Italian mushroom soup

This is definitely a special-occasion soup, calling as it does for mixed mushrooms and French bread. No prizes for guessing that I love mushrooms! Try finding ceps and oyster mushrooms Even if you can’t find anything particularly exotic, this is still a delicious soup, served in an attractive manner.

Use 1/3 seawater to 2/3 fresh, if the sea is clean, and leave out the salt.

Serves 4

 

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion
6 cups mixed mushrooms
1¼ cups milk
3¾ cups water
8 slices rustic or French bread
3 tbsp butter
2 garlic cloves
3/4 cup finely grated cheese preferably Swiss (See notes) 

salt and pepper

Method:

• Heat the oil in a large saucepan and cook the chopped onion for a few minutes until softened.
• Roughly chop the mushrooms.
• Add them to the pan, stirring so that they’re all covered with oil.
• Add the milk and bring to the boil. Lower the heat, cover and simmer for about 5 mins.
• Stir in the water and bring up to simmering point.
• Toast the bread.
• Mix the garlic and butter together and spread on the toast.
• Put two pieces of toast in the bottom of each bowl and pour the hot soup over.
• Top with the grated cheese and serve at once.

Notes:

• I can give no suggestions for a vegan equivalent of Swiss cheese, unless you happen to be in a very large town, or somewhere sufficiently cosmopolitan to have a wide range of good, vegan cheeses. This is very unlikely, I’m afraid.

Avocado and cheese pâté

I invented this on the spur of the moment one evening in Trinidad. We had invited some friends round for drinks and I wanted fairly substantial nibbles, so that no-one would need to cook more than a light meal after they left. I had a ripe avocado on board, but none of the other ingredients for Guacamole, which would have been my normal choice. However, this recipe worked so well that I reckoned it was worth adding to the repertoire!

Serves 4 for a starter

 

1 large, ripe avocado pear

at least 1/2 cup finely grated cheese

 1/4 tsp of hot sauce 

1 tbsp lime juice 

salt and pepper

 

Method:

• Cut the avocado pear in two, remove the stone and scoop out the flesh into a bowl.
• Add the grated cheese. A 1/2 cup is sufficient if the cheese is full-flavoured; add more if it’s very mild.
• Blend the avocado and cheese together with a broad-bladed knife, and add the hot sauce – use less if you don’t like your food too spicy.
• Blend in the lime juice and season the mixture. The result should be a soft pâté, almost like a dip.

Variation:

• Use lemon juice, if no lime is available.

Cheese pâté

This is another recipe capable of many variations. If you make it a little thinner, it becomes a lovely dip, excellent with raw vegetables. It can be made with any cheese that has a full flavour, but would be very bland made with something like mozzarella. You do need a fine grater for the cheese to blend properly.

 

Serves 4 as a starter 

 

1 cup finely grated cheese

2 tbsp yoghurt

salt and pepper

 

Method:

• Grate the cheese into a bowl. Mix in the yoghurt and season with black pepper.
• Taste the pâté and add salt if you think it needs it.

Variations:

• Use soft butter or mayonnaise instead of the yoghurt.
• Add 2 tbsp Dijon mustard to the pâté.
• Add 1/4 cup wine to make a dip; reduce the amount of yoghurt if you want it to stay as a pâté.
• Add hot sauce.
• Mix in half a red pepper, diced.
• Add some of Annie's Mixed Herbs to the mixture. 

Toasted cheese sandwich

I no longer eat butter and dislike margarine, so if I want to make a toasted sandwich these days, I tend to fry it in a minimum of olive oil.  However, so far I've been unable to find edible vegan cheese in New Zealand, so, sadly, toasted cheese sandwiches now exist only in my memory.  

I'm still looking for a successful vegan "Cheddar cheese" recipe.  All suggestions gratefully received.

Makes one

2 slices bread

butter

Cheddar cheese or similar

• Butter the bread generously.
• Slice the cheese and fit it to the bread – don’t make the sandwich too lumpy or it will be difficult to toast and don’t let the cheese overlap the crusts because it will drip onto the toaster and start to burn.(This is much less of an issue if you 'toast' it in the frying pan) 
• Put the toaster over a medium flame and carefully place the sandwich on it. Don’t use too high a flame or the bread will toast before the cheese has started to melt. Depending on the size of both your bread and the flame, you may have to move it around to toast evenly. 
• When one side is done turn it over and toast the other side.

Variations:

• Cheese and mustard: make as above, substituting Dijon or your preferred mustard for the butter. If you don’t watch calories, you can use butter and spread the mustard on the cheese.
• Cheese and onion: add thin slices of onion with the cheese.
• Fried egg sandwiches are good at any time of the day, although this isn’t strictly a toasted sandwich.
• Peanut butter is good, and even better with a couple of slices of tomato.  Beware that the tomato can get extremely hot.
  
