Black Tahini Baba Ganouj

Dips are definitely a comfort food - but depending on what kind they can definitely be good for you too in moderation! One of my favourites is baba ganouj, I could eat a bucket of it. Tahini - an important ingredient in baba ganouj is  a great source of protein, calcium, B1, and fibre, as well as many other minerals such as copper and magnesium. You don't have to use black tahini, however use unhulled tahini if you can - it contains a much higher amount of the vitamins and minerals you are after!

Ingredients
1 large eggplant
2 Tablespooons black tahini
2 tablespoons unhulled tahini
2 cloves garlic, crushed
juice of 1 large lemon (approx 1/4 cup)
1/2 tsp smoked paprika (extra for garnish)
1/4 tsp ground cumin
pinch salt
1 /2 cup chopped parsley (extra for garnish)
EVOO for drizzling

Method
1.Preheat the oven to 180C. Place the eggplant, whole, on a baking tray and bake for 20 -30 minutes, until soft.
2.To get the smoky flavour you can either use a BBQ hotplate to finish it off, or if you have a gas stove using tongs turn the eggplant over the flame frequently until the skin blackens. Allow to cool.
3.Cut the eggplant inot large chunks, and place into a food processor with the rest of the ingredients. Pulse until smooth and well combined.
4. Put into a bowl or jar, sprinkle some extra paprika and parsley over the top, and drizzle with a little oil.

Serve with some good bread or crackers, on its own or part of a platter!

Australia Day: Vegan Chiko Rolls

Happy Australia Day!  A day for us to be glad we live in a free country and focus on all the things we do have instead of all the things we don't. Except for our current Prime Minister. He's one of the things we do have that I really wish we didn't. So sorry, citizens of the world for inflicting this man on you as our representative. But please don't blame me personally, I didn't vote for Tony Abbott.  His nugget of wisdom on our day of days? "My duty, as your prime minister, is to ensure that, as far as possible, in this great land of ours, no one is left behind," Except if you're on a boat obviously. In which case, not only are you left behind, but you're taken back as well. And we don't have enough cash for improvements to disability schemes, or giving more to foreign aid, but he did find some loose change down the back of the couch for newlyweds to get relationship counselling. But that's for another post. So I will continue to be glad I live in a free country and glad we will have the opportunity to get rid of him at the next election. Or earlier. You never know, this is Australia, we have changed PMs quicker than Bonds undies the last few years.

But enough of that. When I think of all our national foods there are a few that come to mind. What's a cake drive without a Lamington? Or morning tea without Tim Tams? Or a takeaway shop without a Chiko Roll? Yeah yeah yeah, we impress our international visitors with our rich multicultural grub, our fusion foods (aka Modern Australian Cuisine), and emphasise that despite guzzling beer we do a very nice Chardonnay. But truth be told, we're pretty happy with the everyday stuff too. So this year I decided it was high time for a veg version of the Chiko Roll. 

For those of you across the seas a Chiko is kinda like a spring roll but with much thicker pastry so it doesn't crumble in your hand. It reminds me of summer holidays and swimming at the beach. The traditional walk with my Dad up to the local fish and chip shop to get lunch - feeling slightly sticky with saltwater, covered in sand and wrapped in a towel, thwick -thwacking the hot pavement with my thongs. It makes me feel all gooey with nostalgia just thinking about it. And we always had an ice cream afterwards, my choice was usually a Bubble-O Bill or a Golden Gaytime (yes, for you non Aussies there is an ice cream called a Gaytime and yes it still exists. It's delicious, albeit not vegan. Hmmm...maybe I should try veganising that for another post). Despite the name it doesn't have any chicken and has a mixture of beef and shredded vegetables in it. And when I looked at the manufacturers website, quite a bit of TVP despite the beef and tallow. I don't think I've had one for about 13 or 14 years, but the Beloved thought it was a pretty good approximation and thought it smelled pretty Chiko-ey  alhtough he hasn't had one for ages either.  It would be pretty hard to buy pre made pastry for this, the texture wouldn't be right.  I guess you could use a savoury shortcrust sheet if you really couldn't be bothered making the dough. But you might as well make it while you're waiting for the mixture to cool, it isn't hard.

Makes approximately 8 large rolls

Ingredients

For the pastry

3 cups plain flour 

1 1/4 cups water

1 teaspoon salt

For the filling

1 chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery

1 cup chopped cabbage and kale

1 shredded carrot

1/2 cup chopped green beans

1 cup cooked barley or rice

1/2 cup cooked brown lentils

2 teaspoons Massel chicken style stock powder

1 heaped teaspoon ground white pepper

Vegetable oil for shallow frying

Method

1.Cook lentils, barley, and rice and set aside.

2.In a large frying pan, heat  a little oil and saute onion, celery, carrot, beans, cabbage and kale until soft.

3.Add barley (or rice) and lentils, stock powder and pepper, and stir to combine. Set aside to cool.

