Vegetarian New Years Eve Dinner 2016

Putting together a special dinner is always difficult in my household. I don't know why but I always find the suggested menu's never quite my taste. Some are just way too out there. Too many ingredients to purchase and too many days work. This menu I put together after much thought. Some things took some time to make and some were really easy. This was probably the best combination for me (the cook). I shall put the menu here so that I can find it if I ever need it again and so that it might be helpful to anyone looking to cook a special meal. Note that it is definitely not vegan. One of the recipe's calls for fish sauce but you can omit it without a problem.

Starter: Spiced Yogurt Cheese Balls http://www.countryliving.com/…/spiced-yogurt-cheese-balls-…/ with Ritz Crackers

Salad: California Quinoa and Avocado Salad http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/california-quinoa-avocado-salad 

Main:

• Potato Gratin https://vinitasfamilyblog.blogspot.de/2015/12/potato-gratin-easy-peasy-and-delicious.html,
• Garlicy Princess Beans, 
• Roasted Carrots http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/roasted-carrots-with-creamy-nuoc-cham-dressing, 
• Yorkshire Pudding http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/9020/best-yorkshire-puddings (where a bit dry, on the lookout for a better recipe), 
• Creamy Mushroom Gravy

Desert: Persimmon Creme Brulee http://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/recipes/a1632/persimmon-creme-brulee-3750/

Homemade Pumpkin Ravioli

I’ve been trying for some years to make the perfect homemade ravioli. The problem is that here in Germany it is somehow difficult to get vegetarian ravioli. We buy pre-made tortellini without any trouble. Yesterday I came home from work early and the sun was shining brightly into my kitchen (which is unusual given where I live) and I saw the pumpkin I had recently bought on the counter (my newly installed counter!). While drinking a cup of tea I decided to make myself some pumpkin ravioli. Finally, it turned out to my satisfaction so here I am sharing the recipe with you.

If you live somewhere where it is hard to get ravioli this is definitely for you. You can stuff it with whatever is available. You just need to have a lot of time.

Tastes great served with homemade tomato sauce.

Preparation time: 3 hours (can be made in advance and refrigerated or frozen); Serves 3-4 (according to my daughter)

Ingredients:

Pasta Dough

2	Eggs
2 tbsp.	Cold water
2 tsp.	Olive oil
1 tsp.	Salt
2 cups	White flour

Filling

350 g	Butternut squash
2	Garlic cloves
1 tbsp.	Finely chopped oregano
175 g	Tofu
	Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

The first thing to do is to make the dough for the pasta. Mix all the liquids together in a small bowl. I use my indispensable mini-whisk.

Next beat the liquid together with a cup of flour with an electric whisk. Once it was all combined you have to knead it with another cup of flour. I had to pull mine out of the machine and knead it by hand. You can knead it with a machine if you like. My machine is too big for such a small bit of dough so I HAD to do it by hand (I hate kneading). Knead it for about 8 minutes or until the dough is smooth.

Then I put the dough in a bowl and covered it with a plate. You can cover it with anything but it is important that you let the dough sit for a while and that you cover it to prevent it drying out. Mine sat for about 30 minutes while I was preparing the filling.

The best way to cook the pumpkin is to bake it. However, I decided to steam mine. I find that I put my oven on all too quickly. Many of my Sri Lankan family and friends are reluctant to use their ovens because of the large amount of electricity that they use. The electricity supply is also not always reliable and fluctuates quite badly. So since I have a lot of friends and family out there I decided to make this recipe without using my oven. I didn’t boil the pumpkin because it would get too soggy.

For this particular recipe I used butternut squash (known as Dubai Wattakka when I was a child). I assume you could use any other type of pumpkin, although I would stay clear of the stringy type. I peeled my pumpkin and cut it into 1 cm cubes. (The smaller you cut your pumpkin the quicker it will steam.)

Then put it in a steamer and steam it for about 15 minutes, or until tender. You do not want it to be mushy but you do want to be able to mash it. 

