Foodie Pen Pals

Yay, it's foodie pen pals time again! Which means I have been receiving lots of yummy things in the post, this month from Victoria. This was the first month Victoria has participated in foodie pen pals and she has started amazingly well with a wonderful package of goodies. So here's what I got...

Biscotti - Which I tucked into straight away with a cup of coffee.

Gingerbread biscuits - These were bought by Victoria in Geneva and are perfect for the festive season.

Cheese fondue - This is another little continental treat and anything containing cheese is fine by me. I haven't tucked into this yet but am looking forward to dunking some chunks of crusty bread into this little pot soon!

Raw chocolate - This was picked up at Green Cuisine (a cafe local to Victoria). Again I haven't tucked into this yet but am saving the cute little bar until I need a pick me up.

Mrs Shah's Curry Mix - This is a great little mixture of spices which I have already made a delicious veggie curry with.

Wahaca chipotle sauce - I added a good dollop of this to home made burritos the other night and it added a gorgeous smokey punch to the dish.

Victoria also enclosed two recipes in the package; one for 'Garbunzo Cake' made with chickpeas and spices, which I really can't wait to try out, and one for a christmassy clementine cake which is flour free, so both perfect for blogging about! So thank you so much to Victoria for the lovely parcel and great recipes, I will be trying these out soon.

So this is normally the point where I blog about a recipe I have made with something from the parcel I have received this month or something I sent in my parcel. Unfortunately due to taking a quick holiday this month as well as being manically busy at work I haven't had time to get busy in the kitchen recently. But I have plenty of inspiration thanks to the goodies and recipes I have received this month....so watch this space because as soon as I get some spare time some yummy recipes will be appearing here!!

Chestnut Gnocchi

So after receiving a special delivery of chestnuts fresh from my parents’ garden I decided to have a go at making my own chestnut flour and was pretty happy with the results (even if it was possibly a little coarser than the flour you may buy from specialist food shops). But after going to the trouble of making my own flour I wanted to make something special with it and so decided upon a gluten free gnocchi recipe. Served up with crispy bacon bits and balsamic roasted figs this recipe is perfect for a chilly autumnal evening.

(And honestly this tastes sooo much better than the picture makes it look!!!)

(Serves 2 greedy people)

INGREDIENTS

300g mashed potato

1 egg

130g chestnut flour

2 fresh figs

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon soft brown sugar

4 rashers streaky bacon

1 red onion

6 large chestnut mushrooms

A small bunch of fresh thyme

Combine the mashed potato, egg and chestnut flour in a mixing bowl until well combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Take small quantities of the mixture to form blunt little sausage shapes and set to one side.

Slice the figs into quarters, place in a small oven tray, cover with the balsamic vinegar and sugar and place into a hot oven for 10 minutes until the figs begin to caramelise. Remove from the oven and place to one side.

Slice the streaky bacon into small strips and fry in a large frying pan over a high heat until crispy. Remove the bacon from the pan and set to one side.

Thinly slice the onion and transfer to the frying pan that had been used to cook the bacon. Lower the heat and gently fry until the onions begin to soften and become translucent. Next add the mushrooms and continue to cook, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

Meanwhile bring a large pan of water to the boil. Once the water begins to bubble gently lower the pre-prepared gnocchi into the pan.

Whilst the gnocchi is cooking return the bacon to the frying pan with the onion and the mushroom.

Once the gnocchi rise to the surface of the pan remove with a slotted spoon, drain and transfer to the frying pan. Mix all of the ingredients together, add the figs and chopped thyme to the pan and serve.

Chestnut Flour

I mentioned this time last year that my parents have a garden full of chestnut trees and I grew up enjoying the wonderful free food source of chestnuts every autumn in the form of soups and roasted treats. Unfortunately I now live a few 100 miles from my parents and no longer have a free source of chestnuts on my doorstep. So it was a much appreciated surprise when I received a jiffy envelope stuffed full of chestnuts from my mum the other day (even more so when I saw how much a local supermarket were charging for the tiniest little bag of these tasty morsels)! 

This year to make a break from the usual soups (as well as the burgers and chocolate treats I made last year) I decided to turn my chestnuts into chestnut flour thus opening up a number of alternative recipes for me to try with this ingredient.

In my excitement to get experimenting with my chestnuts I didn’t properly weigh or measure ingredients when making my flour but thought it would still be useful to describe the basic principle on how to make your own chestnut flour as I have a plan on how I am going to use this ingredient in a recipe that I will be sharing on the blog soon!

