Monday, June 27, 2016

Gruel made with Tears




Make the toast first, and spread with cashew butter or homemade cashew cheese. Slice the courgette quite thickly and fry in very hot oil until it starts to char. Pat with kitchen paper and arrange over cashew butter. Optional: Sprinkle with salt crystals and black pepper.

Add cocoa powder, cinnamon and ground ginger to the oats before adding wholebean unsweetened soya milk. When the porridge is about halfway cooked, add candied orange peel. Optional: Sugar/honey/muscavado.
Mash up some tofu. Add a little unsweetened soya milk and scramble as you would egg. Optional: tarragon, black salt (this smells sulphurous for the first few minutes but that goes away, leaving a faint aroma of egg), salt, pepper.
So, all the fruit soya yoghurts I've tried have loooads of sugar in them. Instead, I get the stuff that isn't sweetened (in Dublin you can buy it in Fresh on Camden Street and in Nourish on Wicklow Street). I always have frozen berries so I defrost them, mush them up, and add them to the yoghurt with a drop of vanilla essence. Flaked toasted almonds are nice scattered on top.
Slice mushrooms fairly thinly. Add to heated oil on a pan, and cover with a lid. Turn the heat down to the lowest setting. Cook till all the liquid has seeped out of the mushrooms. Sprinkle with mustard powder and basil. Optional: Soy sauce, fresh crushed garlic, black pepper. Cook for a minute or so longer with the lid removed until the liquid has thickened.
Either: (a) Add to toast, or (b) blend, then mix in ground almond until you get a pâté consistency.
Liquidise a banana in wholebean unsweetened soy milk. Add chai spices (ground cardamom, anise, clove, cinnamon) sparingly to oats.
Slice an apple. Arrange in baking tray with a drizzle of oil, preferably hazelnut. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Optional: sprinkle with brown sugar. Toast under grill till bubbly. Meanwhile, toast mini pittas.  Spread these with almond butter, then stuff with apple.