In My Kitchen: November 2017

October was a busy month.  The sun came out and it was time for holidays, Halloween and birthdays.  November has returned us to chillier weather and found us with the shops laden with Christmas merchandise and Sylvia laid low with a bad cold.  This month's kitchen peek shows some of the busy times, lots of fancy groceries and some of our everyday food.

Above is the kitchen table after returning from lunch in Geelong at my parents.  At the top is a slab of Guinness chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting that my mum made.  In the middle is parsley and limes from my brother in law John's garden.  At the bottom is leftover carrot and smoked cheese nut roast.

While we were at the Grampians last month I got into purchasing bush foods at the Brimbak Cultural Centre.  Quandong dessert sauce, saltbush flakes and ground wattleseed are not foods that I generally see about.  Unfortunately I haven't had much time and energy for enjoying them.  The same can be said of the rhubarb and the kitchen linen with Aboriginal designs.  Perhaps when Australia Day rolls around in January I will be inspired.

I enter spring with great expectations that I will eat so much more fruit and vegetables than in winter.  It usually takes a while to change habits (because the weather also takes a while to change).  This pizza base, as well as the usual tomato sauce and cheese, has some cauliflower that had been around for a while as well as a half open jar of olives.  It was really lovely.

I enjoyed a shopping expedition through Terra Madre in Northcote.  It is such a hipster health store.  Lots of unusual products.  Crazy prices.  At least the queues were better managed than last time I was there.  I was quite excited to buy 5kg of white spelt flour for $25.  It is the cheapest spelt flour I have found on my recent search.  Not a great addition to the kitchen floor!  I also bought elderflower syrup, hazelnuts, dried strawberries, wild rice, brown rice noodles and Oliana vegan smoked cheese.  I was curious about Oliana vegan cheese as it seems to be popping up in quite a few shops.  It worked as a melty cheese but was not so good when cold just sliced on bread.

Sylvia's school had an Art Fair with a BBQ, craft activities, a cake stall an lots of displays of the kids' artwork.  It was fun but in an overwhelming way.  Sylvia made a frame and bookmarks.  We also came away with goodies form the cake stall: mango jelly, lemon slice, grunbs, creepy cupcake, fudge with sprinkles and salted caramel fudge.  I helped out on the cake stall for a while and it was so busy I never stopped.

Sylvia finally got her heart's desire in ice creams from the supermarket and had a choc strawberry cornetto.  I enjoyed it but wasn't as delighted with it as she was.

One weekend recently Sylvia put together this little structure while playing with magnets.  We were all quite fascinated with the little gap between the metal ring and the magnet stuck under the lego arch.

I couldn't wait to try Jac's Easy Cheesy Vegetable Potato Cakes because with the corn and peas, they reminded me of the recent pot pies that Sylvia had liked.  I was a little slapdash with following the recipe so I take responsibility for these not working well.  They just collapsed every time they went near a frypan, even after being in the fridge.  So finally I gave up, added some flour (a la potato scones) and enjoyed the last of the batch.

Another recipe disaster that I managed to save were these Teriyaki Tofu Balls.  Again I took liberties with the recipe and so it is my fault they did not work.  Once I fried them they collapsed and became the tastiest teriyaki tofu scramble so I will have another go at that some time and report back with more details of what I did.  I served it with some vegies and some dumplings from the Asian shop freezer.  It is the first time I have managed to fry and steam dumplings perfectly.  At least I could be proud of that!

When I really love a recipe, I am unhappy if I only manage to take a photo on the run.  As I have said before, I don't always get the chance to make a recipe over and over to check it and take the best photos.  But when a recipe is made often, I get the chance to update a post with notes and better photos.  As is the case with these cheese and parsley muffins that I made earlier this year.  We make them so often that it was only a matter of time before I found the energy to take some better photos to use.  I made these using the Oliana vegan smoked cheese that I mentioned above.

