Week 1 Elimination

So I have finally decided to do something about my irksome suspicions that some unpleasant allergy-like reactions I’ve been having may be, sadly, related to food.  I took myself to see a dietician who is helping me to investigate just what the culprits might be.  Unfortunately, there appears to be no getting around the fact that the only way to do this properly is to start with an elimination diet (skin prick tests and the like are not sensitive enough to indicate food intolerances).

The version of the diet I’m doing is not super strict, as it allows me to eat foods that have a low-to-moderate amount of the relevant food-chemicals that we’re testing (salicylates, amines and glutamates, if you’re asking).  However, it does cut a huge swathe in the variety of foods that I’m used to eating and cooking with.    For example: onion, corn, zucchini, capsicum, tomato, cauliflower, broccoli, eggplant, spinach and tomato are out!  (My dietician had to laugh when at this point of the session I confessed that our household eats mostly vegetarian!)  Also out are most fruits (except pear and banana), cheeses (except fresh ones like ricotta or cottage cheese), and, most tragically, chocolate.  Lucky this diet thing is just for three weeks, voluntary and for a good cause!

So I decided to approach the whole thing as a new culinary challenge: and with some useful tips from friends, and a new cookbook under wing, I set about making a detailed food plan for Week 1 and its accompanying shopping list.  I’m happy to say that, almost at the that week, it hasn’t been all so bad.  Apart from chocolate, I mostly miss eating mandarines and my regular night-time peppermint tea, and I miss cooking with lemon, pepper, and tasty cheeses like parmesan.  Here’s a wrap-up of the week’s vegetarian/pescetarian highlights (I’ll skip our non-vegetarian lapses):

- caramelised tofu with crispy brussels sprouts (from 101 cookbooks)
- sweet potato tortilla with caramelised leeks and asparagus
- homemade crunchy fish with garlic mash (homemade fresh breadcrumbs are the way to go here)
- panfried chickpeas with green beans and pasta ribbons
- and a giant batch of maple rhubarb for dessert.

I was pleasantly surprised by how the chickpeas turned out, and I think I might even make them again post-diet.  It’s a snap to make and uses few ingredients.  The chickpeas turn out to be incredibly tasty and a little bit crunchy, which provides a great foil for the silky pasta ribbons.  See what you think!

Pan-fried chickpeas with green beans and pasta ribbons
Adapted from 101 cookbooks’ chickpea salad

2 tbsp butter
1 leek, trimmed and sliced thinly into half-moons
1 400g tin chickpeas, drained
1 large clove garlic, sliced
large handful green beans, sliced on the diagonal
2 large fresh lasagna sheets, cut into thick ribbons
greek yoghurt, to serve

In a frying pan, melt the butter and toss in the leek and chickpeas.  Cook over medium-high heat until the leek starts to soften.  Add the garlic, and cook until the leek and chickpeas take on some colour (may take 10-15 minutes all up).

While this is happening, put on a separate saucepan of water to boil for the pasta.  Cook the pasta ribbons according to the packet (mine took only a few minutes to cook), and 2 minutes before they are done, toss in the beans.  When the beans are bright green, drain the pasta and beans.

When both the chickpea mixture and the pasta are done, tip the pasta and beans into the frying pan. Toss gently over low heat to incorporate it all together, and season with salt.  Serve up in bowls with a generous dollop of yoghurt on top.

Post-diet variations: some lemon zest added to the chickpea mixture at the end could be good; also I’d like to try some parmesan with this to serve as well.

Yield: serves 2 as a main

 

rainbow sugar cookies

A search for internet inspiration for kid-friendly cookies – sweet but not overly so, easy to make and fun to look at – let me yet again to Heidi’s great site with her recipe for Animal Cracker Cookies.  While this is a really straightforward recipe in which you essentially stir the wet into the dry, the resulting dough for me was a little crumbly and hard to hold together.  It was only after its resting time in the fridge that it was able to yield to the pressure of the rolling pin (albeit rolled between sheets of baking paper).  From that point, cutting out the shapes and transferring them to the baking tray was easy (I rolled out the dough to about 3mm thin), the cookies take just a few minutes to bake, and look super cute with rainbow sugar sprinkled on top!

Have a look at Heidi’s site for the recipe (here), which I can thoroughly recommend.  I used regular plain flour instead of the wholewheat pastry flour, and simply used the dessicated coconut I had on hand (this didn’t need further chopping).   You could use demerara sugar (our Australian substitute for the American turbinado) in place of rainbow sugar.  The coconut flavour is not too strong here: it works well as a lovely background flavour to a simple, plain cookie with a great snappy bite.

