Christmas crunch

When the weather's chilly outside, or your energy is flagging Christmas shopping, there's something so satisfactory about dipping a crunchy biscuit into a milky (dairy free) coffee or hot

chocolate. Of course, the biscuit needs to be sturdy to avoid the flaccid flop into your drink; a biscotti does the job marvellously!

I have a friend who makes amazing biscotti. As a true Italian, she follows the traditional recipe that uses eggs and rather a lot of sugar, baking them with passion and love. She also calls them by their proper name, cantuccini, a biscotti made with almonds, really made to dip in sweet wine rather than coffee, so maybe we're missing a trick! Biscotti is a general term that means twice baked, and it's this double bake that makes these yummy treats so crunchy and dipable. Having sat in my friends kitchen watching her make her gorgeous cantuccini, I've had a cheeky masterclass in how to make them!

I've been thinking about my own version for a while, wanting to make them fully plant based and a little less refined, plus have a gluten free option; it all fell into place and I'm really pleased with the outcome. 

The key to a biscotti is the crunch; the double baking takes a little more time than your every day biscuit, but the results are worth the effort, and they keep in an air-tight tin for a while so you can make a batch at a time.

There's all sorts of flavour combinations you can use; to make these seasonal I've added some dried cranberries with the almonds as well as some all spice flavouring to bring in the Christmas taste. You could use cinnamon or cloves, or a combination - whatever you have to hand.

So why not give these a go and get ready for some seasonal dunking. You could even pop them in gift bags and give them as a lovely home made gift.

Almond, cranberry and spice biscotti

Almond, cranberry and spice biscotti

200g spelt flour/gluten free flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 - 1 teaspoon ground all spice 

1/4 teaspoon Himalayan salt

165ml dairy free milk

2 tablespoons ground flaxseed

100g coconut sugar

4 tablespoons unsweetened apple sauce

4 tablespoons hempseed oil

1/2 teaspoon almond essence

85g almonds, sliced

65g dried cranberries

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC. Put a silicon baking sheet onto to tray, or line with baking paper.

First pour the dairy free milk into a bowl and add the ground flaxseed, coconut sugar, apple sauce, hempseed oil, and almond essence. Whisk well to combine and then leave to thicken for a few minutes.

Place the flour, baking powder, all spice and salt into another bowl and stir to mix well. Pour the wet mixture into the dry and stir to combine - it's a dry mix so hands will be needed to finally pull it all together. If it's a little wet and soft, add some more flour so it doesn't stick. Add the almonds and cranberries, working them into the dough with your fingers so none stick out the sides. This takes a couple of minutes to ensure everything is spread throughout the dough. Cut your dough in half.

Place one half onto the baking sheet and press out out into an oblong shape, pushing the edges and ends straight with your hands. It should be approximately 28x8 cms in size. Repeat with the other half of dough, then place the baking sheet in the oven for 25 minutes or until lightly golden and firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the tray for about 30 minutes.

Once cool, cut into slices approximately 2cm thick; place each slice back onto the baking tray lying on it's side. Pop back in the oven for 6 minutes, then remove, turn each slice over and pop back again for another 5 minutes. Remove one the slices are very firm to the touch and golden brown. Remove, leave to cool (they harden a bit more) and then keep in an air-tight tin if you don't eat them all at once. Enjoy!

Odds and end smoky tomato and parsnip stew

Last day of the veg box blogging challenge, and I have to say, the ingredients on offer look rather forlorn! Tuesday evening tends to be my 'creative' night, using up as much produce as possible. It always makes me think of the Goodness Gracious Me character Mrs' I can make it at home for

nothing'. All she needed was a small aubergine and piece of string to create anything. Sometimes I feel like that!