While the pumpkin was steaming I ran out to my herb patch and brought in some fresh oregano leaves. If you can’t get oregano don’t despair, you can use any herb or spice to give the pumpkin some taste. Half a tea spoon of dried herbs would also work well. If there are no herbs available try some spices. Curry power, garam masala or ground mustard should give it a South Asian taste (I’ll be trying the mustard next time because I absolutely love pumpkin with mustard. Probably be good with a coconut milk based sauce. Hmmm….).

Finely chop the oregano and the garlic. We really like garlic so I put in two cloves. The filling tasted really strong but once it was in the ravioli it was perfect.

I didn’t want the pumpkin to be too mushy so I mashed the pumpkin roughly with a fork ...

and then added the herbs, garlic salt and pepper. To add a bit of protein to our diet I added some crumbled tofu. You can omit this or replace it with feta cheese, although I think that the texture of the tofu was much better in the end. Once I had mixed this all together I realized that the filling was to soggy, there was too much moisture in it. To get rid of the extra moisture I put the filling in a small saucepan and cooked it over high heat for a few minutes. I stirred it constantly because I did not want it to burn. I am sure I could have dried it out even further but there was no time for that. I can’t really explain how dry your filling should be but if it resembles mush then it is definitely too wet. What this will do is soak through your dough and cause it to break. So if you’re making your ravioli and the pastry breaks it might be because of the moisture in your filling.

By now the pastry has been sitting long enough. On a well-floured surface roll out the pastry until it is very, very thin. I could almost see the counter through my dough. If you have a pasta press then use it to save yourself some time. You can also get molds to make your ravioli with, definitely a time saver. I used a round cookie cutter (5 cm) to cut my dough.

On to the dough I heaped half a teaspoon of filling leaving plenty of place around the edges.

Then I took another cut out piece and stretched it a bit because it needs to be larger than the one with the filling on it so that it covers the filling. Press the sides together very carefully. Make sure you have clean hands when you do this. Any filling on your hands will get onto the outside of the ravioli and you will have a mess. Place the finished ravioli on a surface dusted liberally with flour. Keep going until you are done with either all the dough or all the filling.

Try to cut your dough as sparingly as possible. If you re-roll the dough you will need to first knead it and then leave it to sit for at least 15 minutes so that it is elastic again. I only rolled mine twice and trashed the little bit of dough that was left.

Once you are done you can leave the ravioli to air dry for a bit. Make sure there is enough flour on them so that they don’t stick.

To cook them lower them into boiling water and cook for around 2 minutes. I don't have any pictures of the cooking process because my husband cooked them while I was out playing "soccer mum"!!

Serve with tomato, pesto or a white sauce. 

Homemade Tomato Pasta Sauce

I'm blogging today from Sri Lanka! And I am anxious to get this out as quickly as possible. Last year when I was here fresh tomatoes were so expensive that I could not afford to make any sauce. I used concentrated tomatoes from a can instead. It tasted okay but you can't beat fresh pasta sauce. So when I arrived this week and found that tomatoes were in season and rather cheap (for Sri Lanka that is) I had to make my mum some pasta sauce. I am sure that some of my friends out there will find this recipe rather useful. It is adapted from http://www.food.com/recipe/fresh-tomato-spaghetti-sauce-10837?photo=349134

Preparation time: 2 hours makes about 500 ml  

Ingredients:

1 kg	Tomatoes
100 g	Onions
3 cloves	Garlic
2 tbsp.	Oil
1/2 tsp.	Salt
1 tbsp.	Sugar
1 tsp.	Dried herbs

Method:

The riper/redder your tomatoes are the redder and tastier your sauce will be. Mine were a bit green and thus my end product was orange as opposed to red. It still tastes delicious.

The first project is to skin the tomatoes. To do this, put a large pot of water on the stove and bring it to a rolling boil. While the water is boiling score the bottom of the tomatoes. This will help you to peel them.

