Darwin Days

We arrived home from Darwin last night and I am glad to be able to cook again in my own kitchen. It is good to get away for a break. I was there for business meetings but managed some leisure as well with E. Highlights were swimming in the hotel pool beneath palm trees at night, feeding the fish at Aquascene, and browsing at Parap Market.

But it is the wet season which means the weather is hot, humid and wet. The frequent heavy monsoonal downpours made the outdoors a little less welcoming and the rain was very noisy during our planning meeting. I had the odd experience of a faceless face-to-face meeting when the hotel where the meeting was held had a power cut which plunged us into darkness. It was also a great historic day to be there on Wednesday when our Prime Minister Rudd formally apologised to the Stolen Generations (Indigenous people who were taken from their families in a bid to assimilate them into European families and destroy the Aboriginal culture).

Working in an organisation with an office in Darwin means that I have been visiting this tropical city regularly over the past few years. It is a place where the steak reigns supreme and a decent vegetarian meal can be hard to find. I have experienced the good (Cornucopia Café at the Museum, Mindl Beach Markets, Thailicious, PeeWees, The Wharf), the bad (‘vegetarian soup with chicken wantons’ at Casuarina Plaza, overpriced hotel breakfasts, Darwin Hospital café) and the ugly (plastic palm trees, homophobic taxi drivers with mental health problems, my hair going frizzy in the humidity). So here is a list of some of the good places we have been during this visit (with apologies that lighting and weather were not always conducive to photos).

Moorish Café (37 Knuckey Street, tel: 08 8981 0010)
I went here last year and it was so quiet. Last week it was buzzing with groups chatting over some fine tapas. We had basil bread with dukkah and oil, beetroot tsatsiki with warm pitta bread, haloumi and salsa on toast, patatas bravas, pumpkin with pinenuts, fetta and a pomegranate dressing (and E had some meat dishes he enjoyed). All were delicious and I could have eaten more of every dish. However, at the end, we were satisfied with our meal.

The service was good, given that it was a busy night. We weren’t without a dish for long, but I would have liked our dishes all served together rather than in dribs and drabs. I also liked the ambience of coloured lights, candles and small earthenware bowls. But I decided not to hang around for chocolate cake, even though I remember it fondly from my last visit.

Banyan Tree Café (69 Mitchell Street, tel: 08 8981 8577)
I discovered the Banyan Tree some years ago when trying to avoid overpriced hotel breakfasts. I appreciate that the hotel breakfast buffet is a matter of convenience, especially when rushing to business meetings. But as a vegetarian who just wants beans on toast, I get annoyed at paying one-price-fits-all for all the eggs, bacon, sausages etc that I will never eat. Even worse, on this trip, was when I asked for beans on toast to be delivered to my room (while I watched Rudd's apology) and got toast on a saucer, beans in a bowl and only a knife to eat these with. Is it any wonder I prefer an honest no-nonsense greasy spoon cafe!

The Banyan Tree is not fancy but it is friendly. It is a greasy spoon café that does good basic food for a reasonable price. Beans on toast will set you back $5.50. E could get a fry-up for under $10. The tables are covered in checked blue and white table cloths and decorated with vases of flowers. If you are lucky, you might find a copy of the Northern Territory News to read with their intriguing headlines (Naked Biffo, Thief Lord Mayor to Face Jail, Body found in Freezer).

Mitchelli’s Pizza Café (11 Mitchell Street, tel 08 8941 7500)
The Mitchelli’s Pizza Café claims to be the best pizza in Darwin. I am always a little wary of such self-aggrandisements, but I think there might be some truth to it. E had a yen to have pizza for dinner in Darwin and it took some searching.

The first night we went to another Italian place and said we didn’t have much time before going to see a film. We were told that pasta was faster than pizza. I have eaten their pizza before but would never have pasta there again. My pesto sauce was yellow and creamy - more reminiscent of bodily fluids than the green sauce I love. Even worse, was that it was served in a foil takeaway container with a plastic fork. I had never realised before how hard it is to swirl spaghetti on a plastic fork. (Happily, the film of the Kite Runner was very good so the evening wasn’t wasted altogether). After the spaghetti nightmare, I couldn’t face returning to this café for pizza.