Last night we had tortillas for dinner.  It was really quick.  I mixed cooked corn, black beans and salsa, made a coleslaw and sliced some avocado.  This morning, I had a lovely breakfast with mashed avocado, the corn-black-bean-salsa mix and some chopped cherry tomatoes on ciabatta.  My only complaint is that the black beans came from the supermarket - the first time I have seen them there - and Edgell just never cooked beans enough for me.  Sigh!

Today we went to Carlton to eat churros and watch Battle of the Sexes at the movies.  (Yes I took Sylvia to a movie about Billy Jean King's tennis match against Bobby Riggs because there were no kids movies on the big screen unless we went out to the suburban shopping centres!)

Afterwards we had a browse in the new Aunt Maggies where the food court used to be in Lygon Court.  We came away with a 10 pack of popcorn plus a fancy coconut maple popcorn (which smelled amazing and tasted almost as good), black beans (proper soft ones), raspberry lemonade kombucha, seaweed snacks, ponzu sauce (that was very good in tonight's stirfry) and a free bunch of roses.

I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event, that was started by Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial,  If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 10th of the month.  Or just head over to her blog to peek into more kitchens. 

Chocolate overnight baked sourdough doughnuts

After conquering the overnight baked sourdough doughnuts, I looked for bigger challenges.  Such as chocolate overnight baked sourdough doughnuts.  You see, I don't get really excited about most doughnuts but I am always tempted by a chocolate doughnut.  And these had to be our most beautiful doughnuts yet.

It's ironic really because I baked them to watch the AFL footy grand final.  Sausage rolls, doughnuts and lemonade are pretty standard fare for watching the footy but not the recipes I served.  Our sausage rolls were vegetarian, our lemonade wasn't that sweet and our doughnuts were both vegan although I topped them with a white chocolate ganache and some milk chocolate decorations.  Perhaps this is why I don't watch footy as a rule.  Except the grand final.

And I like to watch the grand final.  Especially when it is exciting.  Though it is better to watch without football fanatics whose team loses.  This year, like last year, was the year of the underdog.  The Richmond Tigers had not won a final since 1980 and The Adelaide Crows were favourites.  Working with a few Tigers fans meant the anticipation was palpable.  My boss told us that if we wore a Richmond jumper all week we didn't have to come into work.  One colleague turned to Ebay immediately to see how cheaply he could buy a jumper!

On the day, Sylvia and I made these doughnuts we promised one to my neighbour as part of the pre-match entertainment.  I was disappointed that they burnt slightly but the recipe was good enough to withstand it.  Sylvia scootered over to the supermarket with me to choose some toppings.  Unfortunately she accidentally picked up tiramisu kit kat and reminded me why I don't like coffee flavoured food.

We whipped up a white chocolate ganache and I was very pleased with my rose petal and blueberry decoration.  You might notice that we were influenced by the fancy doughnuts shops around Melbourne.  We even named our doughnuts.  The rose petal blueberry was The Roseberry! Or perhaps it could have been Roses are Red, Berries are Blue.  Or The Roses got the Blues.  Hmmm...  I think I would need to work on some better names if I had a doughnut store.  In fact even the naming of these doughnuts is a bit long and prosaic: chocolate overnight baked sourdough doughnuts.  I really should do some work on naming recipes!

But I digress.  We offered a doughnut to our neighbour when she came into watch some of the pre-match entertainment and the first goal.  She enjoyed her doughnut.  Which was probably just as well, give that the Crows were ahead in the early moments when she went off to do some chores.  We shook our heads sorrowfully about Richmond's propects as she left.  By the time she returned towards the end of the fourth quarter it was a different story.  The Tigers had thrashed the Crows.

I really loved the white chocolate icing on the chocolate doughnuts.  A cream cheese frosting or just vanilla icing would be fine too.  We didn't bake all of the doughnuts.  About half went into the freezer for another day, once they had risen.  Both halves of the batch baked a bit too tough on the outside.  I think perhaps the batter needs a bit less flour and a bit more liquid (as my mum suggested) though the mixture was already sticky so not sure how much stickier it can get and still be workable.