Carefully put the tomatoes into the water making sure that they are completely covered. Bring the water back to boiling point and after 1 minute remove the tomatoes with a slotted spoon and run under cold water. If you leave the tomatoes a bit longer it will not harm them after all they are going to be cooked later anyway. The tomatoes should be blistered and the skins loose. I think I left mine in a bit longer than 1 minute.

Carefully remove the skins and then coarsely chop the tomatoes. Finely chop the onions and crush the garlic. If you like a lot of garlic in your sauce, go ahead and add more. This is your sauce you can make sure that it is to your very own taste.

Heat the oil in a large, heavy bottomed saucepan. To get the most authentic taste use olive oil. My mum would not part with her last tablespoon of olive oil, which is totally understandable given the price of it. I used sunflower oil but I am pretty sure you could use any available oil. I would not use unrefined coconut oil because it will make the sauce taste anything but Italian.

Add the onions and the garlic to the oil and simmer for around 3 minutes until the onions are soft. Then add the tomatoes and remaining ingredients. Now as I just said, "this is your sauce". You can add what ever you like to it. My mother requested that the next batch be made with some chili in it. You can also add different types of herbs and spices. I made mine with dried herbs because no fresh ones were available, but any type of fresh herb would be great. Traditionally Italian would be basil and organo but I would love to try it with coriander leaves. So go ahead and put what ever you like in there.

Bring your sauce to the boil and then reduce the heat and allow it to simmer for 1.5 - 2 hours. Basically what you are doing is concentrating it so that it has the correct consistency. If you like your sauce chunky then you are done. If you want a smoother paste then you'll either need to cool it and then put it in a liquidizer or use a stick thingy. My mother opted for a smoother sauce.

Once the sauce is thick enough you can either directly use it for your spaghetti, lasagna, pizza or whatever else calls for pasta sauce or you can jar it for later use.

To preserve your pasta sauce wash and dry enough glass jars to hold 500 ml of liquid, place a metal spoon in the glass jar and place it on a dry surface. The spoon apparently stops the jar from cracking when you pour in the boiling sauce. I always put my jars on the draining board of my sink just in case they crack. I have yet to have a jar crack. Now boil some water and fill the jars to the brim with the boiling water. Let it sit for a couple of minutes. While it is sitting, reboil your sauce then quickly empty the jars of boiling water and replace it with the boiling sauce. Place a piece of clean cling wrap on top of the jar and close immediately. The less bacteria you get in it the longer it will keep. My guess is that with this method the sauce can be kept for around 6 months. But please keep in mind that this is just a guess and you should check the sauce before you use it.

Spinach Pie

Spinach pie has been a firm favourite in our household for a very long time. While it tastes best when made with fresh spinach it is still worth making if you have only frozen spinach. My kids eat this without any objection.

Preparation time: 2 hours (see directions for time savers). Serves 6  

Ingredients:

8 oz	Flour
4 oz	Butter
1/4 tsp.	Salt
	Cold water
1 large	Onion
1 -2 cloves	Garlic
450 g	Fresh spinach
50 g	Cheese (Parmesan is best)
150 ml	Cream
3 tbsp.	Ground almonds
1	Egg yolk
	Fresh nutmeg, ground
	Salt and pepper, to taste
15 g	Pine nuts (optional)

Method:

The pastry is the first thing that needs to be made. It's best if you make it a couple of hours before, wrap it in cling wrap and put it in the fridge to rest. Having said that, it will not hurt to use it immediately after making. The only difference will be more shrinkage. The instructions for making pastry can be found here.

The filling is pretty easy to make. Wash your spinach and if the leaves are very big roughly chop them. I used baby spinach and thus didn't have to do any chopping, just washing. Wash fresh spinach very carefully because it has the tendency to be extremely muddy. If you are in Sri Lanka you will have to remove the thick stems and use only the leaves (450 g without stems). Stems on European and American spinach are fine.

Put the spinach in a very large pan and heat over medium high heat with the lid closed until the spinach wilts. While the spinach is cooking dice the onion and mince the garlic. Remove the spinach from the pan and squeeze some of the liquid out. You don't need to make it dry, just get rid of some of the water. If the spinach is too hot to handle run some cold water over it.

