France

Vive La France

 

And up next, we go to France.

 

To help me get inspired (and the required items) I went to the local "French style" farmers market at La Cigale. This is a market every Saturday and Sunday outside the La Cigale restaurant in Parnell, Auckland which has fresh seasonal produce and other yummy things (think paella, fresh bread, crepes, etc..!). Information on the market can be found at : http://www.lacigale.co.nz/french-market/

Again, I've run into problems of sourcing ingredients. This time it was chicory. Which for a "chicory and walnut salad" it's a bit hard to substitute the main ingredient. I tried asking with it's more common name "endive" but again no luck. While rocket (aka argula) fits the "bitter lettuce" bill, it didn't seem quite right and so I've left this dish off the menu this week. Seems I'm going to have to do a re-visit to France if I ever manage to find some!

Mushrooms & Béchamel in puff pastry

The market was a great place to pick up fresh ingredients. I used a nice mix of mushrooms (including portabellos) and picked up beautiful vine ripened tomatoes to use.

 

 

I roasted the tomatoes with a nice amount of EVOO and fresh ground salt and pepper. My mom recently gave me some flavoured olive oils and the basil infused oil would have been a great addition here.



The element I was most excited to learn here though was the béchamel sauce. Considered by many one of the key sauces to have under your belt, I have never made one. Lasagna? Nope, instead of the traditional béchamel I use ricotta cheese as a healthier ingredient. And you can see why with the amounts of butter and milk. No way this one could be decently veganised.

 

Doesn't this look good? So I won't lie. I cheated here and used store bought puff pastry. This was delicious meal and would made a great lunch. I would pair it with a fresh white wine (maybe a nice sauv blanc or pinot gris) and in the oh-so-French way, with a cheese plate for dessert.

Tofu with mustard sauce

I used pre-fried/packaged tofu here so that all that was required was re-frying it.

The mustard sauce was so simple and (again) went for a non-vegan option using real sour cream in the recipe. This will be a new favourite sauce of mine and can so easily be whipped up to serve overtop a dish (I could see this on top of chicken if you didn't want to go down a veggie route).

Chives were fresh picked from my garden. Garlic chives would work great on top of this as would parsley as an alternative.



Tarte aux pommes

I redeemed myself from my earlier store bought pastry efforts and made my own for the tarte as per the recipe. Someone shared with me the tip of rolling out dough between 2 pieces of baking paper and I haven't looked back. It makes rolling so much easier (no sticky bits sticking to the rolling pin) and allows for you to easily drape the dough into the pan.

 

I ended up slightly baking this blind as I was concerned that it wasn't going to stay down and again, un-veganised it by using real milk/cream.

 

It looked amazing in the pan.

 

 

I found the cream filling not quite as set as I had hoped for in the final product. I expected it to have the consistency of the vanilla/custard filling in a vanilla or custard slice, but this seemed a bit more runny. Not so runny that it went to bits when you cut into it, definitely drooped a bit as opposed to holding firm. Next time I might see about mixing in some agar agar as a substitute for gelatin.

 

 

Ireland

Ire-land! Ire-land!

Ireland is another country on this list that is special to me. In fact, of the 30 countries on this list I have lived in 4 of them! I lived in Cork, Ireland for a year in 2006! 

In thinking back to my time in Ireland, I have fond memories of the beer and a great local pizzeria in Cork, but generally no particular food dishes which stood out. To be fair I don't recall Ireland as being a difficult place for vegetarians. Having all the great Quorn branded meat subsitutes was always useful and while I occasionally got a strange look, I always felt there was something on the menu I could eat. It could be though that I was more focused on the beers there tho....

In looking at the menu for Ireland, I got very excited. This was a good hearty wholesome menu which was perfect on this slightly chilly night.

Entree/Side: Spinach and Potato Bake

Of course there was a potato dish,  being Ireland, it would have to be in there.

Up first on the menu was the potato and spinach dish. The thing I loved most about this dish is that 99% of it came directly out of my garden. The potatoes, garlic, spinach and herbs were about as fresh as they could be.

Once again I opted to un-veganise this dish and used cream and butter.

I used a red potato (heather?) variety which helped to make this super creamy. 

Saying mixed herbs in a recipe always feels so ambigous so to clairfy, I used italian parsley, thyme and rosemary in my dish which were super yum. This was full of flavor and really delicious.

Main/Entree: Irish Stew

I mentioned above that this was a bit of a cooler evening and so having a hearty soup/stew was just the ticket. I made a few minor changes and substitued swede for turnips and also split the potatoes called for in half and used kumara (purple/golden variety) for the remainder.

I also used olive oil instead of sunflower. It was a light version so wasn't too heavy in terms of changing the taste.

