However…

A foolproof way to remedy a creative block in the kitchen

Oh, that’s easy. Just have a clever dad. Go on.

I have a plastic tofu press which yields a block of tofu just about large enough for one. It was great when I first bought it because I’d never made tofu prior to that point and it was a novelty. But time went on and I realised it wasn’t a very good product for a serious tofu lover. You just can’t make enough with it, for one, and it just isn’t that high of quality. It works but it’s the most bottom line press you can get, in my opinion.

I looked and looked for something wooden, something bigger, something that represented my mind’s image of the ideal tofu press. I couldn’t find it.

So I rang my father (who’s all clever and stuff with making things). I then e-mailed him some images and measurements and he knocked this up, adding a few ideas of his own. A couple of weeks later a gigantic box arrived on my doorstep and I became the proud owner of a certifiably awesome tofu press. How cool is that?

Design requests

My biggest request was a lid with a good sized handle that would sit outside of the box when pressing thin blocks of curd. This is not a traditional design, but I wanted it because the aforementioned plastic kit contained a lid which was just crap.  It was light and sat improperly on the block, with very little accessible surface area on which to place an object to aid in pressing. This meant tofu pressed with an inconsistent texture (like pockets where the liquid was not evenly pressed out).

I wanted ultimate control. The new box allows me to press the tofu to the point I determine is right for what I want as an end product. I can easily stack books or a cutting board with a bowl of liquid on top of the handle to press more (for super firmness).

Second, it’s bigger. Much, much bigger, and with a whole lot of holes for the whey to drain away (awhey? Har har. Sorry). I can press ten times the amount of bean curd as before. That’s a lot.

Yum. Can’t get enough of it. If you hate tofu, you haven’t had it fresh.

And you know how chocolate milk always tastes better from a cardboard carton than from plastic? The same applies for tofu made in a wood press versus plastic (try the chocolate milk thing though, I’m serious).

What to do with carrots?

The order in which I prefer carrots is as follows:

1. Raw
2. Oven roasted and baked
3. Fried in butter, with herbs
4. As a base for broths
5. Boiled

Carrots have the most flavour, the best texture, and probably the most nutrition when eaten raw. One of my favourite ways to eat raw carrot is grated or julienned in an Asian-style cabbage salad with peanuts. My husband generally agrees raw is the way to go with these orange root veggies.

But I’d just bought some smokey chipotle chili powder at Borough Market and I had an idea which involved the oven. Faced with both the guilt of letting perfectly good vegetables go to waste and the desire to try out my new purchase, I decided to somehow combine the two.

One of the best ways to cook carrots, in my opinion, is rolled up in foil with a bunch of honey, and simply baked. Sweet and spicy sounded like a good combination, one that would work well with the already sweet flavour carrots naturally provide (no wonder they are used in the preparation of so many sweets in Asia), so I decided to go with an agave nectar based marinade.

I baked the carrots in a lattice for aesthetic reasons, but I’m not going to go into that here. The flavour is the same if you bung them in foil and the lattice is a pain in the arse (a pretty pain in the arse, but a pain nevertheless). If you do want to get fancy and you don’t bake in foil, however, you’ll need to reduce the cooking time (especially if you slice the carrots as thin as in the picture above).

The ingredients provided below are more of a suggestion than a recipe. I admittedly didn’t measure, so if your oven goes into meltdown then… well, anyway.

P.S. Visiting London anytime soon? If you’re into food then a visit to Borough Market is a must.

It’s not all in a name, not here at least

“Chicken Ball” sounds very unappetising, a name more capable of winning a playground name calling contest than impressing dinner guests*. I am undecided regarding which scenario fits the name better:

Scenario 1:

“What’s for dinner tonight?”

“Chicken Balls”

Scenario 2:

“Oi, Chicken Ball, gimme your lunch money!”

What do you think?

A base recipe to be buffed up with your flavours

I created this recipe as a very basic and mildly flavoured staple to which other flavours can be added to suit a dish. It’s not intended to be hugely flavourful because flavours will be added to suit the dish. Here are a few suggestions:

• Using it in a curry? Try adding some cumin or garam masala and a little extra salt.
• Want a chicken-meatball pasta dish? Try adding some more rosemary and perhaps other herbs to the mix. Maybe some celery salt, too?
• How about a spicy chili or stew? Add some cayenne pepper or go all out with some smoky chipotle!
• Change the texture by adding more vital wheat gluten. I have made the recipe both like below and with more gluten. Both are good, but added gluten yields a more solid result with a chewier texture.

