Spicy peanut dip

Blender alert!!

I discovered something similar to this on the Minimalist Baker blog, when I was looking for a 'store-cupboard' ingredients, quick and easy recipe.  The blog suggested a 5-minute, vegan queso. Not having had a lot to do with Mexican food, I thought they were suggesting some sort of quick, vegan cheese; however, it turns out that ‛queso’ is short for ‛chilli con queso’ and is a runny, spicy, cheesy sauce, which is served warm, with tortilla chips. It sounded a bit like fondue! I didn’t want anything that liquid, or anything warm, but the seasonings looked interesting and I was short of time. So I took the recipe and adapted it to end up with a spicy, thick dip, ideal for spreading on crackers.  Indeed, it was quick to make and has proven popular; nor does it taste of peanuts!

 

Assuming conditions aren't too rough to use a blender, this is a great voyaging dip, because everything will be in your lockers.  At the other end of the scale, it's ideal for taking to another boat for sundowners.

Serves 2 to 4 as a dip

Ingredients

1/2 cup hot water

1/2 cup blanched peanuts

1 clove garlic, chopped OR 1/4 tsp garlic granules

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder OR 1/4 tsp cayenne

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

2 tsp harissa

Instructions

• Add water, peanuts, garlic, yeast, cumin, chilli, salt, paprika and harissa to a blender, and blend until creamy. You may need to add a little more water, depending on the required consistency.  
• Taste and adjust flavour as needed, adding more nutritional yeast for cheesiness, salt to taste, cumin or paprika for smokiness, chilli powder or harissa for heat, or garlic for zing. It should have plenty of personality, so don’t be shy. If you don't have any harissa, use extra chilli, cumin and paprika. 
• Serve with crisps, crackers or bread. Garnish with additional harissa and olive oil, if you like
  

Note:

• If you're not in too much of a hurry, you might like to soak the peanuts for a while, to make them easier to blend into a smooth paste.

Annie's Mushroom 'stock' powder

 

Blender alert!! 

Personally, I don't think home-made soups need anything added by way of stock: the intrinsic ingredients have enough flavour in themselves.  However, sometimes I feel a recipe needs a touch of je ne sais quoi, and I reckon this mushroom 'stock powder' fits the bill.  Unlike commercial stock powders, not only does it contain no artificial ingredients, it doesn't even have any salt.  All that it is is ground up, dried mushrooms such as the Chinese ones which are available in most supermarkets.

Makes about 1 cup

Ingredients

1 pack dried mushrooms 

Method:

• Remove the mushrooms from the package and shake the residue into a blender cup.
• Break or cut the larger pieces of mushrooms down to around 2 cm/1 in, so that the blender can more readily cope with them.
  
• Add all the mushrooms into the cup and grind them until they are a coarse powder.
• Put into a clean jar and keep in a dark place.

Notes:

• I always use 'white' mushrooms for this 'stock powder', rather than a pack of mixed mushrooms.  That way they don't darken the sauce, soup, or whatever you're adding them to.

Variations:

• To make this more like a stock powder, add a couple of teaspoons of salt 
• Add mixed herbs: you might find a couple of teaspoons of my blend suits.  The drawback of this is that you will have flecks of colour in your food and you might prefer to have a white sauce.  The herbs may not suit your recipe, either.

  

 

 

Mushroom and barley soup

 

For the past several weeks I have had no appetite to speak of.  This isn't a good thing for a food blogger, but it is a miserable state of affairs for someone who usually wakes up in the morning, anticipating eating a very hearty breakfast and already wondering what to cook for dinner.  Admittedly I have lost quite a bit of weight, but I am one of those rare and lucky people who actually quite likes my body the size and the shape it is.  (At my age, this is a sane and sensible place to be!)  Apart from fruit and yogurt, at the moment the thought of any Indian food, which I usually eat several times a week, appalls me; the idea of pasta makes me feel squeamish and the only things which seem slightly appealing are bread and potatoes, preferably fried.  Sometimes I can face a few florets of broccoli, but an aubergine I bought nearly a month ago - one of my absolute favourite foods - will probably have to be thrown out.  If you knew my views about throwing food out, you would realise how bad I am.

However, a couple of weeks ago, I reckoned I could probably fancy some soup.  To be appealing it had to be thick, not to have too many ingredients, be very lightly flavoured and not too colourful.  I tried a simple lentil soup and that was a success.  I ate a whole bowl of it without any problem, which felt like quite an achievement.  None of my other recipes seemed at all tempting, so I decided to try and make something which would fit the bill, and this is the result.  The barley I buy here in New Zealand is hulled, but not 'pearl and is perfect comfort food.  I actually found the soup really enjoyable and again ate a whole bowl without difficulty.  It's obviously the perfect soup for an 'invalid'!!

