C'est Macaron!

My good friend Stacey and I recently signed up to take a macaron class at Ganache in East London. Macarons are hot topic at the moment, but to be honest the only ones I've tried were during our trip to Paris last year and sadly, I don't remember overly wowed by them. Still, we were determined to master this delicate and intimidating French treat as they do look really cute and impressive. And of course, they are the namesake for our future bakery cafe! I was hesitant going in.. Whyyy did I insist on Googling 'macaron fails' before I went in..? Those images were burned into my brain. I was convinced it would be a culinary disaster.

Luckily, I was proved wrong. Very wrong. The class ran for about 3 hours and we were given step by step guidance and very helpful tips which I would never have received had I been winging it alone at home. I'm still not 100% converted to the ways of the macaron as the flavour is a bit too delicate for my liking, but I suppose I could tweak this if I get brave enough to try this again in my own kitchen.

Karpo, Kings Cross

Situated in the heart of Kings Cross in the Megaro Hotel, Karpo has caught my eye many a time as I've have been drawn in by the brightly coloured exterior and bustling crowds. Obviously, one can't judge a book by its cover, but it had been on my list of places to try for a long time. I took the plunge and treated a friend and I to a two course lunch with bubbles on a quiet Tuesday afternoon. The interior is unusual but bright and inviting and the staff very welcoming. Definitely recommended.

We enjoyed:

* Maple glazed pork belly, wild garlic & walnuts

* Chilled asparagus soup, spring truffle & brioche

* Roast duck breast, crispy leg, artichoke & pear

* Caramelised halibut, San Marzano tomatoes, basil & olives

Orange-Scented Broccoli with Glazed Tofu

Feeling inspired and particularly creative, I came home from work one afternoon with a strong idea of what I wanted to eat for dinner. I'd been idly updating spreadsheets all afternoon, while mentally compiling a list of the fresh ingredients I had bought recently. Tofu, broccoli, oyster mushrooms, oranges. I always make sure I have a giant bag of Jasmine rice on hand, so this meal was practically putting itself together!

I made the orange-scented broccoli from Appetite from Reduction and adapted this recipe from Olives for Dinner for the glazed tofu. I'd never made either of the recipes so was unsure as to how they would turn out and work with each other, but they seemed to compliment each other perfectly. I've only recently starting cooking with Chinese rice vinegar (a recent salad turned out to be an acidic disaster) so I was very wary about the tofu being too overpowering. The sauce for the glazed tofu was actually fantastic and definetely something I would make again. It proved to be a quick and satisfying after work dish which was very easy to execute.

Three Easy Brunch Ideas

I love brunch. It really has to be my favourite meals of the day. Many times, I have woken from a food related dream (sad, I know) and instantly know what I feel like eating and how experimental I want to be. Other lazy weekends, I have sat about in bed mentally running a list in my head of what ingredients I have to work with. Pancakes are an obvious weekend treat, and my mother has always told me the results are much better if you are prepared and make the batter the night before and let the gluten relax overnight. I, of course, have never been this organised, but one can set herself goals!

I was given a blender and food processor for Christmas and I cannot live without them! A blender makes smoothies in an instant, and I always make sure I have frozen bananas or mangoes waiting in the freezer. I have experimented with various fruit but our verdict is the simpler, the better. We like ours dead simple: 1 diced banana (either fresh or frozen), a squirt of honey or agave nectar, cinnamon and milk or soy milk. You can also add in a tablespoon or two of peanut butter, or my personal favourite: speculoos paste, with a sprinkle of mixed spice.

My boyfriend is very skeptical when I tell him he is eating something vegan, so now I don't reveal my kitchen secrets. A couple of years ago, I was very excited to buy a copy of Vegan Brunch as soon as I could get my hands on one. Isa is one of my favourite cookbook authors and I would definitely recommend you invest in all her books! I love her recipe for Brazilian French toast. Creamy banana and soy milk and mixed with other ingredients and soaked into stale bread, and with a sprinkle of cocoa powder you have yourselves a delectable treat so indulgant that you won't even miss the eggs.