We went to another pizza place a couple of nights later, only to be sat between the toilets and an annoyingly loud table. The menu wasn’t at all inspiring and we left without ordering.

So we found ourselves at Mitchelli’s which I had initially dismissed due to its lack of ambience – plastic chairs and tables lit by fluorescent lights. We were pleasantly surprised by the food. The vegetarian pizza was not the usual combination of tomato sauce, capsicum, mushrooms and olives. It was much better – sundried tomato, artichoke, onion, mushroom, broccoli, snowpeas, capsicum and fetta. This is the sort of ambitious combination that can be done badly but Mitchelli’s did it perfectly. I was delighted to have a delicious pizza piled with well cooked vegetables.

Speakers Corner Cafe (Ground Floor, Parliament House, 15 Esplanade, 08 8981 4833)
I remember Speakers Corner Café fondly from a visit to the Northern Territory a few years ago that included a three day trip through Kakadu National Park. It was so hot and humid that it was a relief to return to Darwin and sit at the outside tables and chairs looking out over green lawns, terracotta pots of flowers and the harbour, and enjoying the cool air of the sea breeze.

This week, we walked along the Esplanade to Parliament House, where the café is based. It was a rare period of brilliant sunshine and I looked forward to sitting on th Speaker Corner terrace with a drink. But as we got closer, we could see grey clouds gathering over the sea. By the time we arrived at Parliament House, the palm trees outside were being battered by the wind and there was rain in the air (as you can see in my photo). We purchased our drinks and sat outside under the verandah watching the torrential downpour until the rain sought us out and drove us indoors.

I can't remember if I have eaten at Speakers Corner and cannot vouch for how vegetarian-friendly it is but I think they make up decent salad sandwiches. But it is a pleasant place to have a drink if the weather is kind. Even if you don’t want a drink, it is worthwhile having a look inside Parliament House to look at the beautiful Indigenous paintings that make up the Meeting Place Mural, read the historic displays and visit the library. Parliament House is one of my favourite buildings in Darwin. It was built in 1992 and has a stark white beauty. I love civic buildings that are proudly modern rather than apologetic reproductions of historic buildings.

Garam Masala (Darwin Central Hotel, 21 Knuckey St, tel: 08 8944 9120)
We went to Garam Masala on a recommendation. I fancied an Indian dinner and it seemed an interesting place to eat. The first night it was booked out, so we booked and returned the next night. The service and the ambience were very good. The menu is interesting, if a little overpriced.

I naively ordered beetroot poriyal with channa dahl, chillis and curry leaves. I enjoyed the texture of grated beetroot studded with the occasional channa dahl. But my first mouthful left me gasping at the spiciness. E tasted it and said it was twice as spicy as his chicken curry. I had to pick through the grated beetroot and curry leaves to take out all the chillis – by the end of my meal there was quite a pile. I know that there are people who enjoy this much chilli but not me. Even with rice, roti and drowned in raita, it was far too hot for me. I would probably go back but only if I felt assertive enough to discuss the spiciness with the staff.

Parap Market (Parap Village Shopping Precinct off Parap Road, tel: 0438 882 373 or 08 8942 0805)
One of the best places to eat in Darwin is at the markets. We went to Parap Markets which are held on Saturday mornings (but I can also recommend the Nightcliff Markets on Sunday mornings and Mindl Beach Markets on Thursday nights in the dry season). There is a fine array of stalls selling crafts, soaps, hammocks, clothes, jewellery and artwork. The atmosphere is friendly and relaxed. And the food is fantastic.

Much of the food is of the South East Asian cuisine. Many stalls have bain maries filled with spring rolls, dim sims, fried rice, rice balls, fried tofu, sticky rice cakes. Tubs of noodles and bean sprouts are piled high waiting for orders for laksa soup. You can get fresh green paw paw salad made in front of you. Even the fruit is different to what I might expect at a Melbourne market. Stall holders sell fresh local tropical fruit - bananas, mango, pawpaw, dragonfruit (pictured) and rambutans.

We were there for breakfast which is too early for deep fried foods, so we headed to the crepe stall where I had a magnificent wholemeal crepe filled with cheese, salsa and avocado. Watching the crepes being made is wonderful entertainment. We also managed to buy some souvenirs – incense, clothes and presents. But the find of the market was the heavenly raspberry, boysenberry, cherry and apple juice. When E tasted mine, he suggested we share another one but it was too good for him to offer much to me!