Update 15 September 2008: I used these in this Rajasthani Kadhi Recipe along with a few handfuls of spinach. Highly recommended! Yum-tastic!

I suppose you want the recipe now.

*luckily those include only my cats and hubby.

Creating new things…

I’m always trying to think of new things. I’m also always trying to think of ways to motivate myself to implement said new things. The following “recipe” is an idea that came to fruition in less than two weeks, nothing short of miraculous for me. I genereally opt for la-la land, an imaginary place where my creations are wholly unique, often produced, and loved by all.

Reality sort of sucks. I work long hours, sometimes 12 hour days, and find myself uninspired to cook and mainly just ready for bed. I need to create a cooking schedule for myself so I know to make time ahead of time. I need a stunt double, only one who limits themselves on the stunts and excels in the kitchen. I mean we have limited space you know.

Comfort food without the guilt, on a pizza

I’m not a super health nut. I eat my fair share of fat and sugar. I don’t feel guilty about this.

I do, however, like to keep my animal fats to a minimum. Cancer, diabetes, and heart disease run in my family so while I may not go for a perfect diet, I do like to be careful. The more I practise this, the more I feel horrible when I’ve eaten huge quantities of, say, cheese. This makes a pizza a once-in-a-blue-moon treat for me because I know it’s just going to leave me feeling weighed down for the rest of the day. But then I started thinking “ah, but why should a pizza be tomatoes and cheese?!”

A great way to deal with leftovers

I don’t know about you, but root vegetables always seem to accumulate in my pile of stuff to use up. They sit around in quantities not quite large enough to feed two people, so they continue to sit around a little longer. Then there’s the packages of things, like “sausages,” that come in three or five (yes, I cheated and got these at the store. Usually I like to make my own), so there’s always one or two left over.

Never mind. This vegan sos and mash “pizza” is a great way to use up any leftover root veg. Boil ‘em and mash ‘em and there’s your base for a unique pizza.

The components of a sos and mash pizza

There’s no need for a recipe for this. If you need a recipe, find your favourite pizza recipe and use it as a guide! There are 3 basic components to this pizza:

• Pizza base, bought or home-made
• A thick gravy (think the consistency of a tomato sauce for pizza)
• Mashed potato (give it some flavour by mashing it with some soy milk plus garlic, chives, butter, and/or other favourite mash ingredients…)
• Veg sausages, sliced and lightly fried

I’m confident you can work out how to put it together, but just for reference the stack goes base + gravy + mash + sausage. Bake following the directions for your pizza base.

I know this isn’t particularly exciting, but it’s a fun and unique take on the traditional British sausage and mash dinner. It’s fun to eat, filling, and very tasty. I definitely plan to make this again, but next time I might add a little sweet potato to the mix!

I have recently developed an obsession with tempeh. My husband really likes it too, not that he complains a great deal about anything else I make (but I do aim to please, mostly, depending on the time of the month and whether or not you spoke to me before 10am that morning).

This recipe features one of my staple favourites when I’m craving a unique flavour: pomegranate molasses. Combined with some lemon and vinegar, along with a dash of sugar, it makes for an awesome taste.

The recipe provided below is for the tempeh only, but it’s served with roasted butternut squash on a bed of bulghur wheat (cooked in a simple tomato based sauce with a pinch of cumin). The sauce is simply yoghurt and garlic, a favourite of both mine and my husband’s (he has a name, you know. It’s Paul). The measurements of ingredients I’ve listed do not need to be accurate, so if you love more of one thing than another then go for it (be sure to report back and let me know how it worked out for you).

Hey Brits, it really is summertime. That’s code for salad season!

Despite what you may think when you look out the window, or when you go out for a stroll in your mac, it is technically the summer. The weather, at least in the Southeast of England, has been so humid and muggy that the last thing I’ve wanted was a hot meal. As a result a lot of cooler soups and grains have been set on my dining table in recent weeks. I think for my husband that has not been easy because despite him feeling the same about the weather, he’s got that British thing going on where it can be tricky to bend expectations of how a dish should be. Soup should be hot, for instance (nevermind the fact that this statement is simply not true)!

