Banana & Sticky Rice Breakfast Fun (v.0.1)

Good morning.

I think this post will be the first time I've made an experimental breakfast, possibly ever, but definitely in a long time. Certainly the first I'll have written up a recipe for.

We accidentally put too much sticky rice on to soak a few nights ago, so have been thinking of ways to eat it. It's pretty good stuff; a staple of Northern Thailand (Isaan, if I remember correctly), but also used in other south-east and east-Asian cooking: desserts, in particular.

This recipe is tasty, though takes a little getting used to, especially not long after waking up. I think I will revise it over time (as is intended with all these recipes not marked v.1), but would love it if other people also modified it and told me about their results.

Ingredients:

~2 cups of (white) sticky rice, soaked overnight.
~1 banana
~2 tsp tahini paste
~2 tsp coconut cream
~2 tsp maple syrup
cinnamon

Method:

For the sticky rice, I use a rice cooker with steamer basket on top, lined with aluminium foil with holes stabbed into it. I put the sticky rice in the steamer on top of the foil, make sure the rice cooker bowl has plenty of water in it, cover, and steam until cooked. It takes about 15-35 minutes, depending on how soaked the rice is. You can get away with soaking only for a couple of hours, but the cook time is longer and the results can be a bit variable.

To make the sauce, just put the tahini, coconut cream and maple syrup into a bowl and mix it well. Adjust quantities for flavour preferences. This quantity of maple syrup is not overly sweet, in fact the sauce tastes decidedly like Halva.

Once the rice is cooked, place however much you want on a serving thing, chop a banana over the top, sprinkle with cinnamon (I'm not sure the cinnamon is the greatest addition to the recipe; might try LSA or similar next time), and then pour/dollop the tahini sauce over the top.

Nom with fingers if you're feeling messy, I used a spoon so I could civilly drink a coffee at the same time.

I think this may be my first #vegan #breakfast #experiment. Will report back with recipe if it's good.

A photo posted by Vin G (@vinpous) on Sep 3, 2015 at 4:41pm PDT

Spicy Tofu & Buckwheat (v0.1)

This one is inspired by Disco Beans, possibly the best Japanese cafe I've been to. Seriously, instead of reading my blog you should be going to Disco Beans. It's great. Nonetheless, they have recently added this delicious tofu and buckwheat thing, and I wanted to have a crack at making something similar. I have a feeling that the buckwheat they use is toasted, and I used green. But that's okay.

I should also point a thanks to this informative website about how to cook buckwheat the Russian way.

Ingredients

2 cups of buckwheat

6 cups of water

~350 grams of firm tofu

spring onions

margarine (Nuttalex is good!)

olive oil

Marinade/Sauce

1 long red chilli

2 long green chillis

1 whole tomato

3 cloves of garlic

1 inch chunk of ginger (skin on)

1-2 tsp Vincent's (not me...) vegan fish sauce

2 tsp vegan shrimp paste (yes, such a thing exists)

Method

1. Prepare marinade by putting it all in a blender and puree-ing-ish.

2. Toss chopped tofu through marinade and let sit for a couple of hours.

3. Boil water in a large pot, once boiling add buckwheat, wait until it boils again then reduce to a low heat and cook for about 10-15 minutes. Cover with a heavy lid and remove from heat for a further 10-15 minutes.

4. Fold a tbsp of margarine through the buckwheat.

5. Heat oil in a pan, add tofu and most of the marinade and fry until fragrant.

6. Transfer buckwheat to a serving dish, fold the tofu and leftover marinade through the buckwheat.

7. Chop three spring onions over the buckwheat and tofu, then serve.

Pictured here with my rice balls.

Experimental, Japanese-inspired buckwheat and chilli tofu with riceballs. #vegan #goodluck

A photo posted by Vin G (@vinpous) on Jul 27, 2015 at 1:59am PDT

Rice Balls (v0.1)

Rice Balls

In my spare time, I have been re-watching the Rurouni Kenshin TV series, which is seriously endearing viewing if you're into Anime. A commonly eaten food in the series is the humble rice ball, which, for animated food looks really damn good. I thought I'd attempt to make some.