Honorary mentions go to Bamar Café (Cavenagh Street) and Simply Foods (Smith Street Mall) for their lovely – and much needed – salads.

Lastly, I particularly dislike airplane and airport food. My all time low was a slab of plain tofu sandwiched between bread and butter on an Ansett domestic flight many years ago. Last year, Qantas went into competition for the worst airplane food ever by handing out bars of rice bubbles in a sweet goo as a vegetarian and gluten free snack. It felt insulting to be offered these overly processed and sweet snacks.

I was pleased on the flight to Darwin this week that the food seemed to have improved. We had roasted chickpeas for a light snack and then I was pleasantly surprised to be given delicious small gluten free cakes made from quinoa flour, bananas and raspberries. Maybe there is hope! Now if only they could offer some decent vegetarian food in the airports…

Potato Scones for Brunch

Before I lived in Edinburgh I had never heard of potato scones. Once I left Edinburgh I couldn’t find them in Melbourne for love or money. The Scots love their fried breakfasts and potato scones were often present in a fry-up when we ate out. But they were also easy to buy in any corner store and heat at home.

E’s parents would often make him a fry up when we stayed at their place in Peebles. I remember his dad frying these scones in lots of butter for E to have with bacon and eggs. As I don’t eat bacon or eggs, I would have fried potato scones with promite (yes, I kept a stash of promite at his parents to ward off my homesickness!) I tried them in the toaster once and almost killed the toaster off in the process.

Now I apologise to anyone who was confused after my discussion about the different meanings of ‘scone’ and ‘biscuit’ in different countries. But Scotland now will have you scunnered with another type of ‘scone’. This one is really just mashed potato mixed with flour, flattened and fried. The Irish also have a version of this but I can’t remember what they call it. It may be farl but I would have to check with my siblings who have spent time living in Dublin.

Terminology aside, I absolutely love these potato scones. They make fry-ups meaningful and delicious. I was delighted when we moved from Edinburgh to Melbourne to discover how easy they are to make at home. Needless to say, they always cheer up E too. So every now and again I make us some potato scones and some fried vegetables, and E gets a fried egg.

A fry-up with potato scones was brunch this morning. As well as the scones, I served fried red onion and tomato with some basil, spinach and kidney beans thrown in at the last moment, and leftover roast potato from the previous night reheated in a frypan. A four frypan brunch is a bit of a juggling act for me. The fourth frypan was for E’s egg and he has to watch it because I dislike egg too much to have ever perfected that art.

I was overly generous with the veggies because I was using up as much as I could before we go away for the week. We are off to Darwin tomorrow so it will be pretty quiet on this blog over the next week. It is the wet season so it will be humid and rainy and uncomfortable – just in case anyone is jealous of the heat up north. I much prefer the mild Melbourne heat we have enjoyed lately. It was very relaxing eating brunch in the sunny backyard this morning. Home comforts always seem more pleasant when you are about to leave.

Potato Scones(From Rampant Scotland)
Serves 2-4

½lb (225g or 2 fist sized) potatoes
2½oz (65g or ½ cup) plain flour - approximately
25-50g butter, chopped
½ tsp salt
Extra butter for frying

Cut potatoes into large chunks and boil. (I don’t peel them but this is a personal preference.) Mash potatoes with butter and salt. Add flour and mix with a spoon til it comes together (it shouldn’t be too dry so the actual amount of flour needed depends on the type of potato you use). Then I just use my hands to mould/knead it into a ball.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Press with your hands or use a rolling pin to roll out to a ¼ inch thickness. Dust both sides with a little flour. Shape into a 6 inch circle and cut into quarters (if too thick you can cut the circle from the dough and make additional scones with leftovers).

Heat frying pan over medium high heat and grease with a little butter. Fry scones for a few minutes either side til golden brown on each side. Best hot but also taste good cold and they can be reheated on a frying pan.

Update October 2012 - variation: we are loving these with cooked quinoa - I add almost as much cooked quinoa as leftover mashed potato and then mix in as much wholemeal flour as is needed to make a pliable dough.  Then I proceed as above.

