Corn pancakes

A fast and easy lunch, and fairly adaptable.

I love corn fritters but sometimes find traditional ones with whole kernels in a flour batter a little stodgy. These are inspired by Isa Chandra Moskowitz's "Fresh Corn Johnnycakes", which are also awesome.

Corn pancakes


1 can sweetcorn kernels
Flour/ finely ground polenta (or a mixture)
1 tsp baking powder
salt
dash of vinegar
seasonings (optional - I like herb salt and paprika)
finely chopped spring onions

(optional add-ins: grated zucchini, fresh coriander)

Preheat a cast iron frying pan (or other reliable non-stick frying pan) on medium.

Dump the sweetcorn in a bowl and whizz for a few seconds with a stick blender so that some of the corn is mashed.

Add spring onions if using, seasonings and salt, vinegar and baking powder and stir thoroughly.

Add enough flour/polenta to glue it all together and adjust with water as necessary to make a scoopable batter. The thicker the batter, the thicker the cakes, I like mine on the relatively thin side.

Add a neutral vegetable oil to the pan. Scoop batter into frying pan to make fritter-sized pancakes and fry on each side until crispy.

Toppings

My favourite is layering the pancakes with a bed of rocket or spinach, topped with sliced avocado and red capsicum or tomato, drenched in a smoky chipotle salsa.

A more Kiwi topping would be vegan sour cream and sweet chili sauce.

Go go gazpacho!

The first time I ever made gazpacho, I was thoroughly underwhelmed. "This is basically just wet salad," I thought, and decided that in the future I'd prefer to have the salad. But a pit stop in some small city one hot and hungry day when me and my Mum were driving the length of Germany with friends, we ordered the only vegan thing on the menu - gazpacho. It was served in a glass, with ice, and it was salty and garlicky and tomatoey and hit the spot in a way I wasn't expecting.

Back in Sweden, which actually managed to turn out a few weeks of sweltering summer, I wondered if I could recreate the satisfaction. And I became a gazpacho convert. Not because it is the most delicious thing in the world. But because for a summer's day when you're not super hungry and really don't feel like cooking, gazpacho is a fast, cooling, healthy lunch with enough of a flavour punch to keep you satisfied. And it takes less effort and time to prepare than a salad.

I like my gazpacho thick and a bit less ... wet salad-like. That means I shove the following in a blender:
- tinned crushed tomatoes (unless I have fresh)
- a slice of stale bread
- capsicum if I have it (I even tried it with ajvar once, it was awesome)
- a little vinegar
- a splash of olive oil
- 1-2 cloves garlic depending on size
- a little chilli powder or sriracha
- herb seasoned salt and black pepper
- a little water

And you blend it up, adjust to taste, and you are gold. If you want to eat it right away, put some ice cubes in to make it cold. Otherwise you can of course refrigerate or even put it in the freezer for a bit. I topped mine with chopped olives and basil.

Fika for a group

We had a casual flat-warming last Sunday afternoon, with people dropping in and out. With uncertainty over exactly how many would be coming, when, and how hungry they would be, figuring out what to prepare was initially a bit daunting. Also, we still had a lot of sorting out to do to get the place ready for visitors, so I didn't want to spend all day in the kitchen. In the end, the spread was easy, cheap and delicious:

My never-fail wholegrain bread, freshly baked
The potato and spinach bake from Vegan Brunch
Home-made hummus
Store-bought ajvar
Home-made tapanade (recipe below)Quinoa tabbouleh with roasted eggplant and pomegranate molasses dressing (recipe below)
Afghans
Watermelon mocktail (recipe below)
As well as ubiquitous chips and fizz

Plenty to go round, plenty left over (and we weren't complaining), good at any temperature.

Green Olive Tapande

Basically you need green olives (with or without pimento stuffing), capers, and garlic. Blend it all up in a blender with a little olive oil and a little water until a chunky dip forms. I added parsley, a little nutritional yeast, a little lemon juice and a little sriracha chilli sauce. Tapande is pretty much ground up olives with add-ins, so start with olives and test your way forwards.

A little goes a long way, so don't feel like you have to make a whole lot. Excellent on crackers, toast, or fresh bread. For some reason right now I want to dip celery sticks in it, but that could be just me. (Gluten-free)

Quinoa Tabbouleh with Roasted Eggplant and Pomegranate Molasses Dressing

Um, this one isn't really a 'recipe' either. Basically, roast your eggplant according to how you usually do it, and let it cool. Chop it into little bits, along with finely chopped cucumber, tomato, and plenty of chopped parsley, and add everything to cooked quinoa. Dress with olive oil, a little minced garlic, a little pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Serve cold or room temperature.
(Gluten-free)

Watermelon and Mint Mocktail

Blend de-seeded watermelon flesh till liquid (pulpy ok). Mix with a decent amount of lime juice, some freshly squeezed orange juice if you want it sweeter, and some chopped mint leaves. Add sparkling water or ice if desired. Serve cold.