I must give my thanks to the 3 hungry tummies blog, for providing some insight into how to make them.

http://3hungrytummies.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/onigiri-japanese-rice-balls.html (warning: recipe is not vegan, mine is!)

Served here with spicy tofu and buckwheat.

Experimental, Japanese-inspired buckwheat and chilli tofu with riceballs. #vegan #goodluck

A photo posted by Vin G (@vinpous) on Jul 27, 2015 at 1:59am PDT

Ingredients (rice ball)

2 cups of whole grain basmati rice
~ 1.2 litres of boiling water
2 tbsp white miso paste
Nori

Ingredients (fillings)

(set 1)

7 mushrooms

2 long red chilli

1 cloves garlic

---

(set 2)

half avocado, cubed

Japanese pickled ginger

Japanese pickled daikon

Method

1. prepare filling set 1 by putting ingredients in a blender and blending to a course coleslaw texture. Place in dish for later

2. place filling set 2 in a separate dish for later

3. Combine until dissolved the miso paste and the water.

4. In a rice cooker or whatever, cook the basmati rice with 3:2 ratio miso water (6 cups of water to the  2 cups of rice). Keep warm.

5. Once cooked, lay the rice on a flat surface near the fillings, make a small bed of rice, add about 1-2tsp of filling (depending on the size of ball you want), cover with rice, then using your hands shape into a ball being sure to compact it as much as possible.

6. Repeat until you have all the balls you want

7. Cut nori into strips and place ball in it. You could make this like a sushi roll if you wanted.

Peanut butter v.0.1

I made some peanut butter. It's okay.

And an additional recipe to go along with the custard tart recipe.

Ingredients

Salted, roasted peanuts x whatever quantity.
~2-3 tbsp chia seed
Olive oil as necessary

Method

Blend ingredients until a paste is made, and assess the oily-ness, add more oil as you feel necessary.

Tasty.

Custard Tart v0.1

Hello,

Today I am in the process of making an experimental custard tart. Experimental because I have absolutely no idea if it will work, or how good it will be. Completely untested! The stakes? A dinner party!
Verdict: freaking delicious.

An experiment in #vegan custard tart making, to take to a dinner partay tonight. #custardtart

A photo posted by Vin G (@vinpous) on May 13, 2015 at 7:30pm PDT

Ingredients:

Base
1 packet of Arnotts "Nice" biscuits (they're vegan!)
~1/3 cup of raw cashews
~1/3 cup melted coconut oil
~2 tbsp homemade peanut butter (link to recipe)

Custard
2 cans of coconut milk
~3 tsp vanilla essence
~3/4 cup raw, dark brown sugar
~7 tbsp tapioca starch
~2 tsp nutmeg

Method:

Base
Blend all the ingredients other than the oil and peanut butter until powdery. Transfer to a mixing bowl, add oil and peanut butter and combine into a loose base. Transfer to an oiled pie dish, pack it firmly into the bottom and the edges, and bake at about 200C for about 15 minutes to make it nice and firm.

Custard
Put all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Transfer to large pot and cook on medium heat, stirring/whisking constantly, until custard-like consistency is reached. Transfer to pie dish, sprinkle some additional nutmeg or cinnamon on the top.

Allow entire tart to cool, then place in fridge until serving time.

Spelt Bread - Bread Machine (V. 0.9)

This is almost ready for version 1.0, but still could be better. Some minor variations of mine to this recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/perfect-bread-machine-spelt-bread-298300, so all credit to this for the base. I've never been able to get a fluffy loaf like they describe, but I'm working on improving it.

The first thing I noticed was all the talk about spelt flour having a different gluten structure to wheat, and so I thought that perhaps using a gluten substitute to help might work. It did. My next step was attempting to get a bit more moisture and a bit more lift out of the yeast. Definitely getting there.