 

soup two ways

Is it silly to think that making this soup for a recent big weekend cook-up was somehow even more homely and wholesome because it was done in my shiny new red pot?  Seeing all the colourful vegies in there, with the unruly tops of my market-day beetroot also sneaking into the frame, was just the thing to inspire industrious home-making thoughts. Soup, with homemade stock, was the order of the day.

We have fond memories of a knockout pumpkin soup we enjoyed at the London Fifteen restaurant a few years back.  Among all the dishes that we sampled that day, we agreed that the soup starter had stolen the show.  This version, which follows the recipe in Jamie’s Dinners with only minor changes, was a more straightforward affair but still tasty and satisfying. And, seeing as it made a vatful in quantity, the leftovers gave us the opportunity to take the soup in a different direction with the addition of some greens and unusual ravioli.   I’m sending over our second variation on this soup over to Jacqueline for this month’s No Croutons Required, which asks for ideas for soups or salads featuring leaves.  Even though pumpkin soup is usually pretty uniformly smooth in texture, the idea of using the soup as a background to other flavours and textures appealed to me.   I spied some stunning beetroot ravioli at the greengrocer that I wanted to try but which I thought might not work with our usual pasta sauces.  So in that went; plus, stirring some baby greens into the soup is a great way of sneaking in some extra veg and is a snap to do.  Who says that orange, pink and green can’t look good together?

Take 1: Simple pumpkin soup with sage
Adapted from Jamie’s Dinners

olive oil
handful fresh sage leaves
2 red onions, sliced into thick half moons
2 sticks celery, trimmed and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
2 sprigs rosemary, leaves picked
2kg butternut pumpkin (squash), cut into rough chunks
2L vegetable stock
creme fraiche or sour cream, for dolloping

In a very large saucepan, heat some olive oil until hot and drop in the sage leaves.  When they have sizzled and crisped up, take them out to drain on some paper towel.  Set aside the leaves until you are ready to eat.

Into the remaining hot oil, tip in the onion, celery, carrot, garlic and rosemary, and saute on low heat for about 10-15 minutes until the onion has softened.   Then add the pumpkin and stock, bring to the boil and simmer for about half an hour or until all the vegetables are soft.

Take off the heat and puree the soup with a hand blender.  Season well with salt and pepper.

To serve, add a generous dollop of creme fraiche and top with some crispy sage leaves.

Yield: 8 servings

Take 2: Pumpkin soup with beetroot ravioli and baby spinach

Seeing as this is more an idea than a recipe, my tips on this one are a little freeform…

- heat some pumpkin soup
- find some stunning filled fresh pasta (eg beetroot ravioli!) and cook according to instructions
- at the bottom of each soup bowl, place a generous handful of baby spinach
- ladle over the hot soup, and stir gently to wilt the leaves
- top with a few ravioli, and, of course, some creme fraiche and sage leaves.

 

icky sticky (and thanks)

I remember the first time I made chocolate self-saucing pudding was as a child of around 11 or 12.  Even from the perspective of a kid who had never made much pudding before, that this recipe would turn into a pudding with sauce seemed just highly improbable.  I’d be grateful for any information out there about how – scientifically, I guess – this recipe works: from some pantry and fridge basics you make a melt-and-mix cake batter, then sprinkle over some sugar and cocoa, and then pour over some boiling water.  It is the last part that seems weird.  But this recipe is dead easy and yet wonderfully comforting and satisfying.  We thought that we grown-ups needed a bit of extra indulgence this time around so added some Pedro Ximinez-soaked prunes as well – we can definitely recommend it.  We ate it as is on the first night, with leftovers enjoyed throughout the week warmed with an extra splash of pedro on top and a blob of custard.

And if you may be starting to think that our house seems to have been a house of desserts of late, you are right.  On that note I would like to say my warm thanks for supporting my entry (a warming dish of winter berries) to May’s No Crouton’s Required event.  I’m chuffed to now sport the winner’s badge for the month!  It’s lovely to receive this encouragement from readers, and I’m particularly grateful to the event organisers Lisa and Jacqueline, who apart from organising the event also maintain inspiring food blogs themselves.

I promise that we have been eating our greens at dinner, but today we’re still talking about icky and sticky desserts, so here’s the pudding recipe.  Enjoy!

