Queso dip, enchiladas and food processor

It's good bye to my old cracked and cranky food processor and hello to a shiny bright new one! This was a birthday present from my parents and siblings. I suspect it may take a little time to adjust. My old food processor only had one blade so the idea of a whole selection of blades and gadgets is quite overwhelming but exciting too!

The new food processor has something for everyone. Fun cooking for me, good food for E, and Sylvia and Zinc loved the box. I wasn't able to take a photo of Zinc lying in the box and playing with Sylvia's new strings of beads (bought from the op shop on the weekend) but it was priceless to watch. We are glad to see Sylvia learning to stay away from Zinc's playful claws.

Meanwhile, I gave the new food processor a burl with a batch of Sarah's Queso Dip. It is a vegan cheeze dip that requires soaking and blending raw cashews. I have tried such dips with my old food processor and just got a gritty watery mess. Finally I understand why people use raw cashews in vegan cheeze. With my new toy, they made a creamy rich base for the dip. There is no looking back now!

E and I loved the dip. I served it with lots of vegies and it was delicious. The dip is quite light on the calories but high in flavour. I omitted a lot of the fiery bite because I don't like much chilli. Then I added some white miso and nutritional yeast flakes to give a more cheesy taste. Sylvia was curious but not impressed. She has decided that "dip" means her favourite pink beetroot, cashew and parmesan dip. Nothing else will do!

I loved the cheese dip so much that I was keen to experiment. I tried it in some enchiladas which were good but not great. I think my mistake was to bake them with the tomato sauce on them. If I made them again I would serve them with tomato salsa on the side. However I am not sure what I would put on top. I have written out the recipe below but it is still work in progress.

You can see below a picture of the spread at my mum's that we had for my birthday lunch. I was inspired by her bean and corn enchiladas. You can see that she served them with lots of side dishes - including tacos, Mexican rice and tortilla chip salad.

I am curious to try this dip in other ways. I loved Sarah's Games Day Chilli Buffet and her photos of how her friends served their dip in different ways. I want to try spreading it on puff pastry, rolling it up and baking it (inspiration for this to be posted soon), stirring it into a tofu scrambles (like this one), or using it to top nachos. However, the rest of this batch of queso dip was great on rice crackers. Sometimes simple is best!

Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
This time last year: Pizza for the Working Woman
This time two years ago: Birthday treats, heat and intrigue
This time three years ago: Perfect Purple Potato Bread

Alicia's Vegan Queso Dip
from Vegan Epicurean via the Ordinary Vegetarian
Makes approximately 7½ x ½ cup servings

1/2 cup raw cashews, (soaked for at least 1 hour)
1/2 cup oatmeal, ground into flour (I used rolled oats and forgot to grind it)
1, 1/2 cups water
2 teaspoon onion flakes, dried
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 clove garlic, peeled
400g (14oz) tin of diced tomatoes
1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1 tablespoon white miso
1 teaspoon sweet Hungarian paprika
1 teaspoon sea salt flakes, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon chilli powder

Drain the cashews and blend in the food processor (or blender) with oats, water, onion flakes, turmeric, diced tomatoes and garlic. Puree until the mixture is smooth. (It will be quite thin but will thicken with heating.) Pour into a medium saucepan and add sweet and smoked paprika, salt and chilli powder. Check seasoning and adjust to taste. Gently heat, stirring frequently, until mixture has thickened. It will thicken more as it cools so it may need a little liquid to thin it if you reheat it. Keep in the fridge. Mine lasted 4 days.

Cheezy bean and corn enchiladas - work in progress
serves 4

1, 1/2 cups queso sauce (or any cheese sauce)
400g tin kidney beans, rinsed and drained
400g tin corn, rinsed and drained
1 -2 spring onions, finely sliced
1/2 large red capsicum, finely chopped
9 small corn tortillas
oil spray

Mix 1 cup of queso sauce, kidney beans, corn, spring onions and red capsicum. Heat gently in the microwave or a saucepan. Heat a non stick frypan and spray with oil. Warm tortillas in frypan, one at a time, spraying the frypan with more oil as needed. Once each tortilla is warm, spoon a couple of dessertspoons into the middle and roll up, then transfer to a greased rectangular lasagna dish. Spray oil on tops of quesos. Bake for about 20-30 minutes at about 200 C. I think I might try spreading a bit more queso on the tortillas towards the end of baking but am not sure. Serve with salsa of chopped tomatoes, spring onions, chilli paste, ground cumin, smoked paprika, lemon juice and avocado.