If I had my druthers, I would be concentrating all my doughnut energies on the chocolate variety but I suspect Sylvia and E might have other ideas.  

I am sending these doughnuts to Baking Crumbs and Treat Petite.

More doughnut recipes on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
Doughnuts - baked (jam or nutella)
Doughnuts - baked and topped with chocolate and coconut bacon (v)
Doughnuts - baked and vegan (cinnamon sugar or glaze) (v)
Doughnuts - baked, vegan, overnight, sourdough (v)
Doughnuts - cinnamon sugar (baked with baking powder not yeast) (v)

Chocolate overnight baked sourdough doughnuts
Adapted from Green Gourmet Giraffe
Makes about 12-15 doughnuts plus holes

1 cup ripe sourdough starter
3/4 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup cocoa
3/4 cup brown sugar
90g or 3 ounce margarine
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 3/4 cups flour

Remove starter from fridge a few hours before using to get nice and bubbly.  When ready to put ingredients together, melt butter with coconut milk.  Cool slightly to lukewarm.

Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  It will be quite sticky but should come together into a ball.  Cover with a tea towel for 30 minutes and then knead about 15 minutes in the bowl with well floured hands.  Cover with greased clingwrap and leave overnight about 8 hours if the weather is good.  It should be about double in size.

In the morning, carefully scrape the dough out onto a floured surface.  Using floured hands pat down to about 1 cm thickness.  Cut out using a doughnut cutter or just cut into rounds or whichever shape you like.  Place shapes on baking paper on a tray and leave covered (I used the clingfilm off the mixing bowl) for 1-2 hours until the dough has got a little puffy. 

About 15 minutes before dough is ready, preheat oven to 200 C.  Cover doughnuts - I use foil but if you have a large dish with a lid that is fine.  Bake doughnuts for 15 minutes, remove foil or cover and continue baking for a further 10-15 minutes until they smell cooked and sound hollow when tapped.  Watch them once uncovered as they can burn.

Cool on a wire rack.  Frost and decorate as desired.  Best eaten on day of baking.

NOTES: We frozen some after they rose the second time and then took them out and left them 5 hours before baking - they didn't need that long but they were ok for sitting around though not quite as good as the ones we baked immediately after the rise.  The mixture is a little tough on the outside when baked - because mixture is too dry or because I used more sugar?  I have experimented with baking times and can't really reduce it so will experiment with recipe if I get a chance - but I liked them very much despite this.  We iced with white chocolate frosting that was a few dessertspoons each of white choc chips and margarine, then I stirred in enough icing sugar to make it spreadable and a little bit of milk if it got too stiff.  Cream cheese frosting or buttercream would also work.

On the stereo: 
At First Sight: the Stems

Remembering Alex and Ian 10

Today is 10 years since our twin sons Alex and Ian were born and died.  It is a long time.  Hard to believe the years without them have piled up into double figures.  Though they are still part of our family.  Always remembered.  Always missed.

There seems to be a lot more information about stillbirth and grief online since the time 10 years ago when we were left bereft and wondering how to cope.  Here is some recent ones that are worth reading.  (More can be found in my annual remembrance posts for Alex and Ian.)

Now what (8 March 2017) - Pinch of Yum 
High profile blogger, Lindsay shares her grief and efforts to go on with life after her baby died 3 hours after birth.

On Triggers (3 July 2017) - Still Mothers
Reflections on experiences and words that can trigger grief after the loss of a child.

'It was unbelievably painful': Tina Arena speaks about her three miscarriages (8 June 2017) - Essential Baby 
Aussie pop star, Tina Arena talked about her three miscarriages on Anh's Brush with Fame.

Thank you Offspring for sharing this story and honouring our babies (17 August 2017) - Kidspot
Cassandra Leigh thanks Australian hospital drama series for featuring a story about stillbirth this year.  It is a rare moment that such experiences are shared in television dramas.

'They couldn't find a heartbeat' (July 2017) - Marie Claire
Jonnie and Jacqueline Hoy share their experiences and grief when one of their identical twins was stillborn.