Wilted Spinach and Chick Peas

This is quintessential Mum's cooking - easy, simple, healthy, quick, and tasty.

It makes an excellent lunch paired with wholemeal cous cous or pasta. Rice or bulgur or polenta or any of that would probably be excellent too. Roast potatoes? A fresh salad? It's really flexible, and works well as a flavourful and nutritious side-dish as well.

Basically, fry diced onion and plenty of finely sliced garlic in olive oil until softened. I chucked some sliced celery in there too, because upping the vege count never hurts and I had celery that needed eating. Carrots would probably be awesome as well.

Then add a good amount of cumin, and some ground coriander seed, paprika and chilli (powder, flakes, or sauce - if you've got fresh chillies then slice 'em fine and chuck 'em in with the onions instead). Add some chopped nuts (not heaps, just enough for some crunch), and continue frying until browned.

Add cooked chick peas and some chopped spinach (leaves direct from freezer ok). Stir together until spinach wilts. Squeeze lemon juice over generously and add salt (or extra chilli sauce or oil) to taste. Serve it hot or cold or at room temperature.

Chinese soup base

Very happy to have finally produced a more-ish Chinese soup base. Chinese clear soups usually have quite a subtle soup base that sets off all the delicious goodies floating around in it (like noodles, wontons, thin slices of mock duck, pak choi, carrots etc). It's not like Vietnamese pho or Thai tom yam soup, but it shouldn't taste of nothing either. In fact, the subtlety is something I've found quite difficult to recreate at home, especially without MSG. I usually end up putting in too much of something, it really requires a bit of patience - a little of this, a little of that, till you get something you like.

First you want a nice simmering pot of stock. Then add some Chinese five spice and some thinly sliced ginger root and shallots. Add a little soya sauce (I used dark mushroom soy, which makes the soup darker but adds a nice depth), some sesame oil and a small squirt of sriracha - you don't want it spicy (or just some chilli flakes if you don't have it, but you might need a little of something acidic as well). Taste and add salt and more of any of the other stuff if needed. When you've got your soup base delicious, add noodles, wontons, pak choi, sliced carrots, etc. Today I chucked in cooked rice and brown lentils, carrots and pak choi. Cook till everything is tender. To serve, top with thinly sliced shallots and garlic, lightly fried together.

Edamame polenta cake with fried tomatoes and herbed yoghurt dressing

This was inspired by a delicious lunch served at a conference I attended recently at Handels Högskolan in Gothenburg. As a vegan I wasn't sure what to expect - some conferences I've been to have had an entirely vegan buffet for all guests, while others have offered non-meat eaters simply a pile of unadulterated chick peas. This lunch was catered by the restaurant there, and I was pleasantly surprised when the staff handed everybody with dietary requirements (nut-free, vegan, gluten-free) a plate of perfectly prepared polenta studded with edamame beans. This was topped with fried tomato slices and fresh herbs.

Here is my recreation, with the addition of herbed yoghurt dressing:

1) Prepare polenta according to instructions on the package, using a good amount of stock and adding dried or fresh herbs if desired - I used thyme and oregano. (Sometimes I prepare my polenta fairly bland, if I'm using it as a base for spicy sauces. Here you want it to taste good on its own. No stocks are created equal, but I used 1.5 cubes in about as many litres of water.) About 10 mins before the end, add edamame beans. Not too many, you just want enough to stud the polenta and provide some protein. I used about 1.5 cups.

2) When polenta is done, pour into a lightly oiled casserole dish and leave to set (in the fridge once cooled enough). Can do this overnight.

3) Prep your herbed yoghurt dressing. This is in no way an exact science - pretty much just bung nice tasting things in thick soy yoghurt and you'll be good. We added what we had on hand: fresh dill, some chilli flakes, a little mustard and minced garlic.

4) Now fry your polenta. Cut into the set polenta into squares and fry each side in a little oil over medium high heat. Polenta can be a bit tricky to fry, so maybe have a go on a practice piece first. The golden rule is to have a high enough heat that it doesn't just go soggy (it should sizzle when it hits the pan), and you want to let it sit long enough to develop a proper crust, so don't try flipping it too early. I think Isa's instructions for frying tofu apply here too.