On the stereo:
Little Earthquakes: Tori Amos

A pleasing platter

Simplicity is elegance. It is all you need. But I have so many recipes and ideas, not to mention vegetables in my fridge to be used up, that I sometimes go a little further. So it was last night that we had a meal of many dishes, many flavours and lots of good food. The spread was:

Roast Potatoes with rosemary and garlic
Rumi Carrots with Dukkah and Tahini
Spinach and strawberry salad with pomegranate vinaigrette
Cherry salsa
Yeastfree rye and caraway bread
Pea, mint and bean dip
Smoky sweet potato and bean dip

Overall it was delicious but overwhelming. I think the roast potatoes, carrots and salad would have been enough for a good meal. I never intended it to be such a spread but I had the dips from last week and I have been wanting to make the bread since I stumbled over the recipe recently and then I bought cherries that made me realise cherry season is really at its end. And so the menu expanded.

The yeastfree rye and caraway bread is a recipe that I wrote in my recipe notebook over 10 years ago. It makes me wonder about my younger self – did I really believe one days I would have all those ingredients in my pantry or did I just think it looked interesting enough to write down for some future time when I might be inspired enough to buy them. I guess it is easier these days to buy what I fancy than in my student household days when we bought communal pantry goods from the household kitty.

Whatever my motivation in writing the recipe, I am glad I did. It is pleasing to feel my pantry is bountiful enough to be able to produce such ingredients. The only one I didn’t have was kibbled rye. In indignation – do cookbook writers really think we can find all these obscure ingredients – I searched for it. After some fruitless searching through the organic area of the Vic Market and E’s unhelpful comments about kibble sounding like a British sitcom character, I consulted Rose Eliot and Sarah Brown who both had pictures and advice. Apparently kibbled rye is the same as cracked rye - and quite similar to bulgar wheat which is also cracked but is boiled and dried (according to Rose) or steamed and roasted (according to Sarah). So I headed to a health shop in Northland that I know has a good range of grains and they had cracked wheat which would have to do.

The bread is, as my notes indicate, a heavy dense bread. It didn’t rise much and had a chewy crust that made hard work of slicing. I am not sure how much difference the cracked wheat made and don’t know what to do with the rest of the kilogram of it that I brought, but stay tuned! The caraway gives a distinct flavour that I have only recently grown to enjoy. The bread was interesting and tasty. It went well with dips or promite but did not leave me wanting to eat a whole loaf in minutes in the way of my recent cheese, onion and potato bread.

I was immediately intrigued when I saw Cindy write about the spinach and strawberry salad with pomegranate vinaigrette. She had found the recipe on Batter Splattered where Molly had made it with almonds rather than haloumi cheese. But a chance comment from Cindy about haloumi and fruit in salads reminded me I had haloumi in the fridge which needed to be used up pronto.

I probably could have had a little more spinach and less strawberries and haloumi – and made a few changes to the recipe I wrote up to address this. But what drew me to the salad was the vinaigrette with pomegranate molasses. This was an amazing salad dressing – sweet and sharp and different from any dressing I have had before.

The cherry salsa was something I chanced upon a few weeks ago on the Victorian Cherry Growers site. I loved their slogan – you don’t need a reason, it’s cherry season. I have been eager to try this salsa and promised myself I would before the end of the cherry season. Yet the opportunity has not presented itself. Then I bought some cherries at the Vic Market on Friday and they were not great so I thought the season is ending and these would taste best in a salsa.

The salsa was intense and spicy. A fine way to showcase the sweet flavours and deep purple of cherries, and yet another reason to get out my cherry pitter. Unfortunately, I think the salsa was a little overwhelming for this meal – it needs a stronger dish to complement the robust flavours. I will be eating the leftovers with some chilli non carne from the freezer tonight which I think might be more suitable. I would also like to try it with nutroast or quesadillas.

Yeastfree Rye and Caraway Bread

1 cup (120g) rye flour
1½ cups (180g) brown rice flour
½ cup soy flour
1½ tsp baking powder
2 tbsp kibbled rye (or wheat)
1 tbsp caraway seeds
½ tsp salt
2 tsp oil
1½ cups water
1 tbsp molasses (optional)
1 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 tbsp sesame seeds

Lightly grease a loaf tin (recipe suggested 8 x 26cm, but I used my 13 x 22cm silicone loaf tin which didn’t even need greasing). Preheat oven to 200 C.