Cooking with Waitrose: The Art of Michelin Star Cooking

I've been eyeing up the different cooking classes that Waitrose offers for quite some time. Unfortunately, I always sit on it for too long and by the time I get around to booking myself into one, the ones that I want are all booked up! Luckily, I was able to snap up the last spot in last Saturday's Michelin star Spring menu class. The class ran from 9.30am - 4.30pm and cost me £160 after a small discount that I received for being a Waitrose card member.

We were greeted with a selection of tea, coffee and pastries and then introduced to the chefs who would be guiding us through the days four courses. For each course, we were lead into a separate kitchen where we could sit and watch the chefs demonstrate how to execute each step, while we made notes in our recipe binders. It was quite intimidating as there were a lot of steps requires for each dish. It was definitely worth it, and I left feeling quite smug now knowing I can (hopefully) put together a beautiful plate of food. Usually my food looks like I've slapped it on the plate with a shovel! Each was eaten after plating (though I took the lamb dish for my boyfriend who declared it amazing) and paired with wine.

First course: chilled asparagus velouté with truffled goats cheese

Second course: seared tuna loin with oriental dressing 

Third course: sous vide loin of lamb, braised shoulder ragout, pea and bacon fricassee and pea purée

Dessert: inverted lemon tart, summer fruit salad, lemon yoghurt sorbet, sesame orange tuile and orange muscat pearls

Quick tofu ricotta open sandwich

This makes for quick and healthy breakfast that will keep you full for a while! I had half a block of tofu sitting in my fridge, so I halved the recipe for Tofu Ricotta from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. To be honest, I much prefer Cashew Ricotta (also from V'con) but to my dismay, we were out of cashews. Tofu Ricotta is still good, but I can't envisage myself smearing it on EVERYTHING like I do with Cashew Ricotta. That being said, it made for a great sandwich topper with avocado, tomatoes and vegan chicken slices and kept the hunger pangs at bay!

Quick noodle soup with crispy tofu

My boyfriend is deceptively fussy. He doesn't come across that way but over time, I have learnt that he's not too crazy about tomatoes, noodles, pasta, cous cous mushrooms, tofu and anything too crispy. So on nights like this when he's out and I'm cooking for one, I'm free to experiment with any ingredient without stressing if my other half will enjoy it.

I was feeling quite lazy tonight but still determined to make something un-boyfriendly so I threw together a quick noodle soup, topped with some crispy tofu and fried shallots. Tasty.

Baking Up a Storm

In June last year, my friend Stacey and I went to a cupcake decorating class in Brighton. While I have by no means perfecting the art of piping, my decorating has gotten a lot better! Practice makes perfect, so even though Nat and I live alone, cupcakes are still baked by the dozen, giant bags of icing sugar are ripped open with a flourish, chocolate is melted and turned into ganache, piping bags are filled and icing flows through my fast growing collection of plastic and metal icing tips.

Vegan chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Vegan chocolate raspberry blackout cake with raspberry icing and chocolate ganache

Carrot cupcakes with cream cheese icing

Coffee cupcakes with chocolate and coffee icing

Banana cupcakes with banana icing, chocolate and dried bananas

Baking for Halloween: Vegan chocolate cupcakes with coconut icing

Vegan Speculoos cupcakes

Back on it

I've had all the best intentions of keeping this blog updated, taking photos of virtually every meal, making mental notes of the places I've dined at, downloading the right apps on my phone... And yet here I am a year later, tending to its neglected posts with a heap of photos and memories to sort through.

I've made a few changes over the past year, one of is which is that I'm now a pescatarian. This decision was a difficult one to make, which was a few years in the making and I basically came to the decision to change my diet for my health. That is not to say you cannot have a healthy lifestyle on a vegetarian or vegan diet alone; I am still predominantly vegetarian and I often prepare vegan meals for my boyfriend and I, but noticed a significant change in my energy levels and well-being when little amounts of fish were introduced to my diet (namely salmon) which I did not get by taking vegan DHA. My stance on animal welfare has, of course, not changed.

