White Vegetables - Mushroom, White Bean and Cauliflower soup

Things got a bit involved on this site. The dishes became very involved and fancy. But things got very busy at work, and out of work. And it got really cold at night times quite suddenly. So now there is flannelette sheets on the bed and there is this soup. Creamy and comforting and incredibly simple to make. I got home from the gym, 10 minutes of prep cooking. Leave it to simmer while I showered, came back and blended it up and voila. Perfect soup for sitting on the couch snuggled under my quilt.

This is naturally vegan and gluten free. It’s full of protein and things that are good for you. I added diced fried chorizo bits on top of mine because it is amazingly delicious but somewhat takes away from the vegan status. Bacon bits would be equally delicious. But the chopped toasted almonds are pretty amazing if you want to keep it vegan/vegetarian.

Mushroom, White Bean and Cauliflower Soup

Olive oil
1 – 2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and Pepper
500g mushrooms of choice, thinly sliced
1 brown onion, diced
1 small head of cauliflower, broken roughly into large florets.
1 litre vegetable stock
1 litre water
1 cup of almond meal
Tin white beans, rinsed

Garnish

Diced, fried salami
Toasted almonds
Dried oregano
More black pepper

Drizzle a good glug of olive oil into your soup pot and heat to medium. Add the garlic, and cook 1-2 minutes until softened and fragrant. Thinly slice the mushrooms and add to the pot, and a good few cracks of pepper and fat pinch of sea salt. Stir well to mix through the garlicky oil across all the mushroom slices. Fry until the mushrooms release their liquid, then it absorbs/evaporates back again. Remove from the pot and set aside.

Add a tablespoon more olive oil to the pot and add the onion, cook 5 minutes until translucent but not browned. Add the stock, water and cauliflower. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer 15 minutes, until the cauliflower is tender. Add the white beans.

Remove from heat, then puree with a stick blender. Add the almond meal and blend it in, too.

Add mushrooms back to pot, place back over low heat. Cook 2 minutes so that the mushrooms heat up again. Check for seasoning.

Serve, garnished with oregano flakes, plenty of black pepper and toasted almond bits.

If you don’t mind breaking the vegan-ness of this dish, serve with fried diced salami pieces or bacon bits

Relax, It's World Gin Day - Hendricks and Chamomile Cocktail

 

So apparently last weekend hosted World Gin Day! Now, I am a huge fan of gin, so I don’t need a specific reason to drink gin. Or cook with it. But especially drink it. By far, one of my favourite gins is Hendrick’s. It has such a unique, sweet cucumber and floral flavour that depending on how you mix it, is either subtle or strong. On  Tuesday, I went to another of The Classroom Bar’s Spirit Faculty events. Every month they feature an expert walking you through a spirit type and pair it with some awesome snackage. This one was all about the wonderful world of Hendricks. So much fun!

But for those of you who didn't go out and about for World Gin Day, then maybe you should give this cocktail a shot. This is a warm cocktail, using chamomile tea. Elegant and fun all at once. The recipe was adapted from the Treme Cookbook which also features the cold version of the same cocktail – and similarly, you can make this with chilled chamomile. The original used Earl Grey tea, but try as I might, I just don’t really like it much. I find the bergamot takes over too much and is overwhelmingly bitter

. Chamomile is a perfect floral companion to the Hendricks as it's one of it's botanicals. It's also naturally relaxing and caffeine free. Chuck on some jazz, whip up the cream and sit back and toast to World Gin Day.

Cucumber Simple Syrup

½ cup sugar
1 large cucumber

Peel the cucumber and blend it until it liquefies. Strain through a fine mesh sieve into a small saucepan. Add the sugar and bring to a slow boil, stirring here and there to dissolve the sugar. Simmer over a low heat for 5 minutes or so until it becomes a bit syrupy. Pour into a clean glass jar, cover and refrigerate to cool.

Hendricks and Chamomile

(adapted from Treme)

½ shot cucumber Simple Syrup (15-20mL)
2 shots Hendricks gin (60mL)
2 shots Chamomile tea (60mL)
100mL whipping cream
4 drops rosewater

Put the chamomile tea on to brew.

Whip the cream and rosewater together until soft peaks form.