INGREDIENTS

Fresh chestnuts (enough to fill a jiffy envelope!!!)

Set the oven to 200 deg C

Slice the bottoms off of the chestnuts and spread across a large roasting tray.

Place the chestnuts into the oven for about an hour.

After an hour remove from the oven and allow to cool until you are able to handle them. Then peel the chestnuts, place them back on the roasting tray and return to the oven for another 30 minutes to allow them to dry out.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

Once cool transfer the chestnuts to a food processor and blitz until a fine powder is produced.

Store in an airtight container until ready to be used.

Foodie Pen Pals Parcel – Pumpkin Butter

Woot woot for another exciting month of Foodie Pen Pals. This month I received some wonderful goodies from Tamzin (who has a great blog over at Salad and Sequins, all about her love of healthy living, which you should check out for some healthy eating tips). I’ve been really busy at work this month so explained to Tamzin that I haven’t had a lot of time to bake and cook as much as I would normally like to. I’ve also found that when I have been putting in the extra hours in the lab I’ve been reaching straight for the chocolate to keep me going so Tamzin came to the rescue with lots of healthy goodies for me to munch through instead!

Nakd Cocoa Loco Bars – I’ve tried a few of the Nakd bars but haven’t had this variety yet so it’s great to be able to try these.

Banana, Mango and Brazil Bars – a great combination of flavours in these cereal bars.

Pomegranate Bar – I love pomegranate and tucked into this straight away, it was really rather moreish.

Pineapple infused raisins – two of my favourite things combined together…genius!

Apple crisps – These are a great alternative to the traditional potato variety.

Mixed fruit and nuts – Which proved to be the perfect energy source when I recently when on a hike into the Mourne Mountains.

Rosehip Syrup – Tamzin suggested this could be used in some baking. I haven’t had time to get busy in the kitchen with this yet but have my eye on a rosehip and olive oil cake recipe that I am keen to try so will keep you updated when I get around to baking that one.

So thanks for all of the lovely things packed into this months parcel...it will definitely keep me going for  a while :o)

I sent a parcel onto Sarah this month. Sarah mentioned that she is a big fan of spices like cinnamon and ginger as well as loving things like pumpkin. This suited me perfectly as I am a massive pumpkin fan and have been saving up quite a few recipes to try once pumpkins started to appear in the shops and so I squeezed in some experimental kitchen sessions and shared some of the resulting pumpkin products with Sarah. As well as making Spiced Pumpkin Syrup I also made Pumpkin Butter. This thick, sweet puree is great spread on toast, swirled into plain yoghurt or used in autumnal baking and I hope Sarah enjoyed this slightly more unusual pumpkin product.

INGREDIENTS

800g pumpkin puree

180ml cranberry juice

2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

½ teaspoon allspice

150g brown sugar

Put all of the ingredients into a large saucepan, place over a gently heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved.

Increase the heat slightly and continue to stir until the liquid begins to evaporate from the mixture and the Pumpkin Butter starts to thicken. This takes quite a lot of elbow grease as I found the mixture had to be stirred for about 30 minutes before the desired consistency of a thick paste was reached.

Let the mixture cool a little before transferring to sterilised jars.

The Pumpkin Butter is best kept on the fridge to ensure it lasts.

Dairy Free Spiced Pumpkin Cake

So it turns out that ‘Something Missing’ is 1 year old today! I can’t believe that I have been blogging for a whole year; it seems like only yesterday that I was sitting in the pub after work when a colleague suggested that I should do something with all the slightly crazy recipes I was creating. Amazingly not only did I agree that maybe I should start to share these recipes with the world, but the next day once the beer induced fug had receded I actually turned on my computer and set about creating a blog. Since stating with an experimental recipe that resulted in a flourless, gluten free, vegan chocolate cake (it really is amazing what you can do with a tin of chick peas) I have posted 60 recipes, embarked on a journey into (what I now believe to be) the wonderful world of twitter, joined up to the quite brilliant foodie pen pal scheme as well as discovering so many other great foodie blogs that are out there on the world wide web.

To mark this anniversary I thought it was only right to celebrate with a cake. And as Halloween is fast approaching I decided upon using a seasonal recipe containing pumpkin. The cake is also dairy free using my tofu based buttermilk replacement. I then went and ruined the dairy free element of the cake by smothering it is cream cheese icing. But hey it is my blogging birthday so I think I can just about get away with this one can’t I?!?