But we are all creatures of habit and that has to be respected (and by “respected” I mean I don’t expect you to change your views, but I will still make fun of you for a long time). I compromised with a meal that was half cold and half hot. If you serve your veggies straight-from-the-oven and are worried about wilting the greens, simply serve next to instead of on the leaves.

The hubby is not a salad person unless “it is covered in dressing.” I always mean to ask him about this because, so far as I’m aware, salad is generally eaten with a dressing of some form. Perhaps he is referring to the sad and lone clumps of wilted lettuce often placed on the side of pub meal dishes? At any rate he ate this salad (and I would even go as far as guessing he enjoyed it, though he may claim otherwise).

Seriously, don’t make cool recipe ideas suck!

The idea for this came from a thought tucked away in the back of my limited grey bits for a few months. I visited a restaurant in Maryland that served a roasted vegetable salad that was mediocre at best, the sort of dish that made me say “but this has so much potential! Why did you make it suck!?” I knew I could do better and, to be honest, I did.

The salad dressing recipe provided is a very tangy and tart one, so if that’s a little much for you then by all means sweeten the dressing a little more. By all means, use your own dressing (I highly recommend a vinaigrette of some sort for this dish). The choice of veggies also isn’t set in stone; I bet some butternut squash or sweet potato would be a yummy addition! Experiment with your favourites and let me know how it goes. Be sure to try the roasted tomatoes though, even if you’re not a fan of tomatoes. I personally despise raw tomatoes, but the taste and texture when roasted is mouthwateringly good. Try throwing a teaspoon of sugar in with the roast tomato mix if you feel so inclined! It turns what is already a treat into a caramelised heaven. Spread it on bread, use it as the base for a dip, throw in a risotto… once you try roasted tomatoes you’ll want to use them in every dish you cook.

“This is different. Try it.”

“I didn’t know aubergine could be so good!”

I knew I loved Aubergine/Eggplant Parmesan when I lived in the states (before I discovered parmesan isn’t vegetarian) and hence assumed aubergine was a heavenly vegetable. Then I grew up, quit eating out all the time, and tried cooking it for myself.

Yuck.

Aubergine is an unfortunate vegetable in many ways; it features a gorgeous and deep purple colour that cooks into a dull grey lump, it can be spongy, it can be unpleasant. But I realised it didn’t have to be yuck and that it simply had to be cooked right. I practised a multitude of different recipes and techniques and realised if cooked through well enough, aubergine is still a delightful vegetable whether deep fried, stewed, or burnt to a crisp in the oven. I was back on track in engaging a positive relationship with this purple veggie.

Then I discovered Baba Ganoush and I fell extra in love. Whenever someone tells me they dislike aubergine I always challenge their statement with this delicious, smoky, Arabic spread. Rarely do they claim to dislike aubergine after that.

Generally I would serve it with pitta bread or with a mezze meal. It is not something that often yields leftovers and it goes quickly. For some reason, however, my last attempt left a few tablespoons behind. Not one to throw food away unless it’s fuzzy, this instead became a base for toasted cheese a day or two after.

Er, so what’s the point of this post?

The point is twofold. First of all I feel guilty about not posting this week. My main hard disk crashed on Monday morning and I’ve been out of action as a result. Thankfully I have a very talented and clever husband who managed to find the problem and have it fixed. The other reason is simply that I want the world to love aubergine. I want everyone who has never had Baba Ganoush, especially those of you who claim to hate eggplant/aubergine, to either make or find some of this delectable dip. Eat it with bread, with vegetables, with couscous, with bulghur wheat, with salad, or as a spread! My point is this: it’s awesome. Seriously, go. Find some. Eat. Report back.

Baba Ganoush Recipes

Here are a few great recipes for Baba Ganoush to get you started!

• Baba Ganoush Recipe
• Baba Ganoush Vegetable Plate

P.S. I enjoyed my toasted cheese with Baba Ganoush. Incidentally it was a mix of halloumi and cheddar on tiger bread.

P.P.S. I will eat this again, because it was real tasty.

I like cookies. A lot. I mean, seriously, a whole lot. Remember how, as a child, you would say how much you loved something and someone would say “why don’t you marry it then”? Well, I would marry cookies.

I haven’t posted much in the last week or two, and while I could pull a million excuses out of the bag I know there really isn’t one that would make me feel, well, excused from posting. A few days ago, I posted a message on Twitter apologising for the lack of updates and complaining about needing an idea.