If you are using frozen spinach the process is as follows: defrost the spinach, squeeze out excess water. This way you can reduce the preparation time of this dish by at least 15 minutes.

Set your oven to 180 C/190 C/ 375 F (fan/conventional). Remove your pastry from the fridge and roll it out to fit your dish. I used a 9 inch cake spring form because my 10 inch Quiche form had to be retired and I hadn't gotten round to buying a new one. Bake blind for 15-20 minutes.

In the meantime place the pan back on the cooker, dry it out (either with a paper towel or by heating it up) and put the oil in to heat. Once the oil is hot add the onions and garlic and cook until soft, about 1 - 2 minutes. Add the spinach and stir through. Remove from the stove.

Mix in the cream, half the cheese, ground almonds and egg yolk in that order. The most important part is to add the egg yolk at the very end. By the time you add the yolk the mixture should be cool enough to prevent the egg from getting cooked. If your egg yolk gets cooked then the quiche will not set. All is not lost if this happens to you. Just allow the mixture to cool a bit more and add another egg yolk. If you do not have almonds you can use a couple of substitutes. I can imagine that you could use ground cashew as an alternative but that can also be expensive. To minimise cost use 1.5 tbsp. of flour as a substitute. Mix it in carefully so as not to form lumps. You might consider mixing it into the cream and then putting it into the spinach. Again be careful when putting the flour into something hot least it gets cooked and turns into "paappa". Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.

By now your pastry should be done. Take it out of the oven, remove the baking beans and pop it back in the oven for another 5 - 10 minutes (until the base is baked). If pressed for time don't hesitate to skip putting it back in the oven. The worst that will happen is the base will be a bit under cooked. Once the base is cooked pour in the filling, sprinkle on the remaining cheese and the pine nuts.

Reduce the heat of the oven to 160 C and put the pie in the oven for a further 10 - 15 minutes or until the pie is set.

Serve hot, warm or cold!!

No bake pan pizzas

A good friend of mine asked me to post some new recipes. To which my answer was "what would you like?" and here you have the answer to the answer to that question!! These are quick to make, don't require an oven and taste good even cold. Yes! Perfect for a school snack!

Preparation time: 45 minutes. Makes 6 small pizzas about 10.5 cm in diameter or one large one

Ingredients:

225 g	Flour
1 tsp	Baking powder
1/4 tsp	Salt
4 tbsp	Oil
4 tbsp.	Sugar Water, room temperature
400 ml	Pasta sauce, tomato
150 g	Cheese

Toppings: Mozzarella, peppers, spinach, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, Italian herbs, coriander leaves (and for those of you who are not veggie: any kind of cooked meat or fish)

Method:

Prepare your toppings first. Since the pizza will not be going in the oven your toppings won't cook very well. There are two things you can do to prevent a disaster. Either cut your vegetables very thinly so that they cook quickly (and use vegetables that you could eat raw) or cook your vegetables quickly before hand. You could just stir fry them or grill them very quickly. If you do use meat you will have to cook it first, you could use left overs and crumble, or cut, the meat/fish up.

Sift the dry ingredients together and make a well in the middle. Pour in the 2 tbsp. of oil and 4 tbsp. water and mix together to form a hard dough.

You might need to add some extra water depending on the type of flour that you use but the dough should be soft but not soggy. Knead it until it is smooth and then roll it out on to a board. Make the dough as thin as you possibly can without having any holes in it.

When you fry the pizzas the dough will expand due to the baking powder making it much thicker. My initial attempts gave me a dough that was too thick. It was tasty, and we ate it all up, but it was very filling and did not look pretty. I then used a large round cookie cutter to cut the dough into shape. Alternatively you could make it into small balls and then either roll it out, or just press it into shape in your hand.

Put 1 tbsp. of oil into your frying pan and fry gently for 5 minutes or until the base is cooked and slightly brown.

