james test

I ate lots of candy during and after the Halloween party, resulting in a craving for something fresh to eat and plenty of excess energy with which to prepare it. We had a can of black beans in the cupboard that Michael picked up at Piedemontes , so we searched through our recipe books for something new and Mexican-themed to try. Eventually we picked out black bean tofu tacos from Ken Charney's The Bold Vegetarian Chef, extending ourselves to some salsa too. The salsa recipe is inspired by one in Kurma Dasa's World Vegetarian Food, my main alteration being to use canned chipotles and half a teaspoon of their abodo sauce. The abodo sauce adds a fantastic smoky flavour to everything it touches but packs a mighty chili punch, so its use is always a delicate balance. The black bean tofu taco filling also had a bit of bite: thus the accompanying salad of iceberg lettuce, red capsicum and avocado was a fresh and cooling contrast. I dressed the salad with a bit of pepper and lots ...

On Saturday night we agreed to meet up with Mike and Jo-Lyn for dinner, before Jo-Lyn got into some serious study and the rest of us costumed up for a Halloween party and stuffed ourselves with candy (or was the latter bit just me?). Unfortunately my first suggestion, Animal Orchestra , was closed. Instead Michael and I had our first experience of Kake Di Hatti. This restaurant isn't glamourous or even tastefully decorated, but the clamour of voices echoing around the high ceiling are testament to its popularity. We were (curiously) offered a table that had a scrawled "booked" sign on it, but I was starving and didn't hestitate long before delving into the menu. There's plenty on offer for a vegetarian, with most of the meat curries having meatless options, and a further list of exclusively veg and legume dishes. We shared four items: malai kofta, saag paneer, muttar paneer and alu cholle. The kofta were particularly delicious, and all the curries were enjoy...

Cindy and I spent most of last week working our way through a massive, cheesy lasagne that we cooked on Monday (the lack of a relevant blog entry provides an indication or the overall success of that venture). By Thursday evening, our arteries were filled with cheese, and the only solution was a fresh, vegie-laden stir-fry. Generally, we've made up stir-fry sauces using some combination of seasonings mixed up with soy sauce and lime-juice. This time, in a concession to our food-blogger status, we opted for something more adventurous. Tamarind and chipotle sweet-hot sauce (adapted from a recipe in Ken Charney's The Bold Vegetarian Chef ) Start off by blending up 2 chipotle chillies (if they're fresh, you'll need to soak them in water first to soften them up) and a can of chopped tomatoes. Meanwhile, combine 1/2 cup cider vinegar, 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon of paprika, 1/2 teaspoon of cinammon, 1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander, 1/2 a teaspoon of cumi...

Thursday evening found us wandering the CBD, needing to find accessories for our Monkey Island themed costumes for a friend's halloween party. Drained by fighting our way through various Bourke Street shopping zones, the relaxed atmosphere and relative quietness of Gopal's was a relief. Gopal's is a hare krishna style vegetarian restaurant and, based on our experiences at Govinda's in Brisbane, we immediately settled on the chef's special: a green split pea soup with tomato and bittermelon, thai style curry with veges and tofu, basmati rice with poppy seeds, green salad, a pappadam and a tangy fruit juice, followed up with fruit crumble and custard. Once we'd sat down and spent a few seconds actually looking at the menu, we discovered that there were a range of set meal options, some of which were more suited to Cindy's smaller appetite than the gargantuan chef's special. Such is life I suppose. The soup was tremendous - the slightly salty pea flav...

The Cheap Eats guide and word of mouth are unanimous in their praise of the Moroccan Soup Bar. Michael and I had already had one unsuccessful attempt at getting a table, and given that they only take bookings for six or more people, I filed it away as a candidate for a large dinner group. The first such opportunity arose this week with two researchers from my last workplace in Brisbane visiting Melbourne, and I arranged for all the Melbournites they already knew to meet up for dinner. Ten of us slid into cushioned benches, set in a low-lit but brightly-coloured long room already brimming with chatter before we'd opened our mouths. I was a little apprehensive about choosing a vegetarian, alcohol-free venue on behalf of a lot of other people, but the tasty food and comfortable setting more than compensated for the absence of our usual vices. To keep things simple we shared a banquet. It started off with dips, marinated vegetables and pita bread, then moved onto plates full of ...

A hilarious Vanilla Ice -style party invitation brought to our attention that Krusty's birthday was coming up and, although we couldn't make it to her Brisbane-based party, I wanted to present her with a small gift. Krusty has been unwaveringly enthusiastic about our cooking, our blog, and sharing her favourite restaurants with us, and I was confident that she'd appreciate a small box of home-made biscuits to mark her birthday. I love baking for others: it's the ultimate comfort food, most people don't take the time to do it, and it's a treat rather than a sensible necessity, as the most enjoyable gifts are. Krusty is a sweet and slightly off-beat girl with pretty ginger hair, as well as depth and intelligence. I think this recipe captures almost all those qualities: although the spiced chocolate angle is a little unusual, it loses a mark or two because the recipe belongs to Martha Stewart , who is surely as mainstream as it gets! I've previously made thi...