Side: Soda bread

I love making breads but always worry that mine come out too dense, but I don't think that is a concern when it's a soda bread you are making.

Again, I opted to un-veganise this recipe and used a regular unsweetned, probiotic yogurt for the moisture component. I also did a lightly brushed wash of milk over the top to help make a lovely golden crust.

Main: Blueberry pancakes

Ok, I have to say I don't get this recipe. Not literally - I mean I understand the recipe itself but I'm not sure how blueberry pancakes fit into Ireland. I remember when I lived there we made pancakes for shrove Tuesday which is a Catholic holiday (I think). While it was a fun thing to do, I'm not sure it's very Irish - but what do I know?

Anyways, I found searching for buckwheat a suprising challenge. Maybe it is because I once again left my shopping to the last minute. Countdown has a suprising variety of flours but no buckwheat. In any event, I found this LSA mixture which has buckwheat in it and so thought it would be a great subsitute.

It was only when I went to cook that I again realised this was a vegan recipe. Vegan pancakes? While it's not a lack of milk that's the challenge here, I was unsure how these would go sans eggs.

Again, I unveganized it and used normal yogurt and everything looked ok in the pan. Except when i went to flip these it was a disaster. It just didn't work - they fell apart. I eventually gave up, scraped everything back into the bowl, mixed 2 eggs and then added them in. Once eggs were back in the mix they came together lovely. While you could taste/tell that these were healthy, I quite liked the mix of LSA in there and would be inclined to do a 50/50 combination of flour / LSA with all my future pancake recipes.

As the pancakes were sweet, we had these as a bit of a dessert. They were a lovely way to cap off the meal. Since I continue to break the vegan feel, I used whipped cream (from a can too!) as a topping with the pancakes. It took me back to being a kid and loving whipped cream on my waffles in the morning. Yum oh yum!

So, that's Ireland. Dinner is served....

England

England!

So across to England we go. It came time to cook Sunday dinner and you know what, I was exhausted. Earlier that morning I was up to do the Auckland half marathon and when it came time to cook dinner, cooking was the last thing on my mind. 

So I skipped the Sunday dinner. 

That week, it was Guy Fawkes day. Why the English celebrate this who knows, but given the date it seemed timely to make up for the delay with cooking England that night.

Entree: Curried Parsnip Soup

This soup was super easy to make. In fact I was surprised at how easy it was to make. 

It has a good spicy curry hit and would be a great started for an Indian meal.

The cream dash at the end was a great tip - it cut through was finished it off perfectly.

Main: Crispy Beer-Battered Tofu

Ok, so I'm sure you can tell this from the picture but.....i cheated. I've had this beer batter in my cabinet for years (well close to 2 years) and thought now was as good as a time as any to try it. Considering it was just the flour mixture I consider this only a minor cheat.

The recipe called for dulse flakes in the marinade. I had to look these up and after reading they were a sea lettuce I decided to subsitute them with roasted nori (seaweed). A lovely vegan paella recipe by Tal Ronnen uses them and so I was quitely confident they would work well to give that salty-from-the-sea taste.

For the beer I convinced Matt to open a bottle of beer (hard sell) but as all we had was Moa's Pale Ale, I was briefly concerned that it might be too strong a flavor, but it ended up great.

Given that this dish was essentially meant to be fish, what's more English than Fish and Chips. So I made some chips to go along side the peas. My recipe was:

Lindsay's chips/wedges

3 potatoes

Olive Oil

Salt and pepper

1. Heat the oven to 180 C

2. Cut the potatoes into wedges (half, and then quarters).

3. Liberally spray/cover in olive oil and salt and pepper

4. Cook until golden and cooked through - for me this was around 40 minutes

Side: Crushed minted peas

I've never made peas like this before and had some strange looks from Matt and the father in law when  I was crushing them with a rolling pin. I used a lemon infused olive oil and lemon and mint straight from the garden. Rather than straight salt and pepper I seasoned with lemon pepper seasoning (the kind usually used for steak). Yum.

Dessert: Trifle

I have a big issue with this one.

1. It uses jelly. Trifle should not have jelly!

2. It has no sponge cake? Trifle should have sponge

I realise these are highly contreversial statements and I know my friend Victoria and I used to have many a debate on this topic. In any event, I'll do it as per the recipe (well, sort of).

I luckily had some strawberry jelly from a vegetarian stand at the food show (or Green living show) still in the cupboard. The picture below is quite useful in case anyone else finds themselves looking for this brand.

The trifle was supposed to be vegan, but well, yea....that's just not me.

So the custard was made with milk and for the cream, I just used cream. Although I will be keen to try her vegan cream at some point.