4. To make pastry, place flour and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour in in water and gradually take in flour from the sides until all water is incorporated. Knead for a few minutes until you have a smooth soft dough.

5. Divide dough into 8 portions and roll out into a rectangle, about 3mm thick. 

6.Spoon about 1/2 cup cooled mixture down the centre of the rectangle lengthways, leaving about 5cm at either end. 

7. Fold over the shorter ends, and the fold over one half of the pastry lengthways over filling, and roll to wrap remainder of pastry and to seal.

8. Heat oil in a frying pan and gently place a couple of rolls in at a time, seal side down first, frying until brown and crisp, and then turn over (you can deep fry if you would like, I couldn't be bothered messing about with all that oil!)

Serve straight away while crisp and hot.

P.S. Tony - if we didn't have plenty of "boat people" come to this country we wouldn't have the Chiko Roll so ner!

Superhero Snacks: Beer Dough Pretzels

I have to admit, I'm having fun coming up with hero related snacks, but probably not as much fun as  Phil and John have had coming up with some pretty awesome add ons like t-shirts (sweat shop free - woot!), a playmat, activity book, badge, and of course the amazing action figures. To check them out head on over to their Kickstarter campaign, but they only have two weeks left so if you think these two are as awesome as I do for their creation please consider a pledge!

Enough of the shameless plug...on to business!

I've made pretzels quite a few times, but I wanted something a bit different for Herr Pretzel from Pack of Heroes. Pretzels are an obvious choice, but what could make them more pretzelly (is that even a word? it is now!) than making them with beer dough using a German beer! I'll be honest, I was just going to use whatever beer I could find in the Beloved's homebrew, but spied the German bottle sitting on the shelf. Perfect! (As a side note the Beloved says the beer pictured is rubbish, even if it is gluten free). It did make a cracking good dough however, the texture was quite light when they were baked. I will probably make more of them using a different beer next time to give a different flavour.

Ingredients

3 1/2 - 4 cups bakers flour

1 tsp yeast

1 bottle beer

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup warm water

2 tsp fine salt for the dough, plus rock salt or flakes for the top

1/4 cup bicarb soda

Method

1. Heat the water until lukewarm. Add the oil, salt, and yeast, stir, and leave aside until mixture bubbles. Add beer.

2. Make a well in the centre of 3 1/2 cups of the flour, pour in the yeast mixture, and with a wooden spoon, bring in flour to centre and mix. 

3. Turn out onto floured surface, and oil your hands (this prevents the dough sticking to you, plus drying out your skin!)

4. Knead for about 10 minutes, or until dough is smooth and elastic. You may need to add a bit more flour if it is too sticky - I used nearly 4 cups this time, humidity was high as per usual when I make these!

5. Put into an oiled bowl, cover, and set aside until doubled in size. This may take 1-2 hours depending on the temperature. I set mine next to our fire. (You can put the oven on for five minutes, turn off, and then leave the door ajar with the dough inside to speed things up).

6. Punch down and knead for a couple of minutes. Divide dough into 12 portions and roll into long sausages , about 40cm long. Loop into a pretzel shape. Place on a lined tray, and allow to rise again until double. 

7. Turn on oven to 190C to preheat, and set a large saucepan of water on the stove to boil. Fill the saucepan about 2/3 full.

8. When water is boiling, drop in salt and bicarb - watch out it froths!

9. Carefully drop the prerzels in one at a time to poach, about a minute and a half on each side. Remove carefully and set on greaseproof lined baking trays, a few centimetres apart. 

10. Sprinkle the top with salt crystals or flakes.

11. Place in the oven to bake for approximately 20 minutes, until dark brown, and set on a wire rack to cool.

Superhero Snacks: Rainbow Whoop-Ass Pies

Who is next? What hero would eat these somewhat girly but totally scrumptious multi hued whoop-ass pies (that's whoopie pies to the rest of us)? Rainbow Sprinkle, the totally manly action movie star unicorn (who is obviously in touch with his feminine side). I imagine Mr. Sprinkle would power up on anything brightly coloured, I would love these guys in mini form on a skewer while playing Pack of Heroes of course, but Rainbow would skewer it on his horn and eat on the run, or mid kick, or...whatever. These aren't regular whoopie pies, they're whoop -ass pies!

Although I would normally colour with fruit I basically couldn't be bothered and used the totally bad for you food colour gel. But hey, if you're loading up on white flour and sugar you may as well go the whole way!

To make these I used a basic vanilla cupcake recipe, my weapon of choice is from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.  These got me 12 regular sized whoopie pie sides, but if you were going mini you could get double that. I took a 1/4 cup of plain batter and coloured each lot separately in a jug, which got me two of the same colour. A word of warning here. I used gel colouring which is much more vibrant and doesn't effect the batter like a liquid would, so you may have to experiment with the batter consistency if you can't find them. Once baked I allowed to cool and sandwiched it with whipped vegan cream cheese because I can't stand buttercream. You could also fill them with choc ganache if you wanted to.