On the stereo:
Love: The Beatles

Nutella fudge for World Nutella Day

Birthdays are for treats, right? Birthdays are for indulgence, right? Birthdays are for going off the calorific scale, right? Birthdays are an excuse to make that decadent chocolate fudge that you would never ever make otherwise, right? Right!

Ok, so maybe "never ever" is an exaggeration but I must protest that I know enough to understand that to store such temptation in my kitchen is downright dangerous. This fudge is so very amazingly delicious. Just the thing for a birthday that seemed to be a comedy of errors.

I lost my watch (of 14 years) at the beach, got yelled at when parking the car, and, when we went for dinner at a lovely local pub, the chef was away so we had a limited menu. It wasn't all bad. There was sunshine, flowers, cake and the joy of seeing Sylvia discovering the limitless sandpit that is the beach. She has also just found how much she loves "happy birthday cake".

And there was nutella fudge. I had intended to bake cake for a birthday morning tea at work. An excuse to bake and share cake should not be passed up. I love baking cake. I just wish I wasn't so tired at the moment. Sylvia's sleeping has been unsettled and so has life. Or maybe I just mean I am busy. Is there a difference? Hard to tell when you are tired. Cake takes more energy than fudge. More measuring, more mixing, more waiting for the oven timer to ring. This fudge just needed some melting and sprinkling. Easy!

The recipe came from Hannah. It made amends for her raw brownie and all my dodgy nutella baking that I recently shared. It is brilliantly simple. Hannah used multi-coloured sprinkles. I didn't fancy them but wasn't brave enough to try the sea salt flakes in the original recipe. Instead I found some coloured sugar crystals. I tried them in different ways and discovered that less is more.

Mine wasn't quite as smooth as Hannah's on top but it had an amazing smooth texture. When I took it into work (with some cherries to compensate for such decadence) my colleagues had to know what was in it. Chocolate, condensed milk, nutella and butter! What more do you need in a fudge! One colleague commented that one piece contained enough calories for the day and declared she would not need to eat again until tomorrow. Everyone agreed it was amazing! I was only too glad to share it!

Even better, I get to share it with nutella lovers everywhere. Today is World Nutella Day, as declared by bloggers, Sara from Ms Adventures in Italy and Michelle of Bleeding Espresso. Yet another great excuse to eat nutella fudge.

Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
This time last year: Emergency Zucchini and Rice Burgers
This time two years ago: East Brunswick Club
This time three years ago: Polenta and Tomato Comforts

Nutella Fudge
from Cooking Canuck via Wayfaring Chocolate
Makes at least 50 small but rich squares

400g (14 oz) can condensed milk
250g (8 oz) dark chocolate, chopped (I used 70%)
220g jar (approx 8 oz or 1 cup) Nutella
50g butter, room temperature, cut into small cubes
1 tsp vanilla extract
Sprinkles or sea salt

Melt first five ingredients in a heat proof bowl in the microwave or over a double boiler. You should let it become liquid so it sets smooth on top but I only let it just melt. Pour into a baking paper lined 20cm square tin or two 15 cm square tins. Sprinkle with coloured decorations or sea salt. Let set in the fridge until firm. I left mine overnight. Cut into small pieces. Store or serve with mini muffin papers, if desired. (It melts into your fingers easily when handled so the papers are useful.) Store in the fridge.

Update Nov 2011: I loved this so much that I made a vegan gluten free nutella fudge.