Chocolate self-saucing pudding with drunken prunes
Adapted from Stephanie Alexander

125g plain flour
pinch of salt
1/4 castor sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
40g unsalted butter, melted
1 egg
dash vanilla essence
1/3 cup prunes, sliced roughly
3 tbsp Pedro Ximinez sherry (or brandy or cognac or whatever you have handy)

For the topping
180g brown sugar
2tbsp cocoa powder
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 180C.

Soak the prunes in the sherry and set aside.

Mix the flour, salt, sugar, baking powder and cocoa in a large bowl.  In a jug mix the melted butter, milk, egg and vanilla.  Tip the wet into the dry and mix thoroughly.  Stir through the prune mixture with the juices.  Tip into a 1.4L baking dish.

For the topping, mix together the brown sugar and the cocoa in a small bowl.  Scatter over the pudding batter.  Then carefully pour over the boiling water.

Bake for 40-45 minutes.  Serve hot with custard and extra sherry.

Yield: 6-8 servings.

 

odds and ends

A craving for dessert that came too late for a mercy dash to the shop instead led us to this hastily-put-together invention.  It’s not really a recipe: just take some odd bits of shortcrust pastry, one ripe pear, and some ends of glace ginger, and voila: dessert.    The pear and ginger filling was a nice riff on the familiar apple turnover idea, suitably spicy and warming for our present chilly season.  And if you’ll believe me,  the heart-shapes you see below were almost purely fortuitous.  My pastry odd-bits were vaguely triangular to start with, and got me wondering whether my heart-shaped mould would fit over the filling, which they miraculously did.  See where your odds and ends take you, seemed to be the message of the night.  Indeed!

Pear and Ginger Hearts

Shortcrust pastry (enough for 2 parcels of whatever shape you desire)
1 large ripe pear, peeled and diced
4-5 ends glace ginger, finely chopped (about 1 heaped tbsp in all)
1 tsp raw caster sugar and a big pinch of cinnamon, for sprinkling on top
1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat pastry to 200C.

Divide your pastry into 4 pieces.  You will need 2 smaller ones for bases, and 2 larger ones for the tops.

In a small bowl, stir together the pear pieces and ginger.  Divide the pear mix onto your 2 bases, leaving a 1cm edge.  Brush the edge with the egg mixture.  Place your pastry tops over the pear, and push down to seal.  Cut out the pastry parcels into hearts or whatever shapes fit best.  Brush the tops really well with the egg mixture, and sprinkle over the sugar and cinnamon mixture.

Bake for 12 minutes, then turn down the heat to 180C and bake for a further 15 minutes or until the tops are golden.

Yield: 2 hearts.

 

perky greens

I don’t usually have the budget or the time to look over all the lovely foodie books and magazines I would like to, so I really enjoyed having the chance to leaf through a whole stack of glossy food magazines while travelling a few months ago – for me, definitely one of the perks of not-so-frequent air travel!

This recipe caught my eye as it featured Indian flavours (a cuisine I’m trying to learn more about, and trying to cook from spices rather than bought bases), vegetarian, quick to cook (curry in spirit but cooks with the speed of a stir-fry), and used items that were all currently ready to spring to action in my kitchen (eg the usually forlorn fenugreek).  Hooray!  On the night I ended up cooking it, my fridge/pantry line-up was a bit different from what the original recipe called for – hence the inauthentic addition of tofu – but gosh can I recommend this for a speedy and tasty weeknight meal.  Even in the mixing bowl I was excited by the colours and freshness of the ingredients:

One note of warning: the chilli flavours here aren’t too hot, but add a lovely rounded warmth and is aa key part of the dish in my view.  Best not for a family meal with kiddies (unless yours are braver than mine is).

Quick and perky green bean curry
Adapted from Australian Gourmet Traveller

400g green beans, topped and tailed
150g firm tofu, cubed
1 small red onion, sliced into half moons
10 curry leaves
2 small green chilli, seeded and finely chopped
1 tsp each chilli flakes and ground cumin
1/2 tsp each fenugreek seeds and fennel seeds
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 coconut milk

In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients except for the oil and coconut milk.

Heat the oil in a wok, and then tip in the green bean mixture.  Cook for about 5 minutes on high until the onion has softened and the beans look bright green.

Tip in the coconut milk, and continue to stir-fry on high until most of the milk has evaporated and the bean mixture is almost glazed with it.  Season with some salt to taste, and serve with rice.

Yield: 2-3 serves.  I would definitely double this next time, as leftovers the next day were still yummy.

 

winter berries

Even after wondering whether I might have picked up some colour on my nose from the glorious sunshine we’re getting here, the nights and mornings tell me that winter’s well on the way.  So somehow it seems perfectly sensible to return to an old favourite from the northern hemisphere – rote grütze – a cherry and berry wonder from Germany.