So what was left? We had one onion, a large parsnip and a handful of chard leaves. Doesn't look much to start with, but thankfully I have a well stocked store cupboard.
Random ingredients like this usually work well in a one pot stew, adding in herbs and spices to jazz things up a bit. My go-to spice in these situations is smoked paprika - as my daughter wisely states, everything tastes better with a little smoked paprika!
We always have tins of beans in the cupboard; a great plant based source of protein, minerals, B vitamins and fibre, beans give texture and substance to a dish, and can fill up the hungriest of stomachs. And because of their high fibre content, they're really healthy, particularly good for reducing cholesterol and maintaining blood sugar levels. Adding the tomatoes brightens everything up, as well as adding another load of phytonutrients.
I used pinto beans for this dish for their texture and colour. Random fact - these beans have brown speckles, like splashes of colour in a painting. Pinto means 'painted' in Spanish, hence the name. May come in handy one day in a quiz, you never know.
So here it is, my odds and ends smoky tomato and parsnip stew. Served with some mixed quinoa, it has a protein punch and a little spicy kick to make it interesting. And no string in sight!
Odds and ends smoky tomato and parsnip stew.
1 onion, diced

1 large parsnip, peeled and diced
2 small potatoes, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 small celery sticks, chopped
handful of chard, washed and chopped
2 handfuls frozen peas
1 tin pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder
1 teaspoon thyme
black pepper
Heat a dash of olive oil in the bottom of a pan and sauté the onion, potato, celery and parsnip for a few minutes until soft. Add the garlic and chard stems and cook for another couple of minutes. Stir in the chopped tomatoes and add the spices and herbs. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until the parsnip is soft. Stir in the beans and peas, and season with black pepper. Cook for a few more minutes, check the seasoning and add more if needed. Enjoy!

Steve's Saturday night squash curry

As much as I love cooking, it's always a treat when someone else does it for a change. Because of work and travel commitments, my hubby Steve doesn't get many opportunities to get creative in the kitchen, so when he offers to cook it's always a treat, especially as I was out all day yesterday, so it was a real relief to come home and be served with a piping hot dinner.
Steve does what I call 'man's cooking' - lots of ingredients all prepped before hand (often with lots of washing up!), loud music and always a beer on the go. Not that this is a criticism, just a little observation - whatever is needed to maximise the cooking experience (although the number of beers could potentially be directly linked to the outcome of the dish - "hic!").
Having lived in India and spent time in South Africa, Steve has picked up a few tricks and makes a mean veggie curry, all dairy free of course. Aware of my veg box blogging challenge, he did check what I had planned to make - a sweet mama squash and chickpea curry - so now I'm writing about his version of what I had planned in my head!

 Squash and chickpeas go together really well in terms of flavour, texture and nutrition. I've already talked about what nutritional powerhouses they are (Thursday stuffed squash and Friday's pancakes), as well as fabulous sources of fibre that your gut will love. They also both work wonderfully with spices, and complement each other superbly.
Of course, spices add more than just colour and flavour to a dish; they contain amazing healing properties that have been used for thousands of years, but science is only just beginning to understand how.
Cumin, for example, works on the digestive system, and can help stimulate digestive enzymes, as well as settle and soothe an irritated gut. It's also a surprising good source of iron, and as iron absorption can often be an issue when you suffer from an irritated gut, it's worth including some in your meals on a regular basis.  I've had warm cumin water at an ayruvedic spa as a pre-lunch stimulant (it was surprisingly pleasant) and as part of a special herb mix to help heal the gut after a rather severe episode of 'Delhi belly'. And as a key ingredient in many Indian, Mexican and Middle Eastern dishes, it's not too difficult to find an excuse to have some.
Turmeric has long been used for it's anti-inflammatory and anti-septic properties, but the active ingredient - curcumin - has only recently been identified and researched. It seems that the amazing properties in turmeric can help relieve all sorts of ailments from period problems, to IBS, to joint pain to cancer. In fact, there is so much to say about turmeric, there's no way enough room here, so let's just say it's amazing and should be included in your diet as much as possible!
Steve likes the base of his curry sauces to cook down over a period of time to concentrate the flavours; this doesn't take that much longer, but really does deepen the flavour.
There are a couple of interloper ingredients again, but from the veg box he used an onion, two of the carrots and the second half of the sweet mama squash. There was (and still is!) loads, so this recipe feeds a hungry crew easily.
Play around with the spices to get the heat level you desire - I've only given approximations here, as I'm not really too sure exactly how much was put in! Needless to say, it was super tasty, and all the more special as I didn't have to cook!
Steve's Saturday night squash curry