INGREDIENTS

160g soya margarine

225g caster sugar

2 eggs

150ml pumpkin puree (see my pumpkin bread recipe for a pumpkin puree recipe)

280g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon ground ginger

150ml vegan buttermilk (see my previous recipe)

100g raisins

100g chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts would work well)

Preheat the oven to 180 deg C / 350 deg F

Grease two 22cm diameter sandwich tins and dust with flour.

Beat together the margarine and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs and pumpkin puree to the bowl and mix until all the ingredients are well combined.

Sift the flour, baking powder and spices into the bowl and gently fold the ingredients together. As all of the ingredients come together and the mixture begins to thicken up gradually add the buttermilk and continue to mix well.

Finally fold in the raisins and chopped nuts until they are evenly distributed through the mixture.

Then pour the mixture into the two tins, splitting the mixture evenly between the two tins. Transfer to the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool before sandwiching together with icing, and spreading the top of the cake with icing too.

I added dairy to this otherwise dairy free cake by decorating with a cream cheese icing (by beating 200g of icing sugar into 120g cream cheese) but to keep it dairy free you could follow my cinnamon icing recipe as found here.

Gluten free sweet potato crackers

I’ve been a bit slow on the blog updates of late, a change of season cold and general PhD studentness have been getting in the way. I seem to have been spending so much time in the lab that I haven’t had the chance to cook anything more exciting than beans on toast. I really miss having the time to cook up a big fat mess in the kitchen so as soon as I found I had an evening to myself I indulged in a big fat, comforting bowl of sweet potato gnocchi. As I enthusiastically threw myself into this cooking bonanza I managed to overestimate the amount of sweet potato mash I was going to need so with the leftovers I got creative and conjured up these sweet potato and paprika crackers. I went for stick shaped biscuits with the idea of dunking them in gallons of creamy hummus but I think larger biscuits would also work well as an accompaniment for cheese.

INGREDIENTS

100g cold mashed sweet potato

45g margarine

150g rice flour

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

Salt and pepper to taste

Pre-heat the oven to 220 deg C / 425 deg F

Mix the mashed sweet potato with the margarine until fully combined (I microwaved the sweet potato and once cool enough to handle I peeled the potatoes and mashed using a potato ricer).

Add the paprika and seasoning to taste and then gradually stir in the rice flour with a wooden spoon. As the mixture come together use your hands to form a smooth ball of dough.

Dust the surface with rice flour and roll out the dough until approximately ½ cm thick. Then use a knife to slice into evenly shaped sticks or alternatively use a cookie cutter to achieve the desired shape.

Transfer the crackers to a baking tray lined with grease proof paper.

Place the baking tray into the oven and cook for 8-10 minutes. Do not allow the crackers to brown too much otherwise they will dry out.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool before storing in an airtight container.

Vegan Coconut Ice

Due to circumstances out of the control of my foodie pen pal parcel sender I am yet to receive my parcel this month but fingers crossed some goodies will appear soon!

So in the mean time I thought I would share the recipe for one of the treats I sent in my parcel to Christine this month. When I inquired as to the sort of things Christine might like to receive in her parcel she informed me she was vegan so it provided the perfect excuse to devise a new recipe that would be ‘Something Missing’ worthy. For some reason I had been having a real craving for coconut ice recently. This sweet treat reminds me of child hood holidays by the sea side where I would frequent traditional sweet shops and splurge my pocket money on sickly slabs of fudge, nougat and the pink and white treat that is coconut ice. This confectionery is usually made with condensed milk but I substituted this with coconut milk to make a vegan version of this sickly, sugary sweet.

INGREDIENTS

200ml coconut milk

450g icing sugar

150g desiccated coconut

Red food colouring

Place the coconut milk and icing sugar into a large saucepan and place over a medium heat. Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon until the sugar has dissolved.

Then stop stirring the mixture but bring it to a gentle simmer and heat until a soft ball temperature of 113 deg C or 240 deg F is reached.

Once 113 degrees is reached remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the coconut until well combined.

Pour half of the mix into a mixing bowl and add a couple of drops of red food colouring, stir until the desired pink colour is achieved.

Line a 20cm square cake tin with non-stick baking paper and spread the pink half of the mixture into the bottom of the tin. Then spread the remaining white mixture on top and smooth out.

Leave over night to set then turn out of the tin and slice into bite size chunks.