Cindy had biscuit baking to do on Tuesday night, so we opted for a lazy night of takeaway. Unfortunately neither of us felt much like eating anything based on rice, meaning Indian and Thai were off the agenda, leaving us hunting for some good takeaway pizza. We'd tried Mr. Natural pizza previously, but given Melbourne's (and particularly Carlton's) reputation as pizza-town, were pretty sure we could do better. None of the Italian places on Lygon Street jumped out at us as being good takeaway options, so we gave Umago in Fitzroy a shot. I walk past it most afternoons on my way home from work, and have never been that excited by its slightly tacky looking exterior, but its menu looked impressive and they delivered, so that was good enough for us. There are four gourmet vego options, plus a couple of plainer choices, though the big 'V' next to the seafood pizza bothers me irrationally. We went for a Mexican (beans, corn chips, capsicum, avocado, sweet chilli and ...

This is my adaptation of Healthy Fried Rice, a recipe from delicious magazine. I think I bought a copy in an airport a couple of years ago. Unusually this recipe uses brown rice, which makes it a more nutritious and satisfying meal on its own. Fried Rice (adapted from delicious magazine) serves 4 2 cups brown rice 2 eggs a splash of milk 2+ tablespoons sesame oil 4 shallots, chopped 1 large carrot, chopped into matchsticks 1 capsicum, chopped into strips 2 cups bok choy, chopped 2 tablespoons soy sauce 1/2 cup cashews Cook the brown rice and cool it. If you get the chance, put it in the fridge for a couple of hours before using it, even cook it the night before if you're well prepared. Beat the eggs and milk in a bowl. Heat a bit of the sesame oil in a wok. (If you haven't tried sesame oil before, give it a go, it adds fantastic flavour to Asian dishes.) Pour in the egg mix and swish the pan around to make a large thin disc of egg. When the pan side is cooked, flip it o...

It isn't a themed evening without an appropriate dessert as far as I'm concerned, and I knew just the thing to make. I'd previously trialled this recipe for "Rose and saffron-scented rice dessert with mango" once while in Brisbane. I had had some agreeable creamy rice desserts served with thalis at various Indian restaurants, and I found my home-made batch to be an even more aromatic and satisfying end to a curry meal. The recipe comes from a fabulous and (in this house) well-thumbed cookbook instructively titled "The low-fat Indian vegetarian cookbook" , written by Mridula Baljekar. However this is by no means a low-fat dessert: it comes from the more permissive High Days and Holidays chapter at the end of the book. This dessert is quite simple to prepare and if you're planning to make a main meal on the same night, you can reduce the stress levels even further by doing the first half of the recipe a couple of hours or even a day earlier. Indi...

To celebrate our mid-afternoon Indian Film Festival outing (we saw Koi Aap Sa , which is passable, but definitely no Lagaan ), we planned an Indian-themed evening of food. I'd already filled up on the Indian chips we'd smuggled into the cinema, so it was quite late by the time I got cracking on my task: Khichari. This is another of Kurma's fine recipes, with a few alterations (for instance, we failed to find mung beans at Piedemontes , and opted for lentils instead). This recipe makes heaps - probably enough for 5 or 6 meals. I like to get all the chopping out of the way first, so I started out by cutting up a couple of washed potatoes, a big head of broccoli, two tomatoes and a large carrot into bite sized pieces and slicing a green chilli and some ginger finely. You could probably optimise your cooking time by doing most of this while the lentils are boiling, but I'm easily stressed when something's on the stove. Once you're all prepared, throw about ...

I've walked past La Parisienne Pate on Lygon Street quite a few times and always been curious about the delightful French treats hidden within. There's a small selection of bread, a few antipasto options, loads of meaty French food and, most impressively, a wide range of exotic French cheeses. We randomly settled on the L'edel de Cleron, a runny cow's milk cheese, generally aged for a relatively short time and bound in a ring of pine bark. We were uncertain about how to eat it - it's close relative Vacherin is meant to be scooped out of the bark rind directly, but the L'edel de Cleron seemed a bit too hard for that approach, so we peeled the bark off to get the runny innards. The moldy edges were stronger than expected, and too much for Cindy, leaving all the more deliciousness for me. The softness of the cheese meant I could spread it on the bread we bought from Piedemontes , making for a tremendously indulgent lunch. Categories: Savoury