People say the darndest things when you are pregnant again after a loss (2016) - PALS

A very private grief: the parents breaking the stillbirth taboo: (9 October 2017) - The Guardian
Emma Beck created Stillbirth Stories as a place online for people to share their experiences.

Journalist shares her personal story of losing a baby ahead of International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day (22 September 2017) - The Courier Mail
Lauren-Martyn Jones writes about being pregnant with twins and finding that one of her girls had died in utero.

Elliott's Stardust
A blog written about the experiences of a mother whose child was stillborn.

Bones and blood, Monster doughnuts, and Halloween - not for the faint hearted

I've been making Halloween food for a few years and every year have wanted to make bones and blood.  There is so much sweet food at Halloween that I always am attracted to savoury ideas.  Fair suck of the sauce bottle!  However I do question my feelings that it is a fun thing to make

And when I say perhaps it is not as fun as I would like to think, I don't mean that it is not really that much fun to spend over an hour on a Saturday morning shaping sourdough bread dough into bones.  I mean the unease - which is always brought on by Halloween - at finding death is fun.

It is all the more sharply felt by me given that we usually have some Halloween based food for my daughter around this time of year at a lunch to remember my stillborn twin boys' birthday.  It seems more natural to me to celebrate that which was once called All Hallows Eve as a day when we are closest to the dead than it does to take lolies from strangers (aka trick or treat).  It would be enough to at least be able to acknowledge that death and grief are complicated to deal with.  It does not make sense to be happy and sad at the same time.  So we stick to the simple and straightforward.

So it does seem odd to make bones and blood which I associate either with horror movies or medical tv shows.  I never understand why people find horror movies so entertaining.  And I find the bones and blood in medical dramas make me squeamish.  But I love playing with bread dough.  And it has become part of our tradition of remembering our sons anniversary that we make Halloween food. 

Halloween ranting aside, making the bones made me remember why I had never made them before.  They took quite a while to shape on Saturday morning.  I had decided to shape my overnight sougdough dough the day before, let them rise 30 minutes and then put them in the freezer.  When they came out they were much flatter than they had been when they went in.  I really wanted to spend another hour or so shaping and rising but by then I was too rushed for time.  I did try and plum them up a little so they weren't so flat. 

I made some plain and some with parmesan cheese grated on top.  Both tasted really good.  The plain ones looked more like real bones.  "They are like dog bones", my mum said.  (That is because she has owned lots of dogs, not because she is familiar with dead dogs!)   I had meant to make a cheese dough but forgot in my tiredness on Friday after work.

As always I was fairly over ambitious about the amount of food I could make and by the time guests arrived, I was finishing the arrangement of this platter of food, including the bread bones and salsa blood.  I really loved the beetroot sweet chilli chips and blue corn chips on the platter.  Sylvia insisted on cutting out the nori face for the pumpkin dip.  Everyone enjoyed the bones/

Sylvia's main focus of the Halloween food had been making monster doughnuts that she had seen on Pinterest.  Of course ours were different to the online pictures, but itsn't that life!  We baked the quick doughnut dough that I had trialled last weekend.  I used our doughnut moulds but found that they rose too much and I had to cut out the holes.

Sylvia just was so happy making these doughnuts.  And a little frustrated when they were not quite as she expected.  The supermarket sold eyes in packs with moustaches and bowties so she had decided they all needed moustaches.  We split up the doughnuts and experimented with dfferent styles and had fun.  The doughnuts tasted really light and were lovely with icing on them (last time they had cinnamon sugar.)

I also made grubs because I love them and had promised Sylvia she could help me make them.  She wanted to decorate them with the leftover face parts after we had decorated the doughnuts. And a cake with doughnut decoration (more about that later).  Friends brought along a beetroot juice mix which looked quite like blood.

My mum brought along a couple of doughnuts from Uncle Donut in Geelong.  Above, you can see part of the "Elton Mess John" (Raspberry and rhubarb, vanilla buttercream and charcoal meringue.)  I was keen to try the different doughnuts and preferred the yeastier ones from Uncle Donut.  It was a great chance to try and work out what makes a doughnut different from a cake (or bread).  This is a mystery I have been trying to solve lately.