I found this site really interesting: http://www.fishfight.net/

Manna, Primrose Hill

Sunday roasts are everywhere over here. Sometimes you just can't walk down a high street without tripping over a blackboard special! But it's always the same old offerings: chicken, pork or beef. Now, I love the idea of Sunday bringing families and friends together over a lovely meal; chicken, pork or beef however, I really do not love.

After doing some research, my bff-fellow-foody-partner-in-crime Anton and I went too Manna in Primrose Hill, after seeing that they offered a seasonal vegan Sunday roast. For starters, we ordered the crisped ravioli filled with wild mushroom & walnut pâté with fennel cream sauce, sundried tomato pesto & balsamic reduction. This was devine, and luckily also available as a main.


And of course, the Sunday nut roast with lentil sauce.

Saf, Shoreditch

I've lived in London for just over a year, some parts of that year were absolutely lovely, and of course some parts were freakishly difficult. One of the highlights, I must say, is the food. I cannot get over how amazing the selection of cuisine is here! It is not difficult to be a vegetarian or a vegan in this city. It is perhaps, more difficult, to be able to afford everything I want to eat though. That being said, it certainly has not stopped me gaining what feels like 10 kilos since I lived in New Zealand.For my first 6 months here, I lived in a warehouse. One night I made over £300 by running coatcheck out of my bedroom during a rave that was on in the front section of my flat. After waking up at 7pm, groggy and a bit dazed, I celebrated by taking my old flatmate Maddy from NZ out to dinner to Saf in Shoreditch.

We ordered mushroom gyozas to share. I had the Rustic Farinata: Slow roasted seasonal vegetables and mushrooms in chickpea crepe topped with a tarragon aioli, while Maddy had the tempeh salad. Absolutely delicious and the cocktails are devine.

Soup on a Houseboat

A while ago, my friend Bernice and I were walking along the canal to Broadway Market when we discovered this little gem. While we were standing around ogling (cos you know how subtle we are), we were invited aboard to wait for our Chai tea.. and even though we were seconds away from the market, we decided to pig out anyway.

We were pretty excited!


B's cake

.. And my lentil soup.

I couldn't decide what bread to get so the lovely woman asked if I would like to try them all. And you know I said hells yes.

Mock Chicken Laksa

MOCK CHICKEN LAKSA

1 small sliced onion
2 cloves chopped garlic
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
3 cups of veggie stock
400g rice noodles, precooked in warm water and drained
2 cups coconut milk
1 Tbsp sugar
Black pepper & salt to taste
1 tsp curry powder
½ to 1 tsp chili powder
Handful mock chicken, fried (eg. rehydrated TVP fried in 'chickn' seasoning)
Broccoli
Large carrot
125g bean sprouts

Heat a little oil in a wok, and sauté the onions until they’re soft and translucent, stirring in the chopped garlic. Add the ground coriander and cumin, let it blend in for another minute and then pour in the veggie stock. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Add the noodles, coconut milk, sugar, black pepper & salt, curry powder and chili powder. Cover and simmer for another 10 minutes.

Add the broccoli, carrots, bean sprouts and the pre-fried mock chicken. Continue simmering, covered, until the carrots are cooked but still crisp.

Garnish with coriander and spring onion.

Enjoy!

Mojito Cupcakes

Okay so admittedly these are not the prettiest cupcakes, and you will be hard pressed to find these appearing in Donna Hay anytime soon. But you know what, I don't care! So what if I can't pipe icing? These are the first things I have baked since leaving New Zealand, so I am pretty stoked.