• Make them with banana skin bacon. Toast the bread on one side only and if you’re feeling particularly decadent, dip the untoasted side in the cooking oil before assembling the sandwich.  
• Any bean or nut spread will go well on a toasty.  This can also get extremely hot.
  

Welsh Rarebit

Sometimes known as Welsh Rabbit, but I can assure you this is a vegetarian meal.  Vegans can make the Vegan cheese sauce variation of Basic white sauce, and add the additional flavourings suggested below, or follow this recipe substituting grated Vegan cheese if you use it.  Welsh rarebit is a favourite in England for lunch or a light dinner.

 Serves 2

 

1 portion Basic White Sauce

1 cup grated cheese

1/2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce OR 1 tsp Dijon mustard

salt and pepper

2 – 4 slices of bread

• Make the white sauce.
• Reduce the heat, add the cheese, Worcestershire sauce or mustard and season with more salt and pepper, if you think it needs it.
• Keep the sauce warm while you toast the bread.
• Pour some sauce over each slice of toast and eat immediately.

Cheese bread

 

The following is a lovely, crusty bread recipe, which tastes delicious and goes very well with soup or salad. I suggest making a smaller loaf than usual – ‘1 lb’ – because you will probably eat most of it at one sitting, although the fat from the cheese means that the loaf should keep well.

If you’ve never made bread before, please read the recipe for Basic Bread, before making this one. If you don’t have an oven, follow the directions for The Perfect Ovenless Loaf.

2 cups wholewheat flour 

2 tbsp vital wheat gluten 

½ tsp salt 

1 tsp instant dried yeast 

2 tbsp olive oil 

½ tsp honey/sugar 

1 cup lukewarm water 

¾ cup grated cheese

• Put half the flour and the vwg) into a large bowl. Add the salt, dried yeast (sweetener) and olive oil. Stir in the water. Mix them together into a smooth batter. 
• Add the cheese. 
• Gradually add the rest of the flour and knead the dough for a few minutes. Roll it into a sausage and put this into a well-greased (or oiled) ‘1 lb’ loaf tin. Flatten it down and cover. 
• Leave the bread to rise until it’s about 25 mm (1 inch) above the sides of the tin. 
• When your loaf is ready to cook, light the oven and cook it at a Moderate heat for about 30 minutes.
  

To enjoy this loaf’s flavour at its best, eat it warm. 

Variations:

• Use seawater instead of fresh water and salt. 
• If you have an oven, you can also use this dough to make up to 8 individual rolls.
  

Vegan "Parmesan" (Parmegan)

For many years, I lived with a man who detested cheese and because money was in short supply, I hardly ever bought this treat for myself.  I missed it, but its lack was tolerable, although I really enjoyed eating it when I had a chance.  Then I lived with someone who loved cheese and, moreover, we had a little more money, so we generally had it on board.

When I decided to live on my own in New Zealand, I could finally eat exactly how I wanted to.  However, my budget was again pretty limited and I found that New Zealand, in spite of being awash in dairy cows, has no tradition of its own cheese.  Most of the affordable cheese made here, is a pastiche of Camembert or Brie, of Gouda and Edam and of course, the ubiquitous so-called Cheddar.  I had hoped for so much more, remembering the open markets of my English youth, where I could buy several different versions of my local cheese.  While there is some superb artisan cheese in this country, not only is most of it beyond my financial means, but most of it is beyond my physical means, only being sold in the major cities.  Over recent years, the plight of dairy cattle (particularly calves) and of the planet overall, has inexorably inched me towards veganism.  However, I still succumbed to the lure of Parmesan or Pecorino cheese.  It was a very happy day, therefore, that I stumbled across a vegan alternative on the Internet.

Not only is vegan "Parmesan" a genuinely acceptable alternative to the real thing, it even emulates it sufficiently accurately, that friends have tipped generous amounts of the food I've served them, without even noticing that it's not the 'real thing'.  Often what you taste is what you expect!

Many people use cashew nuts: I prefer Brazil nuts.  (In this blog I am not generally going to discuss the various ethical pros and cons of one nut/grain/legume over another.  Suffice it to say that the worst of them is probably less unethical than most animal products.)  You will need a blender or good mouli-grinder to make this.

Brazil nuts are one of those that tend to go stale quite quickly - like walnuts - so I have assumed that the 'cheese' would also lose its flavour and freshness quickly.  I therefore limit its production to 1/4 cup at a time.  The recipe is so simple that it's extremely easy to make larger quantities.  However, I do find that a small jar will keep happily for at least two or three weeks without refrigeration, which is another of its great virtues.

1/4 cup Brazil nuts 

1 tbsp nutritional yeast 

1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt

 

Method:

• Roughly chop the Brazil nuts into about 1cm pieces
• Put the chopped nuts, the nutritional yeast and the salt into your blender or mouli and process until you get the consistency of finely grated cheese.
• Serve over pasta, etc, as you would Parmesan cheese.

Adjust the salt according to your personal taste.