Vegan Mofo Day 2: Chili and Sea Salt Crispbread

Okay so I'm slightly obsessed with making my own crackers.Mostly because I'm really obsessed with eating crackers. Someone with less linguistic restraint might call me crackers for crackers. Luckily I'd never say such a thing. This recipe is a variation on the cracker, cut into strips and liberally salted and chillied this is my Chili and Sea Salt Crispbread. Taylor made for dipping into hummus. You know, when you've bought a lackluster pot from Tesco and need a little zing.

Chili and Salt Crispbread
(makes about 16)

170g flour
60ml water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of chilli

Preheat the oven to 200C and oil two trays

In a small bowl mix together the salt and chilli

Pour the olive oil into the flour and start mixing. As your little hands are mixing everything in slowly add the water until you're able to form a ball of dough.

Once you've got your dough ball all happy flour your surface and roll out the dough as thin as you can get it. go for about 3mm

When it's all rolled out sprinkle with the chilli salt mixture and run the rolling pin over one more time to make sure it all sticks.

Cut into rectangles and transfer to the baking tray. In ten minutes it will be cooked and starting to brown on the edges. take it out and in another ten minutes it should be cool enough to enjoy.

Introducing... Eat Your Wild Garlic the Free DIY Zine

The second of my DIY Zines is now ready for you to print and read. This one is all about wild garlic. It has growing tips, picking tips and two recipes. One is for the Wild Garlic Crackers, seen on these pages before, and the other is for Wild Garlic Pasta which is exclusive to this zine. 

On the hob

They are two of my favorite recipes. And my two favorite Wild Garlic Recipes. We had the pasta last night after foraging some wild garlic on my way through town. It tastes amazing. Eating pasta you've made yourself feels indulgent and luxurious but really it's simple. You make a dough, leave it for a bit, roll it out and boil it. The actual hands on time is about 20 minutes.

On the plate

No matter what you make with it you should Eat Your Wild Garlic. To get a copy of the zine print off the A4 Version or the Letter Version and fold it up following the directions here. Then you'll have your very own copy of Eat Your Wild Garlic. 

Recipe Adaptations for Stephen Approved Seasonal Food.

I mentioned that for valentines day we'd be eating two of the recipes from the blog for Valentines Day. We had Wild Garlic Bread and Tomato and Chilli Risotto but with Stephen not liking chilli (I know...) and no wild garlic our yet I had to make some adjustments.

First the chilli. I took the easiest option and just left it out. Sometimes, in dishes where the chilli adds a lot to the overall flavour (like the potatoes and panner a couple of weeks ago) I'll keep a pinch of the chilli powder in. The risotto is just fine without it.

The wild garlic bread? I had to replace the garlic taste and the green so I went back to the classic plain old garlic bread. Half a cup of parsley, chopped and four (small, home-grown) garlic cloves for the two medium baguettes. Tastes lovely. 

Introducing... Eat Your Nasturtiums the DIY Zine

A while back I hand wrote a little book about Wild Garlic so I could play with the instant book format. I toyed with the idea of typing it up and giving it to a few more people but Wild Garlic was soon out of season and I never did.

Nasturtium Leaf Pakora

The idea of using this format to focus on one ingredient stuck in my mind though and while I was pickling their seed pods I started to write this little nasturtium book.

Inside there is advice about growing nasturtiums, using them in salads, and recipes for Nasturtium Leaf Pakora and Nasturtium Flower Jelly. Small, succinct and six pages long a copy can be yours for the low, low price of free.

Nasturtium Flower Jelly

All you need to do is download the PDF, print it out and fold it up. So choose the version you want.

This PDF is for people who use A4

This PDF is for people who use Letter

Then grab some scissors and get ready to fold

Step one is to fold it in half lengthwise

Open it up again

Fold in half widthways

Take the open edge and fold back to the folded edge. Turn over and repeat on the other side. You should be able to open your book like a fan at this point.