Pour the Hendricks and cucumber syrup into a mug, stir. Add the hot chamomile tea and stir again. Top with whipped cream

One Dish, Two Ways - Italian Potato Salad/Italian Potato Bake

My cousin is about to head off on a European adventure, and seeing as she will be away for her birthday, she decided to have a bit of a get together before she went. I offered to bring a dish and was told maybe a potato salad. The rest of the food being served was going to be Italian, which got me thinking. Italian Potato Salad? Does such a thing exist? I've never eaten a potato salad made with Italian flavours - sounds like experiment time!

I guess I should say up front, that I've never been the hugest fan of potato salad. I think because a lot that I've eaten have had a really strong, overly 'mayonnaise-y' ness to them, and not a lot of content beyond boiled potatoes and peas. And boiled potatoes are one of the blandest foods in the world. I like to pimp mine out a bit more. 

The previous night I had fried up some hot salami with slices of garlic for a different dish and thought that was the perfect start for Italian Potato Salad. I didn't have enough potato to make a salad large enough to share, so I added some sweet potato to the mix. And I had an abundance of red capsicums, so I roasted up a few to add a lovely sweetness and new texture to the mix. The sauce was made simply with greek yoghurt, dried oregano, sun dried tomatoes and seeded mustard. The result was pretty darn impressive. Something I would eat a whole plate of as a meal.

Unfortunately (but luckily for me), it was forgotten in the fridge at the party, and I got to take it home with me. Being a cold night, and my husband hoping for a hot dinner asked - could it be heated? Well...yes. The sauce is just greek yoghurt. I don't see why not! I poured the whole thing into an oven dish, added some thinly sliced Provolone cheese and baked it for 20 minutes until warmed through and the cheese was golden. Heaven!

So here's a dinner perfect two ways - Italian Potato Salad and Italian Potato Bake. (I forgot to take photos of it until it was out of the oven. Sorry!)

 

 

 

Italian Potato Salad/Bake
6 baby potatoes, quartered
2 small sweet potatoes, cut to similar size
2 small red capsicum
half hot salami sausage, thinly diced
2 large cloves garlic, sliced
300g Greek Yoghurt
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
5 sun-dried tomatoes
2 teaspoons whole-seed mustard

Put the potatoes into a pot of water and bring to the boil. Once boiling, add the sweet potato. When potatoes are tender, but not completely soft, strain out water and rinse with cold water to stop cooking. Store in fresh cold water until ready to assemble.

Meanwhile, roast the capsicums in a hot oven until the skin starts blistering. Place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap to sweat a few minutes so you can peel the skin off. Discard innards and slice into strips. Set aside to cool.

Fry the salami in a medium hot pan, once starting to crispen and release oils, add the garlic slices and cook until everything is toasty. Drain really well on paper towels.

To make the sauce, blend the greek yoghurt, oregano, paprika and sundried tomatoes in a food processor or blender until well mixed and the tomatoes are chopped. Add the mustard and pulse a few times to distribute.

Combine all of the ingredients and add the sauce a bit at a time to ensure it's not too saucy. I ended up with too much sauce. Serve as potato salad.

To make the bake:
Heat oven to 180c
Pour potato salad into a casserole dish, add Provolone slices or thinly sliced/grated cheese of choice over the top and bake for 20 minutes or so until cheese is toasty and the sauce bubbles slightly add the edges.

This photo is of it served to the rear with a super-quick seafood marinara pasta I cooked while the potato salad became a potato bake!

Comfort Food - Parsnip, Potato and White Bean Soup with White Chocolate

As promised in my Chocolate Chilli Dressing post, I experimented with another one of the chocolate recipes I discovered on the Hershey website - Potato-Parsnip Bisque with White Chocolate. Autumn has well and truly set in and the nights are brisk and chilly. The days waiver between warm and cooler, but all in all I am starting to crave comfort foods. Soups and stews and roasts and pudding and chocolates. So I was excited to try this soup with white chocolate, combining two of those things! I'm a bit strange in that I like both dark chocolate and white chocolate. Milk chocolate I can take or leave. So the idea of some white chocolate melted through a parsnippy soup sounded perfect. I am eating a bowl of this for a late lunch as I type, ugg boots on, watching Mad Men. It's creamy and thick and peppery and perfect for this cooler weather. Truly comforted.

The initial recipe was a bisque, and passed through a fine china cap. But I wanted mine thicker, so I skipped this step. Not to mention that I don't own one of those. It also called for heavy cream, but I wanted it to be a bit healthier, so I added a tin of white beans for extra fibre and used milk. I served it with some crispy bacon bits, but I actually would've preferred some crispy fried chorizo or salami bits. The fennel in these sausages would've taken it to another world of yum!