Place flours, baking powder, kibbled rye, caraway seeds and salt in a medium mixing bowl. In a separate small bowl use a small whisk or fork to mix oil, water and molasses. Pour liquid mixture into bowl of dry ingredients and mix to combine. It will be quite stiff.

Spread mixture into prepared loaf tin and smooth top with the back of a spoon. Sprinkle seeds over the top and use your fingers to lightly press into the mixture. Cover tin with foil. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Remove foil and bake a further 10 minutes or until browned. Stand 10 minutes and turn onto a wire rack to cool.

This recipe can be made a day ahead or frozen.

Spinach and Strawberry Salad with Pomegranate Vinaigrette
(adapted from Batter Splattered)
Serves 2-4

Dressing:
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses
½ tsp sesame oil
1 tsp olive oil
2 tsp cider vinegar
½ tsp agave syrup
pinch of red pepper flakes
pinch of salt

Salad:
2-3 handfuls spinach leaves, roughly chopped
¼ red onion, thinly-sliced
¼ cucumber in thin sticks
¼-½ punnet strawberries, sliced
50g haloumi (or shaved parmesan or roasted almonds)

To make dressing, whisk ingredients in a small bowl or shake to combine in a screwtop jar. If using haloumi cut into 5mm thick pieces and dry fry for about 1-2 minutes either side. Place haloumi (or parmesan or almonds) with other ingredients in a salad bowl. Pour dressing over vegetables and toss to coat.

Cherry Salsa
(From Victorian Cherry Growers)
Yield: 8 servings, give or take!

1 cup cherries (fresh or frozen); pitted and chopped
2 tbp fresh basil; chopped
2 tbp green pepper; finely chopped
1 tsp lemon or lime juice
1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp grated lemon or lime zest;
1/4 tsp Tabasco sauce
1/8 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl; refrigerate at least 1 hour.

On the stereo:
Adagio Chillout – various artists

Rumi Carrots with Dukkah and Tahini

I have been out of the habit of doing any so-called reviews lately but I did go to Rumi last week and have an amazing meal with my parents and E. We were as impressed as on our previous visit.

I forgot my camera and it was too crowded to have felt comfortable taking photos, but I was so impressed with one dish that I made an attempt to recreate it tonight. Do you know the scene where you sit in a restaurant oohing and aahing over a dish and ruminating on how they made it? That was my mum and me. We were pondering the simple but inspired dish of carrots with dukkah and tahini.

The carrots weren’t the only wonder of the night. In fact everything was just incredibly delicious – the food, the service, the elegant tableware. It could have been a little quieter but you can’t resent so many others enjoying a place when the food is so good. We had cheese cigars which were the small crisp batons that I had expected my recent attempt to be. There was also spiced roasted cauliflower with sultanas and pine nuts; pumpkin and spinach with crisp shards of pita bread; and pomegranate juice. For dessert we shared ice-cream that excited everyone but me, Persian fairy floss that looked like a pile of dust but tasted excellent, and a wonderful pastry dish with caramelised banana and some creamy sauce with pieces of halva. No wonder my dad was able to cope without his pancakes for Shrove Tuesday!

I’m sorry not to do Rumi justice with these brief notes, but it did inspire me to rethink roasting carrots. I roasted carrots recently and they were ok but a little tough. At Rumi the carrots were soft and melting as roast vegetables should be. So I decided I needed to revise my approach. Sometimes I parboil potatoes before roasting so I did this for the carrots tonight. What I did is barely a recipe but the carrots tasted good enough to blog!

Rumi Carrots with Dukkah and Tahini
Serves 2

Peel a couple of carrots and cut into batons. Boil for 2-3 minutes and drain. Toss in some olive oil and salt and pepper and roast for about 30-45 minutes til soft and starting to darken at the edges. Dust the roasted carrots with dukkah and drizzle with a light tahini sauce.

My sauce was 1 tbsp tahini, 2 tbsp yoghurt and a squeeze of lime juice but it was too thick and too much so next time I might just try a bit of tahini and lemon juice without the yoghurt. Nevertheless these carrots were much much better than my usual roast carrots.