To serve this I used small whiskey glasses which were the perfect size for individual servings and I think looked quite elegant (I originally wanted to use martini glasses but couldn't find 3 of the same size around our house)

While I may disagree with the lack of sponge, I can't argue that this was simple and tasty and a refreshing end to our meal.

Denmark

Denmark

My food journey continues into mainland Europe and Denmark was up next.

My goal has been to cook all recipes for each country, but admittedly I was stumped this time. By what you ask? Jerusalem artichokes. Again, what you ask? A Jersusalem artichoke isn't like the artchoke I have growing in my garden but rather seems to be a distant cousin of a potato or other root vegetable. I had no luck finding them at any markets (wrong season they told me at the French La Cigale market). I thought I would try asking any neighbors via the new website Neighborly.co.nz but had no joy there. 

So I skipped it and continued on with the other items.

Baked beetroot

Now Matt can attest for me - I don't really like beetroot, which is weird, because I should. I like most other root vegetables or anything that is red. But there is something about it, I dunno. It's an incredibly popular ingredient here and thankfully Matt is a big fan and so the slices on veggie burgers from Burger Fuel do not go to waste.

Anyways, I was skeptical, but I actually liked this dish. Maybe it was the mayo served with it. Which, the cookbook called for fresh grated horseradish. Given that is not an everyday ingredient I opted to cheat and made wasabi mayo by mixing wasabi (which is horseradish) and normal mayo. 

Almond Rissoles

This was very yum, although seemed a bit crumbly which could have meant I needed more egg or some moisture element for the dish. The chopped in almonds in it were a great addition to the texture and this has inspired me to make red lentil balls more often (these could be great with a noodle dish!)

Cabbage rolls with sour/sweet filling and mustard sauce

I opted to use regular sour cream in the mustard sauce. These were very nice, but a little hard to eat. I suspect this could be due to me getting the wrong kind of cabbage? Th recipe calls for "savoy cabbage" leaves, but I've never seen a type listed against the cabbage here (though not that it's an ingredient I frequently buy). Even with boiling them they were a bit hard to chew off/break off - particularly along the stem/vein of the leaf.

There was also a dessert to go with this...but I skipped it. I figured given that I was already missing the Jerusalem artichoke soup, skipping the dessert wasn't a big deal. I could do them both together later.

For platting I did individual plates with all elements together. I used Asian soup spoons for sauces. It was a great effect on the presentation and Matt and Peter enjoyed all the food.

Canada

 It's Canada, eh?

That's right, up this week are the neighbors to the north, Canada.

When I think about food in Canada I envision maple syrup, poutine, and heck even Canadian bacon.

So I was pleased to see some of these making an appearance in this weeks menu for Canada (no, not the bacon - this is a vegetarian cookbook!).

And even more exciting was that we had a guest for dinner! Our friend Megan joined in the meal (which was great as it ensured we didn't have too many left overs this week!).

The first dish was a black bean chowder.

Entree: Black Bean  and Chipotle Chowder

Eh? Black beans? Canada? Chipotle? This is not what I think of when I think of Canada. Even more strange initially was the idea of adding cocoa powder to it all.

To start with, I still haven't find Chipotle powder in NZ. I've looked in a few shops as technically the "Shannon Salad" recipe calls for it. But nada. So when I found actual chipotle peppers at Martha's Backyard (http://www.marthasbackyard.co.nz/) I bought up knowing I could use them. So in this recipe, I used 3 diced chipotle peppers in place of the chipotle powder. That may have been a bit heavy handed, but it gave the dish a beautiful smoky flavor.

Entree: Apple and fennel salad with orange and ginger cider vinaigrette

I've been looking forward to a salad dish for awhile no. So far so many dishes in this cookbook have been warm hearty dishes, but not necessarily your perfect dinner in springtime.

I was hoping to do some foraging to find the fennel as there is a great map of NZ which lists fruit trees, etc.. on public land. But as per usual I ran out of time and so opted for fennel from the store.

This salad was super refreshing and I can see it being a great accompaniment to any meal.

The recipe called for toasted walnuts. I didn't toast mine - only crumbled them and I also used a lemon infused olive oil in the vinaigrette. It was superb!

Entree or main: Veggie Poutine

Now, most people know poutine. Or if they don't know it as poutine, they know it as chips and gravy (with cheese). I often don't get to eat this out in restaurants (as you never know what the gravy has been made with) and so I was excited for making this at home.

As I read through the recipe, it suddenly hit me....where's the cheese man?! Turns out this recipe is a vegan poutine. I won't lie. I was skeptical. So skyeptical that I split my chips (above) and made 2 lots - one following the recipe and a second batch with vegetarian gravy (from granules) and a mozzerella and cheddar combo of cheese.