I had meant to make sausage mummies for the lunch but ran out of time.  I promised Sylvia I would make them for dinner.  They had been her request after all.  After the lunch I was very full.  My niece loved the grubs and took quite a few home.  A few doughnuts were put into sylvia's Halloween take home bags.  I gave some of the cake to my mum and put some of it in the freezer.  But Sylvia was determined to have a mummy for tea.  I made one for her and one for E and I to share.  They were pretty easy to make and crisped up with 20 minutes at 220 C.  I have promised to make more tomorrow night.  Given how easy and delicious they were, I think I can cope.

Above is a picture of Sylvia and E making Halloween masks at a community house on Saturday.  There are no pictures of leftover bones but I can assure you they were all gone by the end of the day.  I took some to work with vegies and hummus.  They were a bit tough by then.  As I sat in my office in the afternoon chewing on a bone, it occurred to me that it is very rare that a vegetatrian can do such a thing.  Sylvia told me after school that her bone was stale but her brain was soft, which made me laugh.  She had shaped one bit of dough to look like a brain.  Maybe that is an idea for next Halloween.  Meanwhile I am looking forward to more adventures with bread dough.

More Halloween snacks on Green Gourmet Giraffe.

Sourdough bread bones
Adapted from Green Gourmet Giraffe and Just a Taste
Makes 24 bones

150g of bubbly starter
285g water
9g salt
475g flour
parmesan cheese, optional
fine semolina and extra flour for shaping
Tomato salsa or tomato sauce to serve

A few hours before making the loaf, take sourdough starter out of the fridge and feed it so it gets nice and bubbly. 

About an hour before going to bed (or first thing in the morning) mix everything together.  It is easiest to mix everything except flour first and then add flour.  Use hands to mix if required.  Set aside covered with a tea towel for half an hour.  Knead in the bowl for about 1 minute.  Cover with greased clingwrap and leave at room temperature for 8 to 12 hours.

Scrape dough out onto a semolina floured board.  Cut dough into 24 pieces (I did 12 and cut each in half once rolled into a sausage)  Use some flour on your hands and the surface if the dough is sticky.  Roll each piece into a sausage and push the ends in to shape like dumbells with a little blob on each end.  Snip the blob with scissors (about 0.5-1cm) and pull apart each end to shape like a bone so the ends are rounded rather than blunt.  Place on baking paper lined trays.  Cover and leave to rise for 30 minutes. 

Preheat oven to 220 C.  If desired, sprinkle bones with cheese.  Cover bones with foil or a lid.  Bake for 20 minutes.  Remove foil and bake another 10-15 minutes until just turning golden. Cool on a wire rack.  Serve with tomato salsa or sauce for the bones and blood experience.  Also good with other dips or just by themselves as snacks.  Best eaten on the day of baking.

NOTES: you could try this with your favourite bread dough as long as it is not too sticky.  Though I did find it good to have this dough a little on the sticky side as it sat uncovered while I shaped the dough - which took over an hour.   I froze mine after they rose but they were a bit flat when they came out of the freezer the next day and ever with a bit of extra shaping, lost their plumpness.  It was better to freeze them though so that I could serve them on the same day of baking. I baked my bone for 15 minutes after the foil was removed but I think 10 might have been enough.  I used half while spelt flour and half regular white wheat flour but all white wheat flour is fine.

On the stereo:
Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand

Jaspresso, North Melbourne

Jaspresso is an unassuming cafe that looks like just another office building opposite Bio21 Institute on Flemington Road between the Royal Women's Hospital and Royal Children's Hospital.  It is much more.  The light spacious interior, the friendly staff, the prompt service, fine presentation and good simple Japanese rice bowls makes it a place to return to.  In fact I went there for lunch and enjoyed it so much that I returned the next day with a work colleague.