Yesterday, while on the way to the supermarket I got a voice message from one of my recruiters saying she had a temp job for me starting next Monday. Seeing as I have been jobless for a month I prematurely bought a bottle of rum to celebrate.. and knowing my luck, by the time I called her back, the job was gone. So now I had this bottle of rum and nothing to celebrate. CURSES! So I decided to bake mojito cupcakes using this recipe, whose cupcake are far more photogenic than mine. The icing I made up, I don't tend to measure these thing out, but basically it was icing sugar, a lot of rum, peppermint essence and lime juice. So while they didn't look fantastic, they sure tasted it!

Best deal in London thus far

Situated in the heart of Brick Lane, London, my friend Anton and I happened upon an old warehouse with a number of stalls set up inside. You could choose from Japanese, Nepalese.. some others that I didn't take in cos they were meat heavy.. cupcakes, mulled wine.. but what really caught our attention was the vegan/vegetarian stand selling huge plates for only 4 pounds! I think this was an end of day special, but bear in mind it was only around 4.30 when we ate. A delicious meal.. my most satisfying food purchase so far.

SPCA Fundraising

So a week or so ago I decided to register for SPCA Cupcake day to do some good old fashioned fundraising. Before I did, I emailed the women in my office asing if anyone would buy any. Hells yeah, they did! So, 72 cupcakes, over 3 hours in the kitchen and a whole lotta fondant later, I made over NZ$140 for the SPCA. And yes *cringe* I did say fondant, much to my sister's scorn and dismay. But come on, icing 72 cupcakes? Not to mention transportation issues, seeing as I don't drive.

Vanilla

Red velvet

Lemon

How to: Peanut Sauce

Ordinarily, I am not a fan of salad. It's a side dish! And even then, more often than not, it's a carelessly arranged handful of leaves, laid on the plate as a mere garnish in hopes of being able to justify charging double digits for a meal. This little lady does not eat leaves.

So now I will contradict everything I have just said and tell you about one of my favourite salads. Gado gado is a warm salad from Indonesia, and with an Indo mum, it's kinda hard to avoid it. I like to make it using whatever vegies I have lying around, the potatoes being filling enough to make it a meal. But depending on how many potatoes you use, you can also serve this with rice to make it more substantial. I'm not going to bother with telling you ingredients, cos like I said, you can use whatever veges you have. I don't know if that's how they do it in Indonesia, but that's what I do in my kitchen! Much to the dismay of my hips, peanut sauce is in high rotation on my playlist, as you may have gathered.

Peanut Sauce

2 Tbsp smooth peanut butter
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
Juice of half a lime
1/4 cup coconut milk
Chilli oil

In a small bowl, mash the peanut butter together with the soy sauce with a fork. You want the soy sauce to merge with the peanut butter to become smooth.

Add the sugar and lime juice and stir. Taste. Does this taste ace to you? If yeah, then add the coconut milk. If nah, you can keep adding more soy, sugar and lime to taste.

Pour in some boiling water to thin it out a bit, about a spoonful at a time, depending on the consistency you want. If you like things spicy, add a couple of drops of chilli oil.

Makes about a cup

How else to enjoy the wonders of peanut sauce, you ask?

Over sesame bok choi, with edamame, mango and avocado summer rolls and stir-fried vegies
With steamed broccoli, sliced tofu and a salad with an orange soy dressing
With mango, tofu and vegetable rice paper rolls
With stir fried vegetables, tofu, cashews and noodles

Lentil Pie

My Le Creuset heart shaped ceramic baking dish arrived yesterday! My sister was kind enough to inform me that it was most certainly not pronounced Le Croos-it as I had first thought, along with a "OMG how could you not have heard of that before?" Apparently I'm behind in the times when it comes to hip cookware.

So tonight I racked my brain trying to think of a meal worthy of breaking in the dish for the first time, and I came up with with pie. I like pie. And I really like pastry. I went for the fast route and used ready-made puff pastry cos we haven't done the dishes in like.. a week, so I didn't want to add a rolling pin and mixing bowl to the stack. I wasn't trying to replicate meat tonight, but as it so happens, what I created was something reminiscent of all those family-sized mince pies from my childhood, but with better karma cos this meal is totally cow-free.