Next make your cut. You want to cut along the fold between the middle two sections. When you are done there should be a cut between the title page and the 'preserve your harvest page' and the 'first grow your nasturtium page' and the second page of the pakora recipe.

Stand your book up like this.

Find the Title Page (it's the one that says 'eat your Nasturtiums') and make sure it's at the front. Press down extra hard on all those folds.

So there you have it. If you do make up the book please let us know. Feel free to use the comments to ask for help with the printing and folding. We'll get back to you as soon as we can.

Carrot Flapjacks

I came up with the idea of putting carrots into flapjack last summer. I was baking for the volunteer days at work and I was trying to think of ways to insert more of our organic vegetables into baked goods. Grating carrot into flapjack produces a beautiful orange-speckled treat with a slightly more wholesome taste. I've baked these in a loaf tin to give a thinner but taller bar.

Carrot Flapjack

(makes 5 bars)

100g Demerara Sugar

175g Vegan Margarine (vitalite, as always, for us)

1 tablespoon of golden syrup

2 small carrots (about 75g) grated

160g oats

Pre-heat the oven to 150 c and grease a loaf tin

In a small saucepan melt the margarine with the sugar and syrup, stirring often to prevent burning.

When the mixture in the pan has melted together turn off the heat and stir in the oat and carrots.

Press the mixture down into the bottom of the loaf tin. and cook for 40 minutes. It should still be a bit wobbly to the touch when you take it out of the oven.

Leave to cool before cutting into bars. 

Tomato and Nettle Sauce

Nettles are crazy nutritious with 6g of protein per 100g and lots of stuff that's good for you like vitamin a, vitamin c, calcium and iron. They also sting like a bitch.

In fact stinging like a bitch is their defining characteristic. But it's worth it at this time of year (spring, early summer only. Later in the year they suck) to put on a pair of gloves and pick the top few leaves of the nettle to eat. They are delicious, crazy nutritious and don't sting once you soak them in water.

It occurs to me that I could call this Net Bol but I don't know if I want to put you through that

This recipe takes advantage of their strong flavour to cook them in a bolognese style sauce. I'd like to think I'd make this by going out in the morning, foraging for nettles, cutting some fresh herbs and then lazily cooking this sauce in the afternoon. A good weekend project. Actually because most of the cooking is inattentive it makes a good quick weekday supper while preping for Brownies or catching up on your drudgery cleaning. Okay so more like watching TV. No need to judge me.

Moving on...

Serve this one over spaghetti for extra inauthenticity but whatever pasta you have will work.

Tomato and Nettle Sauce
(serves two)

1 small onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 small carrot, diced
a couple of teaspoons of olive oil
1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
half a teaspoon each of fresh rosemary and thyme (chopped if you feel like it)
Salt and pepper
A big handful of young nettle leaves

Pop a large saucepan (use one with a lid!) on medium heat, chuck your oil in and add your onion, garlic and carrot. Cook for five minutes, until the veg is softened. You may need to stir and add a small amount of water to keep things from sticking

Add the can of chopped tomatoes, fill the can half way with water and add that to the pan as well

Just showing off my rosemary

Throw in the herbs and season with a good pinch of salt and pepper

Simmer with the lid on for an hour, stir every... whenever it occurs to you.

Remove the lid and cook for another 15 mins, adding a bit of water if it gets too dry

Wear gloves when measuring a big handful of nettles

While it's cooking roughly chop your nettles, wear gloves if you haven't soaked them.

When the 15 minutes is up add the nettles and cook, stirring often for another 10 minutes until the nettles are good and wilted.

Taste to adjust your seasoning, serve over past and enjoy.

Wild Garlic Crackers

There are two secret special ingredients in these crackers. The first is a really cool flour. You want flour that would make 'brown bread with bits in it' as we called it when I was growing up. Because we like trying different local flours the one I used for this was the Organic Maltstar Flour from Stotes Flour they describe it like this:

This is our Granary type flour. Made from wheat flour blended with malted wheat flakes, rye flour and malt flour. 