Spelt Bread - Bread Machine (V0.9)

Ingredients

4 cups spelt flour (either wholemeal or white, organic or not. I've been using organic white)
1.5 cups of tepid water
3.5 tsp dried yeast
6 tsp of raw dark sugar
2 tsp of salt
3 tbsp olive oil
1.5 tsp xanthan gum

Method

Put water into bread machine, followed by sugar. Give it a stir to part-dissolve. Add yeast. Then leisurely add the remaining ingredients in no particular order.

Set bread machine to medium size, light crust, default (white bread) setting. Should be about 3h12-20 minutes.

Bonza.

Vindaloo Variations (V.0.1)

I went out for dinner last night with my partner and some old school friends (and SOs) to an Indian restaurant in Melbourne called Gaylords. It was exquisite, though I somehow ended up with an extra-hot vegetarian Vindaloo. It didn't list that it included paneer, which was annoying, but it did, so it was not vegan. But it was exquisite. It inspired me to make a vindaloo of my own. I've used other people's recipes, or book recipes, for years now, but I've not tackled a vegan vindaloo yet. To be fair, I'm not entirely convinced it should be called a vindaloo, though of course there is so much variety in these curries that it probably doesn't matter. Anyway… for the base of this recipe I used Madhur Jaffrey's Goan Pork Vindaloo recipe (from her Quick & Easy Indian Cooking, which is written for a pressure cooker, which I don't have!)

I've not tried the original recipe, but it served as a decent basis to build mine off. So I want to acknowledge that source material.

This recipe also differs from, as far as I can tell, a lot of Indian cooking because it is baked in a cast-iron pot (pot-roasted?) rather than cooked on a stove, or a pressure cooker. Also note that this is a recipe designed for bulk cooking so that my partner and I can take food to work with us over the coming days.

Variation on a Vindaloo (V. 0.1)

General ingredients:

1x large potato + 2x medium potatoes, loosely cubed in various sizes
550g firm tofu, cubed
~2-3 cups of (soaked/cooked) chickpeas. I used dried, which soaked for about 12 hours.
Couple of handfuls of green beans, with ends removed.
1 tin of whole tomatoes
1 tin of coconut milk
1-2 tbsp of coconut oil

Curry paste ingredients & method:

1.5 tbsp brown mustard seeds
1.5 tbsp yellow mustard seeds
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar + more as needed (I used white as I ran out of AC)

STEP ONE: Using a large mortar and pestle, grind the mustard seeds and vinegar into a paste that still has quite a bit of texture.

To this paste, add:

~12 large cloves of garlic
~1 medium red onions, loosely chopped
3 heaped tsp of ground turmeric
3 heaped tsp of ground coriander seed
3 heaped tsp of ground cumin seed
3 heaped tsp of cayenne pepper
3 dried kashmiri chilis
~1 tsp of asafoetida powder
2 level tsp of salt
~9-15 dried curry leaves
~3 tbsp of red wine vinegar

Pulverise until a chunky paste consistency is achieved.

Method:

Preheat oven to 160C (fan forced), with large cast-iron pot (with lid) inside
In a separate frying pan, heat on a hot heat the coconut oil.
Once hot, add about 1/3 of the curry paste and fry until fragrant
Add the cubed tofu and fry until it starts to absorb the colour of the paste

Remove hot pot from oven, transfer contents from frying pan to pot
Add the remaining paste and fresh ingredients
Add tomatoes including juice, then use scissors to chop them up
Add coconut milk and about 1/2 a tin of extra water

Put the lid on and put it in the oven for about an hour and a half, stirring every 30 or so minutes.

Once the hour and a half is up (or the potatoes/chickpeas are nearly cooked through), turn the oven up to 200C (fan-forced) and cook for a further 30-40 minutes until well-reduced and a thick, clinging gravy exists and the tomatoes have basically turned to liquid. Sauce should be a dark caramel colour by this stage.

Serve with basmati rice or whatever you want.