Literally translating as ‘red groats’, it seems that traditionally this recipe was made with a combination of red fruit juices and grains.  The modern version I’m tapping into here is still based on red fruit juice (here I’ve used grape juice), but also uses whole red fruits.  It’s not super sweet, and enriched with a dash of red wine,  it’s a dessert that recalls the best of a steaming mug of glühwein, hearty and cosy-making from the insides.  It’s a fantastic served warm with vanilla custard.  It also keeps well in the fridge and Germans have been known to have it cold on their cereal of a morning.  Give it a go – but let me warn you that the grütze of course loses its soupy-stewy consistency to become more jelly-like in the cold, so don’t be disturbed at the transformation!

And while it does not sit perfectly within a particular genre, having some characteristics of a compote, a stew (like stewed apple or rhubarb), a jelly, a pudding – I’m crossing my fingers that this rote grütze is soup-like enough to qualify for this month’s No Croutons Required event, in which Lisa is calling for soups or salads with berries.

Rote grütze (red groats)

415g tin cherries, drained and juice reserved
about 450ml dark red grape juice (unsweetened)
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon zest
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/3 cup cornflour
1/2 red wine
2-3 cups mixed red berries (frozen is fine)

Put the reserved cherry juice in a measuring jug and make up to 600ml with the red grape juice.  Tip into a medium saucepan, and then add 1 more cup grape juice.  Add in the sugar, lemon zest and juice.  Bring to the boil.

In a separate glass, stir together the cornflour and the red wine.  When the juice mixture is just boiling, pour the cornflour mixture into the saucepan.  Return to the boil, stirring continuously as the sauce thickens, and simmer for 3 minutes.

Stir in the drained cherries and the berries and gently return to the boil.  Take off the heat and allow to cool slightly before serving.

Yield: about 1.5L, which would be a good 6-8 servings.  Keep in the fridge and microwave or heat gently on the stove to serve.

 

a top toast-topper

While I take a lot of inspiration from Jamie Oliver’s enthusiasm for all things natural, cooking and keeping it real on the whole, I must say even he can’t inspire me to get fresh peas in a pod and pod them.  I simply don’t have the kind of day where podding peas gets any time priority right now.  In his original recipe for this, he calls for fresh peas and broad beans, which apparently have far superior flavour.  So if any of you want to try with the fresh stuff – let me know how you go.

But the idea of tasty peas, smushed on garlic toast, and topped with a poached egg?  That’s a winner in my book, as it can really serve at any time of the day for a healthy dose of greens, protein and flavour.  Warning for all those against peas – mushy or otherwise – this recipe is built on them.  I, as a pea lover, am happy to find another way to work them into my meals.

[And as you can see from the looming shadows in this less than stellar photo, we had this as a quick weeknight dinner; I imagine it would make a lovely bright brekky, and look much more radiant in a photo taken then too.]

Smashed peas on toast
Adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe

We had these with a poached egg on top, but you could also go with the original recipe’s suggestion of plopping a torn-up ball of buffalo mozzarella over the peas.

1 1/2 cups frozen peas, thawed to room temperature
about 12 leaves fresh mint
1/2 cup grated parmesan, plus extra to top
juice of 1 lemon
4 slices sourdough, toasted
olive oil
1 clove of garlic, halved
poached eggs (see note above)

To make the smashed peas, put the peas and mint in a mortar and pestle and smash until you have a rough paste.  (It is fine to do this in stages if they don’t all fit at once.)

Stir in enough olive oil to make the paste barely spreadable (about 2 tablespoons should do it), then stir in the cheese.

Stir in about half of the lemon juice, then taste, adding salt and pepper as needed.  Add more lemon juice to taste if needed as well.  The idea is not to smash the peas so much that you have a puree consistency, but something short of that.  I liked my smashed peas to still have some identifiable pieces of peas and cheese in it.

(Get your eggs going at this point if you are having them.)  Toast the sourdough slices.  When done, drizzle with some olive oil and rub with the cut side of a garlic half.

Pile some peas on the garlic toast, top with an egg (or mozzarella), and scatter with some extra parmesan.

Yield: enough smashed peas for 2-3 serves.