On the stereo:
Return to Paradise: history of exotica - Various Artists

Unbloggable but not forgettable - eating places

We went to the Rathdowne Street Food Store on the weekend. Only we found that it was no more as we perused the menu. Instead we were in an Italian cafe instead. It wasn't the sort of eating experience I wanted and so I wasn't so keen about my meal. I swithered about blogging about it but wanted to record the passing of a North Carlton institution. So I have decided to bundle it with a few places that I have never quite got around to blogging for various reasons.

St Ali
Those in the know will see that the top photo is actually St Ali. I first came across this cafe last year because they catered to the Eat Drink Blog Conference last year. I was impressed enough to visit soon after. It was a place for shiny happy people. Having an active toddler and needing to rush home made me feel like a fish out of water among all the hipsters relaxing over their coffees. The reason that I never blogged about the place is that I lost my notes about the pizza and couldn't remember what was in it. I did remember that I had such trouble trying to juggle Sylvia and a knife and fork that I had to ask staff to cut up the pizza for me. It was delicious pizza but too spicy for me and I just wasn't in the frame of mind to really appreciate it.

Tick Tok
E and I took Sylvia to Tick Tok Cafe in Williamstown a few weeks back. It had the right look. Swirling murals on the wall, chandeliers and an impressive display of cute little cakes. Unfortunately the food was average and the service uninterested.

I chose the dips and found them too creamy for my liking. Sylvia loved the chips and E enjoyed his big breakfast, though found it too much meat. When it came to ordering desserts I wanted to try one of the cute little cheesecakes with intriguing flavours (honeycomb, cookies and cream, cherry ripe etc) but ceded to E and Sylvia's preference, even though I was the one who was most interested in dessert. Maybe the cheesecakes might have made me want to go back if I had the chance to taste them.

Post Office Hotel
The reason I have been wondering whether to post about this pub is that we only got to taste the bar food because the chef was away. I hope to go back and try the restaurant food. This new local watering hole is very slick. We loved the decor, they did me a wonderful mocktail and Sylvia loved her battered moons - think chips in batter. I enjoyed the cabbage rolls with a nutty spicy rice filling but had expected them to be smaller and order way too much in the way of side dishes. This place is close enough to us that I hope to return soon and write it up properly.

Salve Caffe & Cucina
This is the place that used to be the Rathdowne Street Food Store. They still sell bread but it is no longer the casual cafe I loved. No more muffins - savoury and sweet - that I could grab when hungry. No more vegetarian big breakfasts. The breakfast menu is mostly eggs and pancakes. Lunch is Italian. I really enjoyed my gnocchi and appreciate the chunks of tomato in the sauce. But it just wasn't what I wanted. E and Sylvia's meals were less impressive. Most tempting were the desserts - flourless chocolate cake, apricot and ricotta cake and gelato. Unfortunately we didn't have the time or inclination. Maybe another time.

St Ali
12-18 Yarra Place
South Melbourne
03 9686.2990
http://stali.com.au/

Tick Tok
181 Nelson Place
Williamstown
http://www.ticktok.com.au/

Post Office Hotel
231 Sydney Road
Coburg
Tel: 03 9386 5300
http://www.thepostofficehotel.com.au/

Salve Caffe & Cucina
617 Rathdowne Street
North Carlton
Tel: 03 9347 4064
Email: salve.cucina@hotmail.com

Gang of Four meme

I love food blogging. Recipes. Baking tips. Restaurant recommendations. And sometimes I love memes. They amuse and entertain me. I read a meme by Hannah today that filled me with delight and so I took up her invitation to do it myself. I made a few changes and added four photos - see if you can guess which one was not taken recently!

