the other dwarves called her anything behind her back it would probably be Ditzy…
Name a song or two which are included on the soundtrack to your life?
The Mummer’s Dance. I first heard this as an Erich Kunzel cover. I misread the CD cover and always thought that it was from the soundtrack of Prince of Eqypt until my younger daughter corrected me during one of our music nights a couple of years ago…Regardless, it has become of of those soundtrack tunes that is always running in the back of my mind ready to burst to the surface in unguarded moments…
Many years ago, TVNZ adapted Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want to Be With You as a promotion for TV2. The first version of this that I owned was on the Vonda Shepard soundtrack from Ally McBeal…hence the version above…
They always played it just before Babylon 5 screened and I came to associate that catchy tune with the B5 ethos and culture…the last best hope…do the right thing…sacrifice…dedicate…go the extra mile…fighting the good fight…II Timothy 4-7…and who personified those more than Susan Ivanova
…as above, Grumpy with the over-active protective gene…
…and this is what started it all, the original TV2 promo clip…
Complete this sentence: I like watching…
…people…sitting outside with a good hot coffee, watching, wondering, imagining their back stories…why is that one hurrying? Why does that one appear happy, sad, flustered, angry…?
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
I’m grateful that I listed to my muse and committed to the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care course at Hillary Outdoors last week. I wasn’t sure at all that getting back into this world would be a good thing for me. Muse said it would be and that I should just do it…right again, Muse. like usual…
I enjoyed the pre-course study, getting in, exploring and researching. I loved the course – I’d already done some stuff with Henry and Budgie from Peak Safety before so no worries there but on any course, you’re never quite sure about the course itself until Day One. This course rocked…an eclectic group, for sure, but one that jelled really well, lots of laughs and good to train with…for me the mark of any course is whether I want to repeat it and I would do PHEC again tomorrow, even as a consolidation…
I was worried that my previous training might be out of date or too narrow: while some things have changed and some of the new technologies are sci-fi compared to what we used to have, a good ninety percent was still relevant after I dusted off a lot of cobwebs…so where to from here..? Not sure…I’m wondering whether the local Fire Brigade would be a good venue or whether there’d be more and better experience getting into the eventing circuit…? Lots of questions…
If only firies still had engines as cool as this…
I baked for the course and am also grateful that went down well; and this this time my orange cake worked, although my banana peel cake wasn’t as deep or as rich the the previous one – not sure if that is down to subbing out the butter with coconut oil, or maybe the peels were not as well pureed as last time..?
Looking forward to next week? I’ve ordered one of these:
…and expect it to be delivered Monday or Tuesday. I’m on a seven day roster next week but hope to get some simple experimentation underway on a couple of nights…just simple stuff to get the basic principles under my hat. Maybe I’ll start by just making my porridge with it each morning and it looks like it can operate as a super-slow cooker so maybe it’ll be time for another round of beets and rice..?
…people…sitting outside with a good hot coffee, watching, wondering, imagining their back stories…why is that one hurrying? Why does that one appear happy, sad, flustered, angry…?
The World According to Me... 