Vegetarian Dishes | Finding Feasts

Danish Sweet Cheese Pastries From Scratch

Danish Sweet Cheese Pastries From Scratch comes direct from Nigella Lawson’s, How To Be A Domestic Goddess cookbook. I chose this one for the mere fact that it’s a food processor made dough, which in my mind will make the dough making process easy and clean… hahaha!!

To start with and probably the one thing EVERYONE mentions about this dough is just how moist, messy and sticky it is… and they weren’t wrong. It’s like glue!

In the original recipe it asks to mix the dry ingredients then add the cold butter in the food processor then add this to the combined wet ingredients. That was far too messy for me, considering everyone’s comments on this particular pastry recipe, so I did it slightly different – I did it all in the food processor. The result was still a success, but you are still going to get dirty trying to remove the dough from the processor into a bowl for it to prove.

**Brainwave** Leave the dough to prove in the processor bowl! Will let you know how it goes the next time around.

Get your hands dirty and have fun!.. Blondie 🙂

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Homemade Sweetened Yoghurt & Bread

Homemade Sweetened Yoghurt - Small Batch — Click image for recipe – Small batch sweetened yoghurt

Homemade Sweetened Yoghurt & Bread… Yoghurt is a simple enough food to buy but it can get expensive. I particularly like the sweetened yoghurt freshly made at my local grocer; it’s lusciously thick and creamy and lightly sweetened but we do get through quite a bit of it so this is the focus for my homemade yoghurt.

After reading the final results of other people’s homemade yoghurts (the main complaint being that it wasn’t as thick as store bought varieties, alot even separated) I chose to add a thickener, pectin to be exact, just to be safe … I really wanted to replicate my favourite yoghurt and quickly. If you aren’t in a hurry then ideally leave it to strain in a muslin cloth over a bowl to catch the whey. This will produce a deliciously thick and creamy yoghurt -You won’t be able to strain it if you have added gelatin or pectin.

Yoghurt is basic enough to make, the challenge is having a source of heat to keep it warm for 10-12 hours (times do vary immensely though). I decided to do the esky method, but you can do any of the following methods:

put it in a non draughty area with a towel around it
place it in a thermos
remove the shelves from your dehydrator and leave it at 45°C / 113°F
place it on a brewer’s heat pad with a tea towel over it… they all do the same job.

Your yoghurt can set anytime from only a few hours, but you can leave it for as long as a day. The sour taste will get stronger the longer it’s left.

If you want a basic greek yoghurt then omit the sugar and vanilla and any thickeners. Just make as the method below and then pour into a strainer lined with muslin and leave to drain in the fridge till you have achieved your desired consistency.

It’s important to use freshly opened, ‘live’ yoghurt in your first batch to ensure the bacteria is at it’s freshest then, importantly, remember to make sure you to set aside a 1/4 cup of your yoghurt to use as a starter batch to get another lot of yoghurt going. You can generally get about 4 cycles from your homemade yoghurt before you will need to buy a fresh batch of live yoghurt to use as your starter.

Other variables you can use when making your yoghurt include using pure cream or half cream with half milk instead of straight milk.

After you have tried your hand at yoghurt then get stuck into my Sweet Yoghurt Bread Rolls…

This recipe comes direct from a website I stumbled across, Pure Enjoyment. I didn’t alter anything in the ingredients, (I think that is only the second time I have ever done that!) It’s faultless! Thank you so much for sharing this with the world

The crumb is a lighter version of brioche but with a flavour that has a delicate tang due to the yoghurt. I used my homemade Sweetened Yoghurt for this recipe but you could certainly go out and buy a favourite yoghurt (at Pure Enjoyment she and quite a few of her followers used a chunky fruit yoghurt) The aroma is heavenly and it’s just so moreish.

Timeline if you were to make it on the weekend… take 10 minutes to make the dough after breakfast and then leave to prove till lunch time, spend another 10 minutes – if that – making the 10 balls and then leave to prove till 20 minutes before afternoon drinks. Cook and then you have amazing sweet bread rolls to have with a beer.

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Brown Sugar & Cinnamon Belgium Waffles w/ Oats

Finding Feasts - Belgium Waffle w Oats — Click image for recipe

Brown Sugar & Cinnamon Belgium Waffles w/ Oats, or more appropriately, The Best Darn Waffles You Are Ever Going To Eat!

After stumbling across a Nordic Ware Stovetop Waffle Maker at a charity store recently, I was on a mission to find the perfect recipe. Bella’s hubby has found his recipe and can make it in his sleep if need be; happily making them on the weekend for their daughter. BTW, if you are looking for a waffle maker, this one is fantastic, I cannot recommend this one enough; slim line means it slides in with your chopping boards – minimal loss of space plus makes the prefect belgium style waffle with the deep holes and perfect texture. Downside is you need to keep an eye on the time.

I didn’t want a fussy recipe, some asking to separate the eggs and whip the egg whites to stiff peaks before folding it in to the batter; one step too much for first thing in the morning for me. I wanted a quick, tasty recipe that produced a crispy outside and a soft fluffy inside… every time! …and here it is… Just two bowls are needed: Mix the dry ingredients together in one bowl, melt the butter in another then add the rest of the wet ingredients, combine the wet with the dry and you’re done, easy.