Four fantastic films I have watched on the telly recently:

1. Sunset Boulevard
2. The Black Balloon
3. Bran Nu Dae
4. U Be Dead (telemovie)

Four things I get cross about:

1. Sloppy news reports
2. Bad drivers
3. Typos
   
4. Poor management

Four words/phrases I use a lot:

1. I am most displeased
2. Maintain the rage
3. I am so tired
4. Cuggle

Four things I’ve learned from the past:

1. If you can’t get one of the rude Polish tourism workers to help you get the bus you paid for out of Warsaw, pay for the train.
2. If you miss the ferry from Paris to London and you have to get the eurostar, you will get there quicker than if you had caught the ferry in the first place.
3. American customs is a breeze compared to Israeli customs
4. Alice Springs is not as close to Uluru as you would think

Four places I would like to go:

1. Nepal – I almost did and then I met E
2. The Outer Hebrides, Scotland – always meant to visit when I lived in Scotland
3. Moscow – because that is where the Transiberian Express starts
4. Uluru – one of the tourist attractions in Australia I am yet to see

Four things I did yesterday:

1. Dreamt about chatting to Kasey Chambers - she was lovely
   
2. Arrived at work late for a meeting
   
3. Drew chalk circles on the concrete in the backyard - at Sylvia's request
   
4. Wrote a to do list before I went to bed
   

Four things I am looking forward to:

1. The air conditioner being fixed
   
2. A parcel that is in the post for me
3. Winter
4. Apples being in season

Four things I love about winter:

1. Winter woollies
2. The sound of rain outside
3. Baking bread
4. Hearty stews

Four things I should be doing rather than this meme:

1. Going to bed
2. Tidying the house
3. Replying to emails
4. Paying bills

No tagging other people today! If you enjoyed this meme, feel free to write up your own gang of four post!

CC Soba noodle salad

Sylvia is enjoying cooking lately. She can often be found outside making sand pies in the sandpit or running around with her little saucepans of water. She loves stirring and patting. This week we even found her giving Zinckie a frypan for cooking. Zinc was not amused.

I haven't been "cooking" much. Blame the weather! This week, when I decided to make chocolate brownies to take into work, it was so hot that I didn't want to turn on the oven. I ended up making grubs and cheese and apricot balls. So later in the week when it was almost 40 C, I chose a nice cool soba noodle salad and by the time we ate, the cool change had arrived.

No matter, the salad was lovely. Sylvia was having such a lovely time outside that we ate in the yard with her. I've tried soba noodles a few times and they always seem a bit mushy. This was one of my most successful attempts to date. I enjoyed a dressing that wasn't creamy. The avocado gave enough creaminess to the meal.

I did make the mistake of cooking too many noodles because I found that I had quite a few bits and pieces of packets leftover from previous meals. Fortunately I also added a few more vegies. You can see in the photo of the greenery in the bowl above just how many vegies were already in the salald bowl before the noodles and dressing were added. It made a large and satisfying amount of salad. Perfect for a hot day, if the cool change doesn't reach you first.

I made this from my Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook for the Cookbook Challenge 2011. This fortnight the theme is rice or noodles. See what others found in their cookbooks on this theme at the community page.

Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
This time last year: My Camera Birthday Cake
This time two years ago: Apricot and Orange Glazed Tofu
This time three years ago: Muhammara by Moonlight

Avocado, pickled ginger and tofu soba noodle salad
Adapted from Jennie Brand-Miller, Kaye Foster-Powell and Kate Marsh's The Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook
serves 4

200g dried soba noodles (I used 270g but it was too much)
drizzle of sesame oil
200g Japanese seasoned tofu, sliced
170g snow peas, trimmed and sliced
1/2 green capsicum, thinly sliced
1/3 telegraph cucumber, cut into thin sticks
kernels of 1 corn cob
70g baby spinach leaves, roughly chopped
3 spring onions, sliced
2 tbsp pickled ginger, roughly chopped
1 avocado, chopped
1/4 cup (45g) toasted unsalted cashew nuts, roughly chopped

Dressing:
2-3 tbsp of soy sauce (I used 2)
2 tbsp mirin*
1 tsp sesame oil
pinch castor sugar

Mix dressing ingredients together and set aside. Cook soba noodles according to the packet (mine said 4 minutes in boiling water), drain and rinse under cold water. Add remaining ingredients and toss to mix together with dressing.

Update: the salad kept in the fridge overnight and was lovely the next day but we still had a little over which was unedible on the third day.

Update April 2012 - made this with the vegies in the fridge (no avocado) and 1 lime and 1 tsp maple syrup instead of the mirin - worked well though I missed the avocado.   I also used less soba noodles (180g) which was plenty.