5) Top the fried polenta slices with fried/seared tomato slices and the yoghurt dressing. Serve with salad for a bright, delicious and reasonably healthy lunch.

Easy Peasy Pesto Spaghetti

I'm addicted to these baguettes from Andrum, a vegetarian restaurant in Gothenburg, which is (in)conveniently close to my workplace. They make their own salty chewy carrot and sunflower seed bread, and fill it with salad, a couple of olives and a pickled chilli on the side, and top it all off with an absolute mound of creamy pea pesto. I basically want to eat that baguette every day. Unfortunately, even eating it once a week would put an unsustainable dent in my income at the moment, prices in Sweden being what they are. So I decided to have a go at whipping up some pea pesto of my own, for a solo Saturday lunch - working with the ingredients I have. It didn't really taste anything like theirs, but it was yum and easy.

Easy Peasy Pesto

Blend in a food processer until saucy (I prefer mine a little chunky, but go for smooth if you like it like that):
- some green peas (fresh, or thawed frozen. You can thaw them with boiling water or in the microwave)
- some nuts (pine nuts are obviously the pesto classic. Walnuts would also rock. Some cashew cream would bring the pesto to another level of creaminess. I only had pumpkin seeds on hand, so in they went!)
- some garlic (minced if you're worried about the odd chunk of garlic turning up in your pesto)
- a little water (not too much, you can always add more)
- fresh basil if you've got it, dried if you're like me and you don't

Add more water if desired, some lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Blend till combined.

I made a meal of this with some wholemeal spaghetti, and some lightly fried zucchini and tomatoes.

Better than my local Chinese restaurant

One thing I really miss about Wellington is the food. As my Mum says, New Zealand is really starting to wake up to the fact that it is a multicultural Asia-Pacific nation, rather than little England 30 years behind the "motherland". In Wellington you can get delicious Asian food that actually bears some resemblance to the stuff you get in different parts of China, or Vietnam, or Japan, or Malaysia, etc. Sometimes you get fun fusion foods that make the best of local ingredients. In Sweden, the Chinese food I've tried hardly deserves to be called food, much less Chinese. So I've started learning to cook my favourite Asian food myself - sometimes with heavy moderations based on what ingredients I can find/afford - but often I'm pretty impressed with the result.

Yesterday we had Isa's fabulous Mango Fried Rice, with a side of salt and pepper tofu because we were out of nuts. Varied the veg a bit too - carrots, cabbage and zucchini chopped small, and some mung bean sprouts. All good.


Southeast-Asian lunch

On the weekend I had a group of friends over, and we made Vietnamese summer rolls (example) - a favourite in my family. I was trying to make the most of the final days of warmish weather before rainy autumn sets in. I also like how summer rolls are interactive - like tacos - you just put out little bowls of different ingredients and a bowl of warm water in the centre for softening the wrappers, and people can construct their own. (In Vietnam they even have a chain restaurant called Wrap and Roll).

Summer rolls

(gluten-free if using tamari instead of soya sauce)

What I put in mine usually depends on what I have on hand, but I usually make a base of
- mung bean or rice vermicelli noodles (lightly seasoned with sesame oil so that they don't clump together)
 
Then add:
- grated carrot tossed with some lime juice to prevent browning
- mung bean sprouts
- finely chopped roasted peanuts
- fresh herbs (at least one of mint, coriander, thai basil).

Other good vege accompaniments are:
- thin staves of cucumber and/or capsicum
- avocado

For protein you can either upp the peanuts, or add some marinated tofu, tempeh or soy/wheat meat.
I like this marinade.

For dipping sauce I usually just mix soya sauce, rice vinegar, lime juice, chilli flakes and a little sugar together.

Coconut Agar

For dessert I made coconut agar jellies based on this recipe (using soy milk instead of cow) from the wonderful Shesimmers. I separated the coconut mixture into two loaf tins, and only made half of the coffee mixture which I layered with the coconut in one tin. For the other, I blended the flesh of a mango and a little sugar with some soy milk and then followed the same procedure with the agar-agar. Both were delicious, and even better the next day, for some reason. They weren't quite like the coconut agar I'm used to having at Chinese yum char restaurants in Wellington (the recipe was for Thai jellies), which are more coconutty and don't have the other layers. Next time I might try going all coconut and put in some dessicated coconut soaked in coconut milk (as per my genius Mum's suggestion).

The jellies were very pretty when cut into diamond shapes or hearts and stars using biscuit cutters. We ate them with fresh berries supplied by one of my lovely guests, which set off the tastes and colours beautifully.