I shouldn't have worried because the vegan one was great. I wouldn't have thought so but the gravy (so simple with just soy sauce and flour) was so good that even Megan was impressed!

The mix of wild mushrooms and curly kale added a great texture and made this a great dish.

Main: Ginger Maple baked Aduki beans

I've never had aduki beans - or at least I didn't think I had until I read they are often used in Asian cooking (oh, those ones!). 

I would argue the title of the recipe is mis-leading. These are not baked but done on a stove top (since writing this I've learned that is how most baked beans are done - since I can't stand "normal" baked beans I'd never really thought about it.) This recipe put a beautiful smell in the house and I used authentic Canadian maple syrup in the recipe.

Dessert: Orange, Ginger and Rhubarb crisp

I put my sous chef in charge of this dish. We had some debate a crisp vs crumble. I always thought that a crumble had oats in it (turns out that crisps do!).

I've always wanted to grow rhubarb and after trying this recipe I'm sold! The rhubarb had a beautful tartness and it was warming and delectable.

In making this in conjunction with the salad, we used the juice/body of the orange zested for the salad above and it was easy to grate fresh ginger for both the beans and the crumble.

To serve this, I added a non-sweetened pro-biotic yogurt and fresh orange slices. I suspect you could easily add candied orange slices if you wanted to take this up a notch. Matt, not being a fan of that kind of yogurt, opted for fresh cream with his slice. Personally not my cup of tea but he reports it was a good combo.

The Map

I realized I am taking everyone on a journey and you have no idea where you are going! This trip needs an itinerary (or at least a map!)

As I mentioned in the first post, I am starting in South America and ending in NZ.

In any event, here's our journey.

USA

USA! USA! USA!

Sorry, now that I have that out of my system, this week takes me home. Or rather to my homeland, the United States of America.

Overall this weeks menu felt very Californian inspired. Kale Salad? Mexican style salad? We may as well just call it California on a plate. Except for mac and cheese. Mac and cheese is a hearty American classic and one of my favs.

I also decided (since I am a glutton for punishment) that I would also make the avocado ice cream I had meant to make last Sunday while the power was out.

I learned from my mistakes last week and decided to start early (you never know if the power will go out!) at the end with dessert which was a chocolate tart.

You wouldn't think of NZ as being the home of great chocolate, but there are some great brands and I love Whittakers. For the chocolate tart I opted to use 62% cocoa chocolate. I followed the recipe for the dough, but to be honest, I would have liked more walnuts in it and think you could easily add more in when making it. Or alternatively, skip the flour dough and make a nut crust. Something like...

Lindsay's nut crust

Ingredients

1. Almonds

2. Walnuts

3. Handful of dates (medojol or normal softened dates )

4. dash of cinnamon

1. Blender/food process all ingredients until clumps form. Spread into the pan and press down to form the crust.

But we'll go back to the cake later....

Up first...

Entree: Kale Salad

I opted to use curly kale which was taste and I add a little bit of lemon juice to the dressing.

I think this salad would go great with orange segments (or mandarin pieces). 

While I was working on the salad I tasked my sous chef with the ice cream.

The other salad on the menu was a tex mex salad.

Entree: Tangy black bean and corn salad

This salad is eerily close to a personal favorite of mine, called "The Shannon salad" after my friend Shannon who introduced me to it.

Her version includes grated carrots, green peppers (not just the red this recipe calls for), and shallots.

The main dish was mac and cheese. Except veganised. Thing is, I'm not a vegan. I am about as far away from a vegan as a vegetarian can be. Some might say I have a cheese addiction (I would choose to say it's a cheese appreciation lifestyle). In any event the idea of making mac and cheese with no cheese (or dairy) was just too much for me. So i did the following substitutions with the recipe

-Butter for vegan butter

-milk for water

-a large cup of cheese (I did a 50/50 split of mozzarella and low fat cheddar)

I honestly did look for "nutritional yeast flakes" out of curiosity. But I could only find standard yeast/breadmakers yeast. I suspect somewhere like Huckleberry Farms or Wise Cicada would stock them, but I don't think I suffered by omitting them from the recipe. I also would not have thought to use tumeric in the recipe. Yum.

2 salads, 1 main, 2 desserts and just Matt and I.

I paired everything with a nice NZ sauv blanc which complemented the tangy-ness of the mac and cheese perfectly.

And let's not forget the dessert. This was divine! I think that the chocolate tart would be amazing with some chili mixed in. Served with the avocado ice cream to cut through the creamy-ness this would be Mexican food heaven (the nut base above instead of the flour base in the recipe might also provide a good crunch and some texture to the dish).

All in all, cooking for the US was a blast. I thoroughly loved the food and the company I shared it with.