On the Stereo:
The exotic moods of Les Baxter: Les Baxter

Notella success amid my failures

It hasn't been a great week in the kitchen for chocolate experiments. Brownie, pizza and scones have all gone awry. I have told myself that mistakes are a good learning experience but I still prefer a success. Fortunately I have had the consolation of a wonderful chocolate hazelnut spread made in my own kitchen. Call it nutella or notella or what you will.

Firstly I tried Hannah's raw brownies. She raved about them. They looked amazing. I had to try them. I wanted to use up all the dried dates in my cupboard rather than buying medjool dates. Big mistake! I have now learnt that medjool dates give the caramelly flavour. I also didn't measure the ingredients for the avocado frosting and forgot the vanilla essence. This didn't help either.

E was not impressed. He told me, accompanied by his ukelele strumming, that brownies should be warm and gooey not cold. I still have faith in the possibilities of the recipe. Not only does it seem a healthy alternative to rich decadent brownies but, on a 40 C day, I love the idea of bypassing a hot oven. I hope to revisit these someday having learnt my lesson the hard way.

Next I tried Ricki's Chocolate Hazelnut Spread. It took a while to find the hazelnut butter but I found some at the Vic Market nut shop opposite the borek stall. I mixed the hazelnut butter, coconut oil, cocoa and some maple syrup. Tasted ok but not quite sweet enough. I added some agave and it was too sweet. I thought it was another failure and added more cocoa. Hmmm! Maybe more experimenting is needed with cocoa and sweetener balance for me.

Both taste and texture need to be right with notella. Mine was not nearly as creamy as Ricki's. Then I reread her recipe and put it in the food processor. She says to process it for a long time. I don't think I am as patient as Ricki and I felt too guilty at the noise while E was trying to read stories to Sylvia. Even so, it was far more creamy than my first attempt at vegan notella.

Then came my ideas for how to use the notella. I have long wanted to make pumpkin scrolls with nutella inside them. After my fruit mince scrolls success I decided to try these with pumpkin scone dough and my home made notella. First sign that it wasn't working so well was when I tried to spread the notella over the dough. It wasn't really creamy enough.

The scrolls came out of the oven looking good. But the notella didn't really work with the pumpkin scone dough. It dried out a bit and fell away in chunks when eating the scrolls. Even worse was the taste which was a little dark and not quite sweet enough to work in the scroll. I love the pumpkin scones so much that I still enjoyed them (as did Sylvia) but more work is needed before I post a recipe.

My final failure was a pizza. I made a version of Katie's pronto pizza dough (with double the dough but only 1 tsp of yeast). The pizza was great, no doubt thanks to it having to sit while Sylvia needed a cuggle. But the notella again proved unspreadable, not sweet enough and dried out too much in the oven. I didn't have enough blueberries either. Nutella pizza has been something I have wanted to try for ages. Now I want to try again.

So you may be wondering what to do with this notella. Well, it tastes excellent eaten straight off the spoon. When I was at school we were sold small packages of nutella with plastic spoons so I assume this is one way nutella is meant to be eaten. I also think it would work well as a sauce. My other notella attempt was great served with a pear cake and I have seen Ricki use nut spreads as sauce for pancakes.

I still have some notella in the fridge for eating and experiments. Maybe I will just eat it or maybe there will be some successes with it that I can share. Meanwhile I wanted to send the notella to Ricki and Kim for their SoS Kitchen Challenge blog event which is focused on coconut oil this month.

I am also sending the picture of my pumpkin notella scone to the Bake Lady for her scone event. I love scones and wanted to participate but have been cutting back on my baking. When I am baking I have found myself returning to some favourite recipes already blogged, such as my pumpkin scones. It is a recipe I wanted to share, even if I don't quite recommend baking it with this notella. Check out the round up of scones on the BakeLady's blog.