You could almost trick yourself into thinking that these were kind of healthy since there are oats in the mix – whatever you need to do to make it alright to eat waffles, do. Just make sure you give this recipe a go!

Deliciously naughty breakfast -Blondie 🙂

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Pumpkin & Cauliflower in Sweet Tamarind Masala

Pumpkin & Cauliflower in Sweet Tamarind Masala is a simple side dish that is full of flavour and tangy sweetness.

With both my mum and sister having ‘big’ birthday’s – 65 and 40 respectively, we all headed up to the family cabins on the Hawkesbury River for a weekend celebration. Six adults, four kids, two dogs and a cat.Friday was beautiful, and we only just made it in time for the sunset… always breathtaking as the colours cross the water, so a great start to the weekend. Dinner that night was mum’s special Moroccan styled Lamb and Pumpkin Soup with delicious sourdough breads and Pepe Saya Cultured Butter. Simple, clean, well developed flavours – you can never get her soup recipe though as she adds leftover ingredients to the soup through the week so it turns into something quite different from where it started, but always amazing. Anyway, that was the last of the beautiful weather, well actually, Seb and hubby got up for some early morning fishing. The weather was peaceful, Seb caught the first fish – a bream – everything was lovely, and then it all changed. The sun came up and brought with it the massive winds. The temperature dropped the winds were blowing a gale, and the skies were grey. There were fleeting moments of blue sky and sun (still windy as all hell) and the cousins would go back on the wharf for some more fishing. Continue reading “Pumpkin & Cauliflower in Sweet Tamarind Masala” →

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Red Pepper (Capsicum) Sauce

Spicy Red Pepper Sauce — Click image for recipe

Red Pepper (Capsicum) Sauce… Bella and I both love to head to the bargain corner of the grocers hoping to get a great big stash of vegetables or fruit to make into a sauce, jam or some other condiment that takes our fancy. They are generally still firm and beautiful but get relegated to the back of the store after a week or so and sold off cheaply. Tomatoes, capsicum, passion fruits, leeks, cauliflower etc, it’s the grocery shop forage – you don’t now what you will get, if anything, but it’s the thrill of the hunt in the city.

So after a successful gathering session I came home with 10 big capsicums. I knew that I wanted something zingy and spicy with a big hit of heat, so I started looking through recipes online for the one that was going to be the perfect fit. A Roasted Red Pepper Sauce popped up and I knew straight away that this was the one. It’s from Bobby Flay’s Mesa Cookbook (this one will most definitely be added to my collection) and it’s just a stunning sauce! Bobby Flay apparently describes this sauce the ‘work horse’ of his restaurants, and I can see why as I have now used it to marinade chicken, eaten it as a dip and have basted fish on the BBQ with it!

Tonight I’m making Chicken Quesadilla’s with it… or maybe Mexican pizza’s?

Enjoy

Blondie

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Olive Oil and Zucchini Chocolate Mini Cakes

Olive Oil and Zucchini Chocolate Mini Cakes are a stunningly moist and slightly spiced chocolate cake that will certainly be enjoyed by all.

The original recipe is from Julie Le Clerc’s gorgeous cookbook, Little Café Cakes.

Needing a treat for the school lunch box lead me to this one but with what I had in the cupboard it turned out a little different. To start with I used Dutch processed cocoa powder, which you aren’t suppose to use with baking soda but since the recipe also asks for baking powder I took my chance. I used 2 large zucchini’s so there was A LOT of zucchini. I threw in dried cranberries and chocolate bits for extra sweetness as it wasn’t very sweet but the end result was surprisingly good. I have written the recipe to what Julie Le Clerc documented – adding the cranberries and chocolate bits… oh and using olive oil rather than canola, just to show you that you can mix up recipes a little and still end up with a great end result.

As I used so much zucchini I ended up with some extra mixture so poured it into a pie tin and made an extra large soft cookie that master M absolutely loved! More so than the actual cakes so I will remember to make more of the giant ‘cookie’ next time.

These are dark, moist and tasty – enjoy! Blondie

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White Chia Seed Banana Bread

White Chia Seed Banana Bread is a great way of incorporating the healthy goodness of chia seeds into your kids’ lunch boxes. Plus they are so fun to eat as they are little balls of popping seeds that all kids will love.

This is part of my New Years resolution, the one where I have to make one recipe from any book or magazine that enters my house, and as you can see below, sadly I have fallen way behind…

So in order to get back on track I have made an important decision, that is, I am allowed to be inspired by recipes within the books and magazines, hence this little gem of a recipe.

Vol.2 of Nourish magazine 2014 had a big article on chia seeds with some nice recipes, but I really needed something for the lunch box, which is where I chose to incorporate the seeds into my normal Banana Bread recipe. Voila, a popping banana bread that I know Seb is going to love.

Popping seeds of goodness… Blondie xx

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