Kitchen Invader

I was so close to reaching my goal of posting three times a week whilst in Australia.

Alas, the construction workers cut through a cable and I was internet-less for a little while.

I think I may give up coffee before I could ever give up the luxury that is Email.

Instead I got a few days to recover from my food coma so that I could post about it!

I was faced with a foodie challenge. Cooking for three other people with all different food preferences.

I don’t eat meat, one doesn’t like fish or mushrooms and claims they are adamantly against Vego…..ahem, Oscar.

I kind of just bought a bunch of ingredients and created a three course meal on the fly.

Caprese Dip to start

So simple: tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, oven.

Topped with toasted pine nuts.

Is it just me or do pine nuts make everything better?

Language barriers are still kicking. I asked if they had tomato sauce when we were buying ingredients at the grocery store.

Yep realized I shoulda referred to that as “pasta sauce” when I was handed the “ketchup” in their abode.

That’s the beautiful thing about improvising though.

Couscous “on-the-fly”

• Couscous
• Tomato Paste
• Chopped Tomatoes
• Spinach
• Mozzarella
• Garlic
• Basil
• Toasted Pine Nuts

1. Cook couscous with a 1:2 ratio of couscous to water
2. Once the couscous begins to absorb most of the water add all ingredients except pine nuts and spinach
3. Slowly add spinach  and mozzarella until it cooks well into the couscous
4. Remove from heat and add toasted pine nuts
5. CONSUME

Dessert was a new one for my Australian friends. Apparently Bread Pudding is a European or English dessert.

They were a bit skeptical about using stale bread. Though we ended up using fresh crusty bread anyways.

Apple Raisin Bread Pudding

• Half a loaf of bread
• Mixed dried fruit
• 2 apples
• Milk
• 2 eggs
• Sugar
• Heaps of cinnamon

1. Combine milk, eggs, sugar and cinnamon over medium heat.
2. Meanwhile chop bread and apples into large cubes and put in a baking dish along with dried fruit
3. Once the milk/egg mixture starts to thicken, remove from heat on combine with bread/fruit mixture
4. Bake at 180 C  until bread begins to brown

I topped it with vanilla ice cream.

Aaaand….stuffed.

I thoroughly enjoyed my little food coma that night.

And the vego meal was a complete success. I may have even begun to recruit a few over to the dark side 😉

Thank you friends for letting me invade your kitchen and cook vego food for avid meat eaters.

Do you eyeball things more depending on if you’re cooking for yourself or for others?

I definitely don’t measure that much when I’m cooking for a group.

 

Casey

Pumpkin Cashew Parmesan Dip

Well my dearies:

I cannot seem to find a way to make this dip appear bee-you-tiful. I do not have any pretty blogging bowls at the moment and it doesn’t help that this dip is camera-shy.

But what it lacks in photography it make up for in taste ;). Promise

This dip will change your world.

A little too overzealous?

Maybs.

• 1.5~2 cups Cashews (depending on how much you add towards the end)
• 1 T Oil
• S & P to taste
• 1.5 T Cumin
• ¾ c Pumpkin
• 1 t  minced garlic
• 3 T Parmesan

1. Grind cashews in a food processor until you get a ‘meal’
2. Add all other ingredients and mix until desired consistency is reached
3. Add in some more cashews at the end  if you want some chunk in there. (optional)

If you want to veganize this I know there are a few varieties of vegan parm out there. Or you can make Ashley’s vegan parmesan cheeze. I’m sure that would work great too!

This dip is more dense then hummus. Go grab some crackers or crudites and get dippin!

For Dinner I was HANGRY.

After a long day of classes, two exams, and a career fair, my craving was full-throttle

Sweet ‘n’ Spicy

Flatbread Pizza: Spinach Flatbread base, Spicy Barbeque Sauce as the ‘sauce’

Toppings: Diced Onion, Tomato, Red Pepper, Black Beans, Feta and Pineapple!

Baked at 350 for 20 minutes (or until the edges begin to brown)

You should also be able to smell when its ready as the pineapple begins to caramelize.

The Sweet ‘n’ Spicy combo was soo good

Especially since that sauce is super spicy it needed some sweet to balance the flavors.

After I finished this off (kept me full for ages!) I did some google-readering only to see Mama Pea made an almost identical “pizza”

It’s a small blog world out there.

Ta!

 

Casey

 

Homage

I feel like an old woman, beginning some many posts with

“When I was in Australia….”

But there is a reason for all of these memories and homages (hint hint…..my big news?)

Yea I still need to wait a little longer till I tell the world officially, but I don’t think I’m gonna last another three weeks. So expect me to cave relatively soon.

One of the many foodie reasons I luuurve Australia:

They share an equal (if not greater) love for pumpkin and dates.

Seriously, they put pumpkin in everything.

Lovin’ it.

One of the items I would get a lot from the store was this Pumpkin, Cashew and Parmesan Dip.

I can’t really find anything like that in US stores, so i figured: why not create it myself

I had a bit of extra pumpkin left from some baking and cooking I’ve done recently so now was the perfect time to take it for a test drive.

I didn’t make any *exact* measurements, but I can kind of guess how much of what I used.

1/2 c cashews

1 t cumin

1 capfull of oil

1/2 t garlic

1/4 t of kosher salt (might have been more….I like it a tad saltier than the regular person)

I didn’t have any parm on me so I added some chopped Australian white cheddar

I don’t think the cheddar gave much to the flavor but I’m going to buy some parmesan for the next go ‘roud. (I just bought all the necessary ingredients at Whole Foods tonight, so I’ll get crackin’ over the weekend!)

Grind that baby up!

My food processor is on its last leg.

(read: it’s a hand-me-down)

So I just settled to have some of the cashews chunky. Though I kind of like how the cashew chunks added to the texture.

*FYI this is a savory dip

Soooooo sumptuous. I’m never going to buy a homemade dip again.

(Don’t quote me on that. But I mean, if I have a food processor, there’s really no excuse. Play like a champion!)

I’m going to make a bigger batch with proper measurements in the near future but for now here is the tentative recipe

As far as the love of dates?

I’m planning a homage to sticky date pudding this weekend. There will be multiple trials as I’m creating this recipe from scratch too!

 

I also made some Flaxy French Toast recently.

Sometimes, eating vegan is so handy. I never seem to run out of flax or chia seeds.

Baking crises averted!

I used Whole Foods whole grain seeded bread.

Topped with a mixture of heated jam and mixed berries.I am a flax french toast convert.

Eggy french toast doesn’t hold a candle to this perfection.

I;m rather tired after the Whole Foods “Cooking Class”. So I’ll recap tomorrow!

 

Ta!

 

Casey