On my first visit, I ordered the Tofu Curry Don.  The crispy crumbed tofu is the star, but is nicely accompanied by broccoli, edamame and pickled vegies as well as a generous serve of curry sauce and rice.  I was so full after almost getting through a bowlful.  There was no room for the baked goodies at the counter that looked quite nice.  The second time I ordered Teriyaki Tofu Don.  It had the same excellent crumbed tofu, lots of rice and sauce but it was topped with lots of salad leaves and pickles.

I found the teriyaki don lighter but I preferred the curry don because I am not so into salad leaves and I liked the curry sauce better.  The staff also told us they can do a tofu version of the sesame don.  My friend was very impressed with my discovery.  As we left, we both agreed we would definitely go back.

Jaspresso
91 Flemington Road, North Melbourne
7.30am-7.30pm
https://www.facebook.com/jaspresso.melbourne/

Baked doughnuts with baking powder (vegan) and a Sundae

So we are currently on a doughnut bender.  Sylvia and E can't get enough of eating doughnuts.  While they have never been a favourite of mine, I am quite interested in trying different recipes.  Now that I have mastered baked overnight sourdough doughnuts, I wanted to try a recipe that relied on baking powder rather than yeast.  I was really impressed with how these turned out when rolled in butter and cinnamon sugar.

After a fruitless search for a doughnut cake tin in the shops, we finally bought one online.  So I was looking for a recipe that was soft enough to sit in the mould rather being rolled out.  We used a ziplock bag to pipe them into the moulds.  Sylvia turned out to be a whizz at piping.

The doughnut tins seemed to work quite well.  The recipe I found was vegan and used aquafaba. instead of egg  I have found that even with aquafaba that vegan recipes can be more fragile than those made with egg.  When these came out of the oven and we tossed them in melted butter and cinnamon sugar (made by Sylvia so I could not put quantities in the recipe notes below but I think she was quite generous with the cinnamon), we had a few casualties.  Not really a problem.  It was good to be able to taste them.  And they were really good warm.  I was surprised at how light and fluffy they were.  But I think they were more doughnut than cake.

I halved the recipe I was following because it said it made 20 mini doughnuts.  Our half batch made 14 of our doughnuts.  Which meant a few batches in the oven and kicking myself at not buying two of the doughnut tins.  I baked the last two in muffin tins with foil in the middle (see the pictures of Lucy's doughnuts).  It worked but the moulds were much easier.

I was very pleased with the first batch of baking powder doughnuts.  But I had more than I had planned.  One thing I am not so keen about with doughnuts is that they are best eaten on the day of making.  Sylvia helped out by offering doughnuts to some of our neighbours.  Some were kept for the next day and made rather good lunchbox treats.

One of the reasons we decided to make doughnuts was to satisfy Sylvia's desire to make sundaes.  She had decided to do this a few months back but I was too sick to entertain the idea.  And we had a little jar of salted caramel sauce from a school cake stall.  A friend at book club introduced me to a chocolate sauce and strawberry combo which went in too.  We bought salted caramel ice cream and chocolate wafer sticks at the supermarket and used some chocolate sprinkles. 

It was outrageously decadent but lots of good fun.  The ice cream was a bit soft and so keen to melt it would not wait for a photo.  It definitely made these doughnuts a baking day to remember.  I suspect we will return to the doughnut recipe soon but not the sundae.  There is only so much decadence we need in our lives.

I am sending these doughnuts to Baking Crumbs and Treat Petite.  The sundae goes to We Should Cocoa.

More doughnut recipes at Green Gourmet Giraffe:
Cinnamon doughnut banana muffins (v) 
Doughnuts - baked (jam or nutella)
Doughnuts - baked and topped with chocolate and coconut bacon (v)
Doughnuts - baked and vegan (cinnamon sugar or glaze) (v)
Doughnuts - baked, vegan, overnight, sourdough (v) 

Baked doughnuts with baking powder
Lightly adapted from Lucy's Friendly Foods
Makes 14 doughnuts

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
6 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup margarine, melted
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 tbsp of aquafaba

Preheat oven to 220 C.  Mix dry ingredients in a medium-large bowl.  Melt butter and lightly whisk in the milk and aquafaba.  Gently stir into dry ingredients.  Spoon or pipe into doughnut pans.  Bake for 7-10 minutes until just turning golden brown.  Leave 5 minutes in tin and then gently turn out (they are quite fragile when warm.)  These are best eaten fresh but can be eaten the next day.