Serves 2

Ingredients

1/4 cup gram flour

2 cups water

5 mushrooms, diced

1/2 cup barley 

1 tsp dried onion powder

1/4 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp za'atar or 1/4 tsp thyme

1 tsp Annie's mushroom stock powder

salt and pepper 

•  Put the gram flour into your pressure cooker and add about 1/4 cup of water.  Mix very, very thoroughly to remove all the lumps, adding more water as you go.  Gram flour doesn't tend to form lumps while it's heating in the way the wheat and cornflour do, but any lumps remaining in the original mixture are hard to get rid of.
• Now add the mushrooms, barley, dried onion powder ground coriander, za'atar/thyme, salt and pepper.  Add the stock powder, too, if you have any.
• Bring to the boil stirring pretty often to make sure the flour paste doesn't stick to the pan - it will thicken as you go.  The 2 cups of water should be enough for the gram flour and the barley.
• Put on the lid, bring up to pressure and cook for 10 minutes, to thoroughly soften the barley.
• Let the pressure reduce at room temperature, remove the lid and stir the soup.  If it seems too thick, add more water - I wanted a very thick soup.
•  Serve as is, or with bread.

Notes: 

• use diced onion, if you prefer: I couldn't face it!

 

 

Bengali Five-Spice Blend - Panch Phoron

 Panch phoron is a spice blend used in Eastern India, in Bengali, Assamese, and Oriya cuisine and also in Bangladesh and Nepal. It is a blend of black mustard, nigella, fennel, fenugreek and brown cumin seeds and, really, it couldn’t be easier to make!

 

According from which region the blend is made, the five spices can be added in equal quantities or vary slightly. I make mine with equal quantities of mustard, fennel, cumin, and nigella seeds and half the amount of fenugreek seeds, which have a bitterness that can be a bit overwhelming for some people, although I love it. Panch phoron is typically fried in hot oil, which causes the spices to start popping to release the flavours and temper the oil.

 

This spice blend is worth having to hand when you are in a bit of a hurry and want something that tastes good, but without putting in too much effort. Make a simple dal or vegetable dish, by frying the usual garlic, ginger and diced green chilli together, with a chopped onion, if you want. Then add the dal/vegetables and cook to your taste. You can then fry a tsp of panch phoron in some oil and add this tempering to the dal or vegetable dish before serving.

 

Makes about 3 tablespoons

 

Ingredients

 

2 tsp cumin seeds

2 tsp fennel seeds

2 tsp black mustard seeds

2 tsp nigella seeds

1 tsp fenugreek seeds

 

 Combine the whole spices and store in an airtight container.

 

Breakfast avocado

Smashed avocado on toast is a very popular breakfast/brunch/snack.  This is really a variation on it that I dreamt up while trying to create an acceptable substitute for scrambled eggs.  There isn't one, in my opinion, although I've achieved a passable result using peanuts, but this avocado recipe is very good in its own right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can't tolerate rubbery, dried out scrambled eggs, but as this is how they are generally served, I assume that other people think differently.  To be fair, it is very difficult to keep scramblers in that lovely, soft, curdy state, because they carry on cooking in their own heat, so have to be put on a plate the moment they're ready.  The advantage of this avocado 'substitute' is that the avocado doesn't soften with heating: the drawback is that the avocado has to be at the perfect stage of ripeness for the recipe to work and it won't work if the avocado is too firm, nor if it has started to go stringy.  I am lucky to live somewhere where I can buy avocados very cheaply, so it isn't a disaster if I cut one open and it's the wrong stage of ripeness.  However, if that happens, you can always resort to smashed avocado on toast, after all.

 

 Ingredients

 

1 ripe avocado

olive oil

1/4 tsp garlic granules or 1 finely minced clove of garlic

2 tbsp water/yoghurt/cream

1/8 tsp chilli flakes - optional

salt and pepper

Method:

• Cut the avocado in half, remove the stone and peel it.  If the peel is very stiff, as it so often is with Hass avocado, cut the fruit into quarters; it should then be easy to peel.
  
• Carefully chop the avocado into chunks. 
• Heat a little olive oil in a small saucepan;  move it carefully around in the pan until it starts to get warm.
• Now add the water/yoghurt/cream and garlic.  Turn down the heat and stir the avocado very gently so that some of it gets mixed into, and thickens the liquid.  You don't want to mash it into a purée.  
• Season with salt and pepper and some chilli flakes if you like them.  Gently stir them in.
  
• While the avocado is heating, slice a couple of pieces of bread and toast it.  Put it onto a warmed plate and tip the avocado mix over it.  Serve hot.

Notes:

• The avocado needs to be properly ripe - a firm one won't produce the desired effect.
• Instead of, or as well as, the olive oil, you might like to add chilli oil.  In this case, omit the chilli flakes.
  