A comment from Will mentioned Piedemonte's supermarket in Fitzroy North, which I hadn't previously heard of. A quick search of the internet confirmed its location (43 Best St) and its reputation as a yuppie haven. Armed with an extensive shopping list, Michael and I decided to check it out after breakfast at Ici . This IGA supermarket isn't particularly flash-looking inside or out, but the selection of groceries certainly leans towards the gourmet and the organic. We found almost all the ingredients we needed for our Saturday cooking spree, and picked up a few impulse buys too. There was a pretty good selection of tofu, tempeh and sanitarium faux-meat products . I bought a pack of bacon-style rashers, with which I have a love-hate relationship. Michael was keen to try a bottle of Elgaar farm organic milk , I picked out some Barambah organic yoghurt. Michael was also very pleased to dicover canned black beans and nabbed one for no particular reason. I found the i...

Update, August 1 2013: More news from Fitzroyalty ! Looks like Ici is reopening very soon. Update, July 5 2013: As reported by Fitzroyalty , Cafe Ici has closed down. The weekend got underway with breakfast at Ici, a cosy cafe tucked away off Brunswick Street in Fitzroy. Despite its slightly out of the way location, Ici's reputation ensures there's quite a demand for tables, which we'd unfortunately discovered through personal expierence . This time we were smart and got there 'early' - 9a.m. counting as early in Fitzroy on a Saturday morning - and had no trouble getting seats. A quick scan of the blackboard menu made it clear that we'd have no trouble picking out vegetarian breakfast options: scrambled tofu with miso paste and mushrooms, French toast with fresh fruit and creme fraiche, three kinds of muesli and plenty of egg-based options - everything was organic and the eggs were free-range. Cindy showed admirable restraint and settled on fruit toast and p...

How could Friday the 13th possibly be a bad day when it begins with fresh raspberries in your cereal? Categories: Sweet

The fruit shop checkout is now stocked with tempting impulse buys like the supermarket! That's where I bought this bar of chocolate a few days ago, unbeknownst to Michael. Lucky for him I shared it anyway. The chocolate is very similar in taste and texture to 70% cocoa Lindt but I couldn't detect the vanilla or the flavour of the tiny cherry pieces, which was a letdown. Dagoba is more expensive than Lindt ($4.50 for just under 60g, compared to about $4 for 100g of Lindt 70%), but it comes with the conscience-cleansing bonus of being organic and fair trade. I was originally impressed by the other flavour options, including coffee and chai. Now having shown myself to be immune to their cherries, I can probably wait awhile to buy more Dagoba. Categories: Sweet

Wednesday morning found us short of cooking ideas, so I flicked through the bold vegetarian cookbook over breakfast searching for some dinner options. Cindy was tired of tofu, I didn't feel like pasta and we'd just had Indian , so there weren't too many options. We settled on this tempeh tagine, mainly because we already had most of the ingredients. We were, however, lacking in tempeh . Used to the vege-friendly bounties of West End Coles in Brisbane, I assumed that the local Safeway would do the trick, but its mock-meat selection is pitiful. Luckily, Cindy checked out Allergy Block on the way to work and came up trumps, so we were ready to go. North African tempeh tagine Ingredients 2 medium carrots, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces 1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds 1/2 teaspoon black pepper corns 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds 1/2 teaspoon paprika 1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds 2-4 whole cloves 1 small onion, finely chopped...

Another day, another Sydney Road inspired dinner. This time we started off with the polenta and the porcini mushrooms. Cindy was uninspired by her mushroom-focussed cookbook , so after some judicious internet searching, we settled on this recipe . I won't bother retyping the whole recipe seeing as it's right at the other end of that link: basically it's a bunch of mushrooms (including some soaked porcinis) fried with some garlic, thyme, stock and wine (we used sherry instead) served up some fried polenta squares. We added some fresh greens and roasted capsicum strips to fill out the meal. The polenta was crisp on the outside and soft and a bit doughy inside - a good combination with the liquidy mushroom topping. The rehydrated porcini mushrooms and the sherry dominated the taste, enhanced by the thyme and parsley. I'm not sure if I'd rush back to make this particular dish again, but I'm pretty enthused about going back to polenta in the near future. Categ...

I was quite taken by the pictachio and dark chocolate biscotti that Mellie from tummy rumbles recently made and when I bought some pistachios for om ali , I made sure that I took enough to try biscotti too. Surprisingly my first inclination was to remove the chocolate from the recipe! I wanted to create a version with the heady flavour of an Indian dessert, where I first encountered pistachios used in a sweet. I thought it'd be wise to halve the original quantities for this experimental batch. Bollywood biscotti (adapted from Mellie's recipe for Cantuccini di Cioccolato e Pistacchio ) 150g caster sugar 2 whole eggs 1 egg yolk 250g plain flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder pinch of salt 1 teaspoon rose water 1 teaspoon ground cardamom 200g shelled pistachios Beat the eggs and caster sugar in a mixer until thick and creamy. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, rose water and cardamom and mix until just combined. Stir in the pistachios. At this stage Mellie described the mix as a...