Someone promptly replied and said “what about a vegan cookie recipe?” A brilliant idea as for the past six months or more I have been determined to do more vegan baking!

How I chose the ingredients

Aside from glancing at a few favourite recipes to remind myself of basic baking necessities (like flour - yeah, I’m dingy), my number one method of recipe concocting came into play here. It’s a deep and distant family secret, but I shall share anyway:

Gotta use stuff up.

Browsing through the fridge I encountered many a green vegetable on its last leg, but in the end decided on an already-open bag of dried cranberries and a container of oatmeal that hasn’t been touched in weeks (come on, cranberry-oatmeal cookies versus kale and courgette cookies… what would you choose).

These vegan treats are almost like mini cakes, and are a lovely afternoon snack with a cup of your favourite hot bevvie!

I think it would be fair to guess most people know you can find tofu in both firm and soft varieties, but what’s the meaning behind these differences? What’s the difference between these products and why do they exist? Let’s first look to two important countries when it comes to bean curd production: Japan and China.

The textures of tofu

Chinese tofu is generally what is being referenced when someone is talking about extra-firm tofu, while regular tofu is more in line with Japanese tofu. The main difference is that the Chinese variety has more water pressed out of it, so it is dryer and more meaty in texture. It’s also very easy to cook with in Western cuisine because of its consistency. Japanese style tofu, on the other hand, is generally a little softer and can be enjoyed simply on its own (this would normally be a medium-firm tofu). Both of these types of tofu are fairly common in the West and both have their benefits.

The ways in which Japanese tofu (regular) and Chinese tofu (firm) are made differ slightly. Chinese tofu is generally coagulated with calcium sulfate while Japanese tofu is usually made using nigari as a coagulant. This isn’t necessarily a hard and solid rule because it’s mainly based on geography. China’s in-land mountains provide the calcium sulfate (also known as gypsum in the West) while Japan’s coasts allow them the sea water needed to extract nigari (also known as bittern). Coastal Chinese also make tofu with nigari.

Recipes and ideas for firm and extra firm tofu

Medium (Regular) Tofu Recipes:
• Matthew’s Delicious Tofu
• Stir-fried Tofu with Zucchini

Firm and Extra Firm Tofu Recipes:
• Caramelised Tofu Recipe
• Sesame Baked Tofu
• Thai Coconut Tofu Recipe

What about silken tofu?

Silken tofu is produced by coagulating a thick soy milk and it is a different process altogether. Regular and firm tofu are pressed in order to remove excess water, but silken tofu never goes through this process. Instead it is simply poured into a container and allowed to become firm on its own. This means, unlike in tofu traditionally used in the west, the curds and whey don’t get separated. Essentially silken tofu is so silky because it has a lot of water left inside.

Recipes and ideas for silken tofu

• Vegan Butterscotch Mousse Pie
• Mini Tofu Quiches
• Silken Tofuand Carrot with Soy-Ginger Sauce
• Grilled Tofu Salad

Did you know…?

An interesting fact: the more water a block of tofu retains, the less flavour it will soak up in cooking. That’s why a lot of recipes tell you to press bean curd first! So if you’re buying the crappy supermarket stuff and want to cover the stale taste more, buy the extra-firm and press it even more!

An interesting concoction for bean curd lovers at least, this bastardised form of nigari tofu came to me after a discussion with someone about Vietnamese food. Vietnam is the only Southeast Asian country that uses dill (in fact, the Vietnamese use more fresh herbs than any of the others), and this is due to the past French influences (they are also the only country who can bake decent bread, a fact for which I also thank the French).

While not really a Vietnamese style dish in any way, I made the decision to create a tofu packed with this fragrant herb, with a little bit of tomato paste and ginger to accompany.

The end result, which quite clearly included a very stained piece of muslin (it washed out), was pretty impressive. I left the tofu for a couple of days so the flavour of the herbs would fully infuse, and then cut it into pieces and served it immediately after a quick fry.  This would be a really cool hors d’oeuvre (think toothpicks and pretty serving trays, baby)!

There really isn’t a proper recipe for this bean curd, I’m sorry to say, but we’re looking at a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, and inch or so of grated ginger, and at least 1/4 cup of fresh chopped dill. This is for a firmly-pressed block of tofu made with 1 litre of fresh soy milk.