Parsnip, Potato and White Bean Soup with White Chocolate
serves 6
1 tbsp grapeseed oil
1 leek, quartered then finely diced
1 big clove garlic, diced
1/2 tsp salt
2 parsnips,  peeled, then medium diced
1/2 cup sweet white wine
6 small potatoes, peeled then medium diced
750mL vegetable stock
250mL water
2 bay leaves
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
2 cups milk
40g or so of white chocolate - 16 sqaures of Dream, finely cut
pepper, to serve

Place a medium pot over medium heat, add the oil and allow to heat. Add the leeks, garlic and salt. Allow to cook until the leeks become translucent. Add the parsnips and mix well, coating in the leeks. Add the wine, stir it through then reduce it by half.

Add the potatoes, stock, water, bay leaves and nutmeg. Turn the heat up, bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 15-20 minutes or so until the potatoes and parsnips are tender. Add the white beans, and cook for a further 5 minutes or so.

Turn off heat, allow to sit for 5 minutes or so. Remove the bay leaves. Using a stick blender, blend until smooth. Return to the stove top and heat to medium. Add the milk, stir through and allow to heat to just below boiling.

Add the white chocolate at this point, stirring carefully, but briskly to allow it to mix through completely. Taste for seasoning and adjust as necessary. Serve with fresh pepper.

 

Comfort Food - Traffic Light Soup

Last weekend was spent raiding family members' gardens for herbs. Well, technically, we were visiting family, but as a happy offshoot of these visits, I came home with a nice swag of chillis, parsley, spring onions, basil, thyme and oregano. The basil, thyme and oregano was stored in the one bag and when I opened it up it smelt like pasta. Or pizza. It was crying out for tomatoes and garlic. I thought it only fair that I complied.

Sitting at work, looking out the window, the sky got steadily greyer, and heavier, and wetter. Summer is officially over, with this storm and the temperatures dropping. Ok, so it's still not super cold, but it's cooler. And it's been a while since we've had such snuggle-worthy, soup and bread weather. So I decided to just go with it. A steaming bowl of hot soup and some crunchy pizza bread to dip into it. Some of the positive aspects of winter! My husband isn't the hugest fan of "just" tomato soup, so as I drove home in the rain, I contemplated what I should add. Sitting at the lights and going through the vegetables I had at home, I decided to go with those colours. Red, orange and green. I know, I know, kinda lame. But it turned out delicious! Red tomatoes and chilli, orange pumpkin, sweet potato and carrots and lots and lots of green herbs.

I then followed through again with the garnish. Red bacon bits, orange soup and green parsley. I already had some cooked bacon bits in the fridge, but if you don't, dice up some bacon very finely, then fry for a few minutes until crispy.

Technically, a roast vegetable soup - but I'm calling it Traffic Light Soup.

 

Traffic Light Soup
1 medium butternut pumpkin
2 medium sweet potatoes
4 small carrots
2 tbsp olive oil
a few sprigs of thyme
4 ripe tomatoes
2 cans diced tomato
big handful basil
big handful oregano
salt & pepper
1 brown onion
1 red chilli
4 cloves garlic
5 cans of water/stock
parsley
cream (or sour cream)
bacon bits

Preheat oven to 180C

Cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds. Lightly oil and place cut side down on baking tray, with a thyme sprig in the cavity. Slice the sweet potatoes and carrots in half length-wise, lightly oil and sprinkle in thyme leaves. Roast for 40 minutes or so until soft.

Mix the chopped herbs, salt, pepper into the tinned tomatoes, put in an oven proof dish and add the fresh tomatoes on top. Roast for 30 minutes or so, until the whole tomatoes fall apart when you touch them.

About 10 minutes before the vegetables are done roasting, saute the onion, chilli and garlic in a tbsp or so of olive oil until translucent. Fill the tomato cans with water to rinse out and add the liquid to the pot. All up I used 5 cans of liquid (3 water, 2 stock). Bring to the boil, then turn down to a simmer. Take the vegetables out of the oven. Add the tomatoes (carefully!!) into the pot. Allow the pumpkin and sweet potato to cool slightly, then skin and tip into the pot as well, along with the carrots. Stir it all around, then whizz it up until smooth with a stick blender. This can also be done in batches in a normal blender. Check for seasoning.

Swirl some cream over the top, sprinkle on some bacon bits and parsley.

Serve with your favourite bread. This pizza bread is just Lebanese loaves, garlic olive oil, parsley and parmesan, chucked in the oven for a few minutes.