While I thoroughly enjoyed my cashew ginger crunch granola, I didn't think it would be wise to continue eating such a high-sugar breakfast indefinitely. My mind started ticking over on making my own version. I find uncooked oats too chewy: it takes me at least half an hour to get through a bowl of them! Not an envigorating start to the day. My moosewood book has a baked recipe, but it involves both oil and maple syrup so it's not much of an improvement in the health stakes. Then I remembered that some health-food grainy things are sweetened with apple juice rather than sugar and thought I'd give that a go. I browsed the internet to get a feel for the right proportions of liquid to grain, oven temperature and baking time, then just had a go with what was in the house. I've been eating jarred pears with my cereal and by this stage I had a jar of juice. I strained out the floating pear remains and had about 1 1/2 cups of sweet liquid. I mixed this into about 4 cups...

Inspired by our spoils from Sydney Road , I volunteered to cook up some palak paneer. We had a recipe from our Indian cooking class at Mondo Organics to use as a starting point, and some delicious roti as an accompaniment. Palak Paneer 1 packet paneer 2 bunches of spinach (3 would probably be better) 1 onion 3 tablespoons lila masala 1 can chopped tomatoes 2 fresh tomatoes, diced 2 teaspoons garam masala 1 teaspoon chilli powder Steam the spinach until it's thoroughly wilted. If you've got a steamer, go ahead and use it. If not, a colander on top of a saucepan works pretty well. Once it's all nicely steamed, pop it in a food processor and blend it up to mush. Fry the onions and lila masala in a large saucepan for a few minutes, then throw in the tomatoes and spices and stir them all together. Cook for a few more minutes and then scoop the spinach mush out of the food processor into the saucepan. It should look something like this: Stir it all together - don't add ...

After lunch we wandered a little further north along Sydney Road. I had tired of looking at clothes that I had no intention of buying, but I had heard that there was a great Mediterranean deli nearby. Mediterranean Wholesalers (at number 482) proved to be even better than I hoped. Aisles and aisles of canned and jarred delicacies, pasta, meat, cheese and baked goods... I particularly enjoyed wandering the dried pasta section, finding lots of shapes and colours I'd never seen before: I limited myself to one packet for the time being. I also picked out a can of crushed tomatoes, polenta, whole nutmeg (wish I had that in time for the om ali ), and a bag of dried porcini mushrooms. The mushrooms appear frequently as an ingredient in our mushroom cookbook, and I'm keen to give them a go. Next stop was an Indian grocery that we took a peek at before lunch. I remember neither its name nor its street number: very sorry. I can confirm that it's on the east side of Sydney Road, betwe...

Yesterday was a beautiful Melbourne spring day, so Cindy and I decided to wander up through Brunswick and explore Sydney Road . While Cindy browsed through a couple of trendy second hand clothes shops, I rifled through our Cheap Eats guide to find a suitable lunch place for us. Sydney Road is littered with ethnic eateries, pubs, clubs and a smattering of trendy cafes, so there was no shortage of options in the vicinity. On our way to my first choice, Ray, we stumbled across 'Lentil as Africa', one of the restaurants in the Lentil as Anything 'chain'. Lentil as Africa is a non-profit cafe that is run by an African women's co-operative. They serve vegetarian African food every night and do breakfasts on the weekend. The setting is decidedly un-African - the walls covered with indie rock posters and hipster art. The furniture looked distinctly recycled and the whole place was comfortably shabby. The all day breakfast menu was pretty egg-centric (sorry), and I ...

While Michael prepared tostadas for dinner, I was working on dessert. I had chosen to have a go at om ali from my Nigella cookbook, not because it was one of the most mouth-watering but because it would use up some superfluous filo pastry. Described as "a kind of Egyptian bread-and-butter pudding", it probably did stick in my mind as one of the more intriguing recipes. Om Ali Set the oven to 150 degrees. Paint 200g of filo pastry sheets with 100g of melted butter , crumpling each loosely and plonking them on two baking trays. I was unsure whether Nigella meant that the sheets should get layered on top of each other or scrunched up side by side, so I did a tray of each. The recipe wouldn't be perfect this time around, but I'd probably work out the best option and prepare all the pastry as intended next time. That's active adaptive management, people! (I'm thrilled that I've just managed to explain my thesis topic using a cooking example. Humour me...