A Christmas Table

To date, I've pretty much followed my plan of making this blog a version of my draft book,  The Voyaging Vegetarian.  However, I wonder how many of the two or three readers who have looked at this blog, have even opened the pages under "Topics for Voyaging Vegetarians" and so I've decided to do something totally different: write what is really a blog post.

 

Christmas!  Some people love it, some people loathe it, some are quite indifferent.  I have very mixed feelings about it: I love the memories of Christmas past spent with my family, before most of them died.  I like that it's a special day and it's a fine excuse to buy myself something a little bit special and call it a Christmas present.  However, partly because I adored our own family rituals, I don't particularly like joining other people for Christmas. Obviously they do things their own way and to be honest, it's one day of the year when I really don't want to accommodate others.  Add to this the fact that I am a vegetarian, who finds the sight and smell of meat  offputting; that I'm used to dining quite late; that I can think of few things worse on a hot day, than a roast dinner or any heavy meal; that I dislike sweet puddings and prefer to avoid the giving of unwanted presents, and you can see that I am anyway, a far from ideal guest.  

Fortunately, I live on a boat, so a day or so before Christmas, I can sail away to an unpopular anchorage which I am likely to have more or less to myself and be fairly sure that no-one will miss me.  The anchorages are often very pretty, but have a very poor mobile phone signal which for many people makes them a bad choice at this time of the year, when they want to talk to family and friends.

Once happily anchored, forecast checked once more, I spend several pleasant hours preparing my own Christmas feast.  For the past couple of years, this has been what we used to call a 'buffet', and which now appears to be called a 'grazing table', ideal for idling away a hot summer's afternoon and evening.  For anyone interested in doing likewise, I am offering this year's spread for inspiration.

So what did I have? I  made seeded-bread rolls, and to go with them prepared two pâtés:

The first one is the variation on the lentil and mushroom pâté, where walnuts are used instead of the mushrooms.  I love this variation: indeed, I'm not sure that I don't prefer it to the mushroom version.  I had some fresh sage leaves, which I fried until they were crisp, and used to decorate it. It goes well with bread or crackers, but I also found it delicious wrapped in a lettuce leaf.

I made a lot of this pâté and finished the last of it off, by watering it down and serving it with pasta.  It was very good!

The second pâté I made is the really rich and luxurious mushroom and sunflower seed one, which I feel is on a par with any made from meat. 

It being Christmas, I had a generous hand with the brandy and added what I like to think was an authentic touch, by melting vegan ghee over the top of it.  Again, it was good with bread, crackers or wrapped in a lettuce leaf.  Incidentally, both of these pâtés keep for several days without refrigeration, even with the hot weather we had over Christmas.  There is no difficulty on my part, eating them for breakfast, either.

Any grazing table worth its name has to include hummus, of course.  I like to make mine by squashing the peas with a pestle, rather than blending them really smooth.  

I much prefer a bit of texture, personally and I also like to include plenty of cumin in the mix.  This year I added a drizzle of chilli oil, from the chilli peppers I preserved earlier in the year.  It added a delightful bit of zing.  Olive oil over the top stops it from drying out and adds richness to the flavour and texture.  Again, the hummus is great with bread, crackers or wrapped in lettuce.  This also keeps for several days without refrigeration - if it gets the chance.

My final creation was to make samosas.  I have just realised that, thus far, I haven't included a recipe for these.  As I have a very poor signal here (still in a deserte anchorage) and am pushing my luck writing this, I shall have to leave it for another day.  The recipe I used is made from smashed potatoes and freeze-dried peas.  A lot of people mash the potaoes, but again, I prefer to have some texture.

Additional food to browse on included: some fancy, truffle-flavoured crisps (although, I have to confess, I think I prefer simple, plain salted!), baby plum tomatoes, broccoli florets, baby carrots, the aforementioned lettuce and crackers, along with a bowl of vegan yoghurt, cherries and fresh dates.  Although I am largely vegan, for once I bought some locally-made cheese: a Gouda type.  Generally speaking, I avoid cheese because of the horrible lives that dairy cattle have, and the appalling way in which the unwanted calves are treated.  However, the Mahoe cheese comes from a farm that looks like something out of a children's book, with cows and a big bull grazing peacefully in the fields, the driveway lined with small paddocks full of pigs and piglets, pottering around in the sunshine.  If only all cheese were produced in such an animal-friendly setting ...

As you will see, all this lovely food was washed down with good wine and I very much enjoyed browsing and sipping - and reading the odd chapter of the new Richard Osman book I had bought for myself!  Perhaps, unsurprisingly, there was quite a lot left over, but it's all gone now, except for some of the cheese.  I can quite understand that most people don't want to spend Christmas on their own, but this grazing table also works will wit a cabin full of guests: we had a similar spread a couple of Christmases ago, with good friends on board.  To my mind, it's a far better choice in hot weather, than a sit-down, cooked meal.