Other flours that would work are Doves Farm Malthouse or Barleycorn (for a lighter taste) but anything that's brown with bits in would do.

The other secret special ingredient is Wild Garlic. Your wild garlic shopping options are either grow it yourself or forage for it. I believe you can buy it from some grocers but it's not a usual thing. It's totally seasonal though so it's now or never (or next year)

Ingredients
5 or 6 leaves of Wild Garlic
220g of a Granary Type Flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of olive oil
75ml water

Preheat the oven to 220 C

Finely chop the wild garlic

Mix together flour, salt, oil, and water in a bowl until the ingredients are just starting to come together.

Add the wild garlic and continue to form into a dough

Roll out. Use as much flour as you need to stop it sticking to the surface but don't go overboard, these crackers are better if the dough is slightly wet. You want to roll it out to the point where the dough is as thick as the bits in the flour.

Cut out. I used a pizza cutter and just made it into scruffy rectangles but you can do other shapes, no problem.

Transfer to a lined baking tray and bake for 10 minutes, until your edges are lightly browned.

Cool on a cooking rack and...

Eat!

Chocolate Orange Cookies

They began with the totally tangy Marmalade Muffins and a what if. What if: a little more sweet? What if: chocolate?

Chocolate Chips are always great but if you use a marmalade with 'bits' (like our home made stuff) you get a fabulous burst of orange. There is tang enough to keep you happy but these are a much more mellow beast.

What? This makes a perfectly balanced breakfast. 

Chocolate Orange Cookies
(makes around 12)

110g Margarine (we love the Vitalite!)
65g sugar
90g Marmalade
250g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
50g chocolate chips

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C and prepare a baking tray

Cream together margarine, sugar and marmalade

Mix in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt

Mix together to form a dough (go on, get your hands dirty!)

With wet hands form a tablespoons worth (ish, eyeball) of the dough into a ball. Flatten against the baking tray

Repeat until you have a tray full and cook for 10 minutes

Allow to cool on the baking tray for five and transfer them to a cooling rack.

Eat!

Marmalade Muffins

A jar of marmalade was open in my fridge. That's all the reason I needed to bake these muffins. They are sweet, deliciously sweet, for about five seconds. Then they explode. Deliciously tart. Mouthwatering, moreish. Who knows what's in the next bite? You know it's going to be spectacular.

See that orange hiding there? It's going to get you.

Marmalade Muffins
(makes about 12, depends on your cases though)


250ml soy milk,
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
150g marmalade (I used home made because I have some kicking about, use whatever you like)
100ml vegetable oil
100g caster sugar
250g plain flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
Demerara sugar for dusting (optional)


Pre-heat the oven to 200c

Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar, leave for a few minutes to curdle

Once the soy milk has curdled whisk in the marmalade, vegetable oil and sugar

Sift in flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda

Mix together adding the salt and ginger

When all the ingredients are well incorporated and only a few lumps remain spoon into muffin cases, filling three quarters of the way to the top

If using Demerara sugar sprinkle on top, approximately 1/2 teaspoon per muffin

Bake for 23-25 minutes

Eat them when they have cooled off some.

All Because Someone Mentioned Orzo

Twice now orzo has been mentioned by two different people in two different circumstances and so I think I was meant to eat this.

Orzo. First this recipe for Tempeh Orzilla  pops up on the PPK blog then I have the 'it's a pasta that looks like rice' conversation with Stephen in the Supermarket. So home it came. Like I said, I was meant to eat this. However getting hold of Tempeh isn't as easy. It's an hours bus journey before I can get the good stuff and with my weekends once again booked solid it's going to be weeks before I can manage that.

So is it a pasta or is it a rice?

What I do have are some ripe tomatoes, a leftover bag of parsley some olive oil and some garlic. Combined with the orzo this makes a lovely, lovely dish. The pasta is pure comfort while the tomatoes and parsleygive it a lift. Not to far though, it's almost winter after all.