On the Stereo:
Hergest Ridge: Mike Oldfield

GYO #7 Dipping into the garden

Our garden is small and humble – just a handful of pots in a sea of concrete. Our lemon tree is doing well but our lime tree thinks it lives in Michael Leunig’s Curly Flat. Most of our herbs are doing well, apart from the recalcitrant parsley.

I do use the herbs a little in my cooking – a bit of fresh thyme or chives in this, a bay leaf in that. But they are mostly subtle background notes. They don’t often feature in my cooking because I don’t like to use too much for fear of killing off my young plants altogether.

This week I had the pleasant problem of needing to use up some of the herbs. The mint has flourished (under the garden tap as recommended by my mum) to the extent that I was concerned it would either wilt or be eaten before I got to it. The rosemary is doing well and my mum has told me I need to trim it so it will be bushy. So here was my challenge – mint and rosemary.

In a doctors waiting room recently I saw a recipe for pea and bean dip in an old magazine but never got the details of the recipe. It was all the inspiration I needed. I recently made a pea pesto and was delighted by the taste and colour, so was keen to try peas in a dip again. Peas and mint are a classic combination so I thought I would try this. It worked wonderfully. The colour is a lovely green, the texture is chunky and the taste is fresh and light.

Once I had bought a tin of beans for my pea dip, I decided I only needed half of it, which mean I had leftover beans to use. A dip I have fancied lately is white bean and roasted garlic after my success with roasted garlic in a pea soup. I had also seen a rosemary and white bean dip some time ago that got my attention. But I had bought too many sweet potatoes for my Mexican croustade. The oven was already on for my moist bran muffins that I baked during the week, so I put the garlic and sweet potato in the oven to roast.

The initial version of this dip was a little sweet and bland. E helped with tasting. He recommended Tabasco because he thinks everything tastes better with a bit of Tabasco. I was so impressed with the addition of smoked paprika in my recent cheese, onion and potato bread, that I was keen to try it again. So I put in some chilli paste for E and smoked paprika for me. Now all the flavours melded so that the sum was greater than the individual parts. The end result was a dip that was smooth as velvet with deep smoky flavours and a little bite. I think I liked it better than the pea dip, although both are most pleasing.

I have been enjoying both dips on bread, toast, dry biscuits during the week. They are all the more satisfying for being my own creation and using herbs that I have nurtured in my own garden. I am glad to have used some of the herbs as we have had quite a bit of rain which means the plants will flourish and there will be even more to use.

I am sending these recipes to Andrea for her Grow Your Own event which celebrates cooking with homegrown products.

Pea, Bean and Mint Dip

1 cup frozen peas
½ x 400g tin of canellini beans (or other white beans)
1 handful mint
1 tbsp parmesan, grated
1 tsp lemon juice
Pinch salt
Good grind pepper

Put the peas in the microwave to thaw and heat a little. Drain and rinse the beans. Place all ingredients in food processor and blend to combine – it is fine if it is still just a little chunky. Check seasoning.

Smoky Sweet Potato and Bean Dip

2 small sweet potatoes (approx 200-250g)
½ bulb of garlic
½ x 400g tin of cannellini beans (or other white beans)
1 tsp rosemary, chopped
½ tsp chilli paste
¼ tsp smoked paprika
¼ tsp salt

Prick sweet potatoes with a fork and place in oven at 190 C for about an hour til soft and cooked through. Chop the tips off the garlic bulb and place on a square of foil. Spray with olive oil and bring up corners of foil to twist together to make a little foil bag. Place in oven for about 30 minutes or til garlic is soft. Drain and rinse beans.

Cool both sweet potato and garlic a little. Squeeze sweet potato out of its skin and squeeze garlic cloves out of skin. Place garlic and sweet potato in food processor with remaining ingredients til smooth. Check seasoning.

On the Stereo:
Travels in Constants vol 13: Appendix Out

A croustade to celebrate beans

“Beans are highly nutritious and satisfying, they can also be delicious if and when properly prepared, and they posses over all vegetables the great advantage of being just as good, if not better, when kept waiting, an advantage in the case of people whose disposition or occupation makes it difficult for them to be punctual at mealtime.”
Andre Simon, The Concise Encyclopedia of Gastronomy (1952)

It was National Bean Day on 6 January so The Well Seasoned Cook, Susan, decided to hold an event called My Legume Love Affair to celebrate all manner of beans and lentils.

