Simple Carrot and Ginger Soup

This recipe is a very simple carrot and ginger soup from the great vegetarian cook Kurma Dasa.  It has a fresh, cleansing taste, and I love to make it if I feel a cold coming on.
Yellow acefoetida powder is available from asian grocers - it's a great, simple substitute for onions and garlic in many dishes - but very much has its own flavour.  Fantastic in dahl.

Ingredients:
2 tabsp. butter
1/2 teasp. yellow asafoetida powder
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
700g topped, scraped and sliced carrots, about 4 1/2 cups
1 cup potatoes, diced
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
at least 4 cups light vegetable stock or water
chopped continental parsley leaves for garnish

1. Melt the butter in a 3 litre saucepan over moderate heat.  Sprinkle in the yellow acefoetida power and ginger, stirring briefly.  Add the sliced carrots, potatoes, salt and pepper and sauté for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the stock or water, and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer the vegetables, covered, for 15 minutes, or until the vegetables are very tender
2. Remove the pan from the heat, transfer the contents to a blender or food processor and process to a smooth puree
3. Rinse the saucepan, return the soup to the pan, and gently reheat over moderate heat.  For a thinner soup, add extra stock at this stage.  Serve the soup hot with a sprinkle of freshly chopped continental parsley leaves.

Whole Orange Cake

This recipe is from one of my gardening friends, Lou, in 2007. I more recently made this to share at the Cygnet Community Garden on my birthday 2015.

Gluten free, dairy free

Place into a large bowl and fold together:
1 cup coarsely ground almonds
2 oranges - blended to a paste
5 eggs and 1 cup sugar - beaten until thick
1 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup rice flour

Pour into a greased and lined 23cm tin
Bake 45mins at 180, even if it looks done before.

Meanwhile make syrup:
Boil together for 3 minutes: 1/2 cup sugar, a teaspoon of grated, fresh ginger and the rind and juice of 2 oranges

When cool enough to handle remove cake from tin and place onto serving dish. Prick all over and pour over warm syrup.

Serve with lashings of yoghurt.

Granma's Cheese Scones

At the Cygnet Community Garden yesterday we made a fire with old prunings etc and cooked some cheese scones to make use of the heat. I love fire.... and winter.... I am sharing this original page from my recipe book. (Thanks to Maurine, Roger’s mother, the Granma we all love). The adjustments for a bigger version are made by son Hugh when he was about 10.... he still loves Granma's scones and took this photo of me yesterday at the community garden.

Flourless Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup sunflower seeds
½ cup  flax seeds
½ cup hazelnuts or almonds
1 ½ cups rolled oats
2 or 3 Tbsp. chia seeds
4 Tbsp. psyllium seed husks (last time I used 1 Tbl + 1 egg)
1 tsp. fine grain sea salt
1 Tbsp. maple syrup
3 Tbsp. melted coconut oil or butter
1 ½ cups water

Directions:

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl, stirring well. Whisk maple syrup, oil / melted butter and water together in a measuring cup. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix very well until everything is completely soaked and dough becomes very thick (if the dough is too thick to stir, add one or two teaspoons of water until the dough is manageable). Put into a greased bread tin and smooth out the top with the back of a spoon. Let sit out on the counter for at least 2 hours, or all day or overnight. (I left it all day) and baked it in the evening.

2. Preheat oven to 180°C.

3. Place loaf pan in the oven on the middle rack, and bake for 20 minutes. Remove bread from loaf pan, place it upside down directly on the rack and bake for another 30-40 minutes. Bread is done when it sounds hollow when tapped. Let cool completely before slicing (difficult, but important).

4. Store bread for up to five days. Freezes well too – slice before freezing for quick and easy toast!

The basis of this recipe and the photo came to me from a friend of a friend via My New Roots website. It is very delicious and surprisingly bread-like! 

