Nourish Me

divine vegan desserts

Divine Vegan Desserts
Lisa Fabry
Wakefield Press

“How can you make a cake without eggs and butter?” I can’t remember how many times I’ve been asked this question. The answer, of course, is “Easy!” – Lisa Fabry 

Not a question I ask often, but from time to time, one does wonder. As you do. I have eaten amazing vegan cakes when out and about, just not ever had the need to make one myself. Cake without butter is easy - Claudia Roden’s Sephardic Orange cake is a no-brainer – but a cake without eggs has me stumped. The thing is this: baking with eggs and butter is a bit of a faff, truth be told, and baking a vegan cake should, in theory, be a far simpler task. What Lisa Fabry’s new book pleasantly surprised me with was that vegan baking also just happens to require much less equipment - a lot can be done with little more than a whisk and a roomy bowl or two. And that is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Where to begin? I chose the Chocolate Torte because chocolate anything is pretty much guaranteed to win the blokes over around here, and from the photograph it looked suitably rich. Simple to make, made simpler still by using a whisk and bowl to make the topping instead of the recommended food processor, resulting in very little washing up. Their verdict? Great soon after icing, quite nice that night, but “dry and a bit tasteless” the following, though they loved the mousse-like topping. Serve it up and demolish as soon as possible would be my suggestion. We made the Cashew Cream over the holidays and it was gorgeous with a non-vegan cake, yet I can't say we've made it since, mostly because we're not cake-and-cream people. Cake and tea, yes, but not cake and cream.    

All of which does beg the question I've been um-ing and ah-ing over typing for a good 15 minutes now: if one has chosen to eschew all animal products, why try to replicate things so obviously associated with them? (I do know the answer – comfort , familiarity - so it’s rhetorical...please, no hate mail) Some of the naturally vegan desserts in here – summer pudding, vanilla poached-pears, jellies made with agar, sorbet –are beautiful desserts, divine creations, just as they are. One of those things that nags at my thoughts occasionally...

Chapters cover any- and every- thing you can imagine from cakes to cheesecakes, “Proper Puddings”, brownies (cleverly made squidgy with sweet potato puree) and soy-based custards and ice creams. Fabry’s case for an ethical, vegan diet at the beginning is convincing but it’s the detailed information on substituting ingredients that hooked me. Those with dietary intolerances are well-covered and there’s even a range of Raw recipes including a pretty damned amazing looking Black Forest Gateaux that is complicated but no doubt worth every second of its making.   

I find myself a bit, well, torn. If you are a vegan this book will have you in raptures and if not - and for the foreseeable future, that’s me – the book gives excellent, truly inventive options for our friends and families who are. Fabry - a local - has a blog, by the way, so look her up and say hi: www.divinevegan.com 

Available in your local bookshop, or you can head over to Wakefield Press and buy direct.

A word of caution, one I hope won’t distract, but a few recipes marked as gluten-free are, potentially, not. There is a small note made in the introduction about cornflour (cornstarch) being sometimes milled from wheat but the advice is not, I’m sorry to say, repeated. In my experience almost all cornflour is the wheaten kind and I think a note to the un-affected baker cooking for friends at the beginning of each recipe would help enormously.

 

 

berries & berlin

Wakefield Press sent out a copy of the very glossy, rather lovely looking Berry Hill: Stories and Recipes from Beerenberg Farm recently. The book is exactly what you'd expect given the subtitle; the story of how an innovative, larrikin Australian rural family took a seemingly small idea and ran with it, full-steam ahead, making the production of jam their incredible success story. If you've ever sat on a Qantas flight and been served breakfast, chances are you've tasted Beerenberg's fruit-packed jams. The book features an array of recipes, both savoury and sweet, as well as a detailed, entertaining family history and some truly excellent tips for growing strawberries, something I'm gonna need 'cause thus far, I do nothing but destroy them...I'll report back when they go into the ground soon.

 

The second book I've had the great pleasure of being sent came from far further afield. Luisa Weiss' New York publisher contacted me, asking if I'd like to review her new, highly anticipated by those of us in blogland, book, My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with recipes). That'd be a yes, right?