 

morning and afternoon apple

Enticed by its big welcoming sign (”Apples! Quinces! Pears!”, or something like that), we decided to check out a local apple orchard and immediately found ourselves pacing down a row of fruit-heavy apple trees leading in from the road.  Even on that gusty grey day, we could smell the apple in the air, and were very excited to bring home a big bag of granny smiths and quinces for a little bit of orchard-goodness at home.  This weekend we had an apple-baking bonanza, and I want to recommend two excellent recipes if you might be in a similar apple-baking mood.

First, there was  Molly’s apple tart-cake. The golden glow you see in this photo is from the glorious morning sun that decided to come out yesterday just at apple cake photo time.

This cake is something that you can pull together from everyday ingredients, and, with the help of a food processor, is straightforward to make.  The amazing thing is the tart-cake base, which starts out being crumbly and mealy: but somehow, during cooking this base mixture both sets at the bottom and bubbles up to fill the nooks and crannies of the apple slices up above.  Who knows how a base mixture can know to do both things?  And in terms of technique, no special cake making skills are here required.  Once  you press the tart-cake crumbs into your tin, then just you need to really pack in the apple slices on top (as prettily as you please), and then do the topping stage.  I pretty much decided to follow Molly’s recipe so won’t repeat it here.  (Though next time I make this one, I will take up some of the suggestions in the comments to reduce the sugar in the base from 1 cup to 3/4 cup.)

Second, my husband requested apple pie.  Cindy led me to a recipe for old-fashioned apple pie by Martha Stewart, which uses a fabulous pate brisee recipe for the pastry that I had tried with great success in the past (eg for beetroot and feta tart).  This recipe is the real deal, and has a very simple idea for the filling (just sliced apples tossed in lemon juice, sugar and spices with some flour and butter).  I have never made apple pie from scratch before so followed the recipe closely, but I would like a bit more of the spice flavour next time.  But I admit I was a little daunted by the prospect of making a pie that uses 1.8kg of apples, so decided to make a half quantity.  Here’s the resulting golden pie, in the rather less golden glow of the afternoon sun by our window.  While the pie here looks like it is bathed in mysterious cool blue light, the photo is taken in the same spot as the apple tart-cake was the previous morning.  I promise you that the pie was as appropriately bronzed and burnished as a sugar-crusted apple pie should be!

(And because even with half the amount of apples I could not fit them in, this is the little ramekin-pie I made with the leftover filling and pastry scraps.)

 

Sort of swiss

A recent work trip to Switzerland provided the ideal opportunity to conduct some sideline research on something which the Swiss can fairly claim authority: muesli.  I set out to try a different kind of bircher muesli every day, and very nearly succeeded:  I was given some on the aeroplane, then I had some from the local bakery, a few different kinds from the corner supermarket, and some from the hotel breakfast bar too.  All very tasty, but I can report that the highlights were one with stewed rhubarb, and another made with a strawberry yoghurt base.

Another branch of my muesli research centred on the muesli bar.  This was something I had already been preoccupied with back home, in an attempt to find something tasty,  easy to make and healthy for my son.  Many of the supermarket-bought varieties here seem to contain about 1/3 of their weight in sugar, which is far from ideal.  Unfortunately, my Swiss supermarket research yielded much the same results (except that they did also have my favourite flavour – pear!).

So when I returned I resolved to have another go at home-made.  These turned out a tasty, chewy mix – which I loved and so far my son seems to take to as well – but I think the key to this recipe lies in your mixture of dried fruit.  I used 1/3 dried apple, 1/3 turkish dried apricot, 1/3 dried figs, and the end result turned out to have a dominant apricot flavour.  I guess the end result was only very vaguely Swiss, so maybe I should just try to hunt down some dried pear to make a healthy version of those delicious pear muesli bars…

Rustic Muesli-Bar-Bites

1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
2 weetbix, crushed (or 1/2 cup wheatgerm)
1/2 cup wholemeal self-raising flour
400g mixed dried fruit, chopped (see notes above)
1/2 cup currants or sultanas
2 eggs
1/2 cup fruit juice
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 180C, and line 2 trays (25cm x 17cm) with baking paper.

In a large bowl,  combine the dry ingredients, including the dried fruit.  Stir to mix well.

In a small bowl, stir together the wet ingredients.  (Don’t worry if the honey doesn’t mix through properly at this point.)

Tip the wet ingredients into the dry, and stir very well to mix through.  Press the mixture into the baking trays, making the tops as smooth as you can.

Bake for 35-35 minutes, until the tops are just golden and the mixture has shrunken away slightly from the sides.

Cool in the tins until the bars are cool to the touch, then cut into whatever size bars or squares you like.

Yield: Depends on the size of your bars, but I got out 42 bites from a batch.