I am all for celebrating beans. What would the life of a vegetarian be without beans? What would my childhood have been like without baked beans? What cuisine doesn’t have their iconic bean dishes: hummus, falafels, moles, dahl, and minestrone? The world would be a poorer place without beans.

So here is my chance to reflect on beans, on what they mean to me. Beans means brilliant advertising campaigns. Beans means a giant chasing Jack while yelling fe fi fo fum. Beans mean protein. Beans means dodgy digestive systems. Beans means cheap nutritious meals. Beans means gently simmering stews that do not demand punctuality. Beans means filling the cupboard with convenient tins even though I know I should be soaking and simmering (note to self: must buy more dried beans)!

Beans are ancient delights and treasures. They can be traced back 7000 BC. In Mexico, Aztec Kings would receive 5000 tons of beans in yearly tribute. Galen in 184 AD writes about women using bean meal to cleanse superficial blemishes from their faces. Columbus brought them back to Europe from the Americas. European herbalists named New World beans, kidney beans because they were believed to strengthen the kidney – a belief that, oddly enough, was based on the shape of the bean being like a kidney. I was further intrigued by Colin Spencer’s story of 1960s parties where kidney beans were soaked but not cooked, ending in illness. Were the hosts mortified or were they just too busy grooving to notice?

So there is lots to love about beans and legumes. But I find that beans often are lost in humble purees, stews and soups. For Susan’s event I wanted something to showcase beans in a way that I don’t usually cook them. Sarah Brown presented the perfect challenge: Mexican Croustade. I had it years ago when my housemate Yaz made it. But I only remember being impressed that he dared make such a splendid looking dish, rather than remembering the taste.

This is a recipe that has beckoned me every time I browse through her Vegetarian Cookbook. The deep red kidney beans and lime green avocado against the orange sweet potato are cheerful and verging on kitsch. It looks picture perfect like the pretty blonde with the cool sunglasses and the smooth talk in a teen movie. But it was a bit bland and the crust crumbled at the slightest poke of the fork. Unfortunately, like Little Miss Perfect, it is all style and no substance.

Well, maybe I am being a bit harsh. It wasn’t horrible. But it didn’t live up to its picturesque loveliness. The best thing was the texture. The juxtaposition of the smooth beans and vegetables with the crunchy roughage of the crust is interesting. E wasn’t so keen on the latter which he said was a bit too Jethro Tull for him (I am still trying to work this one out). But the flavours weren’t quite right. It might have been my fault. I managed to season the sweet potato well. I think the orange zest was the problem: it overwhelmed the other flavours and made it a bit sweet for my tastes. So I am not sure that I would use all or any of the zest in future but would add garlic and Tabasco, and maybe more seasoning. (And what self-respecting Mexican dish wouldn’t!)

The good news is that it looked almost as good as the photo in the cookbook (but it collapsed when I transferred it to the plate because my crust was a little too crumbly). One of my main concerns about making it was that I made sure the avocado was at the right stage of ripeness. My avocado was beautifully green and buttery. Even after the flan leftovers sat overnight in the fridge the green was still glorious and the colours made me happy. I must say, this is a good dish for bloggers to enjoy (ie look but don’t taste). But if you wish to make it, be wiser than me – go easy on the zest and taste the bean and avocado mixture as you cook.

I find this ironic that my splendidly picturesque bean dish didn’t taste as good as the dull looking buried-in-stew dishes I usually make with beans. A lesson about beans perhaps. That they often don’t look too pretty but they usually taste pretty good.

Mexican Croustade
(adapted from Sarah Brown’s Vegetarian Cookbook)
Serves 4

Crust:
½ cup (50g) fresh breadcrumbs (not dried)
⅓ cup (50g) wholemeal flour
½ cup (50g) wheatgerm
½ cup (50g) rolled oats
100g butter, melted

Filling:
75g kidney beans soaked and cooked or 300g tin kidney beans
275g sweet potatoes (one medium), peeled and diced
Salt and pepper
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
½ tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 ripe avocado
Juice of one orange
1 tsp orange zest (or less or more to taste – Sarah suggests zest of one orange but this was too much for me)
Tabasco sauce to taste.