Wild Weed and Leaves Pesto Dip

Pesto can be made by substituting many other leaves and herbs, in place of basil so you can have it in any season. I often use rocket or chervil or parsley and even some weeds, like chickweed and dandelion. One of my favourites uses garlic scapes – those long, twirly bits that shoot up from your garden garlic in early summer. Other nuts can be substituted too, using walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts and even sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds, in place of pine nuts.

100g toasted pine nuts or other nuts (you may use up to 20% seeds. Don’t use more or the mixture changes texture and becomes gluggy, especially with sunflower seeds)

1 large garlic clove, peeled and crushed

A handful of grated mature cheddar or Parmesan or a combination

A large handful of tasty greens, including chickweed, dandelion, self-sown rocket, baby kale, herbs, mizuna etc as above

A good olive oil (probably about ½ cup)

Juice of ½ lemon

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Blend nuts and seeds, garlic, cheese and greens together, then begin trickling in the oil, while the processor runs. Stop when you have a nice purée. Taste and season as necessary with lemon juice, salt and pepper plus extra garlic. If it is too thick, add water while the machine runs.

 

Wallaby Tagine with Almonds and Fruits

Isn’t it fabulous to take a recipe you love and adapt it to your circumstances! Here in southern Tasmania wallaby is so cheap; usually $6 / kg. I buy a whole carcass (only about 2 - 3 kgs) and cut it up myself as the meat is all tender and delicious and does not require any butchery knowledge!

Here I have adapted a traditional Moroccan tagine recipe to use wallaby, some of my own bottled apricots and dried plums. I served it last time with some of my freshly baked sourdough bread…. an international sensation!

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons of almonds

5 spring onions, chopped

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 cms of fresh ginger, grated

a pinch of saffron fronds

2 cinnamon sticks

2 teaspoons of coriander seeds, ground

500g of wallaby, cubed (or shanks etc)

12 stoned plums, soaked in a little boiling water  

6 bottled apricot halves

3-4 strips orange rind

1 Tbl honey

a handful of mint or coriander leaves

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

Heat the oil in the base of a tagine (or casserole).  Add the almonds and cook, stirring until they turn golden.  Add the onions and garlic and sauté until they begin to colour.  Stir in the ginger, saffron, cinnamon sticks and coriander seeds.  Toss the meat into the tagine and sauté for 1-2 minutes, stirring to make sure it is coated in the onion and spices.

Pour in enough water to almost cover the meat and then bring to the boil.  Reduce the heat, put the lid on the tagine and simmer for one hour, until the meat is tender.  Add the plums and liquid, apricots and orange rind, put the lid back on and simmer for a further 10 minutes.  Stir in the honey, season with salt and pepper, cover and simmer for a further 5 minutes.

Make sure there is enough liquid in the pot as you want the sauce to be syrupy and slightly caramelised, but not dry.  Stir in half of the fresh mint or coriander leaves, then serve immediately, sprinkled with the remaining mint or coriander and accompanied by couscous (made with wheat or quinoa) or some good sourdough bread.

Anjou Pear Cake

When you assemble this cake it seems to be all lumps of pear and hardly any cake but when it is cooked, the pears and the batter become one delicious cake. You may like to add some chopped nuts to it or even some orange blossom water but I rarely do.

I have been making this cake for about 25 years and it disappears so fast I never seem to get a photo!

Heat oven to 180C

4 Large Pears
Juice of 2 lemons
2 cups 85% or
    1 cup white flour +
    1 cup wholemeal flour
1 Tbl. baking powder
Pinch of salt
2/3 cup sugar
Vanilla
4 eggs
½ cup melted butter

Peel, core and cut up the pears into a basin with the lemon juice. Turn them in the juice.
Mix remaining cake ingredients in the order given then fold in the pears and any juice.
Turn into a lined 23cm cake tin or flan dish. It doesn’t matter if it is piled up higher in the middle than the sides.
Bake 50 – 60 mins until a skewer comes out clean.
Serve warm with yoghurt.