Turn the dough out of the frying pan. Put in the rest of the oil and reheat it. Flip the dough and put it back in the pan. Quickly put your sauce onto the pizza, don't go too close to the edges so prevent the sauce from dripping into the hot oil and making a mess. Then put the other toppings on. Finally sprinkle the cheese on top. Now if you happen to be somewhere in the world where you cannot just crack open a bottle of pasta sauce (or it is too expensive to do so) there are some options. You can make a pasta sauce out of fresh tomatoes or out of tomato puree. I have recipes for both of these, they are eiter in my head or somewhere  on a piece of paper. I'm pretty sure that the one with tomato puree is in my head because I made it last time I was in Sri Lanka. It is just going to take a while for me to figure out the proportions. The recipe using fresh tomatoes .... well it might be a while before I dig it out!!

Then cover the frying pan with a lid and fry until the cheese has melted. If you don't have a lid you can cover the top with aluminium foil or once the dough is cooked you can put the pizza under the grill to melt the cheese.

Serve the pizza hot or cold. The fried base tastes really good if you use a lot of oil because you basically have something deep fried!

Enjoy!

Rhubarb, Strawberry Crumble

This summer we spent a couple of weeks in England. While visiting good friends of ours in London we were introduced to their allotment. The English version of the German "Klein Garten". Among the vegetables there was a bed of Rhubarb. Our friend lamented that she didn't know what to do with them and wanted to uproot them and throw them away. My kids went a bit crazy and objected to throwing away rhubarb! They made me promise to make a rhubarb crumble for them and harvested some stalks.

The next morning I was bound to the kitchen to produce a rhubarb crumble. Now this would have been fine except I realized that I had not yet posted my crumble recipe and could not find anything even close on the internet. So I winged it!

This motivated me to write up the recipe so that next time my kids persuade me to bake while on vacation that at least I have a recipe!

Preparation time: 1.5 hours. Serves 8 

Ingredients:

750 - 1000g	Fruit (1/2 rhubarb, 1/2 strawberry)
3 tbsp.	Sugar
1	Lemon, zest
200 g	Butter (margarine if you are vegan)
200 g	Sugar
3 drops	Vanilla
200 g	Ground almonds
240 g	Flour
1-2 tbsp.	Powdered sugar/ icing sugar
1 tsp.	Ground cinnamon
2 tbsp.	Brown sugar

Method:

If you are using rhubarb, peel and cut it finely. Add the 3 tbsp. sugar and the lemon zest to it and set aside. Chop the strawberries coarsely, but do not add them to the rhubarb. The rhubarb needs to sit in the sugar. The time it needs to sit is the time that you need to make the mix for the pastry part of the crumble. You can use any other fruit with this recipe. If the fruit takes a long time to cook you might consider pre-cooking it.

Melt the butter at a very low heat. Take care not to get it too hot else it will cook the other ingredients and you don't want this. I suggest putting it in the microwave and heating it for 30 seconds. Take it out and stir it. If it is not completely melted put it back in for a further 10-20 seconds, take it out and then stir it again. By stirring it you are cooling it down and distributing the heat. The butter just needs to be liquid. If you happen to have over heated your butter wait until it has cooled to proceed.

Now mix everything together except the fruit, the brown sugar and the cinnamon. Mix it with a wooden spoon. Try not to smash it together. You are not forming a batter but crumbs. You could also use your fingers but be very gentle.

Press half of the crumbles on to the bottom of a 26 cm diameter round form. I use a tart case at home. You can also use a ceramic tart dish, it just takes a bit longer to bake. Also I can never get it out of the pan so I like to use a ceramic dish if I am taking it somewhere. If you are looking for something that looks good once served on a plate, this is not the recipe for you. This is if you want something that tastes amazing and is relatively easy to make.

Once the first half of the crumbles are in, distribute the fruit on top. Then put the rest of the crumbles on top of the fruit. Sprinkle the top with the brown sugar and the cinnamon.

Bake at 190 C (in a fan oven) for about 25 minutes.

Serve hot, warm or cold with ice cream, custard, whipped cream or clotted cream.