NOTES: If you want these to be vegan, use dairy free margarine, milk and aquafaba (the liquid drained from a tin of chickpeas).  I did this with soy milk and nuttalex.  However they would also work with butter, dairy milk and 1 egg instead of aquafaba.  We used a ziplock bag to pipe the doughnuts into our silicone doughnut tins (snipping the end off the bag once it was filled).  When they were warm, we tossed them in melted margarine (about a dessertspoon melted for each 6 doughnuts) and tossed them in a mixture of castor sugar and cinnamon.

Choc-caramel doughnut sundae

Cinnamon doughnuts
Salted caramel ice cream
Chocolate sauce
Salted caramel sauce
Fresh berries
Chocolate sprinkles
Chocolate wafers

Spoon a few balls of ice cream into a bowl.  Top with doughnut.  Drizzle with caramel and chocolate sauces.  Dot with berries and balls.  Poke a couple of chocolate wafers in and eat before the ice cream melts.  It is best to have ice cream that is frozen quite solid rather than soft.

On the stereo:
Hal David and Burt Bacharach: the Songbook Collection: Various Artists

Carrot and smoked cheese nut roast (with vegan option)

This nut roast was made in a rush to take to my parents' for a roast dinner.  It was so nice to have leftovers for sandwiches and a quick meals that I wished I made one every week.  I was too busy baking bread and muesli to give it the time it needed.  I ended up grabbing it from the oven and taking it in the car while still hot in the tin.  But it was still delicious.

I ate the nut roast at my parents' place served with roast potato, roast pumpkin, cauliflower cheese, peas and home made tomato sauce.  My mum mad a Guinness chocolate cake for dessert.  What an excellent lunch!  The nut roast was slightly soft but still really good with all those sides.  And we had leftovers!

As is so often the case, the leftover nut roast was really good.  I meant to cook it through more but the weather was too hot for faffing about with an oven.  I ate some for lunch in a salad sandwich with a friend in the park.  We finished it off that night.  Sylvia reluctantly ate half a slice.  I really enjoyed it with salad.

It was the first really warm day of spring with the sort of pleasant balmy night that makes you reluctant to go indoors.  Such hot weather only halfway through spring is a little worrying.  It might be a hot summer. I might just cope if I have lots of nut roast and salad!

More nut roasts on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
Carrot and feta nut roast
Chocolate nut roast  
Golden beetroot nut roast (v)
Parsnip, cranberry and chestnut roast 
Stuffed nut roast
Welsh nutroast with laverbread, leeks and cheese (v)

Carrot and smoked  cheese nut roast
Adapted from The Vegan Society
Serves 4-6

1/2 cup hot water 
1 tsp vegemite (or other yeast extract)
2 medium carrots, grated
125g smoked cheese, grated
1 1/2 cups nuts coarsely ground (about 200g)
110g breadcrumbs (about 3 ends of a loaf)
2-3 tbsp chopped spring onions or chives
1 tsp seeded mustard
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp seasoning mix (or salt and pepper and herbs)

Stir vegemite into hot water.   Mix with all other ingredients.  Spoon into a loaf tin and smooth down.  Bake for 30 minutes at 180 C or until golden brown and firm to touch.  Best served reheated if you want it to slice neatly.

NOTES: I made this vegan because my cheese was vegan.  This nut roast could be made with regular cheddar/tasty cheese by adding a bit more smoked paprika.  I used a mountain pepper, salt and herbs seasoning mix.  I used baby leeks instead of spring onions or chives because my leeks never grew much.  I used cashews, hazelnuts and walnuts for the nuts.

On the Stereo:
Apartment Life: Ivy