Luisa is undoubtedly a gifted writer, something born, we learn, of her lifelong love of reading, but she's also a gifted cook, something also born of childhood fascination.  The book fills in some of the gaps her blog The Wednesday Chef occasionally left open, evoking a sense of this being her space to let go, to share how she was, sometimes, really feeling. Unlike Molly of Orangette's first book, I did not feel as though I was reading anything on paper that I'd read online before - Luisa should be championed for that alone! 

As the story of Luisa's return to the beloved Berlin of her childhood unfolds, each chapter is rounded out with an appropriate, delicious recipe. I loved the food she describes in Berlin, a food culture I know practially zilch about, and these passages are among the best the book offers.   

I read it from cover to cover, recovering from a doozy of a cold in the sun, on the front steps, one beautiful warm afternoon, and it's light and lovely enough to charm anyone, I think, back to wellness. For her next book - gosh, I hope she gets another one - I'd love to read more and more about Berlin's food culture. Recommended.   

 

 

  

outside the magic square: a review

By mid-May growth in the kitchen garden slows r-i-g-h-t down. Things that, even a month ago, were progressing well are now almost dormant, sitting quietly in the cold soil, waiting for the winter solstice (about a month away, people) to return to us longer days and shorter nights, however incrementally. Gardening is both gymnasium and therapist as I once heard a woman on the ABC suggest, but it's nice, from time to time, to put your feet up to rest for a while as the winter quiets things down, to read and plan your next garden moves. Increasingly, growing your own food, on whatever scale is available to you, is being seen also as something of a political act in ever-widening circles. Cue Lolo Houbein's Outside the Magic Square: A Handbook for Food Security.

The challenging times that lie ahead of us collectively climate-wise are beyond the scope of discussion on this blog - I am not a political writer, but my thinking and conversation with friends and family is deeply immersed in that sphere and yet, here I am, a somewhat informed individual, who is ultimately as confused as the next. And frankly, in my (egads!) middle age, I feel helpless. I know that I'm not alone. Houbein's book manages to tackle these issues head on - there's no beating about the bush, here - but with one fabulously focussed difference; she offers real, practical solutions, so many in fact that the book is not likely to sink in over one sitting. Doom and gloom be gone! 

In How to use this book, Houbein says you can, "of course read the book cover to cover. Or take a dip and read the parts that appeal." I took the latter approach, reading my way through the ideas which are grouped thematically. Following the various trails of thought you'll find out that even one square metre of garden space - the premise for her first book, The Magic Square - can introduce a little something fresh to your diet each day, you'll learn about the future of food production in Australia (and beyond), the plight of farmers (shocking given 2012 is the Year of the Farmer), how to grow your plot without chemicals, what to grow, how to do it and when, how to build drought-proof beds, how to cook and preserve the food you're producing and loads more. There's a LOT to take in, so do it slowly. What I found particularly refreshing was that any questions she raises are answered, something lacking in many drier, more academic books. Not only that, but Houbein's enthusiasm is so infectious I dare anyone who reads it NOT to want to get their hands in the dirt immediately. 

This was our kitchen garden in November of last year. Much has changed, and much has been learned along the way (as is always the case, no?) and it provides so very much, without the use of nasty chemicals. One story, that of a fledgling nursed back to health by wildlife rescuers is particularly poignant:

...Ken fed it broccoli from the garden which the little bird gobbled up daily. When the broccoli ran out Ken bought it some, but the bird retreated to the corner of the cage and wouldn't touch the shop bought product. When organic broccoli was obtained the bird ate it again with gusto. This story alone is enough to make me an organic gardener!