1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, diced
2 cm piece fresh ginger, finely chopped
1-2 red chilli, chopped
3-4 tomatoes, chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon curry powder/garam masala
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
water
1/2 sweet mama squash cut into smallish chunks
2 carrots, diced
1 courgette, diced
1/3 small cauliflower, chopped (optional)
400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
salt and pepper
Heat a dash of olive oil in the bottom of a pan and cook the onion for a couple of minutes until soft. Add the garlic, ginger and chill and cook for another couple of minutes, stirring all the time so it doesn't burn. Stir in the chopped tomatoes and let it cook down for a few minutes. Stir in the spices and add some water to make a thick sauce. Cook down on a low heat, adding a bit more water for 15 minutes or so until the flavours have developed.
Add the squash and carrot chunks, covering them well with the sauce, adding a little more water to almost cover. Pop on a lid, bring to the boil, and simmer for 5 -10 minutes until the veg begin to soften. Add in the courgette, cauliflower and chickpeas and simmer until all the veg are soft and the sauce has thickened up nicely. Season with salt and pepper.
Serve with popadoms and steamed brown rice.

Tasty cabbage - Indian style

One of the wonderful things about living in Southern India was the food. Dishes are simply classified into veg or non-veg, and the choice of veg dishes was vast! Using this classification, veg excludes egg but does include dairy, so eating dairy free was still a challenge. I often grilled a poor waiter about the potential dairy content of a dish, only to find it laden with paneer or ghee. I had to become very un-British and be very specific with my food order!
Eating at friends houses was much simpler,  once they knew what to avoid. And many of my Indian friends just loved to feed me, which was such a joy! They all had cooks who created these amazingly simple yet delicious dishes - 2 or 3 different ones for a light lunch! It was often a dhal, bean based curry and a dry vegetable dish (sauce, or gravy as they call it, is definitely more of a 'Britisher' requirement!). And I fell in love with stuffed parathas and freshly made chapattis; I still make heavy-handed attempts to make my own at home.

Pointed cabbage

One of my favourite simple dry vegetable dishes is called poriyal. It's basically a cooked vegetable - green bean, cabbage, carrot or a mixture of different ones - garnished with a tasty tempering and grated coconut. It's ever so simple to make and is gorgeously tasty.
Cabbage has been a dominant feature of my veg box just recently; cabbage poriyal makes a tasty change to plain simply steamed cabbage or one of my many versions of coleslaw!
One of the wonderful cruciferous family, cabbage is amazingly good for you, particularly if it's steamed rather than boiled to death as per school dinners! It's packed full of phytonutrients that help protect against cancer, loads of fibre which will help reduce cholesterol levels and vitamin C, a natural antioxidant. On top of that, it has a whole variety of B vitamins, potassium and manganese. So it is definitely good to eat your greens!
Tempering is a method used in Indian cooking in which the whole spices are heated in oil (or ghee) until the aromas are released then poured on top of the dish prior to serving. Briefly cooking at a high heat releases the essential oils in the spices, and therefore their delicious flavour. If you want to be low or no fat, omit the oil and just heat in a non-stick pan - once the mustard seeds start popping, add the other spices and turn off the heat whilst still stirring. This stops the spices singeing but still releases their flavour. Give this a go and see what you think - you won't find it in your local curry house, that's for sure!
Cabbage poriyal

Cabbage poriyal

1 tablespoon oil
1 medium sized cabbage, finely chopped
2 tablespoons grated coconut, fresh or frozen (defrosted)
tempering:
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon urad dahl (split lentils)
pinch asafedtida
ginger chilli paste
1 red chilli, chopped
5 curry leaves
salt
tumeric
fresh coriander
Steam the cabbage until just done. When it's nearly ready, heat the oil in a pan and toast the mustard seeds. Once they start to splutter, add the grad dahl, turmeric and asafoetida. Once you can smell the gorgeous aromas, add the chilli and curry leaves, stir briefly then turn off the heat. Continue to stir for a moment then mix the tempering into the cabbage along with the coconut and ginger chilli paste (if you so desire). Season with a tiny sprinkle of salt if you need to, garnish with fresh coriander and serve alongside another veg dish such as a dahl and freshly cooked chapattis. Enjoy!