Falafel

Some recipes take a long time to perfect. For me, falafel was one of them. I say "was" because I finally got them just right. I don't usually make things over and over again until I get them right like some people do. After all I am the working mother of two and really don't have the time for all that. So over the last 6 years I've worked on my falafel recipe. I remember making it the first time in my fancy new deep fryer. I popped them in and when I opened the lid a few minutes later all I found were dark brown crumbs. I cleaned up the mess and put the second batch in and watched as layer by layer the falafel mixture separated from the ball. I finally made enough for dinner by pan frying them!
But now they look like this:

We like our falafel full of flavour, crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside. It turns out that the moist on the inside is what was killing me. I experimented a bit with a few different shapes and the shape didn't seem to make a difference. The girls really loved the bite sized falafel, ideal for an appetizer served up with a bit of hummus.

Preparation time: 2 hours. Serves 4  

Ingredients:

4	Scallions (or 1 onion)
2 Cloves	Garlic
1/2 Cup	Cilantro leaves
1/4 Cup	Mint leaves
14 oz can	Chickpeas, rinsed and drained
3/4 Cup	Bread crumbs
1/4 Cup	Flour
1 heaped tsp.	Ground cumin
1 tsp.	Baking powder
1 tsp.	Salt
2	Green Chillies, optional
1 l	Oil, for frying

Method:

First of all let me tell you why I was getting falafel crumbs instead of proper falafel. There were two reasons:

1. The balls were too moist.

2. The oil was not the correct temperature. 

The moisture problem occurs whatever you try to deep fry. If you are Sri Lankan, you will know the trouble of trying to keep your cutlets together. Well guess what? It's the same problem. There is too much moisture inside the ball and when it's put into hot oil something happens (I haven't yet figured out what!) and BOOM your lovely ball explodes, or slowly starts shedding!! "But...", you say, "I want my balls to be juicy!". Well, as I have learnt you can't have everything and you have to sacrifice a little to get what you want i.e. a perfect falafel.

To avoid the crumbs I have added flour to my recipe. This binds together the moisture that comes from the chickpeas. To get rid of excess moisture take your chick peas out of the can, rinse them and then let them drain in a colander until you are done with the rest of the ingredients. You can also use dried chickpeas. Of course this takes a lot of time. Soak them over night, boil them well and then drain. Some places advise you to squeeze the moisture out of the chickpeas by putting them in muslin cloth and squeezing them. You can do this, but your falafel will be super dry. 

Once your chickpeas are draining roughly chop the scallions (red onions if you are in SL), garlic, cilantro and  mint leaves (and green Chillies, if using). Put them in a food processor and finely mince. 

Next add the chick peas and mince until it looks like bread crumbs. Finally add everything else, except the oil, and pulse. 

How much you pulp it depends on your taste. We personally like our falafel to have texture so we go for a grainy look. 

Now you are wondering why it takes so long to make the falafel because up to now things have been pretty easy, right? Well now you have to make the balls and unless you have some helpers to help form them it's going to take a while. For the cocktail sized balls I used one tablespoon of mixture, for the regular balls I used a small handful (once I made the ball it comfortably fit inside a quarter cup). You need to press them together really hard so that there are no cracks. Don't try rolling them, they will just crumble. So squeeze your balls into shape!!

Now here comes another trick: leave your balls on the counter top for an hour or more and they will dry out, making them less likely to crack when frying. Don't put them in the fridge.
Fry them in oil between 175 and 180 Celsius. And make sure that there is enough oil in your saucepan so that the falafel are not touching the bottom of the pan. This will cause them to fry unevenly. I fry 2-3 at a time and keep an eye on the oil temperature. Every time you put falafel into the oil the temperature drops so be careful. Drain on absorbent paper.

We like to put our falafel in a wrap with hummus, cucumber raita and tabouli. But you can just as well eat it without wrapping it up. Make sure you have something moist to eat it with hummus is good but some type of yogurt dip is even better.

Enjoy!