Outside the Magic Square brims with practical, if not a little scattered, information, but the author is deeply involved in her message and her enthusiasm makes me yearn to live with my garden full-time. Yes, she may well be preaching to the converted, but I found the book both timely and encouraging. One of the best and most positive on the subject I've come across. And a-men to that.    

mezze to milk tart: a review

Mezze to Milk Tart: from The Middle East to Africa in my vegetarian kitchen

By Cecile Yazbeck (published by Wakefield Press)

It took a while for Cecile Yazbek's voice to grab me, to seduce me into the kitchen, though now we've been there together half a dozen times or so, I'm not sure that I can tell you what it was that initially held me back. Good books - the best of cookery books - are like that, not so much page-turners, but made up of the the kind of pages you end up lingering over, remembering as you're driving along listening to all the economic doom and gloom on the radio, that come to you in the middle of the night, that remind what it is that you enjoy so very much about food writing.

Actually, apart from the lovely cover image, I think it was that the book is illustrated with images not, for the most part, of food that made me slower to take it all in, but of old family photographs, a family I did not (yet) know. Having read the book cover to cover now, I feel I know Yazbek's people a little better - and the pictures, now, are wonderful.

the modestly-titled Eggplant Bake

Let's talk about the food first: recipes couldn't be explained more simply, and yet, like many of my favourite cooks, they deliver in spades because they are cleverly spiced, carefully constructed, and none too difficult for a busy home cook to prepare. Better yet is that this is food that is budget-friendly, and the ingredients are, like a lot of Middle Eastern/Mediterranean/African/Good Vegetarian recipes, generally inexpensive and, for the most part, easy to find. Mind you, I had a stupidly difficult time finding burghul this weekend in Kyneton, but I'll stock up in the city this week 'cos I want to cook and eat everything she does.

Yazbek uses loads of vegetables. I mean, just look at everything that went into that dish above:

(and again!)

Brilliant.
 
Dishes are inventive, the flavours just my kind. She kicks things off with the unfortunately-titled Sweated Vegetable Mix (6 carrots, an onion and 6 celery sticks, all grated and sweated for up to 45 minutes over the lowest heat possible in a heavy, lidded pan with 2 bay leaves, 3 tablespoons of olive oil and a little salt) and turns the mixture - something you can, indeed should, freeze in 2 cup amounts for later use - into 8 very different, quick meals. The Oat Patties, oven-baked (vegan now I come to think about it) were served on a thick gingery, garlicky tomato sauce of my own making. Astoundingly good, made from simple ingredients in the pantry.

Ingenious, delectable stuff for mid-week.

Kibbe of Potatoes

This weekend the two of us enjoyed her Kibbe of Potatoes (vegan, again), filled with a mixture of onions and currants and walnuts over three meals, and it just got better each day. It needs a juicy, crunchy, salty salad to go with it to my mind, something to offset the sweetness of the cinnamon in the kibbe dough, and I will be making the pumpkin version come autumn. 

Generous, this is a book that is inclusive to all styles of vegetable-friendly eating; vegans, gleegans and the ovo-lacto-vegetarian will all find solace within this collection. Chapters cover, among other things, tofu (lots of gorgeous tofu in here), cooking from the garden (close to my own heart, and packed full of eggplant and okra recipes!), celebratory food, everyday food and, of course, the food of South Africa via Lebanon. She, like Kathryn, puts dessert in context, and I love them both for that!   

Then there's Yazbek's writing voice. The book is part manual, part memoir and manages to be modest, poetic, wise, compassionate, funny (very) and warm. It's a cookbook with soul, one to read for more than recipes alone. This, from Food for the Road, I love:

Solitary driving and stopping at will for a view, or to write something that silence has dislodged, is as gratifying as arriving in the arms of loving friends - the moment when the city and all cares of home have fallen away. Enfolded in green hills, close to a blue and white sea, I become friend to myself once more.

Look. I could just go on and on about Mezze to Milk Tart (and have, at length, to friends, some of whom think I've gone mad), but I think it's best that you try and track down a copy for yourself. It is thoughtful, full of food that wends its way through some of the most interesting parts of the world, and is both fresh and inventive.

Highly recommended.