Orzo with Tomato and Parsley
(serves 1)

4 medium tomatoes, seeds removed and diced
1 heaped tablespoon of parsley
1 finely chopped clove of garlic
2 tablespoons of olive oil
About 100g of orzo

1. Start cooking the orzo according to the package directions.

2. Heat the oil in a saucepan to a medium heat and add the garlic, cook for a minute or so

3. Add the tomatoes and cook. I like mine cooked until water is well and truly released and the skin is softened. That took about four minutes. But go with what you like best.

4. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the parsley. Cook for a minute and turn of the heat. Stir through again and season to taste.

5. When the pasta is done drain it off and mix it up with your tomato and parsley.

6. Eat!

Grow To Eat: Carrots

Carrots aren't the most glamorous crop but they are incredibly simple to grow and they are a good litmus test for the balcony gardener. It wont tell us if we are any good but it will tell us if gardening books are. I don't know about you but I own a few books that promise that container growing is easy and there are tips within to help you only to realise, reading the book, that the author probably hasn't spent much of their gardening career container growing. One of the best tests is if they discount the idea of us growing nice long carrots and say 'well I suppose you could grow the stubby ball kind'

The Carrots pictured in a previous MoFo. Because it's dark out.

We can grow carrots long too! All you need to grow a nice long carrot is unobstructed compost that goes down about the size of a long carrot. As I'm sure I've posted about before we grow ours in an office bin with holes in the bottom. It's orange. This amuses me. I've started sowing them with a cover of love in the mist which is gorgeous.

Food Issues: Watching The Waste

Waste is a big deal. Think about everything that goes into your food. The water it takes the crops to grow, fertilizer, perhaps pesticides, labour, transport, packaging, storage, the electricity the lights the shops and runs the fridges so you can buy it. It's a big effort. It costs you money and time to stock your fridge and cook your food. It's great to have a well stocked pantry and fridge, especially if you are food obsessed like me, but not to trow things away before they get a chance to be delicious.

There are plenty of ways you can look at what you are eating, cooking and buying to minimise food waste but what I want to talk about is imperfection. If you have grown food or bought from small organic places you may have noticed something. Not all food looks supermarket perfect. Shocking I know. According to supermarkets we'll only eat the most perfect looking food. We may be so confused by a small broccoli or a carrot with legs we wouldn't know what it is. It would terrify us. Or not.

Feeling Green? Try Swiss Chard and Green Olives

Volunteering at Occombe I often get to take home vegetables that are too ugly to sell like leafy greens with massive holes in them or courgettes grown too big to be a delicate treat. One of my favourite ways to eat this garden waste is to cook some pasta and toss the vegetables with it. It works after a long day of volunteering and makes even the most hole filled piece of chard look fab. It's also great to clear out your leftover bits and bobs. Think of it as cupboard pasta remixed with a little fresh veg.  Here be a rough guide. Pick things from each category and go for it.

Vegan Iron Chef Challenge 1: Chickpeas

Double blogging today to present you with a recipe whipped up for the Iron Chef Challenge. The secret ingredient is chickpeas so I'm taking advantage of chickpea flour the best way I know how; I'm making pakora.  These light, delicate pakora are made with swiss chard. Perpetual spinach would make a good, seamless sub but any green will work with a bit of experimenting.

Little bites of flavour

Food Friends: My Grandma

I know almost everyone argues that their Grandma is the best cook ever but, you know, mine is. Her roast dinners are fabulous. And if you know any English people at all you know how we value our roast dinners. My Grandma's are the best. Her roast potatoes are pure potato heaven, her cabbage is the stuff to write epics about. When I was little I used to eat bowls of that leftover cabbage with mint sauce and gravy. The cabbage was so good that is all you needed.

Coconut Cake?