Chocolate Hazelnut Spread (Notella)
adapted from Diet Dessert and Dogs

250g hazelnut butter (mine had a few cashew nuts in it)
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup cocoa (or to taste)
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp agave syrup (or to taste)
1 tsp vanilla essence

Mix hazelnut butter, coconut oil, 2 tbsp cocoa, maple syrup and vanilla essence in the food processor. Check for sweetness and add a tsp of agave at a time and extra cocoa to get your desired taste, depending on whether you love it more or less sweet and dark. Blend until mixture is smooth and quite liquid - this can take some time. Transfer into a tub with a lid and store in the fridge. I have found that mine needs to soften a little before eating either by sitting at room temperature a while or a gentle burl in the microwave.

On the stereo:
The colour of black is black: Stephen Harrison

Aussie morroccan salad

I have been finding inspiration in Joanne's reflections in the Eat Live Be series. Lots of healthy ideas and recipes. So, in the spirit of healthy eating, when my friend Will was coming over to lunch on Saturday, I decided to make Joanne's Morroccan Chickpea Barley Salad. As I started cooking the barley I had vague recollections of Will talking about pearl barley. I feared that he might hate it but it was too late to back out.

While I have had barley in stews and soups before, I have never used it in salad. Would it taste different in a salad? It turned out that Will loves barley. And chickpeas. He was delighted with the salad. I gave some of the cooked barley to Sylvia and she loved it. What is it about kids and carbs!

I bought the barley at the Vic Market. Back home I found that I didn't have as much as the recipe required. I didn't mind as I don't like salads that are dominated by grains. I was also pleased that it had dried apricots and pistachios. I love dried apricots and so does Sylvia. I haven't had pistachios for ages and ages. The salad was a welcome excuse to have them in the house. I had forgotten just how pretty they are.

Sylvia had her swimming lesson before lunch so I simmered the barley before we left and bought Half Moon falafels on the way home. In the mall while we waited for falafels to cook we watched the old busker with the didgeridoo. Sylvia refused to give him the coin I gave her to drop on his pile. I chopped some vegetables. I dug out some wraps that fell apart. I brought the yoghurt and beetroot dip out of the fridge. It was a great lunch. Will was impressed.

I used some of my Australian spice mix instead of the Moroccan spice mix. I am not sure I got the spices quite right. I found it a little lemony for my liking. There were so many wonderful flavours and textures from the other ingredients that I didn't mind. If I was a different sort of blogger I might try lots of different dressing variations. But I don't. I am posting how I made it anyway.

We had leftovers the following day when we were headed over to see Chris, Yav and Florence for lunch. I had said I would take along some salad. So I took the leftovers. I also chopped up lots of veg and made an orange dressing. The barley salad had dried up a little overnight so I poured a smidge of orange dressing on the salad. It worked well. Maybe I would prefer orange juice rather than lemon on the barley salad. Maybe I shall experiment further some time.

As an aside, the salads went well with the pizza that Yav baked. The pizza was a big hit. Even Sylvia loved it. I have been inspired to make pizza last night. Sylvia loved it too. Might need to be a more regular meal.

Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
This time last year: Novelty Cakes from the Archives II
This time three years ago: WBB: Tofu Scramble and Imposters

'Moroccan' Chickpea Barley Salad
Serves 4 as a main, 6-8 as a side, adapted from Simply Recipes via Eats Well with Others

1 cup barley boil 30-60 min with salt
1 tsp salt
1 (400g or 15 oz) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 red bell pepper, diced (I used half red, half green)
1/4 cup shelled pistachio nuts
1 cup dried apricots, diced
2 scallions, chopped
1 cup chopped parsley (I used a whole bunch)
zest and juice of a lemon (I forgot zest)
2 tsp red Australian bush spice mix
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp turmeric
salt to taste

Boil barley in salted water (using about 1 tsp of salt) for 30-60 minutes - I did it for about 50 minutes - until cooked. Drain and lightly rinse. Cool ( as I did or you can serve the salad with warm barley). Add remaining ingredients and mix. Best eaten on the day of preparation but can be eaten the next day - may need a little extra juice or dressing.

On the stereo:
Yellow Bird: Arthur Lyman