Preheat oven to 190 C.

To make crust, mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Check it will press together ok - I think I needed a bit more butter. Press into a greased (?) 18-20cm flan dish. (I used a 22cm springform cake tin which was fine.) Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile boil sweet potatoes for 15-20 minutes til tender. Drain and mash with plenty of seasoning.

Fry onion in oil over medium heat til soft (Sarah suggests 3-4 minutes but I took 10 minutes). Add garlic and spices and fry a couple of minutes. Add kidney beans and avocado. Stir over medium heat about 2-3 minutes. Add orange juice, zest and Tabasco sauce. Check seasoning. Cook another 5 minutes (the juice should have reduced but not quite evaporated).

Spread the sweet potato over the flan base. Spoon the kidney bean and avocado mixture over the sweet potato. Cover loosely with foil and bake for 10-15 minutes. Serve hot or warm.

On the stereo:
Songs from the Wood (subtitled: 'with kitchen prose, gutter rhymes and divers): Jethro Tull

Germy Bran Muffins

‘What sort of muffins have you made?’ asked E as he did the dishes following my baking.

‘Ummm… I put them all in the freezer except one and you are welcome to that one,’ I replied.

He congratulated me on some fine dissembling about my muffins and told me I would make a great interviewee on the John Faine morning radio show – I think he was alluding to politicians who refuse to answer any questions.

But there was a reason I didn’t like to answer. I made Wendy’s moist bran muffins but I had wheat germ I wanted to use up and used it instead of wheat bran. Does that mean I have to say I made moist germ muffins? It just doesn’t have the same ring to it! I would prefer to call them prune muffins but the prunes are really there because Wendy substituted prune puree for butter – inspired by Nigella Lawson! They don’t really taste like prunes but the prunes do seem to make them pleasingly moist.

I wondered what difference it would make to use wheat germ rather than wheat bran. I checked with Sarah Brown and Rose Elliot who both wrote that the wheat germ has most of the nutrients because it is the place where the wheat germinates, but the bran comes from the husk and is full of fibre. My muffins might not be so fibre-packed but apparently they are full of nutrients (unless these die in the baking process which is quite possible).

I had a few other deviations from Wendy’s recipe. The only tin of prunes I could find in the supermarket was sweetened (why why why?). I discovered this as I looked at the amount of sugar required by the recipe. Wendy must have used unsweetened prunes. I halved the sugar and it was still very sweet. I added molasses and forgot the salt. I also used mostly wholemeal flour which worked fine. I liked the caramelly taste that molasses imparts so will do that again. I might also just try pureeing dried prunes rather than the tinned ones next time.

But for now the muffins tasted lovely and sit in the freezer awaiting morning teas and afternoon teas when I need a treat of wholesome goodness. And the name? I am sticking to Wendy’s name because I can’t bear to call them Germ Muffins.

Moist Bran Muffins
(Adapted from A Wee Bit of Cooking)
Makes 30-36 mini-muffins

90g wheat bran or wheat germ (I think about ¾ a cup)
50ml plain yogurt
200ml milk
400g (or thereabouts) tin of prunes - drained, stoned and pureed
2 tblspn vegetable oil, plus extra to rub over muffin tin
1 egg, beaten
1 tblsp molasses (optional)
¼ cup packed (50g) brown sugar (optional)
1 tspn vanilla essence
½ cup wholemeal plain flour
¼ cup white plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
25g walnuts, chopped (or pecans)
25g sultanas

Mix wheat bran or wheat germ into milk and yoghurt in a small bowl so it soaks up the liquid. Set aside while preparing other ingredients.

In a medium mixing bowl use a whisk or fork to lightly beat the prunes, oil, eggs, molasses, sugar and vanilla essence until combined. Add bran or germ mixture and stir well. Add flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda, salt, nuts and sultanas. Stir until just combined.

Spoon mixture into a greased muffin tin (or ungreased silicone muffin tray). Bake in a 190 C pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes til golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and store in airtight container or freeze.

On the Stereo:
World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, vol III, Scotland – compiled and edited by Alan Lomax