Buckwheat Butternut Pancakes

I am going to be tied down all weekend working on essays and so I wanted something quick, but nutritious with some staying power to have on hand for study snacks. I decided to make some Buckwheat pancakes, using Orgran premix Buckwheat pancake mix but with some slight variation. I had some leftover roast butternut pumpkin, and some frozen baby spinach in the freezer - so decided to add them in.

Ingredients:

I pkt Orgran Buckwheat Pancake Mix

3tsp of Orgran No Egg

1tsp of baking powder

Generous amount of cinnamon and/or nutmeg or whichever spices you like best.

1/4 cup of apple puree

300ml of Almond Milk

300ml of water

1 cup of mashed butternut pumpkin

1tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup of crushed frozen baby spinach

Another ideal addition to this mix would be a handful of rolled oats.

Directions:

Roast butternut squash for about 45 mins on 150 celcius, leave to cool.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl, and then add almond milk and water to a creamy consistency. Add other wet ingredients.

Pour ladlefuls at a time onto a hot pan and wait for bubbles to form and pop, flip and cook the other side.

Add whichever toppings you prefer, I personally prefer lemon juice and a little sugar. This recipes makes a lot of servings, so just pop the leftover mix in the fridge and cook a pancake or two whenever you like.

Long time no blog

I didn't blog for a very long time, but due to some prodding by friends I will try and do this again. I thought I would start with some ideas for smoothies. I might even add a pic later ;)

Every morning I make different smoothies for breakfast, mostly because my son is not a breakfast kid and I want to get some nourishment into him before he goes to school.

I keep ziploc bags of baby spinach in the freezer - Yes! I just discovered you can do this without blanching. Just put the spinach in the bag, suck out the air with a straw and freeze. It is great for using in cooking and smoothies, just not for salads ;) The bonus is, if you need to finely chop spinach for a recipe, just give the bag a bit of a bash and it will finely chop itself.

To make our breakfast smoothie, we always start with orange juice and frozen spinach. The vitamin C in the orange helps you to absorb more of the iron from the spinach. I then add mixed frozen berries, frozen bananas if we have some (another thing that freezes well) and whatever fruits we happen to have on that particular day. Today for example, we had cranberries and kiwi fruit. Sometimes I also throw in some oats or almond meal for extra staying power.

Enjoy :)

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Santa's midnight Nigella snack

This year Santa is getting in a few more calories than last year. If Nigella can indulge in multiple midnight snacks, then so can Santa.
This year the bickies are bigger, we have certified reindeer carrots and the supersized mug is full to the brim with that dodgy milky powdered tea that someone thought I might want to drink. But no, you go ahead Santa, drink up. Or else the powdered tea will sit on the shelf again till next Christmas.
It is only Dec 21, but we are impatient and trying to help Santa spread out his workload a little bit. We are hoping this tempting offering might just tempt Santa to make his delivery a little earlier this year, to save mummy's sanity.

Sweet potato gnocchi

Ok, you got me - I eat from Pooh Bear plates ;) Tonight I had a craving for both gnocchi and sweet potatoes, so decided to try making gnocchi with sweet potatoes. I usually make potato gnocchi, tried pumpkin once but it didn't work. I think the issue is moisture, potatoes and sweet potatoes are quite dry and that makes for good gnocchi.

Making gnocchi is really quite simple. I simply peeled two large sweet potatoes and steamed them whole. I then used my potato ricer to turn them into mash. You can just use a masher if you prefer, or even a fork. After mashing leave the sweet potato to cool down to room temperature.
I added a sprinkle of Herbamare seasoning and then used one hand to knead as I very slowly added a small amount of GF flour. I sometimes use potato flour instead.
Just keep adding flour and kneading until you have a dough like consistency, but be careful not to add more flour if you think it's not coming together. Give it a few minutes of kneading and you will see that it will all come together.

When the dough is ready, sprinkle some flour onto a board and gradually break off sections of dough and roll them into thin snake shapes. Break off or cut small sections of the snakes of dough to make the gnocchi - as seen above.

Boil your water and add a good quantity of salt to the boiling water. Add your gnocchi and remove with a slotted spoon once it floats to the surface.

The gnocchi can then be served with any sauce you like. This time I put some macadamia oil and garlic, but a tomato based sauce would also work well. Two large sweet potatoes makes about 3 servings of gnocchi. Mmmm, now I want some more!

P.S The gnocchi that I put in the fridge and cooked up later turned out much better than the ones cooked right after making the dough

Gluten Free Vegan Cornbread Pizza

My picasa albums are full of photos of food that I've cooked and never gotten around to blogging. I've been pretty busy with uni etc, so even though I might find time to cook I don't usually have time to blog about it as well. So slowly, I will be adding to my blog with things I've been cooking over the past few months.

This pizza base is made from PAN precooked cornmeal. I bought my last pack online from USAfoods.com.au, but I do know that the greengrocer next to Coles in Burnside has it too. That is where I used to buy it. I know that some of you live pretty close to that area.

Basically to create the base, I use about 1 cup of warm previously boiled water a teaspoon of massel vege stock and a pinch of salt. I then use one hand to mix while I slowly add PAN cornmeal until I get to a dough like consistency. The dough should get to a point where it doesn't stick to your hand when rolled in a ball.

The next step is to roll and flatten your dough out as you would with pizza dough. Trickle with a little olive oil, top with thinly sliced vegetables or topping of your choice and pop in the oven for about 15 - 20 minutes at about 200c until the base is crisp.

Khmer Krom Caramelised Pineapple Tofu

Tonight I made this recipe from the KhmerKrom recipe website: http://www.khmerkromrecipes.com/recipes/recipe287.html It was incredibly easy and I made it completely in the slow cooker. Took me just a couple of minutes to prepare and then a couple of hours in the slow cooker. My picky five year old ate it happily, so it must be good ;)

Slow Cooked Vegan Gluten Free Lasagne

Several zucchini, I prefer Italian white zucchini - though today they weren't available.

Two large sweet potatoes

Herb salt (I like herbamare)

Quality oil of your choice

Two packs of Cheezely Mozzarella (vegan)

Parmazano (vegan parmasan)

Gluten free lasagne sheets

Vegan pesto sauce

Good quality tomato pasta sauce 1 large jar.

Serves - 4-6

Directions

Thinly slice sweet potatoes and zucchini lengthwise. Drizzle with olive oil and herb seasoning.

Grill in a hot grill until golden brown. Allow to cool for easier handling. Drizzle with pesto sauce.

In a slow cooker pot, alternate layers of lasagne sheets, the vegetables with pesto sauce, sprinkles of parmazano and cheezely.
On the top layer put pasta sauce with plenty of cheezely.

Put the slow cooker on low for about 4 hours.

Alternately, you can make a smaller amount of lasagne in a casserole dish in the oven.

Cook on 180 for about 45 minutes.


Freezes and reheats well, if there is any left ;)

Buon Appetito!