She is famous for another thing, my Grandma, well many other things but I'm talking about her coconut cake. And this is where I get into trouble because not only am I going to share the recipe, I'm also going to veganise it. So in a way this isn't my Grandma's coconut cake and if you want her awesome incredible cake you still have to go to her for it because I'm not telling anyone how to make it just like she does. Besides, I'm going to be killed anyway for adapting the recipe.

Grow To Eat: Tomatoes and Rough and Ready Gardener's Tomato Sauce

Almost every beginner edible gardener is enchanted by the idea of growing their own tomatoes. And why not? They are fairly easy to grow, if a bit needy. They'll even do well on a windowsill. As every gardening magazine is equipped with a free packet of Gardener's Delight come spring you may as well grown them.

We've been growing tomatoes ever since we started growing food and here is our procedure.

Home Grown (just not that big)

Hello MoFo (take 3)

It's that time of year again! Vegan Mofo 2011, my third vegan Mofo. This year I'm all about Food Links. I'll be taking about how food connects us to the community and the world around us.

We'll start on Mondays talking about Local Loves, those food obsessions that are particular to the place we live and the places we grew up. 

On Tuesday we turn out minds to the Big Food Issues and wonder how, and if, our little food choices can make a difference. 

Wednesdays is all about growing to eat. Making the connection from plot to plate. 

I'm inviting people over on Thursdays to share their foodie wisdom. Any ideas?

Fridays will be Free Fridays again, fair game for anything and everything. Always useful for the amount of information and awesomeness I manage to pick up reading other people's Mofo efforts. 

Now that the house keeping is out of the way: recipe after the jump.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Scones

Balance foods make a Fairtrade Rice Milk that is my favourite non-dairy milk. I use it often in baking. After the break is my recipe for vegan scones made with rice milk. We top them with chocolate spread (not vegan), jam or marge. This recipe is adapted from one we used in the kids cookery club at Occombe farm.

Variations on a Vegetarian Christmas Dinner

“What are you having for Christmas dinner” has been the question on the lips off all my non-vegetarian friends recently. It seems everyone wants to know how I'm getting away without eating turkey. Even tough the turkeyfree Christmas is perfectly easy, totally tasty and doesn't involve killing a turkey all I could do is stare with panic each time someone asked. I didn't know.

See, at the most fabulous foodie feast of the year I don't bloody well get to cook. Not to fault our chef, Stephen's brother, it's just that... I want to spend weeks/months planning ever aspect of a meal and wake up on the day to execute it perfectly. I'm the type of freak that finds that sort of thing fun. Instead I get to prepare a vegetarian alternative to turkey that gets warmed up and the chef puts on some potatoes not cooked in goose fat and slings me a couple of sprouts. Then Stephen makes us some instant gravy to top it all off.

Volunteer Party with Spinach and Pine Nut Parcels Recipe

Another impressive spread was put on last night this time by the One Planet Food team at Occombe Farm. Plenty of snacks where provided along with two soups from the garden - spiced squash and leek and potato - and plenty of fabulous hand made breads. The table was even more impressive as far as we were concerned because every vegetable used, except for the carrots, came straight from the garden that we've been working on all year.

We watched a slide show towards the end of the evening that brought across just how much work was done. Was saw the year in 5 minutes and it made us appreciate just how much has been done, this year, to get the pig field into a functioning vegetable garden. There's now a clay oven, two poly tunnels and god knows how many plants. It's very, very cool.

Tasty, Dangerous Chips

You must have noticed by now how some people that say 'how are you' as a way to quickly turn the conversation about themselves. So, how are you? Me, I'm in agony. I'm covered in hives and my lips are sore after spending two days being a bit too overly plump. And what caused this? No idea. But one of the new things I'd tried recently was celeriac. And it was delicious. Really delicious so while that is the most likely suspect I'm kind of hoping that it was something else. While that is sorted out please try these baked celeriac chips. They are delicious and they need someone enjoy them. Recipe after the jump.