 

making a meal of it

(a Wakefield Press review)

The subtitle of Jane Willcox and Rosemary Cadden's new book Making a Meal of It - smart ways to buy, store and use up food - neatly sums up the sort of thinking that many friends of mine are adopting in the wake of the world's current economic woes. A quick perusal of the shelves at your local bookshop (please tell me you still do this) will no doubt turn up at least a couple of frugally titled numbers covering all manner of money-saving topics.

Thrift, it would seem, is very much the new black.   

Rather shamefacedly I downed the book upon reading Willcox and Cadden's introduction, off to uncover what was lurking in the drawers of my own fridge. Hmm. Not so good. Suffice to say it's little wonder that these two saw an opportunity to correct the very first world problem of food going to waste in this clever little book. Their scope is surprisingly wide-ranging; how to address food-wastage without resorting to simply feeding your compost heap (ahem), saving money by going ahead and buying bags of fruit and veg when they're on special knowing full-well you've now got strategies for dealing with the volume, stretching out a meagre piece of leftover cheese and learning if it's time to actually dump said bit of cheese. 

Potentially Very Serious, the authors have managed to attack everything with a great sense of humour, to add interesting facts and figures when appropriate and still manage to come up with recipes and ideas that are intriguing, useful and, thankfully, anything but glam, all presented in a casual, conversational way. The pickled celery is something I've made often over the past few weeks; the lemon chutney's the best I've ever made. Chapters are arranged alphabetically by ingredient, cover what to look for when buying, how to store (and freeze), how to avoid poisoning yourself (with some real myth-busting facts) as well as what to do with, for example, your "couple of cranky carrots". The cake chapter got me wishing I lived in the sort of house where there was such a thing as leftover cake, but that's another story entirely.

Despite the alphabetical arrangement of the chapters I would have liked an index of sorts, but that's a small quibble. A practical, accessible guide for the conscious cook, it is highly recommended.            

veg in: flip shelton

A few months ago I wrote about roses, a post that garnered some interesting responses, not least of which was an email from Wakefield Press, the Australian distributor of The Scented Kitchen. Long story short, they like what I do here enough to put me on their reviewing list. We all know it's important to be honest, right? To say this post is sponsored by, even if it's not quite like that. Well, this post isn't quite like that, but it's enough like that for me to tell you yes, I was given this book, but I'm under no obligation to love everything. That's what reviewing is all about. That I happen to like it a lot is testament to its content.

Flip Shelton is a poster girl for vegetarianism. The woman glows, people, a shining example of what a balanced vegetarian diet can do for a person. The recipes in her new book Veg In: Simple Vegetarian Dishes From Around The World are solid, basic vegetarian fare, global in their pull, based on the premise that it's cheaper and healthier in the long run to eat in rather than eat out. Using takeway (take out) food as a leaping off point, Shelton takes classic fast food recipes - from Greek to Chinese to Burgers and beyond- and gives vegetarian recipes within that genre that come together easily in your own kitchen.

The layout is easy to read, with plenty of space for your own notes, and the spine of the thing is well constructed, sturdy even, enough so that the book opens out flat on a kitchen bench and - with a little pressure, yess! - it stays open. (Cannot tell you how much this simple necessity, oft overlooked by publishers, irritates me. One of my pet hates.)  Highly recommend for anyone looking to eat less flesh, new vegetarians or for students moving out of home.  

The Seaweed Salad above might not be your first choice, but I often think that good cookbooks are made (or indeed, broken) by the simplest recipes, and I'm very pleased to say this was a hit, far better, as is the premise of the book, than any I've had out.

flip shelton's seaweed salad

20g wakame

dressing:

2 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp tamari

1 tbsp water

2 tsp sugar

pinch of salt

Combine all the dressing ingredients in a small bowl and mix until well-combined. Using scissors, roughly cut wakame into strips, cover in warm water and soak for about 5 minutes or until softened. Drain. Place wakame in a small bowl and cover with dressing, toss gently. Allow to chill for about 30 minutes for flavours to infuse. Drain excess liquid before serving.

(Oh, and by the way, the brick oven book? I bought that book waaay before this began. Just so you know...)