And once again guys, if you want to support this totally fun project please head over here!

Superhero Snacks: Hawaiian Mayan Trail Bar

Image from John D-C

First to fire up his superpowers on a super snack is Scarlet Macaw, aka the "Hawaiian Mayan." Being part bird I imagine one of his fave snacks would be a trail bar, full of his favourite nuts and seeds. But being part human and a nod to the Mayan part of his persona we would have to smother it in dark chocolate! Admittedly they aren't the most good looking snack, but they are yummy!



Ingredients

For the bottom layer
2/3 cup hazelnut meal
1/3 cup almond meal
1/2 cup melted coconut oil

For the top layer
2 cups soaked pitted dates
1/4 cup pepitas
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 tablespoon quinoa flakes
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon chia seeds
2 tablespoons desiccated coconut

and approximately 1 1/2 cups melted dark chocolate bits

Method
Soak the dates in hot water for approximately 20 minutes. Drain and mash.

While the dates are sokaing mix the base layer ingredients with the melted coconut oil and spread over a grease proof paper lined tin. I used a 8 inch square tin. It will be fairly thin. Place in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up.

Mix top layer ingredients with mashed dates and press over bottom layer, smoothing over. If the mixture is a bit too gooey just add some extra coconut to soak up the liquid.

Place in freezer for 15 minutes to firm up, and then cut into bars. I got 16 narrow bars, but you could make smaller bite sized ones and get 32 pieces. Place back into freezer for an hour to get hard. This makes it easier to coat and sets the chocolate quickly.

Melt the chocolate, and toss the bars into it one at a time, flipping out onto greaseproof paper. Put back in the fridge to set. You must use dark chocolate, the best you can get with bitter tones to it because the bar itself is very sweet. Also be quick to flip them out as the coconut oil will melt and the bar won't hold together very well.

Best kept in the fridge, but I doubt they will last long!

And to have a look at the game itself, head over here!

Pack of Heroes: Superhero Snacks

Image from John D-C

Hello dear readers, it's time for some shameless plugging on behalf of the amazingly creative Phil of Adventureland Games. He also just happens to be Mrs Bean's hubby. The sweet cheeks, as she calls him, has been designing a new game along with good friend and uber talented John D-C, artist extraordinaire! The game is called Pack of Heroes and is styled on a vintage comic book theme. Move over Avengers, you have nothing on the super powers of  the six awesome teams of Power City! If you love the superhero genre you will love this game, even for the concept and artwork alone. I've been lucky enough to get a few sneak peeks. Did I mention John has actually designed and made six action figures?! Wowsers! The two have worked very hard on it for most of this year, and I really hope it gets moving. To get it off the ground and distributed more widely requires quite a bit of financial backing, so through Kickstarter they are hoping to achieve this goal. To have a look at the promo and/or pledge to be a part of this super fun project go right here. And even if you don't want to pledge have a look at it and pass it on to someone you know who might!

Phil walker Harding and John D-C (photo from John D-C)

So you may be wondering what this has to do with a food blog. Well superheroes need super snacks! and you my friends, will need these snacks because when you get this game you will be playing it so much your own super powers will be depleted without them! So for the next little while I'll be running a theme on Superhero Snacks based on some of the heroes from the game. It's a fun light hearted little project for me, and at the same time maybe I can help Phil and John share their awesome work! I only wish the lunchbox did exist, because you guys would need it to put all these snacks in. Watch this space...

Kentucky Tofu Nuggets

Ok, I know. These aren't particularly healthy. And I didn't grow any of it myself. And I didn't make the seasoning from scratch. And it is a little funny that the seasoning is for use on "any poultry" but on the back is listed as vegan so that I actually chuckled out loud in the supermarket. And the fact they are remarkably like (as I remember them) KFC nuggets they don't particularly help the vegetarian cause. BUT - after gving these to my omnivore sister Rachel last weekend who poo pooed them and then demanded to know if I was making another batch - I think you'll find these scrum-diddly-umptious!

Ingredients
1 large block of hard tofu ( I used a 600g block)
1/2 cup Nice N' Tasty Kentucky Style Chicken Seasoning
1 cup water
oil for deep frying

Method
Mix seasoning and water into a bowl and whisk into a batter. stand aside for a few minutes to thicken.
Turn on your deep fryer. If you don't have one, a small saucepan 2/3 filled with oil is fine ( and I think less messy). To test the the temperature drop a small amount of batter into the ol to see if it bubbles up to the top.
Cut the tofu into bite sized cubes (about 3cm). Coat in the batter, and then gently drop the battered cubes into the oil. Don't overcrowd the pan - cook in batches of about five.
When golden remove with a metal slotted spoon and drain on paper towel.
you can double batter tehm by allowing to cool after the first cook, redipping, and then cooking until a deep brown - they'll be nice and crunchy!
Serve with your favourite dipping sauce.