So excited were we at the arrival of our new product, Organic Oat Flour, it didn't have a chance to cool its heels before I took some home to put it to delicious use.
And there are so many delicious uses! What I chose to make were these moreish Orange and Poppy Seed Oat Bars. These Oat Bars come together so quickly and simply, and are an excellent breakfast on the run, a quick refuel with a cup of tea or a nourishing snack popped into a lunch box. The icing is optional. When making these for breakfast bars I tend to omit the icing, but it's really down to personal preference. You can also reduce the sugar from ⅔ cup to ½ cup if you like.
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This week's recipe was new territory for me. Lots of you - vegans and vegetarians in particular- will be familiar with Seitan. It's basically a dense dumpling which is sliced and used as a meat substitute in a variety of ways. You can buy delicious takeaway seitan dishes from local vegan restaurants, and you can also buy it prepped and ready for you to cook at home.
Or…like so many of our vegan customers, you can make it from scratch! Seitan - or 'wheat meat' - is made almost entirely from vital wheat gluten aka gluten flour, which is simply the protein component of regular wheat flour after the starch is removed. It looks like regular flour, but becomes very sticky and elastic when moisture is added. To make seitan, water and spices are added to vital wheat gluten, and the mixture is kneaded, shaped and simmered in a pot. Then it's sliced and ready to add to whatever recipe your heart desires, as a meat substitute in stir-fries, casseroles, even roasts. Think of seitan like tofu. It doesn't have a lot of flavour on its own, but it's a wonderful carrier for other flavours. Being an omnivore, I haven't attempted to make seitan until now. Recently I discussed all things seitan with one of our regular seitan-cooking customers, Don, and I decided to bite the bullet. Don is vegan and steered me towards his favourite recipe to start me off. His recipe came from the glorious vegan bible of sorts, Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I used their recipe as a springboard, and played around with it a little. I was really pleased with the result, and found the process fun! So, to any fellow newbies, let's jump in together and go on a seitan adventure. It's hard to beat a nut-laden curry.
Whether it's a cashew-rich Korma or a traditional West African Peanut soup, nuts incorporated into a spicy sauce always makes for a sumptuous and satisfying meal. I love this take on a classic Thai Red Curry.The addition of sweet potato and peanuts works so well, it's like it was meant to be. I'm keeping things simple by using a quality, shop-bought red curry paste. Feel free to make a paste from scratch, or just use your favourite brand of pre-made. I used our fresh, made-in-store peanut butter and the flavour and texture of the end result was unbeatable. Growing up, I was the designated cook in our small family from about the age of 14. My dad's New Zealand roots means he can never have enough sweet potato (or kumera) and he'd be very happy eating it with every meal! I learnt to come up with a wide variety of sweet potato recipes. This one remains a firm family favourite. We hope you love it too! A note about fresh coriander: I always use the long green stalks of the coriander, not just the leafy bits towards the top. Finely chopped and fried off with your other aromatics like ginger and garlic, coriander stalks add so much depth of flavour. Remove and discard the very bottom roots, give the coriander a good wash under the tap as dirt gets trapped in the stalks. Reserve the leafy parts for garnish and finely dice the green stalks. Who's up for some Easter Baking? I thought long and hard about a nice Easter recipe to share, and decided quickly that Hot Cross Buns were out. I mean, this is the Inner West, and you can't go more than 500m in any direction without running into an artisan bakery, who over Easter will have punters queuing for award winning Hot Cross Buns. Considering people travel across town just to buy these speciality treats, I figured we leave the professionals to it and simply enjoy scoffing down their offerings over this holiday period. Then I thought: what about Hot Cross Biscuits? Like…a spicier take on a classic Christmas sugar cookie. With all those warming spices like cinnamon and nutmeg we associate with hot cross buns and Autumn. Are they a thing? If not, they should be! So let's make them a thing. They're deceptively easy, and they look so pretty that you'll feel pleased with yourself for days. Makes approx 24 Prep Time: 1hr 20min (includes chilling time), Cook Time: 11min Ingredients: 1 ½ cups plain flour ½ corn starch 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 pinch of salt 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1 pinch ground nutmeg 1 pinch ground cardamom 125g butter, cubed & softened ½ cup caster sugar 1 tbsp honey 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 egg plus 1 yolk (leftover from the icing) Icing: 1 egg white 150g icing sugar Few drops vanilla 1-3 tsp water as needed Method: Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan forced. In one mixing bowl, sift in flour, corn starch, salt, baking powder & spices. In another mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add honey, vanilla and egg and beat briefly with the electric mixer until well mixed in. Use a spatula or wooden spoon to add the flour mixture, folding slowly until just combined. Shape the mixture with your hands and roll into a long log. Wrap in cling film and pop it in the fridge for an hour to firm up a bit. Once chilled, roll dough with rolling pin til it's about 1cm in thickness (if you want a thin, snappy biscuit, aim for closer to a ½ cm) Sprinkle a little flour over the surface of the dough, then cut out small circles using an upturned glass or round biscuit cutter. The size you choose is up to you! Carefully place the circles 2-3cm apart on a baking paper lined baking tray and bake for 8-11 minutes, or until lightly browned. [Tip: I find I have to turn the tray around about ¾ of the way through baking time, otherwise the biscuits at the back are darker than the front ones. Ovens are rarely an even temperature throughout. Getting things cooked evenly can be trial and error, and nobody knows your oven like you do!] Transfer to a wire rack and once cooled, pipe icing crosses across the top. Icing for Cross Decorations: Mix all icing ingredients together until smooth. You can make crosses on the biscuits with a piping bag or a ziplock bag with a tiny hole cut in a bottom corner, or simply just drizzling with a teaspoon. After icing, leave to set for about 2 hours before popping them into a jar or biscuit tin. These biscuits will keep for 2 weeks in the pantry in an airtight container or jar. They can be frozen for up to 3 months. Pimp My Recipe Spiced Biscuits not your cup of tea? Just omit the cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom, and add these following combinations instead: Choc Orange Always a winning combo! (These are the speckled biscuits in the picture above).
Lemon Myrtle & Pepperberry Give your Easter biscuits some Australiana flair. The gentle, sweet & refreshing elegance of lemon myrtle is the perfect bake mate for the sharp and spicy pepperberry.
A customer recently popped in to get ingredients for making English muffins, and asked what they were traditionally dusted with. I admitted that I hadn't a clue, and advised, with not much conviction, to try semolina.
I realised that not only had I never made English muffins from scratch, I'd never even thought of doing so. Yet suddenly it was at the top of my to-do list. That evening I consulted the great Google and learnt that yes, English muffins are dusted with semolina. However, many recipes called for polenta, regular flour, corn meal or farina cereal. Just to confuse things further, all of these online sources were adamant that theirs was the only proper English way. As it so happened, I had both semolina and cornmeal in my pantry, so I decided to make a batch right away, dusting half with semolina and half with corn meal. The results were basically identical, although I do like the speckled golden edge of the corn meal ones best. Flavour-wise, there was nothing in it. So here it is, our English muffin recipe, cobbled together from the knowledge I gleaned online from two British bakers plus the results of my own tinkering about. I was delighted by both how easy they were to make, and how deliciously authentic they tasted. They're truly delicious with both savoury and sweet toppings. We enjoyed a freshly made one with jam, then froze the rest before toasting them two days later as the base for a delicious Eggs Benedict. |
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