LENTIL PIE

1 Tbsp fennel seeds

1 can lentils, drained

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp paprika

1 Tbsp tomato sauce

salt & pepper to taste

1/2 onion, diced

4 Tbsp flour

1 tsp garlic powder

2 cups vegetable stock

1 tsp Marmite

2 tsp soy sauce

2 sheets ready-made puff pastry

In a small dry frypan, gently toast the fennel seeds for 1-2 minutes. Add the lentils, soy sauce, herbs, garlic & onion powders, paprika and tomato sauce and stir to combine. Cook for about 8-10 minutes, adding spashes of boiling water to keep lentils wet and season to taste. Set aside to cool.

To make the gravy, heat 1 Tbsp oil over medium heat, and saute onion for 5 minutes or until soft. Add flour and cook for 2 minutes, stirring well to make sure the flour doesn't burn. Add garlic powder, stock, marmite and sauce and simmer for about 10 minutes. Stir in lentils and set aside.

If your pie-dish isn't non-stick, lightly spray with cooking oil and press 1 sheet of pastry into it. Trim any excess pastry and use these bits to fill any spaces that are not covered. I used 1 1/2 sheets to cover my dish, cos a heart-shaped dish is pretty awkward to line. Pour over your lentil gravy mixture, it should be warm but not piping hot. Cut your remaining pastry sheet into 1cm strips and criss-cross over the filling to form a lattice. Alternatively, you can use a whole sheet of pastry to cover the filling completely, folding over the pastry from underneath and pricking airholes with a fork.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes, increasing the temp to 200 degrees for the final 5 minutes of cooking to brown the crust (I used a ceramic dish which requires a longer cooking time. For a regular pie dish bake for 10-15 minutes).

Tales from the blooper reel

I like green tea. I would even go so far as to say I love green tea flavoured desserts - if they're done well. Over the weekend I made an excellent example of what happens when good things go bad. Inspired by this pic and the confidence that only a new box of matcha powder can bring, I decided to make vegan green tea cookies (actually, we call them biscuits in NZ, so why I'm starting to say cookies all the time is beyond me) with a layer of extra matcha-ey goodness in place of regular white dough. Blinded by the pretty dough I never taste-tested it so what came out of the oven were these lovely crunchy biscuits that showed good promise on first bite, then delivered an awful bitter aftertaste that just kept on giving. I gave one to my sis so she could see what the fuss was all about and she said "WHY DID YOU GIVE THIS TO ME?!" Moral of the story: Don't abuse your matcha powers.

Chickpea and Leek Soup

This is the soup that I always make when I'm feeling sorry for myself.. or when I just want soup. The chickpeas have a nutty, creamy taste that goes perfectly with the buttery leeks. I would nearly go so far as to say this is my never-fail soup, but then I seem to recall a nasty incident about 3 years ago involving an exploding blender and second degree burns. I still have the battle-scars to remember it by. Hmm, I never did clean that ceiling... So, this is my once-failed, non-pureed soup. Who needs puree anyway when you have teeth? Enjoy!

CHICKPEA AND LEEK SOUP

1 small onion, diced

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 carrot, diced or sliced

1 small leek, sliced

5 mushrooms, sliced

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 Tbsp flour

4 cups vegetable stock

3-4 Tbsp soy sauce, or to taste

Salt & pepper to taste

In a large pot, heat a generous glug of olive oil on a low heat and gently saute the onions for about 8 minutes, keeping the pot covered. You want the onions soft and white, not browned.

Increase heat to medium and add the celery and carrot. Saute until soft, adding a splash of hot water to help heat through.

Add leeks and 1 Tbsp butter or margarine, and stir until soft and cooked. Add mushrooms, and more olive oil if needed, and continue to saute until cooked, stirring occasionally.

Add chickpeas, vegetable stock and soy sauce, sprinkling in the flour and stir to combine. Lower heat and let simmer for half an hour.

Taste and adjust seasonings. Tastes even better the next day